NASA’s Apollo missions brought back moon rock samples for scientists to study. We’ve learned a great deal over the ensuing decades, but one enduring mystery remains. Many of those lunar samples show signs of exposure to strong magnetic fields comparable to Earth’s, yet the Moon doesn’t have such a field today. So, how did the moon rocks get their magnetism?

There have been many attempts to explain this anomaly. The latest comes from MIT scientists, who argue in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances that a large asteroid impact briefly boosted the Moon’s early weak magnetic field—and that this spike is what is recorded in some lunar samples.

Evidence gleaned from orbiting spacecraft observations, as well as results announced earlier this year from China’s Chang’e 5 and Chang’e 6 missions, is largely consistent with the existence of at least a weak magnetic field on the early Moon. But where did this field come from? These usually form in planetary bodies as a result of a dynamo, in which molten metals in the core start to convect thanks to slowly dissipating heat. The problem is that the early Moon’s small core had a mantle that wasn’t much cooler than its core, so there would not have been significant convection to produce a sufficiently strong dynamo.

Read full article

Comments

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Having your car stolen is a traumatic experience—and a depressingly common one. Although car thefts nationwide are trending downward, there were still more than 850,000 vehicles stolen in 2024. If you’ve ever woken up to find your car missing from its spot (and I have!) you know it’s not fun.

But thieves don’t always target the entire car. It’s often easier and less risky to steal a specific part from your car or truck. Many of these parts are relatively easy to access, remove, and sell, and the profit margin can be very lucrative for a busy and organized criminal. If your car is ever parked out in the open (especially overnight), it could be targeted for a surprisingly long list of specific parts. The good news is that you can protect every bit of your vehicle with a little foresight and a few security gadgets.

Catalytic converters

Ever since catalytic converters entered widespread use in the 1970s, thieves have targeted them. They’re a perfect storm for thieves: Accessible, relatively easy to remove, and valuable due to the mix of precious metals inside them (including palladium, platinum, and rhodium). Thieves know they can get between $250 and $800 for a catalytic converter, depending on the vehicle it was taken from. That’s why about 64,000 catalytic converter were stolen in 2022 alone.

How to stop thieves: The best thing you can do is to install an anti-theft device like a Catstrap. This is a band of strip steel that is adhered to the length of your exhaust system, making it almost impossible for thieves to cut through the pipes to steal the converter. You can also consider etching identifying information on the converter to make it difficult to sell on the black market. The downside of this approach is that thieves may not notice the etching until after they’ve removed the converter.

Wheels

Your car’s wheels and tires are prime targets for theft. Tires can be stripped off your car in a very short period of time, and they can be sold very easily, especially since tires—especially high-end tires—can run as much as $1,000 each.

How to stop thieves: Your best bet is to install model-appropriate locking lugnuts like these. These will make it very difficult for thieves to use standard tools to remove your wheels. With a lot of effort and some specialized tools, they can be defeated, but chances are your thief will just move on to a different car with wheels that are easier to steal.

Batteries

A standard car battery in a gas-powered vehicle isn’t worth much—typically less than 20 cents per pound. But batteries are also incredibly easy to steal, so thieves will sometimes make a sweep of an area to steal as many batteries as possible in order to make the payout worth their time. The batteries in a hybrid vehicle can be worth more, and the batteries in an electric vehicle can be very, very valuable—but also a lot harder to steal.

How to stop thieves: Adding a battery lock bracket is easy, cheap, and pretty effective. Since battery thieves don’t make much per battery, any additional barrier will probably deter them pretty effectively.

Tailgates

Yes, believe it or not, thieves are after your truck’s entire tailgate. This is especially true if you own a Toyota Tacoma, because the tailgates on that model are incredibly easy to detach—they’re literally engineered to be removed easily. But any truck tailgate is a target because they’re all relatively easy to remove, and these days your tailgate contains a bunch of high-tech gear (cameras, sensors, etc.) that can be stripped out for resale.

How to stop thieves: You can install a tailgate lock for your make and model (like this one for suffering Tacoma owners).

Airbags

It’s estimated that about 50,000 airbags are stolen annually in the U.S. They’re valuable, fetching up to $200 on the black market, which makes them attractive to thieves. Thieves usually target dealerships or other places where cars are left unattended in accessible lots, but cars parked on the street are also hit.

How to stop thieves: The best ways to stop airbag theft is to lock your car when you park it and park it inside a secured area, like a garage. If that’s not possible, using a steering wheel lock using the “club” design can be effective, as it physically makes it difficult to access the driver’s-side airbag. This won’t stop thieves from grabbing the passenger-side airbag, of course, but cutting their profit in half might inspire them to move on.

