The three biggest memory producers on the planet are Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix. The latter just announced that it’s investing 19 trillion Korean won, approximately $13 billion USD, into a gigantic new memory fabrication facility. But if you’re hoping it’ll make RAM for PCs or graphics cards, keep on hoping: this facility is exclusively making High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for industrial hardware. According to SK Hynix’s press release (machine translated), this massive investment is supported by the local governments in the North Chungcheong Province. With a planned total area of approximately 231,000 square meters or 57 acres, the facility would be more than triple the size of a professional football stadium, and approximately eight times as expensive as the Burj Khalifa skyscraper. As “AI” data centers continue to be planned and constructed, putting strain on electricity and other resources, industrial demand for memory far outstrips current output. The result is a memory supply crunch that has sent prices skyrocketing across the entire electronics industry, from the biggest companies to the smallest customers. Micron has flat-out killed Crucial, its direct-to-consumer memory seller. And Samsung has struggled to fulfill orders to its own consumer electronics division, as the semiconductor business prioritizes more profitable orders from data center suppliers. Unfortunately, chip fabrication plants take years to get up and running. Even if the HBM memory supplied by this new mega complex could ease the production crunch and open up manufacturing capacity for consumer-grade RAM elsewhere, it’s likely that it won’t be built and getting chips out before 2030. Industry commenters say that one to two years of constrained memory supply is the absolute best-case scenario, with some estimates saying that the current situation may take six years or more to resolve. Read...

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When Dolby Labs announced Dolby Vision 2 in September 2025, I didn’t really get it. The original Dolby Vision was easy to understand: If your TV and streaming content supported it, you’d get a brighter picture with more color detail, particularly in shadows and highlights. I remember being blown away by the technology when it first debuted at CES 2014, especially compared to the 4K displays and curved panels that TV makers were hyping up at the time. The improvements Dolby Vision 2 promises aren’t as straightforward. While Dolby’s initial press release uses all kinds of jargon to describe the new format (with terms like “Content Intelligence” and “Authentic Motion”), the tangible benefits are tougher to parse. Fortunately, CES 2026 provided an opportunity to see Dolby Vision 2 up close, compare it with the original Dolby Vision, and get some questions answered. While Dolby Vision 2’s benefits are a bit murkier, they at least address some annoyances with streaming video today. Dolby Vision 2 deals with HDR’s darkness issues HDR (high dynamic range) is a feature in many modern TVs that allows for greater differences between the darkest and brightest parts of an image, with more color detail in between. With HDR, for example, a scene depicting an explosion will exude more vivid reds and oranges, instead of blown-out whites, while HDR in a shadowy scene will be rendered with evocative blue and green hues, instead of just depicting a muddy gray. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. But with every HDR format—the original Dolby Vision along with HDR10, HDR10+, and HLG (Hybrid Log Gamma)—a common complaint is that dark scenes can look too dark. Dolby’s solution is to gather more data about how the content was made—for instance, the creator’s choice of reference monitor, or how much ambient light was in the color-grading room—and adjust brightness on playback accordingly. The idea is to compensate for the difference between what creators see in their expensive editing suites and what viewers see on their TVs at home. Jared Newman / Foundry “We know exactly what shadows were meant to be seen, and not,” said Dolby’s director of business strategy, Jonas Klittmark. Dolby Vision 2 aims to make HDR look better on cheaper TVs While the original Dolby Vision typically required a mid-range or better TV, Dolby is optimizing this new version for cheaper sets through a new tone-mapping engine. This combines additional metadata from creators with local tone mapping, which makes more granular adjustments to the colors of each pixel. Local tone mapping is the process of