The biggest start-of-year expenses were stationery, followed by transport, uniforms and technology-related costs. Read...

As high-street retailers grapple with fierce online competition and changing consumer habits, experts urge them to embrace technology and adapt strategies to thrive. Read...

TeamViewer has unveiled its advanced spatial computing solution at Hannover Messe 2025, enhancing training in manufacturing with AR technology. Read...

Nearly five years after discontinuing its Harmony brand of universal remote controls, Logitech is chopping support for the older remotes in the line.  More than two dozen first-generation Harmony remotes are slated to lose support, including the Harmony 670, 720, 880 and 880 Pro, 1100i, and the Harmony for Xbox 360.  Such newer Harmony remotes as the Harmony One, Harmony Elite, and the Harmony Companion aren’t on the list. But the news that Logitech is dropping support for first-generation Harmony remotes begs the question of how much longer other Harmony devices will remain supported. We’ve reached out to Logitech for comment.  The “Harmony Remote Discontinuation Notice” pops up when you open the legacy Logitech Harmony Remote Software, which allows you to reprogram the remote’s buttons as well as configure it to work with different makes and models of TVs, A/V receivers, DVD and Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other home theater components.  “After careful consideration, and more than 10 years of dedicated support, we have made the difficult decision to discontinue support for our Harmony First Generation Remote devices,” the notice reads. “As technology continues to evolve, we recognize the challenges in maintaining our services to the standards we strive for.”  While the affected Harmony remotes will still work, users won’t be able to change the behavior of the buttons anymore, nor will they be able to add or remove devices or activities (that is, a sequence of actions that might turn on your TV and Blu-ray player while setting them to the correct inputs and outputs).  Newer Harmony remotes “will continue to be supported” via the MyHarmony website or the Harmony app, Logitech added. Logitech, which acquired the Harmony brand back in 2004, announced in April 2021 that it was discontinuing the line of universal remotes.  At the time, Logitech said it would “support our Harmony community” with “access to our software and apps to set up and manage your devices,” for “as long as customers are using [them].”  Logitech added that it would “continue to update the [Harmony] platform and add devices to our Harmony database.”   Home theater aficionados prize their Harmony remotes for their ability to control multiple A/V devices with a single controller, perfect for clearing a jumble of remotes from their coffee tables.  But while the Harmony fan base is devoted, it’s also small—too small for Logitech, which stopped making new Harmony remotes in 2021.   Former Logitech CEO Bracken Darrel called Harmony a “small business” in a 2019 interview, noting that “over time, you’ll have fewer and fewer people who feel like they need that universal remote” given the increasingly powerful remotes that ship with newer smart TVs.  Here’s the complete list of Harmony remotes that are losing online support: Harmony 510 Harmony 515 Harmony 520 Harmony 522 Harmony 525 Harmony 550 Harmony 555 Harmony 610 Harmony 620 Harmony 628 Harmony 655 Harmony 659 Harmony 670 Harmony 675 Harmony 676 Harmony 680 Harmony 688 Harmony 720 Harmony 745 Harmony 748 Harmony 768 Harmony 785 Harmony 880 Harmony 880 Pro Harmony 882 Harmony 885 Harmony 890 Harmony 890 Pro Harmony 892 Harmony 895 Harmony 897 Harmony 900 Harmony 1000 Harmony 1000i Harmony 1100 Harmony 1100i Harmony for Xbox 360 Read...

A warning has been issued by New Plymouth district councillors Max Brough and Murray Chong about licence plate recognition software being used to fine drivers around the city. Read...

