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Ever wonder what would happen if you never shut down your Windows PC? So have I, which is why I decided to take it upon myself to find out what would happen if I left my computer running for an entire week without even bothering to put it into sleep mode.

Preorder the new Lego Star Wars Smart Play compatible sets: Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Millennium Falcon $99.99 Pre-Order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Mos Eisley Cantina $79.99 Pre-Order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Luke's Landspeeder $39.99 Pre-Order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Yoda's Hut and Jedi Training $69.99 Pre-Order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: AT-ST Attack on Endor $49.99 Pre-Order Here

Alert all commands: Lego unveiled five new Star Wars Smart Play compatible sets at the Nuremberg Toy Fair today (Jan. 27), including an 885-piece Millennium Falcon set with four Smart Minifigures. The sets range in price from $39.99 to $99.99 and will launch on March 1 alongside three previously announced "All-In-One" Star Wars Smart Play sets, more than doubling the lineup.

Preorders are now live through the Lego Store and third-party retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

Notably, Best Buy has implemented a reservation system for its preorders due to high demand. Shoppers must create an account, confirm their location, and wait in line for account and inventory verification in order to purchase any of the sets. At the time of writing, I waited 20 minutes trying to add the Millennium Falcon set to my cart before giving up.

What is Lego Smart Play? Get even more interactive with your play. Credit: Lego

Lego first unveiled its interactive Smart Play platform at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in early January. The system revolves around a 2 x 4 "Smart Brick" filled with sensors that make Smart Minifigures and Smart Tags react to movement and positioning, producing lights and sound effects.

Shoppers should be aware that the five new sets don't include the Smart Brick or its charger, which is necessary to make them interactive. (Without the Smart Brick, these are just regular Lego builds.) Since Lego doesn't sell the Smart Brick on its own, you'll need to purchase one of the three other All-In-One sets that include it:

• Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter — $69.99

• Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Luke’s Red Five X-Wing — $89.99

• Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Throne Room Duel & A-Wing — $159.99

Read on for more details about the five just-announced sets that will launch alongside them in a matter of weeks.

Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Millennium Falcon set Credit: Lego

This is Lego's third Millennium Falcon build after its mega-popular, mega-expensive flagship set from 2017 and its $85 midi-scale counterpart from 2024. It contains 885 pieces, including four Smart Minifigures of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, and C-3PO, plus four Smart Tags for various effects. According to a press release, fans will be able to "jump into light speed, shoot lasers from the stud shooters, play holochess, or practice lightsaber skills" by adding a Smart Brick. It's meant for ages 9 and up.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Millennium Falcon $99.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Mos Eisley Cantina set Credit: Lego

Tatooine's infamous tavern has also been represented in a Lego build before. But this new 666-piece set marks the first time it will presumably be able to play Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes' iconic ditty. (It's stuck in your head now, isn't it?) The set comes with Smart Minifigures of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the bounty hunter Greedo, a Sandtrooper, and two band members, plus three Smart Tags for a Dewback, karaoke, and drink mixing. It's geared toward ages 8 and up.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Mos Eisley Cantina $79.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Luke's Landspeeder set Credit: Lego

Luke's grungy X-34 Landspeeder will be able to produce refueling and repairing sound effects in this 215-piece build for ages 6 and up. It includes a Luke Minifigure and teensy Jawa and Gonk Droid models.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Luke's Landspeeder $39.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Yoda's Hut and Jedi Training set Credit: Lego

This 440-piece set builds into Yoda's Jedi training grounds on Dagobah, complete with Smart Minifigures of him and Luke and a little R2-D2. Two included Smart Tags will play force training and cooking sounds when paired with a Smart Brick. It's best for ages 8 and up.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Star Wars Smart Play: Yoda's Hut and Jedi Training $69.99 at Amazon
  Shop Now Lego Star Wars Smart Play: AT-ST Attack on Endor set Credit: Lego

Star Wars: Return of the Jedi's final battle gets brickified in this 347-piece set, also for ages 8 and up. It has a Smart Minifigure of Wicket the Ewok and Smart Tags that will make the AT-ST walker and Speeder Bike builds play sounds.

