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Amazon is raising the price of its ad-free Prime Video subscription and locking 4K UHD streaming behind this new tier. Starting April 10 for US customers, a rebranded Prime Video Ultra subscription will cost $5 per month, up from $3 per month. For that extra $2, you get a download capacity increase from 25 to 100, and you can now run five streams concurrently instead of three. Whether those "Ultra" upgrades are worth the $24 annual hike will probably depend on how many boxsets you like to plough through on a long flight, or how many devices are using your Prime Video account. The changes are most galling for Prime members who automatically qualify for Prime Video with ads through their membership, as Amazon has decided to remove 4K streaming from the standard tier. That means that, despite already paying $15 per month or $139 per year for Amazon Prime, youll be stuck with 1080p shows and movies unless you sign up to Prime Video Ultra. Amazon has thrown in Dolby Vision support for the first time, as well as upping the concurrent stream and download count on its free tier as well, but youre losing the privilege of UHD content that has been available to all Prime Video members for years. Dolby Atmos remains exclusive to the $5 tier too. Amazon is the latest streamer to put its prices up, following similar recent hikes to Apple TV, Disney+ and HBO Max. If you dont want to give the company any more of your hard-earned, you have just under a month to binge your way through the second season of Fallout in all of its irradiated UHD glory.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/youll-now-have-to-fork-out-for-an-additional-subscription-if-you-want-to-watch-4k-content-on-prime-video-174028064.html?src=rss
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Parallels, the company best known for making the virtualization software that enables you to run Windows and other operating systems on a Mac, has confirmed that Parallels Desktop is compatible with the MacBook Neo. At launch it was unclear if Apple's new $600 laptop possessed the under-the-hood heft to run Windows apps, but in a recently updated post on its website, Parallels said that initial tests show its software running "stably," although performance is still being assessed. The MacBook Neo uses an A18 Pro chip, which debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro. However, as this chip is based on the same ARM architecture as M-series chips for Mac, its still capable of running Parallels Windows virtual machine. But there is a caveat to all this. Just because you can do something, it doesnt necessarily mean you should. While Parallels Desktop could theoretically be a viable option for Neo owners who are only interested in light Windows use, anything that puts a significant strain on the CPU or GPU is going to present a problem. This is because the MacBook Neo only ships with 8GB of RAM, and as Parallels highlights, Windows 11 requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM to run. That leaves a very small amount of remaining headroom for macOS and your Mac apps to run alongside Windows, which is going to noticeably hurt the laptops performance. Add to that the lack of a cooling fan, meaning the chip will reduce clock speeds when it detects a heavy CPU or GPU load, and this definitely isnt a device for power users. If you really want to dabble with Windows on a Mac, Parallels recommends picking up an Apple laptop with 16GB of unified memory or more, like the new MacBook Air M5 or a MacBook Pro. And for those content with macOS and looking to save some money, we dubbed the MacBook Neo the best $600 laptop weve ever used in our recently published review.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/parallels-desktop-creators-say-macbook-neo-does-indeed-have-enough-muscle-to-run-windows-apps-164525546.html?src=rss
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TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance has figured out a way to access NVIDIA's latest AI chips despite export restrictions, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company is working with a firm called Aolani Cloud and building out Blackwell computing systems in Malaysia. This should give ByteDance access to around 36,000 B200 chips. That's NVIDIA's most powerful processor. The hardware buildout will reportedly cost more than $2.5 billion. The company says it plans on using this new computing power for AI research and development outside of China. The country has been unable to access the B200 chip, as it was designed in California and, as such, subject to US export controls. This has led some Chinese companies to do what ByteDance is doing with Aolani Cloud. The Singapore-based firm will buy up the components from NVIDIA and will operate exclusively in Malaysia, giving ByteDance access in the process. "By design, the export rules allow clouds to be built and operated outside controlled countries," an NVIDIA spokesperson said. They also said that all of the company's cloud partners go through review before being approved to receive its products. A representative from Aolani Cloud told Reuters that the company adheres to all applicable export control regulations and that ByteDance will be just one of many customers. It plans on providing cloud-computing services to multiple companies across Asia and the globe. However, it's worth noting that Aolani currently operates with just $100 million worth of hardware and ByteDance is planning to inject a whopping $2.5 billion. Nvidia still hasnt sold a single H200 to China nearly three months after getting the green light from the White House U.S. Commerce official says department hasnt approved any sales during a House hearing https://t.co/He1LeEz0uI Tom's Hardware (@tomshardware) February 25, 2026 The US did recently allow ByteDance to buy NVIDIA's H200 chips, but they've been slapped with a 25 percent tariff. Additionally, the US government mandated that the export license would only be approved if NVIDIA accepted a Know-Your-Customer requirement, which is an attempt to ensure that China's military can't access the chips. NVIDIA has yet to agree to these terms.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/bytedance-will-reportedly-buy-nvidias-latest-ai-chips-to-use-outside-of-china-155553019.html?src=rss
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