Sifting through the multitude of gaming hardware stories and there’s only been a handful about PC VR written for the start of this year. That’s a shame because new technologies will likely propel VR forward in 2025 — at least a little closer to that seamless high-resolution experience that all VR gamers want. I’m mainly referring to Nvidia’s RTX 50-series and AMDs Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards and what they mean for VR gaming performance. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first a quick snapshot of PC VR performance in 2024. VR and the best graphics cards of 2024 In 2024 we saw some gamers adopt Nvidia’s RTX 40-series and AMD’s 7000-series graphics cards in PC VR gaming. Those that did largely saw an uptick in frame rates from what they had before. YouTubers posted impressive fps in games like Cyberpunk 2077 and iRacing, for example. The RTX 40 series added third-generation ray tracing for a boost to shadows and lighting while AMD’s 7000-series cards also saw an improvement in ray tracing. Despite 2024’s top-tier cards showing big performance differences over the previous year’s graphics cards they couldn’t quite hit the kind of frame rates we saw in flat screen gaming. Mid-range cards like the RTX 4070 reported playable experiences in triple-A PC VR games too, some averaging around the 70- to 78fps mark, but performance rarely averaged upwards of 100fps. In a nutshell, VR remained a tough gig for even the best video cards in 2024, which isn’t really that surprising. VR does have heftier requirements than flat screen gaming, because of its stereo rendering and wide field of view, especially at higher resolutions, like 3K. What to expect in 2025 It’s early days for performance results but there’s no doubt VR gaming will be nudged further along by Nvidia and AMD’s new offerings this year. I don’t see them bringing VR into the mainstream, but they will undoubtedly make for smoother, more seamless experiences. I for one am looking forward to dusting off my VR headset considering the extra power on offer. Some of the first VR benchmark results for the RTX 5090 versus the RTX 4090, for instance, are very enticing. One using the Meta Quest 3 demonstrates a 236 percent performance jump in Metro Awakening, a 151 percent increase in Red Matter 2, and a 47 percent increase in Skyrim VR for the RTX 5090 over the RTX 4090, for example. The small print here is that at its current $2,000 price tag and 1,000W PSU recommendation, the Nvidia RTX 5090 is placed in a price and power category that may make many gamers wince. Consequently, it’s possible a lot of buyers will choose one of the step-down RTX 50 cards when they upgrade — me included. You can expect more modest performance from the Nvidia RTX 5080, RTX 5070 Ti, and RTX 5070 GPUs in PC VR, but it’s still likely to be quite good, and better value. I especially like the sound of the RTX 5070 Ti; its performance is only slightly shy of the RTX 4090 and at $749 (instead of the RTX 4090’s $1,599) at launch, it’s a lot cheaper too, so getting rid of the jitters in some triple-A VR titles will at least be more affordable than last year. Nvidia’s RTX 5070 Ti is well priced and powerful. It’s a good choice for VR PC enthusiasts. Adam Patrick Murray / Foundry AMD’s top card is similarly placed for a respectable performance gain in PC VR games. To use the AMD RX 9070 XT as an example, you’re looking at approximately 42 percent better performance than the previous generation RX 7900, which should go a long way to making VR gameplay smoother and more enjoyable if you opt for one. mentioned in this article GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Read our review PC VR gamers will once again see more realistic rendering of lighting and shadows in VR titles, too, thanks to further advancements in these card’s ray tracing capabilities. The 4th-generation ray tracing cores in Nvidia’s RTX 50-series cards, for example, are expected to boost RT performance by between 15 to 30 percent. Quicker load times and higher resolutions VR players using the latest-generation RTX 50-series cards can expect quicker load times at higher resolutions than was previously possible. That’s thanks to the RTX 50 cards sporting GDDR7 VRAM which has 33 percent quicker bandwidth than GDDR6X VRAM in previous generation Nvidia GPUs. It will load in and out of memory at speeds up to 32Gbps (gigabits per second), compared to 24Gbps for GDDR6X, which will be especially useful for 4K per-eye VR gaming which is very graphically demanding. AMD’s Radeon RX 9000-series graphics cards feature16GB of GDDR6X VRAM. That’s still good — we can expect it to be quick, even if it’s not quite as fast as Nvidia’s latest cards. Two other new features of the Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs look exciting for players who want to future-proof their upgraded hardware for PC VR. One is DisplayPort 1.2a, which will support 4K per-eye headsets at 120Hz or higher. The other is 4:2:2 pro-grade color encoding support for multi-view (MV-HEVC). When VR supports this kind of encoding, players will be able to experience games in more vibrant color than the 