Opens in a new window Credit: Lego Lego Star Wars Smart Play: AT-ST Attack on Endor $49.99 at Amazon
  Pre-order Here

Samsung's next big thing has a big price tag.

The Korean tech giant finally announced a U.S. release date and price tag for the Galaxy Z TriFold, a smartphone with a new foldable form factor that includes not one but two creases in the middle of a gargantuan inner display. The phone, which we got some hands-on time with at CES 2026 a few weeks ago, will launch in the States on Jan. 30 for a price of $2,900.

Yes, you read that right. Two thousand and nine hundred dollars.

SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy S26: The 7 rumored features that could make me switch

For early adopters dying to get their hands on the TriFold, it's very much a good news, bad news situation. Previous rumors put the price of the TriFold at about $2,500. In addition, many mobile insiders expected to learn the TriFold's U.S. release date at the next Galaxy Unpacked event, rumored to take place on Feb. 25.

To be fair to Samsung, a high price is not a huge surprise, nor is it entirely unreasonable considering the going price for other, theoretically inferior foldable devices. Last year's Galaxy Z Fold 7, which is a similar device that only has one crease and a smaller internal display, started at $1,999. It's not completely out of this world to see a phone with a new form factor and presumably even more expensive tech inside of it start at a higher price point than that. In addition, Korean publications have reported that Samsung is actually losing money on sales of the TriFold.

Still, $2,900 is a lot of money for a smartphone, no matter how much context you throw at it. We can't say yet if the benefits of the new form factor outweigh the downside of paying that much for it, but hopefully people who do spent that amount of money on the TriFold are happy with their decision.

SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold hands-on: I'm excited, but it's got quirks

Netflix's winter release slate is promising, and this February, you can anticipate a schedule that keeps your watch list updated consistently. With new and returning titles coming to your screen almost every day, this month is sure to fulfill all your streaming needs.

A class-action lawsuit filed yesterday in California alleges that adult creator platform OnlyFans engages in "bait-and-switch" practices that mislead customers. The platform offers monthly subscriptions providing "full access" to creators' content, when in reality, most content is locked behind further paywalls.

When OnlyFans customers click "subscribe" to a creator's paid subscription, they're met with a pop-up promising "Full access to this user's content" and "Direct message with this user" (along with being able to cancel at any time). For free subscriptions, the page simply refreshes when a fan clicks "subscribe."

Credit: Screenshot: OnlyFans SEE ALSO: How I make six figures on OnlyFans without taking my clothes off

This complaint claims, however, that "millions of Fans have bought subscriptions only to discover that, behind OnlyFans's paywalls, Creators' exclusive content remains inaccessible." Rather, many creators only post teasers for content not included with the subscription, asking for subsequent payments to view. The suit also alleges that "the sole 'benefit' of many subscriptions is the privilege of being spammed with offers to buy access to content that OnlyFans initially promised."

"In essence, OnlyFans promises a buffet, but provides only a menu," the complaint states.

Specifically, this suit — with over 100 class members — alleges that OnlyFans violated the California consumer protection law, the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, which prohibits deceptive tactics like false advertising, and Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, a similar statute.

The plaintiff, Los Angeles resident David Gardner, says he paid to subscribe to two OnlyFans creators he found on X, only to see non-explicit "teaser" content. He also received mass direct messaging soliciting further purchases.

The complaint states that Gardner "would like to subscribe to different Creators in the future, but cannot rely on OnlyFans's representations in choosing whether to do so."

Mashable has reached out to OnlyFans for comment.

OnlyFans has been sued several times over the years. In December, a federal judge dismissed a suit claiming that the platform and management agencies were running "chatter scams" that essentially tricked customers into believing they were talking directly to creators.