analyzing the wide range of color of brightness in an HDR image, and then compressing that data into a form that the TV you’re watching can actually deliver. In a demo at CES, the result was a noticeable difference on what Dolby claimed was a $250 TV that didn’t have any local dimming zones. Next to a comparable set running the original Dolby Vision, the new version produced more vivid colors. Jared Newman / Foundry “The new engine is just much more capable of holding onto the goodness of the original HDR source, even on a display that’s quite limited in its capabilities, like this,” Klittmark said. That same tone-mapping engine also gives Dolby Vision 2 a neat new trick: It’ll let users control the intensity of the HDR effect through a slider in their TV settings. Users might want to increase the effect in a window-lit room with lots of reflections, for instance, or dial it back if the picture seems too eye-searingly bright. Dolby Vision 2 allows for smoother motion (without overdoing it) One of the most intriguing Dolby Vision 2 features has nothing to do with HDR at all. Instead, it’s a feature called “Authentic Motion,” which makes for a less jerky picture in scenes with fast motion (the industry refers to this visual jerkiness as “judder”). Unlike the much-maligned motion smoothing effects on most smart TVs, which can be so smooth that it looks like you’re watching a soap opera, Dolby’s feature applies just a small amount of frame interpolation in certain scenes, based on metadata delivered by content providers. In a CES demo, Dolby showed a movie scene in which the camera swept across the room without the usual judder, but in a way that still felt cinematic. “In Dolby Vision 2, we’re dynamically through metadata setting the de-judder just enough to take the edge off of the judder, so that it doesn’t bother you anymore,” Klittmark said. Dolby Vision 2 Max Alongside the standard Dolby Vision 2, there will also be a fancier version called Dolby Vision 2 Max. While both versions will have mostly the same features, Dolby Vision 2 Max will further adjust the picture based on a TV’s ambient light sensors; for example, it will help to avoid scenes that look overly dark. This is effectively an evolution of Dolby Vision IQ, an extension of Dolby Vision that is available in many of today’s mid-range to high-end TVs. More importantly, Dolby believes Max will serve as an overall indicator of TV quality, in the same way it believes Dolby Vision once did. When Dolby Vision first arrived in the mid-2010s, many TVs promised HDR compatibility, but weren’t bright or colorful enough to make HDR video look good. Dolby Vision support became a useful proxy for knowing if you’d get a decent HDR picture. Now that Dolby Vision 2 is heading to lower-end TVs, Dolby hopes the “Max” label will help delineate TVs with superior picture quality. “Dolby Vision 2 Max is for premium TVs, and it will basically replace Dolby Vision in the market,” Chris Turkstra, Dolby’s vice president of home devices, said. “Dolby Vision 2, which you can think of as a standard version of Dolby Vision, that will attach to new TVs that don’t have Dolby Vision today.” It’ll be a while before Dolby Vision 2 matters While it’s worth being aware of Dolby Vision 2 as more TV makers and streaming services get on board, it’s still early days for the format. So far, only three TV makers have committed to supporting Dolby Vision 2: Hisense will offer it in its top-shelf RGB MiniLED TVs for 2026, TCL will have it in its high-end X11L SQD Mini LEDs and mainstream C series sets, and Panasonic will bring it to several new OLED TVs. In other words, the promise of Dolby Vision 2 in low-end TVs isn’t materializing anytime soon. Meanwhile, three other major TV manufacturers–LG, Samsung, and Sony–have not announced their Dolby Vision 2 intentions. Samsung, for one, doesn’t support any version of Dolby Vision today–most likely because it doesn’t want to pay royalties to Dolby. On the content side, Peacock is the only streaming service on board with Dolby Vision 2, which it will support along with the original Dolby Vision for live sports. Given that content makers must also support Dolby Vision 2 in the editing process, it might be a while before more streamers decide to throw their weight behind it. Dolby Vision 2 probably won’t be a factor for anyone thinking of buying a new TV in 2026. But as the format becomes more common in the years to come, it’s something you’ll want to think about, especially if, like me, you finally understand it. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV advice. Read...