4:2:0 compression that’s currently used in VR. Nvidia DLSS 4 and AMD Fidelity FX Super Resolution 4 in VR You could say these two technologies have already had an impact in some VR games judging from gamer reactions in 2024. On the other hand, there are still only a handful of VR games that support these technologies and that’s not likely to change much in 2025. Some notable titles include games like Skyrim VR, Microsoft Flight Simulator, No Man’s Sky, and VR Kayak Mirage. Nvidia’s DLSS 4 technology is only supported in a handful of PC VR games so far. Nvidia It’s worth noting, though, that even the VR games that support them won’t utilize all the features in these technologies. DLSS 4’s Multi-Frame Generation, for example, is one feature that remains unsupported by VR PC games. In fact, it causes increased latency compared to VR frame extrapolation technologies. What else does 2025 have in store for PC VR gaming? Gamers are going to want one of the video cards I just mentioned to get the best performance out of a spate of new lightweight 3K and 4K per-eye VR headsets arriving this year. They include the 4K Pimax Dream Air and Shiftall’s MeganeX superlight 8K. From a games perspective, 2025 should bring an interesting and varied lineup of releases, from throwaway casual titles to big name blockbusters. Just a few that I’m personally looking forward to include the time travel / escape room adventure Wanderer the Fragments of Fate, the puzzle game Infinite Inside: The Lost Depths, and a demolition derby game with destructible environments called FlatOut VR. Here’s hoping they play as well as they sound. Further reading: Why I’m still using my Vive Pro for VR, six years later Read...

At a glanceExpert`s Rating Pros Spectacular battery life Attractive and robust design Plenty of RAM and solid-state storage for the price Cons Cramped keyboard and touchpad IPS touchscreen’s image quality doesn’t stand out Lackluster CPU and GPU performance Our Verdict The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo doesn’t score high marks in performance benchmarks, but it does achieve superb battery life. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo is a 13-inch Windows 2-in-1, which is part of a rare breed. Though once considered the future of Windows, 2-in-1’s have gone out of fashion and many companies have turned attention towards larger 14-inch laptops. That has consequences for the Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s performance, but some will forgive its modest benchmark scores once they see its battery life.  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Specs and features The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s specifications are towards the high end of what’s typical for a thin-and-light Windows device. That’s not because of the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V chip, which is found in many devices, but instead because of the memory and solid-state storage, which weigh in at 32GB and 2TB, respectively.  It’s certainly possible to find 13-inch devices with this much RAM and storage (or more!), but it’s not common and better-equipped laptops are usually much more expensive. Model number: A2VMTG-017US CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 258V Memory: 32GB LPDDR5x Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc 140V  NPU: Intel AI Boost up to 47 TOPS (Int8) Display: 13.3-inch 1920×1200 60Hz IPS Touchscreen Storage: 2TB M.2 PCIe 4.0 SSD Webcam: 1080p 30fps camera with physical privacy shutter, dual array microphone Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C 4 with Power Delivery and DisplayPort, 1x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm combo audio jack Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4 Biometrics: Fingerprint reader  Battery capacity: 70 watt-hours Dimensions: 11.82 x 8.75 x 0.64 inches Weight: 2.98 pounds Other features: MSI Pen 2 active stylus Operating System: Windows 11 Pro Price: $1,599 MSRP The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo comes in two flavors: 012US and 017US. I reviewed the slightly more expensive 017US model. The two variants are mostly the same, as the only difference is the solid-state drive, which is upgraded from 1TB to 2TB in the 017US model. That upgrade adds $100 to the price.  The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo is a thin-and-light 13-inch 2-in-1 with an attractive design and great battery life. These traits will appeal to shoppers who don’t need a high-performance PC but do want outstanding battery life that may allow use over multiple days without needing a charge.  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Design and build quality IDG / Matthew Smith The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo makes a good first impression. Clad in black with gold accents, it strikes a distinctive and luxurious profile. I suspect the gold accents won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I like them, and they set the laptop apart from its peers. Material quality is a highlight, too. The laptop is clad in stiff aluminum that holds up to rough handling. There’s minimal flex when opening or closing the laptop or when picking it up from one side or corner. This is typical for small, premium 2-in-1s like the Summit 13 AI+ Evo, but it’s still good to see.  