Looking at Amazon for a Valentine's Day gift is both comforting and overwhelming. On one hand, there are so many cute ideas to choose from that'll ship really fast. But on the other hand, there are so... many... cute ideas to choose from. Luckily, Amazon has narrowed down your options to its top 100 Valentine's Day gift ideas for 2026.

Amazon's Valentine's Day gift guide features a wide range of gifts for her, gifts for him, gifts that'll be universally well-received by whoever, really. Many items match the recommendations we picked for our own gift guides.

From that massive list, we've handpicked our 10 favorite gift ideas that we already know are beloved across the internet:

1. A massage gun Opens in a new window Credit: TheraBody TheraGun Relief $159.99 at Amazon
TheraBody's gentlest massage gun provides percussive massage therapy for body tension and muscle soreness — whenever they want it, without leaving the house. Also available in black, gray, and navy. Shop Now 2. A buildable Lego bouquet Lego Botanicals Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet (10342) $59.95 at Walmart
Lego Botanicals bouquets have been a fan favorite gift of Mashable readers for years. As an alternative to the classic set of a dozen roses, this lighthearted bouquet includes pink roses, orchids, and a waterlily. Shop Now at Walmart Shop Now at Amazon 3. The Kindle Paperwhite (with a pink case) Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (16GB) $134.99 at Amazon
$159.99 Save $25 The Kindle Paperwhite has a 12-week battery life and zippy page turning, making it a unanimous pick for the best Kindle. It's a great gift for a bonafide bookworm or someone who just needs something to do on the plane. Shop Now at Amazon 4. The heart-shaped cast iron cocette Opens in a new window Credit: Le Creuset Le Creuset Heart Cocette $174.95 at Amazon
Any of Le Creuset's enameled cast iron is a rite of passage for anyone who likes to cook. If they're also big on all things cutesy, the heart-shaped cocette is a must-have for V-Day. Also available in four other shades. Shop Now 5. Bose QuietComfort noise-canceling earbuds (in pink) Opens in a new window Credit: Bose Bose QuietComfort Earbuds $179
After testing a ton of pairs, the Bose QC are also the noise-cancelling earbuds we'd recommend to anyone. They're still comfy after several hours and the case itself can charge wirelessly. Also available in black, white, ice blue, and twilight blue. Shop Now 6. A compact Keurig (in berry) Keurig K-Express $89.99 at Amazon
$109.99 Save $20 That coffee that you were going to take to them in bed? You can make it on their new berry-colored Keurig K-Express. This compact model requires little counter space and has a unique Strong Brew setting. Also available in five other shades. Shop Now at Amazon 7. A wireless Xbox controller (in red) Opens in a new window Credit: Microsoft Xbox Wireless Controller $76 at Amazon
Yes, the Pulse Cipher shade of the staple wireless Xbox controller is automatically a Valentine's Day gift just because it's red. Even if the Xbox-er you know already has one, it's nice to have a backup while the other is charging. Shop Now 8. The Dyson Airwrap i.d. Opens in a new window Credit: Dyson Dyson Airwrap i.d. $649 at Amazon
The Bluetooth-connected version of the iconic Dyson Airwrap customizes the optimal styling routine based on its user's hair type, length, and desired look. Six attachments come in the box, including a round volumizing brush, mini hair dryer, or curl diffuser. Shop Now 9. The Echo Pop Amazon Echo Pop $39.99 at Amazon
Make their life easier with an Echo Pop. Amazon's mini smart speaker can play Spotify, set timers, and offer hands-free help with daily inquiries they'd otherwise have to Google, from recipe conversions to weather to answers to random questions. Shop Now at Amazon Shop Now at Amazon 10. A color-changing Bluetooth lamp Govee RGBIC Smart Table Lamp 2 $64.99 at Amazon
$79.99 Save $15 Don't underestimate the power of mood lighting this Valentine's Day. This touch lamp from Govee is the perfect addition to a nightstand or desk. Use the app to choose from 64 color scenes and set an automatic on and off schedule. Shop Now at Amazon

If you want to peruse more specific categories, Amazon's full Valentine's Day Shop is broken down into curated sections like top 100 self-care gifts, top gifts under a certain price, or personalized or handmade gifts.

