Intel’s had a challenging year or two, at least as far as its best processors are concerned. With things like the Raptor Lake instability issues and the less-than-impressive generational improvements offered by the Core Ultra 9 285K and the rest of the Arrow Lake lineup, Intel’s next-gen CPUs have a tough road ahead. However, Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan shared a reassuring update on the product roadmap, including Panther Lake and Nova Lake CPUs.
Lip-Bu Tan stepped into the role of CEO earlier this year, following the departure of Intel’s previous CEO, Pat Gelsinger. In a new letter sent to stockholders (which was shared by Wccftech), Lip-Bu Tan admits that there’s room for improvement, but follows with a hopeful note: “While there are clear challenges that we need to overcome, there are also significant opportunities to accelerate our turnaround and improve our performance.”
Later on, he refers to the expected roadmap for consumer CPUs — and despite previous reports, it looks like Intel’s right on track to stick to its previous plans.
“We will further enhance our position in the second half of this year with the launch of Panther Lake, our lead product on Intel 18A, followed by Nova Lake in 2026,” said Lip-Bu Tan in the letter to stockholders.
For a quick refresher, Panther Lake is the name of Intel’s next-gen mobile CPUs that will end up in laptops (and other devices). These will most likely fall under the Core Ultra 300 series umbrella and will be optimized for efficiency and performance.
Meanwhile, Nova Lake refers to the next-gen desktop and laptop CPU lineup, and by the sound of it, it’s going to be mighty powerful. Early leaks estimate up to 52 cores for the flagship chip, which would be a massive increase over the current generation — but of course, take it all with some healthy skepticism until we actually see these chips up for sale.
This update marks good news all around, especially considering that recent leaks told us we’d have to wait until 2026 to see Panther Lake break cover. Now, it seems like Intel is still planning to launch the chips in 2025, although it’s hard to say at what scale. Seeing as these will be built into laptops, we might get some product announcements with availability after CES 2026, which is what often tends to happen, but perhaps there will be some devices available at launch with more to follow early next year.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.