And, yes, the Summit 13 AI+ Evo is a 2-in-1, though you could be forgiven for missing that. The design’s sharp edges and lines don’t scream “use me as a tablet!” and make it uncomfortable to hold if you chose to do that. The Summit ships with the MSI Pen 2 (which typically retails for $100).  The Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s design will appeal to people who travel light. It weighs just 2.98 pounds, measures 0.64 inches thick, and is less than a foot wide. This is similar to most competitors though some, like the Qualcomm-powered Dell XPS 13 and Asus Zenbook 14 OLED, are even smaller. MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Keyboard, trackpad IDG / Matthew Smith I never felt comfortable using the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s keyboard. The layout is acceptable but opts for large spaces between keys which, due to the laptop’s small size, means many keys are smaller than usual.  All of this makes for a cramped experience. It’s workable, and individual key feel is good, but a Dell XPS 13 or Surface Laptop 13 will feel more spacious. The Summit’s touchpad is small, too, measuring just under five inches wide and a tad more than 2 inches deep. It’s among the smallest touchpads I’ve used in the past year, and it’s noticeably cramped when trying to execute Windows multi-touch gestures (like vertical scroll or pinch-to-minimize).  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Display, audio IDG / Matthew Smith The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo ships with a 1920×1200 IPS-LCD touchscreen. It looks nice, but it’s far from the best display available from a laptop or 2-in-1 in this price range.  You can expect bright, vivid color, but the limited contrast ratio of IPS-LCD panels can make the display look washed-out in comparison to competitors with an OLED panel. The dreaded “IPS glow” — a hazy gray sheen over darker scenes — is noticeable when viewing the display in a dark or dim room. The IPS display is a touchscreen. It’s responsive and smooth. But, like most touchscreens, it opts for a glossy display finish. Glare can make the display difficult to see outdoors or near bright lights.  Motion clarity is mediocre, too, as the Summit’s display has a refresh rate that never exceeds 60Hz. That’s disappointing, as many competitors (especially those with an OLED panel) have a refresh rate of 90Hz or 120Hz. A pair of downward-firing speakers provide the laptop’s audio. They can reach impressive volumes, but they lack bass, which means music, movies, games, and other entertainment will sound harsh and tinny at higher volumes. Even so, I think the audio is slightly above average for a small 2-in-1 and fine for entertainment at lower volumes.  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Webcam, microphone, biometrics MSI ships the Summit 13 AI+ Evo with a 1080p webcam that looks reasonably sharp and vibrant (for a webcam). However, many competitors now offer a 1440p webcam, which looks even sharper. Still, it’s a fine camera, and good enough for Zoom calls.  The same is true of the microphone array. Nothing about it stands out, but it provides good audio capture and does a reasonable job of canceling background noise. Biometric login is available through both Windows Hello facial recognition and a fingerprint reader below the keyboard on the right-hand side. I prefer facial recognition, but both options work well.  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Connectivity IDG / Matthew Smith The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s connectivity is limited and focused on modern ports.  It has two Thunderbolt 4 ports. Both support Power Delivery and DisplayPort, which means both can be used to charge the laptop and/or connect to a monitor. The ports also provide USB-C.  These are joined by a single USB-A port, HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm audio jack. A wired Ethernet port is not included (though that’s typical for thin laptops and 2-in-1s in 2025).  That’s not a lot of ports, so the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo will need to be paired with a hub or dock if you want to connect multiple monitors and USB peripherals at once.  Also, all the USB ports are on the left flank. You’ll be fine if your dock would normally sit to the left of the 2-in-1 but, if it sits to the right, cable management is finicky.  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Performance The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo is built for portability more than performance. It has an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V inside with four performance cores and four efficient cores (a total of eight cores). As usual, this is paired with Intel Arc 140V integrated graphics. The model I reviewed also had 32GB of memory and 2TB of solid-state storage.  