Finding the best gifts for teen girls is not for the faint of heart. Trends among teen girls are an ever-changing hellscape. Even millennials — people who are not that old, thank you very much — can have trouble navigating the world predominantly ruled by TikTok and content creators. Funneling those trends into a gift that she’ll like and use for longer than a month is tricky.

Rule number one when brainstorming a good gift for a teenager: Don't just wing it. Gen Z girls are clearly loyal to a defined handful of brands and have very specific aesthetic goals. Goals that could be torched by the honest mistake of grabbing generic white earbuds instead of the new AirPods or buying a Lafufu instead of a Labubu. (And what if she actually hates Labubus?)

SEE ALSO: How 'KPOP Demon Hunters' became the biggest hit of the year

But you know who does know what teenage girls want this year? Other teenage girls. I've been tracking viral TikTok products amongst young girls for months, compiling the most popular stuff with items that the high school girls in my own life have requested. The 2025 edition of Google's Holiday 100 list (literally based on the most-searched products of the year) inspired a few ideas, too.

Whether it's for a birthday, holiday, graduation, or just because, here are 30+ of the best gift ideas for teen girls in 2026:

Do Not Disturb is a useful feature for minimizing notifications and distractions when you need to focus. It has been around for more than a decade, and its core functionality has largely remained the same. However, for some people, it may not be strong enough.

We're just a few days into TikTok's new U.S. ownership and, thus far, users are skeptical. And, to be fair, it has been a relatively uneasy start.

In case you missed it, TikTok's new U.S. ownership group — a venture stocked with supporters of President Donald Trump — took power about a week ago. It's been rocky since. Here's what you need to know.

TikTok's outage issue

Shortly after switching ownership, TikTok went down, which wasn't taken as a great sign. The platform crashed over the weekend, the company citing a power outage at a U.S. data center as the culprit.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

"We're working with our data center partner to stabilize our service," the company said in a statement. "We're sorry for this disruption and hope to resolve it soon."

The outage was resolved, but that wasn't the end of complaints from users.

User complaints and worries about blocked speech

Since TikTok's new ownership group was finalized, folks have been worried about the platform blocking speech, perhaps because a Trump ally took power. And users this week began complaining that some posts seemed to be blocked or shadowbanned. Folks suggested that posts about ICE were either being suppressed or would not post. Pop star Billie Eilish, for instance, posted an Instagram story saying, "tiktok is silencing people btw" that showed her brother Finneas' anti-ICE post garnering hardly any engagement. Hacks actress Meg Stalter said she was unable to upload an anti-ICE post to TikTok at all. These claims echoed similar complaints from other users. Some folks also claimed that messages with the word "Epstein" produced an error message, which CNBC reported it was able to recreate.

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It is difficult to confirm whether users' content is being blocked or shadowbanned, but TikTok has said that it is not doing so.

TikTok told CNN that the issues were glitches related to the power outage and that the problems were "unrelated to last week’s news." The company also told CNBC that users should not be blocked from messaging the word "Epstein" and that it was investigating the issue, among the other issues.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mashable but it did point to previous public statements regarding the outage and its effects.

"We've made significant progress in recovering our U.S. infrastructure with our U.S. data center partner," it posted on Tuesday. "However, the U.S. user experience may still have some technical issues, including when posting new content. We're committed to bringing TikTok back to its full capacity as soon as possible."

All in all, it has been quite a rocky start for the new TikTok ownership group — time will tell if things get a bit steadier.

The usual method to debloat an Android phone requires setting up an ADB connection with a computer and sending commands from the terminal. It’s not the fastest or the safest way to get the job done. Let me show you a faster and safer method.

AI Mode is in your AI Overviews now on Google Search.

On Tuesday, Google announced that it was rolling out a new feature to Google Search on mobile that adds the ability for users to ask follow-up questions directly within AI Overviews and continue to carry on conversations about the topic in AI Mode.