License plates

Thieves steal license plates because it’s an easy way to cloak a vehicle. Sometimes they’re put on stolen vehicles, sometimes they’re used to evade tolls—but the fact that they’re generally easy to steal and very difficult to track makes them popular targets. In fact, the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) notes that license plate theft has been rising rapidly—by 45% between 2019 and 2022 alone.

How to stop thieves: Swapping out the rusty, standard screws holding your plates on for some tamper-proof screws will do the job. These screws require a special fastener to attach or detach, and the kits come with screw covers to make it even more difficult to access.

Side mirrors

You might think your side mirrors are just mirrors, and who would bother stealing those? Ah, but modern-day side mirrors have a lot of technology inside them, especially on luxury vehicles, including blind spot sensors, defrosting systems, and cameras. Believe it or not, some mirrors can command upwards of $2,000 each!

How to stop thieves: If your side mirrors are motorized, turning them in when you park can make it more difficult for thieves to access them. You can also look for anti-theft mirror guards (like this one) for your make and model, which add a layer of security to the mirror to deter thieves.

Third row seats

If you have a truck or SUV with a removable third-row seat, you should know that it’s increasingly popular to steal them. The reason third-row seats are targeted is the universal reason anything gets stolen: These seats cost thousands of dollars to replace.

How to stop thieves: The best way to prevent theft of your truck’s third-row seat is to secure it with a bike lock. The specific lock that will work depends on how your third-row seat attaches and detaches, but all you need to do is secure it in place. It removes some of the convenience, but it’s a lot better than having your kids roll around in the cab while you drive.

Badges

People have been stealing car badges and hood ornaments for decades, often just to collect them or as petty acts of vandalism. But these days those emblems can actually contain a lot of expensive technology. Modern Volkswagens, for example, often tuck cruise control sensors into the hood emblem. That makes those badges a lot more valuable than you might think, and thieves are definitely aware of their added value.

How to stop thieves: It’s very difficult to stop someone from removing an emblem, badge, or ornament from your car. If you can access the back where it’s attached, you can try using wire or zipties to secure it more firmly—but if you can access it, so can thieves. Your best defense is to park the vehicle in a secure area whenever possible.

This is a video of Youtuber Marc3DP printing and playing with a selection of the exotic 3D printable fidget toys available for download on the internut (that’s how I pronounce it now at dinner parties). Some of those look pretty fun. Knowing me, they all look like they’ll eventually take a one-way trip to a junk drawer though.

If you’re interested in printing any of these yourself, there are links to them all on Marc’s Youtube page HERE.

When I first heard Samsung was bringing back the Edge name as a new super-thin member of the S25 family, all I could think was: Why? Honestly, I thought phone makers had gotten over their hunger for thinness nearly a decade ago. The quest to shave millimeters off devices resulted in worse battery life, extra heat and more limited features. So what gives?

On a certain level, just like fashion, older trends can over time become fresh and stylish again. Additionally, after phones made the transition to 5G — which required extra power, more complex modems and larger antennas — modern components have started shrinking again, essentially paving the way for the return of slimmer handsets. But then it hit me. While thinness may be the most striking thing about the Galaxy S25 Edge, that’s not enough to justify the creation of a whole new device. Instead, I believe this phone is a part of a larger mission by Samsung to make the middle child of its flagship mobile lineup a more appealing member of the family. And when viewed in that light, I actually think it’s largely a success.

Design

Now don’t get me wrong, despite my gripes about how thinner phones are less practical, the S25 Edge is beautifully designed. At just 5.8mm thick (0.23 inches), it feels impossibly sleek. What might be even more impressive is that Samsung hasn’t sacrificed durability to get here either. Just like the S25 Ultra, the Edge features a titanium frame, an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance and an even stronger Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 panel covering its display. The one difference is that the Edge’s screen has a glossy finish instead of matte like on the Ultra because — and I kid you not — Samsung says an anti-reflective coating would have increased its thickness. Kudos to sticking to a strict design philosophy, because in terms of sheer feel and aesthetics, S25 Edge is undeniably enchanting.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

However, while the S25 Edge shares some characteristics with the Ultra, like its frame and main camera, at least when it comes to its overall size, it’s really more of a refreshed take on the S25+. It has the same 6.7-inch OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate that’s just as vibrant and wonderfully colorful as before. Although it does weigh a bit less at 163 grams or 5.75 ounces versus the S25+ (190g or 6.7 oz).

Performance

Like the rest of the S25 family, the Edge is powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Despite the compact dimensions, Samsung still found room to squeeze a vapor chamber inside to prevent throttling and overheating. So even when pushed, the back of the phone rarely got more than lukewarm while delivering strong performance as I was gaming, multitasking or doing pretty much anything else you can think of.