That’s a lot of memory and storage. But the processor’s limited core count and the thin profile hold performance back. IDG / Matthew Smith PCMark 10 is a holistic test of CPU, GPU, and storage performance. The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo gets off to a rough start with a combined score of 6,734. Scores of around 7,000 or more are common, so the MSI lags the pack. However, it’s notable that the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, another thin-and-light 13-inch laptop, barely beats the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo, while the 14-inch laptops steam ahead. As you’ll see, that’s a trend across all the benchmarks.  IDG / Matthew Smith Cinebench 2024 is a demanding multi-threaded processor benchmark. It also offers x86 and Arm-native variants, so I can bring a Snapdragon-powered laptop (the Asus ProArt PZ13) in for comparison. The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo struggles to stand out. Though it defeats the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, it otherwise failed to beat the competitors in its price bracket.  IDG / Matthew Smith Our Handbrake test is a heavily multi-threaded, long-duration test that transcodes a 2-hour-long movie. It serves as a gauge of performance over longer and more demanding workloads. The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo struggles once again. Though it performed better than the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (which is notable, as the Carbon is over $500 more expensive), the MSI otherwise falls way behind competitive systems. IDG / Matthew Smith Next up is 3DMark Night Raid, a 3D graphics test. This test has x86 and Arm-native versions, so I’m once again able to bring a Qualcomm-powered system into the graph. Intel’s Arc 140V graphics are quite capable and leave Qualcomm’s Adreno in the dust. However, the Summit 13 AI+ Evo delivers modest performance for a laptop with Arc 140V graphics, defeating only the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Unfortunately, the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s overall benchmark performance falls behind many similarly priced competitors. I believe this comes down to the laptop’s performance tuning and size. There’s no cheating physics, and the MSI’s compact design (which, as you’ll soon see, is stuffed full of battery) leaves less room for cooling the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V.  MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Battery life A large 70 watt-hour battery sits inside the MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo. The battery’s size is an advantage against the competition, as many 13-inch alternatives provide a battery in the 50 to 60 watt-hour range.  IDG / Matthew Smith The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo delivered over 21 hours of battery life in our standard battery test, which loops a 4K file of the short film Tears of Steel.  As the graph shows, many devices in this category can reach about 18 to 20 hours of battery life—but the Summit 13 AI+ Evo stands out even among this tough competition. It’s a great pick if battery life is important to you. The Summit’s endurance is the upside to many of its compromises. The Summit has a large battery and Core Ultra 7 258V, though not the quickest in multi-core tests, is economical about its power use. On top of that, the Summit’s 1200p IPS-LCD display with 60Hz refresh rate is a good choice for battery life. That’s because higher resolutions, higher refresh rates, and OLED panel technology all draw a bit of extra power. The test results were backed up by my subjective experience. I used the 2-in-1 for several coffee shop trips and found that spending a couple hours away from a power outlet shaved just 10 percent off the battery. That’s excellent performance for a real-world use case.  When it does come time to charge the Summit, you’ll do so with a compact 65-watt power brick that connects to either of the 2-in-1’s Thunderbolt ports. The device’s low power requirements mean it’s easy to power with a wide range of power adapters. Even USB-C chargers that deliver a lot less power, like a 45-watt adapter, can slowly charge the laptop so long as it’s not running demanding software. MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo: Conclusion The MSI Summit 13 AI+ Evo is a thin-and-light 13-inch 2-in-1 with an attractive design and great battery life. These traits will appeal to shoppers who don’t need a high-performance PC but do want outstanding battery life that may allow use over multiple days without needing a charge.  The Summit 13 AI+ Evo’s lackluster performance is certainly a downside and it makes the laptop harder to recommend, as 14-inch competitors often deliver a better balance of portability and performance.  If battery life is your number one priority, though, the Summit 13 AI+ Evo should be on your list. Read...

Rubrik has appointed Sathish Murthy as Field Chief Technology Officer for Asia Pacific and Japan, aiming to enhance cyber resilience amid rising threats. Read...

The Council is also critical of the government apparently testing new technology to control access to social media, without telling the people what is going on. Read...