Google originally shared that they were testing the feature last month.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

"People come to Search for an incredibly wide range of questions – sometimes to find information quickly, like a sports score or the weather, where a simple result is all you need," Google said in its announcement. "But for complex questions or tasks where you need to explore a topic deeply, you should be able to seamlessly tap into a powerful conversational AI experience."

SEE ALSO: Google AI overviews: Confident when wrong, yet more visible than ever

AI Overviews are the AI-generated summaries at the top of many search results pages. They answer a user's query without the user having to leave the Google Search page, which has led to a "traffic apocalypse" that's crushing many news websites, whose content often powers AI overviews. Yet, as Mashable reporting has shown, Google AI Overviews continues to make basic factual mistakes.

Mobile users will now be able to click the "See More" tab at the bottom of the AI Overview and access a text input bar where they can take their conversation to AI mode and continue to dive deeper into their query based on the initial results.

In addition to this, Google also announced that its latest and most powerful AI model, Gemini 3, will now be the default model for AI Overviews globally.

Google continues to roll out new AI features across its products as it makes moves to dethrone OpenAI as the de facto AI leader. These new search-related features also help Google further assert itself as the search engine giant, as OpenAI starts to make gains in that area.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

SAVE $3: Until Feb. 17, new and returning subscribers are eligible to get the first month of the Disney+ and Hulu streaming bundle on sale for $9.99. That's a savings of $3 compared to the standard bundle price of $12.99 per month.

Opens in a new window Credit: Hulu / Disney+ Disney+ and Hulu bundle (with ads, first month of membership) $9.99
$12.99 Save $3   Get Deal

In case you're searching for an escape from real life, you might consider diving into a show that has hundreds of episode to keep you busy. But with the price of streaming services increasing all the time, it's a struggle to find a streaming deal. Lucky for us, there's actually a sale right now on a worthy bundle.

Through Feb. 17, sign up for the Disney+ and Hulu streaming bundle to get your first month for only $9.99, marked down from the normal bundle price of $12.99 per month. That savings of $3 means you're getting a 58% discount. It's also a nice deal compared to the price of the two services separately which works out to $11.99 per month.

SEE ALSO: How to watch the 2026 Winter Olympics online for free

Signing up for this bundle gives you access to millions of hours of entertainment, and winter is the perfect time to rewatch Disney movies or catch up on shows you missed in the last few years. Keep in mind this deal is valid for new and returning subscribers and it does include ads.

While saving $3 isn't a fantastic deal, we're excited to see any streaming deal these days. Before Feb. 17, sign on to get tons of entertainment from Hulu and Disney+ while also saving a bit of money. It's an easy win-win.

With the price of SSDs rising rapidly and no relief likely for at least a few years, it is time to revisit old-fashioned mechanical hard drives. Despite their slower speeds, they're still great for a huge range of applications, and they're an excellent value option—especially if you buy them used.

SAVE $200.01: As of Jan. 27, get the TCL 65-Inch Class T7 Series for $499.97 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $699.99. That's a discount of 29% and the lowest price we've seen.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon TCL 65-Inch Class T7 Series $499.97 at Amazon
$699.99 Save $200.02   Get Deal

The days of too-expensive TVs are over. If you're ready to add a new display to your living room, now's the time to do it. You can get a decidedly large TV for your living room or wherever else you want to put it for a much lower price than in previous years. In fact, with this particular deal we've found at Amazon, you can get it for the lowest price we've seen, period.

As of Jan. 27, get the TCL 65-Inch Class T7 Series for $499.97 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $699.99. That's a discount of 29% and the lowest price we've seen.

SEE ALSO: The 65-inch TCL Class S5 4K TV just dipped to under $370 at Amazon — upgrade before February sporting events

If you're ready to introduce a large display with a realistic picture to your setup, this 4K Ultra HD QLED TV is what you're looking for. It boasts high realism as well as plenty of vivid hues and darker shade, using nearly the entirety of the DCI-P3 color space for a rich and satisfying image.

