AMD and Sony have confirmed that today's FSR Upscaling 4.1 update is based on the same tech as the recent PSSR release for the PlayStation 5 Pro. TL;DR: Sony's updated PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution enhances image quality, motion stability, and developer tools on PS5 Pro, matching AMD's AI-driven FSR 4.1 technology. This collaboration, known as Project Amethyst, enables 4K cinematic visuals...
AMD and Sony have confirmed that today's FSR Upscaling 4.1 update is based on the same tech as the recent PSSR release for the PlayStation 5 Pro. TL;DR: Sony's updated PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution enhances image quality, motion stability, and developer tools on PS5 Pro, matching AMD's AI-driven FSR 4.1 technology. This collaboration, known as Project Amethyst, enables 4K cinematic visuals with smooth performance and signals future AI advancements for PlayStation and Radeon GPUs. Recently, Sony released an updated version of its PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) that improves image quality and detail, motion stability, while also offering more tools and options for developers to push performance and resolution on the PlayStation 5 Pro. It's an impressive update, and one that works on all existing PSSR-supported titles as it's handled by the console's software, similar to how AMD's Radeon drivers override games to run the latest version of FSR 4. It's available in a wide range of games, including Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, SILENT HILL f, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Control, and Alan Wake 2. After its debut in Capcom's Resident Evil Requiem, the consensus is that the latest version of PSSR is now comparable to AMD's AI-powered FSR 4, exclusive to its RDNA 4 GPUs like the Radeon RX 9070 XT. Which is literally true, because Mark Cerny, the Lead System Architect of the PS4 and PS5, has taken to social media to confirm that AMD's new FSR 4.1, which launched today, is "based on the same neural network as the upgraded PSSR we released for PS5 Pro." Sony's partnership with AMD, dubbed Project Amethyst, appears to be moving toward parity in features between PC and console. Naturally, as this new technology requires powerful, dedicated AI hardware, it's currently limited to the PlayStation 5 Pro on consoles and the Radeon RX 9000 Series on PCs. Still, moving forward, we should expect to see a similar suite of AI rendering technologies power the upcoming PlayS...
Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP Three major reports out this month say President Trump has done serious damage to American democracy at remarkable speed since his return to the White House. An annual report from V-Dem , an institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, concluded democracy had deteriorated so much in the U...
Trump is dismantling democracy at 'unprecedented' speed, global report finds toggle caption Alex Brandon/AP Three major reports out this month say President Trump has done serious damage to American democracy at remarkable speed since his return to the White House. An annual report from V-Dem , an institute at Sweden's University of Gothenburg, concluded democracy had deteriorated so much in the U.S. that it lowered the country's democracy ranking from 20th to 51st out of 179 countries. The U.S. landed between Slovakia and Greece. Meanwhile, Bright Line Watch , which surveys more than 500 U.S. scholars, concluded that the U.S. system now falls nearly midway between liberal democracy and dictatorship. The newest survey comes out next week. Bright Line Watch's co-directors spoke to NPR exclusively ahead of publication. Yet another report out Thursday from Freedom House , a Washington, D.C.-based democracy think-tank, said that among free countries, the U.S. joined Bulgaria and Italy in registering the largest declines in political rights and civil liberties last year. Sponsor Message "The developments in the United States are moving towards dictatorship, what the founders wanted to avoid," said Staffan Lindberg, the V-Dem Institute's founding director, who spent seven years in the U.S. "It's the most rapid decline ever in the history of the United States and one of the most rapid in the world." V-Dem stands for Varieties of Democracy. More than 4,000 scholars contributed data to the report, which is the largest of its kind. White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales dismissed V-Dem's analysis as "a ridiculous claim made by an irrelevant, blatantly biased organization." She called Trump a champion for freedom and democracy and the most transparent and accessible president ever. "His return to the White House saved the legacy media from going out of business," Wales said. Trump has rejected criticism that he tries to rule as an autocrat. "A lot of people are saying maybe we l...
As Tehran signalled that Beijing could serve as a diplomatic broker in its intensifying war with the United States and Israel , analysts cautioned that the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement of 2023 could prove “hard to replicate”. They also highlighted the difficulty of Washington accepting third-party mediation, after US President Donald Trump confirmed that a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi ...
As Tehran signalled that Beijing could serve as a diplomatic broker in its intensifying war with the United States and Israel , analysts cautioned that the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement of 2023 could prove “hard to replicate”. They also highlighted the difficulty of Washington accepting third-party mediation, after US President Donald Trump confirmed that a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing would be delayed by “five or six weeks” because of the armed conflict. Beijing has already engaged in high-level diplomacy and sent its special Middle East envoy to the region to try and de-escalate tensions in the third week of the war. Advertisement In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said “several countries, including China, can act as mediators”, adding that Tehran was ready to consider proposals to end the conflict. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi speaks at a news conference in Tehran on Monday. Photo: Xinhua Araghchi pointed to China’s role in restoring diplomatic ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023 , noting that both sides had respected the agreement reached in Beijing.