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PC users have a hoarding problem. A tab-hoarding problem, to be more specific. Our browsers are filled to the brim with dozens, if not hundreds of tabs, lingering remnants of our web travels that we refuse to let go of in fear of never being able to find them again — even though sifting through endless browser tabs cripples productivity. OpenWorkspace, a new piece of Windows and MacOS software that was revealed at CES 2026, has an elegant solution to the tab-hoarding dilemma — and it does so by tossing the PC’s traditional application-focused approach out the window in favor of something that I personally find so much more compelling. In fact, I’ve tried kludging my way to similar workflows using a mish-mash of various tools in the past and OpenWorkspace does it so much more elegantly. I didn’t expect to stumble across software that could completely revolutionize the way I use my PC while wandering around the CES 2026 show floor, but hey, I guess I should expect the unexpected in Las Vegas. How OpenWorkspace reimagines desktop productivity OpenWorkspace’s press release calls it “a desktop automation platform that saves and automatically restores complete desktop layouts,” and while that’s technically true, if anything, it undersells the program’s usefulness a bit. Let’s walk through this step by step, starting with how the software actually handles before we get into the tab management bit. OpenWorkspace Designed for large monitors or multi-monitor setups, OpenWorkspace completely takes over your primary desktop with its dual-region “FocalContextual” interface. You’re able to define a section in the middle of the screen where one or more tabs — the core information about the project you’re currently working on — sit front and center. Supplementary tabs can be staged in a secondary holding section around the edges of the display, where they’re still available at a glance, but don’t dominate your central focus, ready to be summoned at a moment’s notice. Think of it like doing manual work on a physical desk; your immediate work sits in front of you, with supporting papers spread around the periphery. This is one of the two secret sauces baked into OpenWorkspace, and the concept that flips traditional computing concepts on its head. Windows 11’s current tiling system offers nothing like it. Opening the OpenWorkspaces interface summons it atop the current workspace for easy switching. Willis Lai / Foundry Think about it: Ever since the PC’s graphical user interface debuted in Xerox PARC in the 1970s, it has been focused on applications, not your actual workflow focus. That’s why tab hoarding happens; you keep all those sites open in a singular browser window. It’s no way to live. OpenWorkspace makes your focus your focus instead of the overall application itself. Founder David Adler told me it was inspired by his work in the high-frequency trading industry, where every second of delay can cost you real money. Setups like this are must-use in that field, Adler told me, but there’s nothing like it in the consumer space — OpenWorkspace is his solution. How OpenWorkspace kills tab hoarding dead But the FocalContextual interface is just part of OpenWorkspace’s secret sauce. The other part is how quickly it can save and cycle through premade tab layouts — a serious time-saver that helps keep you laser-focused on the task at hand. Creating a new workspace takes mere minutes, aided by keyboard shortcuts and visual cues built into the app that makes arranging windows fast and easy. Once you’ve arranged a workspace — ideally around a specific focus theme, like “the Johnson project” or “my Nebraska 2026 trip” — you can save it, and then summon it instantly to pick up where you left off. It’s stunningly fast. Flick your fingers over a keyboard shortcut and BOOM! You’re back to the last project. Do it again and BOOM! Another workspace appears instantly, with primary and secondary windows arranged just like you left them. Adios, endlessly hunting for tabs buried deep inside Chrome. “Research shows that manually restoring the 6 to 12 windows and documents required for a typical task takes 70 to140 seconds, while OpenWorkspace restores the same environments in 2 to 3 seconds for an approximately 40× reduction in time-to-task,” the company’s announcement says. “By capturing complete desktop states as workspaces, OpenWorkspace frees the user from this manual overhead and places that responsibility on the system.” I believe it — OpenWorkspace’s task switching is that fast. It’s because the software saves the layout, window, and setting arrangement as a proprietary file format (locally — your data never touches the cloud). Activating a workspace summonses the whole configuration immediately. The setup has additional benefits as well. OpenWorkspace runs on both Windows PCs and Macs, with Linux support envisioned in the future. Since OpenWorkspace saves entire workspace layouts, it’s easy to share them with others as well — adios, complex documents full of stodgy links. As PCWorld’s manager, I could immediately picture sharing workspaces to make, say, employee onboarding and project management so much easier in my organization. Pricing and availability OpenWorkspace is expected to launch in February for $180 as an annual license, with major feature updates aimed at a quarterly basis. Think speech support, the ability to use Workspace beyond browser tabs, and so on. OpenWorkspace That’s a steep fee for consumer software, which makes sense given its business-centric utility. That said, after using the app at CES 2026, I could absolutely see myself paying up for OpenWorkspace, especially if it adds the ability to manage other programs like Word, Excel, and Discord. You see, I’m already a believer in focused, contextual workspaces. I paid for Stardock’s Groupy 2 app long ago, so I can bundle open programs together like browser tabs. When I work on a project, I create a Groupy window with the Word doc I’m working in, any reference materials, my Excel spreadsheet data, and so forth. I do the same for gaming apps, swapping between the “work and play” contexts using Windows 11’s virtual desktops feature. My janky little setup works, and helps me stay focused, but it’s nevertheless a major kludge — and it’s still centralized around the long-held idea of manually managing individual windows and clicking through tabs. (Ugh.) Using OpenWorkspace feels infinitely better and faster. It still has a few wrinkles to iron out, but I cannot wait to get my hands on OpenWorkspace with my own system. I could get so much more done so much faster. Read...