It's bright, colorful, and responsive on top of offering a 144Hz panel refresh rate to give you the smoothest viewing experience possible. That goes for whatever you happen to be doing, whether you're gaming, watching your favorite shows, or checking out some movies. It also has a TCL AIPQ Pro processor to optimize color, contrast, and clarity all its own for the best picture possible.

This deal won't last long, so make sure to pick it up while it's still available at this price.

When most people think of fun Japanese sports cars, one lightweight roadster usually comes to mind, but there’s another classic that many drivers overlook. A mid-engine icon from Toyota delivers a unique blend of balance, responsiveness, and sheer driving enjoyment that continues to thrill enthusiasts decades after its debut. For those who crave pure fun behind the wheel, it arguably offers an experience that even the most beloved roadster can’t quite match.

At a glance

• AI-driven medical image report generation can help medical providers become more efficient and productive.
• Current models are difficult to train because reporting practices vary widely among providers.
• Universal Report Generation (UniRG) uses reinforcement learning to align model training with real-world radiology practice rather than proxy text-generation objectives.
• UniRG has achieved state-of-the-art performance across datasets, metrics, diagnostic tasks, longitudinal settings, and demographic subgroups.
• Test results show that reinforcement learning, guided by clinically meaningful reward signals, can substantially improve the reliability and generality of medical vision–language models.

AI can be used to produce clinically meaningful radiology reports using medical images like chest x-rays. Medical image report generation can reduce reporting burden while improving workflow efficiency for healthcare professionals. Beyond the real-world benefits, report generation has also become a critical benchmark for evaluating multimodal reasoning in healthcare AI.

Despite recent advances driven by large vision–language models, current systems still face major limitations in real-world clinical settings. One challenge stems from the wide variation in radiology reporting practices across institutions, departments, and patient populations. A model trained with supervised fine-tuning on one set of data may learn its specific phrasing and conventions instead of more general patterns—a problem known as overfitting. As a result, the model performs well on that data but delivers poor results when evaluated on unseen institutions or external datasets. Moreover, since model training is often aimed at producing text that looks similar to existing reports, some well written but clinically inaccurate reports can slip through.

In this blog, we introduce Universal Report Generation (UniRG) (opens in new tab), a reinforcement learning–based framework for medical imaging report generation. This work is a research prototype intended to advance medical AI research and is not validated for clinical use. UniRG uses reinforcement learning as a unifying mechanism to directly optimize clinically grounded evaluation signals, aligning model training with real-world radiology practice rather than proxy text-generation objectives. Using this framework, we train UniRG-CXR (opens in new tab), a state-of-the-art chest x-ray report generation model at scale, spanning over 560,000 studies, 780,000 images, and 226,000 patients from more than 80 medical institutions.

To our knowledge, this is the first report generation model to achieve consistent state-of-the-art performance across report-level metrics, disease-level diagnostic accuracy, cross-institution generalization, longitudinal report generation, and demographic subgroups. These results demonstrate that reinforcement learning, when guided by clinically meaningful reward signals, can substantially improve both the reliability and generality of medical vision–language models.

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Subscribe today Opens in a new tab A unified framework for scaling medical image report generation

UniRG builds state-of-the-art report generation models by combining supervised fine-tuning with reinforcement learning, which optimizes a composite reward that integrates rule-based metrics, model-based semantic metrics, and LLM-based clinical error signals. This approach allows the resulting model UniRG-CXR to learn from diverse data sources, move beyond dataset-specific reporting patterns, and learn representations that generalize across institutions, metrics, and clinical contexts. Notably, UniRG-CXR sets a new state of the art on the authoritative ReXrank leaderboard (opens in new tab), a public leaderboard for chest X-ray image interpretation, as of 01/22/2026, surpassing previous best models by substantial margins (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Overview of UniRG-CXR. (a) Training Data: UniRG-CXR is trained on the training splits of MIMIC-CXR, CheXpert Plus, and ReXGradient-160k, covering diverse institutions and patient demographics. (b) Training and Rewards: Taking input from the current image, clinical context (e.g., indication), and optionally prior studies, UniRG-CXR uses GRPO reinforcement learning to optimize composite rewards that combine rule-based, model-based, and LLM-based metrics. (c) Evaluation: We assess UniRG-CXR on held-out test sets (MIMIC-CXR, CheXpert Plus, ReXGradient), and unseen datasets (IU Xray and proprietary data). Report quality measured using ReXrank metrics and an LLM-based clinical-error metric, while diagnostic ability is evaluated via F1-based disease classification from generated reports. (d) ReXrank Results: UniRG-CXR achieves SOTA performance across four datasets and two generation settings (findings only and findings + impression), showing substantial gains over prior state-of-the-art systems. Universal improvements across metrics and clinical errors