“The era we’re in now is called the era of reasoning AI which is going to be the foundation layer of the next era of AI, or agentic AI.” This was a statement from Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang at HP’s Amplify Conference in Nashville, last week. And in reflecting on it, it struck me as poignant for the following reason: Up until now I’ve viewed AI on a single timeline starting at the point where I first saw simple AI tools pop up, to now, where they are a lot more complex and capable than they used to be. In doing so, I’ve failed to see the true potential of AI — the fact that we’re about to enter a whole new age of AI that will make even those smart generative AI tools we have today pale in comparison to what we’ll soon have on our PCs and other connected devices. Bunny-hop advancements have masked the bigger picture It’s not that I haven’t been impressed with the advancements I’ve seen in AI tools so far. It’s just that I’ve been mostly fixated on those small advancements in lieu of the broader picture. I’ve seen new AI art generators like DALL-E and Photoshop AI spring up and I’ve seen bunny-hop updates to AI chatbots like ChatGPT drop, each iteration getting a little smarter and a little more capable. HP’s own AI Companion on its consumer and commercial PCs, too, gets several of these updates later this year and these are all important steps forward for generative AI. It’s just that I’ve been too focused on these small advancements. Sometimes it takes a visionary to show you where you’re headed, to reveal the unimaginable bigger picture that you’re bounding towards. Big tech companies are quite good at doing that. Yep, you can mostly always count on the likes of Intel, AMD – or in this case Nvidia – when you need an eagle-eyed view of the direction of global technology. These companies’ leaders have a commercial imperative to know where we’re headed, to be ahead of the trends, to create the technology we need, and to innovate. There’s little margin for error, so when Huang spoke about a new AI age at HP Amplify, I was all ears. In this case Huang’s statement revealed a tantalizing glimpse of a future where AI isn’t just a conglomeration of more of the same passive AI apps we’ve seen before, getting a little bit smarter as months go by. But rather a future where AI tools will be actively involved in shaping our work, play, and even the mundane chores we have to do, whether we ask them to or not. To say that it’s been a light bulb moment for me is an understatement… So, what is an agentic AI age going to be like? The real value of agentic AI: Autonomy No vision of a future run by agentic AI is possible without first understanding what agentic AI is all about. AI agents have unique attributes that together help distinguish them from the passive AI reasoning tools I just mentioned – and which I scarcely use because they are just so time consuming: Firstly, the most advanced are goal orientated and are involved in adaptive planning. Furthermore, they provide us with tools to direct them when we need to, but they also have a certain level of continuity of execution – in other words, they are constantly running in the background, always active. We’ve seen AI agents appear in the workplace already, like X.ai’s virtual scheduling assistant or Zapier that automates workflows, and it’s here that they’ll prove their value first and foremost. In his address to guests at HP Amplify, Huang talked about how Nvidia uses an AI agent to traverse Nvidia’s massive and complex bugs database, in which the AI agent acts to explain the nature of a bug, the likely sources, the systems and people it affects, and even to suggest who should be assigned to fix it. But it’s when these tools start to trickle down to us at home in large numbers, that the fun starts. These AI agents will help us with just about every aspect of our lives, but do it with greater efficiency and personalization than we previously thought possible. And they’ll be able to run locally off AI powered laptops like the ones HP was showing at its Amplify Conference, instead of needing the cloud. Adobe Photoshop text to image demonstrating the power of AI to generate images. Adobe They’ll help us with shopping by finding us the best deals, providing recommendations, and curating our shopping experience; with our finances, i.e. with budgeting, paying bills, advising us about our money and investing; even with travel planning — perhaps suggesting the best itineraries or modes of transport — the list goes on and on. But the key distinguishing point for me, the one that really gets me excited about agentic AI is this: It’s the fact that the most advanced programs won’t just sit in the background of our devices waiting for us to open an app and ask a question or push a button to make things happen. No, they’ll act with a level of autonomy and perform tasks without prompting; they’ll be constantly analyzing our preferences, informing and advising us, and then executing our wishes according to what they learn. Now they’re the kind of AI tools I could really put to good use! Disclosure: PCWorld accepted travel and accommodation to the HP Amplify Conference in order to view and try out HP products that were being released and not physically available in the author’s location. Read...