The OLED looks great, but one of the benefits of OLED is HDR in gaming, thanks to the incredible contrast from being able to turn off individual pixels. OLED isn’t known for being bright, but lately, that’s improved on laptops and external monitors. The OLED display on the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 10, for example, can be cranked up to over 1,000 nits, creating an impressive HDR effect. The Razer Blade 14, however, only maxes out at 620 nits in HDR and 377 nits in SDR. Because of that, I could hardly tell HDR was even turned on. It’s still a pretty screen, and OLED has other benefits over IPS panels, including faster response times, less motion blur, and higher contrast.

Unfortunately, the Razer Blade 14’s OLED panel is not as colorful as the one I tested on the Razer Blade 16, with a color accuracy of 1.3 and 86 percent coverage of the AdobeRGB color space. Also, the 120-Hz refresh rate is standard for OLED laptops, but you can get 240-Hz speeds on laptops that use IPS, like the Alienware 16X Aurora, which happens to be a much cheaper device.

The Razer Blade 14’s biggest competition is the ROG Zephyrus G14. I haven’t tested the latest model yet, but it’s a laptop we’ve liked for years now, and it’s on sale often enough for less than the Blade 14. The only real difference is that the Blade 14 uses a more powerful AMD processor, the Ryzen AI 9 365. Not only does it perform better in anything CPU-intensive, such as certain games and creative applications, but it’s also a more efficient chip.

That leads to some improved battery life—at least, better than your average gaming laptop. I got 10 hours and 19 minutes in a local video playback test, which is about the most you can expect to get from the device. On the other hand, Asus offers higher-powered configurations of the Zephyrus G14, including one that includes the more powerful Ryzen AI 9 HX.

The RTX 5070 Takes Charge

Bad news: The RAM is no longer user-upgradeable on the Razer Blade 14, so you’ll have to configure it up front with what you need. My review unit had 32 GB, but you can also choose either 16 GB or 64 GB. Because it’s soldered, the memory speeds are faster. As for internal storage, you still get one open M.2 slot to expand space if you need it, supporting up to 4 TB.

Germany’s Volkswagen said on Wednesday it would develop an in-house assisted driving chip for its business in China as it seeks to recover from sagging sales in the world’s largest auto market.

Volkswagen is still the leading foreign group operating in China but the auto giant’s sales have drooped as local brands rise. It is also seeking to insulate itself from global tensions over semiconductors.

The group announced a series of new electric and hybrid vehicles in April and an assisted driving system designed specifically for the Chinese market in an effort to counter that slide.

“We are accelerating and deepening the implementation of our ‘In China, for China’ strategy—moving beyond localized production to mastering the core technologies that shape tomorrow’s mobility,” Ralf Brandstatter, CEO of Volkswagen Group China, said in a news release on Wednesday.

It is the first time the Volkswagen Group has developed its own in-house chip of this sort, a spokesman said.

Responsibility for its design and production will lie with a joint venture between CARIAD, Volkswagen’s software company, and Chinese technology company Horizon Robotics.

Smart driving capabilities have emerged as a key battleground in China’s cut-throat domestic auto market.

Semiconductors have also increasingly become the target of global trade tensions, in particular between the United States and China.

Washington has steadily expanded export controls in recent years, particularly in advanced chips and digital infrastructure.

European automakers have also been rocked by a row between China and the Netherlands over Nexperia chips, which despite being relatively simple in technology terms are nonetheless crucial as vehicles rely more on electronics.

Volkswagen’s aim with the new chip is “taking control of a key technology that will define the future of intelligent driving,” CEO Oliver Blume said in the news release.

“This marks the next logical step in our strategy for outstanding long-term innovation capabilities.”

The chip is expected to be delivered within the next three to five years, the release said.

Asked whether there were plans to eventually use the chip outside the Chinese market, a spokesman said the focus was currently on “localized implementation”.

“Looking ahead, we will align with the Group’s overall strategic roadmap to feed technological achievements from China back into the global business,” he said.

© 2025 AFP

Last month, The US Food and Drug Administration approved a new blood test for assisting the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Produced by Roche, Elecsys pTau181 measures the concentration of a specific molecule—a phosphorylated form of the tau protein—in the blood. Tau is one of two proteins, the other being amyloid, that become malformed and accumulate in the brains of patients with certain types of dementia. It is believed that the buildup of these proteins interferes with the communication of brain cells, leading to these patients’ symptoms.

The test had already received authorization in July for marketing in Europe and is thus the first early screening system for Alzheimer’s for use in primary care settings approved in the planet’s two major pharmaceutical markets. It is an opener in what should soon become a crowded field, as there are several other tests in advanced stages of testing and approval.

How Do Such Tests Work?

Elecsys pTau181 looks in the blood plasma for a form of the tau protein that has a phosphate group attached, which is often found in elevated amounts in Alzheimer’s patients. This molecule is an indirect marker of the plaques of amyloid and neurofibrillary tangles of tau observed in the brains of patients with the disease.

Some other tests have also been approved, though not for early screening. These assess other biomarkers that relate to these two proteins. One test, called Lumipulse and made by the Japanese company Fujirebio, looks at the ratio between another form of phosphorylated tau (pTau217) and a key protein fragment that forms amyloid plaques (amyloid beta peptide 1-42).

The bottom line is that these tests offer clues to the probable presence of amyloidosis in the brain, which then needs to be diagnosed with greater accuracy using more invasive tests, such as a PET (positron emission tomography) scan and cerebrospinal fluid analysis by lumbar puncture, considered the clinical gold standard for diagnosing amyloid pathology in living patients. Even these, however, come with some degree of uncertainty; true diagnostic certainty can only be had with a post-mortem dissection of the brain.

Why Approve These Tests Now?

In the past, confirmation of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis was not that important, as there were no drugs or therapies that could alter the course of the disease. But with the approval of new Alzheimer’s monoclonal antibody treatments, the landscape has changed in the past few years.

To use these medicines, you need a way to confirm which patients can benefit. And since the drugs ideally yield the best results when used early on in the disease’s progression, a relatively inexpensive and minimally invasive diagnostic test will be extremely useful. Subjecting all elderly people with suspected symptoms of cognitive decline to PET scans and cerebrospinal fluid sampling is impractical, so this is where blood testing for Alzheimer’s comes in.

Just How Useful Are These Tests?

Elecsys pTau181 is the first test to be approved for use as a community-screening tool. The idea is for it to be administered at the primary care level—so, for instance, by a primary care physician or general practitioner. The test has been shown to have a good “negative predictive value”—that is, it is effective at accurately indicating who does not have amyloid disease. In settings where the overall prevalence of amyloid disease is low, a negative result from this test is 97.9 percent reliable. This makes it useful for selecting which patients to put forward for further testing.

The results are similar to those of other tests that have already been approved in recent months, such as Lumipulse from Japan’s Fujirebio, which in trials has shown a negative predictive value of about 97 percent.

However, there is an important limitation to note: for all blood tests for Alzheimer’s, there tends to be a relatively large proportion of patients (15-30 percent is a common estimate) who fall into a gray area of uncertainty, in which the levels of identified biomarkers do not allow for either a positive or a negative answer.