Rather than excelling on one metric at the expense of others, UniRG-CXR delivers balanced improvements across many different measures of report quality. More importantly, it produces reports with substantially fewer clinically significant errors. This indicates that the model is not just learning how to sound like a radiology report, but is better capturing the underlying clinical facts. Explicitly optimizing for clinical correctness helps the model avoid common failure modes where fluent language masks incorrect or missing findings (Figure 2).

Figure 2. UniRG-CXR achieves state-of-the-art performance, delivering consistent and comprehensive performance gains across metrics. (a) On the ReXrank leaderboard, UniRG-CXR (green) shows robust, universal improvement across all evaluation metrics.  (b). Starting from the same SFT checkpoint, RL with our combined reward achieves more balanced gains across metrics and the highest RadCliQ-v1 score compared to RL on single metrics. This ablation study is trained and tested on MIMIC (c). Ablation study on the training dynamics shows RL full (UniRG-CXR) achieves significantly better RadCliQ-v1 score than RL only on BLEU. (d). During training, RL full (UniRG-CXR) shows a steady decrease in clinical errors per report as compared with a fluctuating trajectory without consistent improvement from an ablation run without error awareness (i.e. removing CheXprompt metric optimization). Both (c) and (d) show results on 1024 MIMIC validation set from ablations that are trained on MIMIC. (e). Case studies illustrate that UniRG-CXR can produce error-free reports, unlike MedVersa and MedGemma. (f). UniRG-CXR yields a substantially higher proportion of reports with $\leq 1$ error and fewer with $\geq 4$ errors than prior models. Strong performance in longitudinal report generation

In clinical practice, radiologists often compare current images with prior exams to determine whether a condition is improving, worsening, or unchanged. UniRG-CXR is able to incorporate this historical information effectively, generating reports that reflect meaningful changes over time. This allows the model to describe new findings, progression, or resolution of disease more accurately, moving closer to how radiologists reason across patient histories rather than treating each exam in isolation (Figure 3).

Figure 3. UniRG-CXR enhances longitudinal report generation. (a). Comparing UniRG-CXR and its non-longitudinal ablation with prior models on longitudinal report generation, we show UniRG-CXR exhibits the best performance and the longitudinal information is beneficial to the performance. (b). UniRG-CXR achieves the best performance across different longitudinal encounter points ranging from the first encounter to the more complex 5th+ encounters, showcasing its improvements are across the board. In comparison, prior models such as GPT-5, GPT-4o and MedGemma are barely surpassing the copy prior report baseline (grey lines).  (c). Compared with prior models which barely improve over the copy prior baseline (dashed line), UniRG-CXR significantly and consistently improves performance across different temporal disease change categories including new development, no change, progression and regression (categorized by GPT-5 on ground truth report). Qualitative examples are shown for each category where UniRG-CXR correctly predicts the temporal change based on the input. All results in this figure are on MIMIC test set with prior information where available. Robust generalization across institutions and populations

