Technologies

AMD and Sony Tease Next-Gen Graphics, Possibly for a PS6

The YouTube video for Project Amethyst teases three new graphics technologies. It’s about more than just the next console, though.

AMD and Sony jointly teased AMD’s approach to improving its future graphics hardware performance in a video posted to YouTube this week: compression, aggregation and dedication. Compressing all the data in the graphics pipeline for lower memory overhead, aggregating the compute units that process the data for faster matrix multiplication (key to improving AI performance, including upscaling) and finally adding dedicated silicon to handle ray and path tracing acceleration, necessary to bump up visual quality.

Sony’s involvement immediately sent everyone’s heads into PlayStation 6 rumorspace: AMD’s chips power Sony’s PlayStation consoles, and that’s pretty much the only place where the two companies intersect, at least for the moment.

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AMD powers almost all consoles, from the Xbox to the Steam Deck, with the Nintendo Switch line one of the few exceptions (it’s based on Nvidia chips). It’s also in laptops and the company’s own graphics cards. If you want to game on a laptop that won’t blow your budget, better integrated graphics are always in your best interest.

The three new technologies teased in the AMD video are:

Radiance Cores: My testing over the years has shown that AMD has long lagged Nvidia with respect to ray tracing performance (which is not just for pretty reflections — it improves lighting significantly), and that’s at least partly because its processing takes place in its main compute unit cores, which are optimized for processing other types of graphics. So ray tracing bogs your frame rates down a lot. And the one-core-one-ray-trace-unit architecture limits the amount of processing you can throw at it to improve. The Radiance Cores handle the ray tracing acceleration separately, similar to the way Nvidia’s RT cores do.

Neural Array: Matrix multiplication is the key algorithm for accelerating AI processing on-device — it’s what Tensor cores handle, for example — and these days, upscaling is driven by AI-heavy, machine learning-informed algorithms, like Nvidia’s DLSS and Intel’s XeSS. Upscaling is important because it’s a major way to run at higher resolutions without taking a performance hit, and in many ways is at the center of a suite of technologies for improving image fidelity and performance. AMD’s version is FidelityFX Super Resolution, and its next-generation of the technology, FSR Redstone (likely part of RDNA 5), will need those arrays, as well as Sony’s variation of it, PSSR.

Universal Compression: The less compressed your data is, the more memory it takes to process and the slower it moves through a pipeline. Traditionally, graphics processors have stuck to compressing only the biggest memory hogs, starting with textures, in part because there was a performance cost to inserting it into the processing pipeline. But silicon is so much faster than it used to be that it likely makes sense to use it for all the graphics data, which is how Universal Compression works. Even if performance is a wash, it probably means less memory is required, an important factor for 4K and higher gaming as well as prices.

This tease is the first of probably a zillion for both new technologies in the PS6 and AMD’s RDNA 5, and I’d expect to hear a lot more about it at CES in January 2026, if not sooner. I’ve reached out to AMD for more details, but didn’t immediately hear back.

Technologies

Verum Messenger: Don’t follow the future. Define it

In a world where information defines influence, Verum Messenger is building a new architecture of digital communication — intelligent, secure, and ready for tomorrow. Here, technology serves not limitations, but possibilities.

Not being part of change. Leading it. Verum Messenger — the future that speaks first.

Technologies

Verum Finance: Stop Spending Months Opening a Bank Account

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Technologies

Google races to put Gemini at the center of Android before Apple’s AI reboot

Google is using its latest Android rollout to position Gemini as the AI layer across phones, Chrome, laptops and cars.

Google is using its latest Android rollout to make Gemini less of a chatbot and more of an operating layer across the phone, browser, car and laptop, just weeks before Apple is expected to show its own Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence reboot at WWDC.
Ahead of its Google I/O developer conference next week, the company previewed a number of Android updates, including AI-powered app automation, a smarter version of Chrome on Android, new tools for creators, a redesigned Android Auto experience, and a sweeping set of new security features.
Alphabet is counting on Gemini to help Google compete directly with OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for artificial intelligence models and services, while also serving as the AI backbone across its expansive portfolio of products, including Android. Meanwhile, Gemini is powering part of Apple’s new AI strategy, giving Google a role in the iPhone maker’s reset even as it races to prove its own version of personal AI on the phone is further along.
Sameer Samat, who oversees Google’s Android ecosystem, told CNBC that Google is rebuilding parts of Android around Gemini Intelligence to help users complete everyday tasks more easily.
“We’re transitioning from an operating system to an intelligence system,” he said.
As part of Tuesday’s announcements. Google said Gemini Intelligence will be able to move across apps, understand what’s on the screen and complete tasks that would normally require a user to jump between multiple services. That means Android is moving beyond the traditional assistant model, where users ask a question and get an answer, and acting more like an agent.
For instance, Google says Gemini can pull relevant information from Gmail, build shopping carts and book reservations. Samat gave the example of asking Gemini to look at the guest list for a barbecue, build a menu, add ingredients to an Instacart list and return for approval before checkout.
A big concern surrounding agentic AI involves software taking action on a user’s behalf without permissions. Samat said Gemini will come back to the user before completing a transaction, adding, “the human is always in the loop.”
Four months after announcing its Gemini deal with Google, Apple is under pressure to show a more capable version of Apple Intelligence, which has been a relative laggard on the market. Apple has long framed privacy, hardware integration and control of the user experience as its advantages.
Google’s Android push is designed to show it can bring AI deeper into the device experience while still giving users control over what Gemini can see, where it can act and when it needs confirmation.
The app automation features will roll out in waves, starting with the latest Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel phones this summer, before expanding across more Android devices, including watches, cars, glasses and laptops later this year.
The company is also redesigning Android Auto around Gemini, turning the car into another major surface for its assistant. Android Auto is in more than 250 million cars, and Google says the new release includes its biggest maps update in a decade and Gemini-powered help with tasks like ordering dinner while driving.
Alphabet’s AI strategy has been embraced by Wall Street, which has pushed the company’s stock price up more than 140% in the past year, compared to Apple’s roughly 40% gain. Investors now want to see how Gemini can become more central to the products people use every day.
WATCH: Alphabet briefly tops Nvidia after report of $200 billion Anthropic cloud deal