kyoshino/E+ via Getty Images 1:00 PM Baker Hughes Rig Count The Baker Hughes North American rig count tracks weekly changes in the number of active operating oil & gas rigs. More on U.S. Markets Powell's Pause: A Gamble Wrapped In Uncertainty Wall Street Lunch: Fed Holds, Powell Staying Put A 6% 10-Year Treasury Rate Is A Potential 2026 Black Swan The Fed should 'not be responding' to inflation th...
kyoshino/E+ via Getty Images 1:00 PM Baker Hughes Rig Count The Baker Hughes North American rig count tracks weekly changes in the number of active operating oil & gas rigs. More on U.S. Markets Powell's Pause: A Gamble Wrapped In Uncertainty Wall Street Lunch: Fed Holds, Powell Staying Put A 6% 10-Year Treasury Rate Is A Potential 2026 Black Swan The Fed should 'not be responding' to inflation the way it did in 2022 – analyst Fed rate cut no longer priced in for 2026
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Enterprises that have been juggling separate models for reasoning, multimodal tasks, and agentic coding may be able to simplify their stack: Mistral’s new Small 4 brings all three into a single open-source model, with adjustable reasoning levels under the hood. Small 4 enters a crowded field of small models — including Qwen and Claude Haiku — that are competing on inference cost and benchmark perf...
Enterprises that have been juggling separate models for reasoning, multimodal tasks, and agentic coding may be able to simplify their stack: Mistral’s new Small 4 brings all three into a single open-source model, with adjustable reasoning levels under the hood. Small 4 enters a crowded field of small models — including Qwen and Claude Haiku — that are competing on inference cost and benchmark performance. Mistral’s pitch: shorter outputs that translate to lower latency and cheaper tokens. Mistral Small 4 updates Mistral Small 3.2, which came out in June 2025, and is available under an Apache 2.0 license. “With Small 4, users no longer need to choose between a fast instruct model, a powerful reasoning engine, or a multimodal assistant: one model now delivers all three, with configurable reasoning effort and best-in-class efficiency,” Mistral said in a blog post . The company said that despite its smaller size — Mistral Small 4 has 119 billion total parameters with only 6 billion active parameters per token — the model combines the capabilities of all Mistral’s models. It has the reasoning capabilities of Magistral, the multimodal understanding of Pixtral, and the agentic coding performance of Devstral. It also has a 256K context window that the company said works well for long-form conversations and analysis. Rob May, co-founder and CEO of the small language model marketplace Neurometric, told VentureBeat that Mistral Small 4 stands out for its architectural flexibility. However, it joins a rising number of smaller models that he said risks adding more fragmentation to the market. "From a technical perspective, yes, it can be competitive against other models,” May said. “The bigger issue is that it has to overcome market confusion. Mistral has to win the mindshare to get a shot at being part of that test set first. Only then can they show the technical capabilities of the model.” Reasoning on demand Small models still offer good options for enterprise builders lookin...
Marianna Lishchenco/iStock via Getty Images In the months that followed my analysis of Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. ( ODFL ), we have seen its continued rebound to its 12-month high of $215, which justified my bullish rating before. This was warranted considering its resilient business operations and robust fundamentals. But today, emerging headwinds are signaling caution before rushing into th...
Marianna Lishchenco/iStock via Getty Images In the months that followed my analysis of Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. ( ODFL ), we have seen its continued rebound to its 12-month high of $215, which justified my bullish rating before. This was warranted considering its resilient business operations and robust fundamentals. But today, emerging headwinds are signaling caution before rushing into this stock. Valuation reflects limited upside potential as ODFL becomes fully priced. Technicals adhere to it as selling pressures show early bearish calls. Resilience Amid Softer Market Conditions External factors are still soft amid cautious production and spending due to stubborn inflation and new tariffs. That is why trucking and logistics are among those easily affected by market volatility and mounting cost pressures. Even an established LTL business like Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc., is not completely shielded from these headwinds. But like many of its peers, ODFL remained resilient, as shown by its most recent performance. Its operating revenue amounted to $1.31B , down by 5.3% YoY from $1.39B. This YoY revenue decrease was lower than in my previous coverage at 4.3%, which means that ODFL might need more time to recover and cope with the rising prices and weaker demand. Both revenue components decreased, which shows lower and lighter volumes. If you look at its operating metrics, ODFL had lower and lighter shipments. Operating Statistics (ODFL Q4 2025 Release ) On a lighter note, ODFL benefited from the LTL market undercapacity. As you can see, its LTL revenue per shipment and hundredweight rose with or without the impact of fuel surcharges. This suggests stronger pricing power by ODFL. I will discuss this more later. Moreover, its operating expenses decreased by 4.8% YoY, which can also tell us about its strategic network capacity management. It balanced its operating capacity with the recent market dynamics to optimize efficiency. As you can see, it reduced its p...
Macquarie Capital's Ellie Jiang says this year marks "a reality check" for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. earnings. However, she tells Bloomberg Television that the Chinese company is still "probably the best one to be positioned into this AI front." (Source: Bloomberg)
Macquarie Capital's Ellie Jiang says this year marks "a reality check" for Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. earnings. However, she tells Bloomberg Television that the Chinese company is still "probably the best one to be positioned into this AI front." (Source: Bloomberg)