UniRG-CXR maintains strong performance even when applied to data from institutions it has never seen before. This suggests that the model is learning general clinical patterns rather than memorizing institution-specific reporting styles. In addition, its performance remains stable across different patient subgroups, including age, gender, and race. This robustness is critical for real-world deployment, where models must perform reliably across diverse populations and healthcare environments (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Generalization and robustness of UniRG-CXR. (a). We evaluate UniRG-CXR in a zero-shot setting on two datasets from previously unseen institutions: IU-Xray and PD (proprietary data). UniRG-CXR consistently outperforms prior models, maintaining substantial performance gains in this challenging setup. (b) and (c) present condition-level F1 scores on MIMIC-CXR and PD and highlight that UniRG-CXR remains the overall top-performing model in condition-level diagnostic accuracy. (d). UniRG-CXR demonstrates stable and robust performance across gender, age, and race subgroups, all of which exceed the performance of the second-best model (the dashed lines). UniRG is a promising step toward scaling medical imaging report generation

UniRG introduces a reinforcement learning–based framework that rethinks how medical imaging report generation models are trained and evaluated. By directly optimizing clinically grounded reward signals, UniRG-CXR achieves state-of-the-art performance across datasets, metrics, diagnostic tasks, longitudinal settings, and demographic subgroups, addressing longstanding limitations of supervised-only approaches.

Looking ahead, this framework can be extended to additional imaging modalities and clinical tasks, and combined with richer multimodal patient data such as prior imaging, laboratory results, and clinical notes. More broadly, UniRG highlights the promise of reinforcement learning as a core component of next-generation medical foundation models that are robust, generalizable, and clinically aligned.

UniRG reflects Microsoft’s larger commitment to advancing multimodal generative AI for precision health (opens in new tab), with other exciting progress such as GigaPath, BiomedCLIP, LLaVA-Rad (opens in new tab), BiomedJourney, BiomedParse, TrialScope, Curiosity.

Paper co-authors: Qianchu Liu, Sheng Zhang, Guanghui Qin, Yu Gu, Ying Jin, Sam Preston, Yanbo Xu, Sid Kiblawi, Wen-wai Yim, Tim Ossowski, Tristan Naumann, Mu Wei, Hoifung Poon

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The post UniRG: Scaling medical imaging report generation with multimodal reinforcement learning appeared first on Microsoft Research.

SAVE $50: As of Jan. 27, get the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for $199 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $249. That's a discount of 20% and the lowest price we've seen.

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When it comes to headphones, you've got plenty of choices out there. If you prefer earbuds to their over-the-ear cousins, however, there's one brand that stands tall over the rest: AirPods. And if you've been waiting to get a pair to upgrade your kit, you should head to Amazon now to pick up the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for the lowest price we've seen.

As of Jan. 27, get the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for $199 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $249. That's a discount of 20% and the lowest price we've seen.

SEE ALSO: Score $120 off Apple AirPods Max in Best Buy's 48-hour flash sale

Mashable reviewer Adam Doud called the AirPods Pro 3 "one of the best products of the year" in his review. They offer "phenomenal noise cancellation" as well as easy and seamless iPhone integration, and "premium sound", all within a tiny little package. Plus, they have active noise cancellation (ANC) as well as transparency mode and more. They're a refined version of the previous model, and well worth adding to your audio arsenal.

That makes them a great option for not just listening to music, but hanging out on calls with its even sound profile. Doud referred to this bump in quality as a "remarkable upgrade", which you'll undoubtedly appreciate whether you're coming from the previous AirPods or trying them for the first time.

Since they're up for grabs at the lowest price we've seen, now is the time to get a pair if you're interested, so jump on them while you can.

Amazon has agreed to a massive class action settlement that could put money back into the pockets of millions of U.S. shoppers who were incorrectly denied refunds on returns. This is big news for anyone who has ever had to chase down a credit after sending an item back to the retailer.

The Proton compatibility layer has helped bring many PC games to Linux, and it's updated regularly with new features and improvements. Now, Proton 10.0-4 has arrived with 19 new compatible games and a pile of bug fixes.

Google is showing no signs of slowing down the updates to Google Messages. And while some updates are better than others, a few highly requested features could finally be coming that'll improve the experience on your smartwatch.