Cameras

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

The other major departure from the S25+’s basic template is that the Edge features the 200MP main sensor from the Ultra, along with a 12MP ultra-wide cam. But there’s no dedicated zoom. Now at first, I was a bit upset because I think any phone this expensive should have a telephoto lens. That said, the massive amount of pixels the Edge’s primary sensor can capture means you have quite a bit of freedom to crop in without degrading image quality. You just need to remember to tell the camera to shoot in full 200MP mode instead of the standard 12MP setting. One other small change is that Edge features a slightly wider-angle 12MP selfie cam than the S25+ and Ultra, which allows you to fit more people in group shots, but that’s really the main difference.

In general use, the S25 Edge takes great pics. Colors are rich and details are crisp, though you still get Samsung’s slightly oversaturated hues and warmer tones. The same goes for low-light shots. For this review, instead of comparing it to a Pixel or iPhone, I pitted the Edge against the Motorola Razr Ultra. I feel like both are attempting to woo people who want a sleek and stylish device, but they are doing it in very different ways.

What immediately jumped out is that foldable phones (at least the Razr) still lag behind more traditional glass bricks, even ones as thin as the Edge. In nearly every shot, Samsung’s handset produced brighter, sharper and better-exposed images than Motorola’s. So if you’re the kind of person who wants a compact phone without needing to sacrifice image quality, the S25 Edge is a stronger pick.

Battery life

The biggest trade-off when making a phone this skinny is having less room for its battery. As such, the S25 Edge has the smallest power pack in the family at 3,900 mAh, which is 100mAh less than what’s in a base S25. This led to a time of just 25 hours and 59 minutes on our local video rundown test. That’s not terrible, but it is three and a half hours less than what we got from the S25 Ultra (29:27) and two hours worse than a standard S25. For those who care a lot about longevity, you have been warned.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

Thankfully, the S25 Edge still has support for wireless charging at an acceptable 15 watts, though its wired speeds are just average at 25 watts. However, as the phone is merely “Qi2 ready,” anyone who wants to use compatible magnetic wireless accessories will need to buy a case or an adhesive mount with a built-in magnet, because there isn’t one inside the phone itself.

Wrap-up

The S25 Edge is a divisive phone. I still don’t fully grasp the desire to make modern phones thinner than they already are. Particularly if you’re like most folks and you throw the thing in a case as soon as you get it (even when accounting for Samsung’s new super slim option). Shaving off an extra 1.5mm over the standard S25 doesn’t really make a tangible difference in how you use it, unless you consider the phone’s reduced battery life a good thing.

Sam Rutherford for Engadget

But as an alternative to the humdrum S25+, suddenly things get a lot more interesting. Samsung’s previous middle child costs significantly more than a base S25, but it doesn’t have the fancy features like a super high-res main camera or a titanium frame like you get on the S25 Ultra. Really, the S25+’s most attractive feature is a nicely-sized 6.7-inch screen.

Now here’s where the Galaxy S25 Edge comes in. It has all of those things alongside a super thin and wonderfully crafted chassis for the same $1,100 starting price as the S25+. Yes, Samsung sacrificed some battery capacity and the phone’s dedicated zoom to get here, but those aren’t straight-up dealbreakers. That’s because with the Edge, the new in-between member of Samsung’s flagship mobile family is more than just skinny — it has a stylish identity that can stand on its own.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-galaxy-s25-edge-review-more-than-just-super-thin-180042172.html?src=rss

We may earn a commission from links on this page.

Garmin has launched a new feature in its Connect app (the companion app you use when you sync your watch to your phone). It’s called Garmin Trails, and it purports to help you find hiking trails near you. With a Connect+ subscription, you can even sync courses for those trails to your map-enabled watch.

It sounds pretty great. Unfortunately, its selection of trails is pretty disappointing at launch—it doesn’t even suggest I try out my own favorite trails.

How to access Garmin Trails

You don’t need a Connect+ subscription to search for trails, filter for features, and look at the routes and reviews of trail—all of that comes free with the regular Connect app, whether on your phone or through the Connect Web interface. If you have a Garmin device, you already have a login for these services. 

To find it Garmin Trails from within Connect, tap the More menu in the app, find and tap Training and Planning, and then scroll to Garmin Trails. You’ll be given a map of suggested trails. Zoom the map and tap on the little hiker icons to see each individual trail, or search by name in the search bar above. Unfortunately, the search results aren’t sorted in any logical way, such as by distance. If I search for the name of a trail near me in Pennsylvania, I see results from Maine and Maryland before the Pennsylvania ones.

There’s also a filter icon, which you can use to limit your results by distance from your current location, the amount of ascent in the trail, as well as rating, difficulty, trail type, and features. 

The features you can filter for include: 

• Dog friendly

• No dogs

• Waterfalls

• Lakes

• Rivers

• Oceans

• Mountaineering

• Steep sections

• Forest

• Flowers

• Kid friendly

• Permit required

• Water sources

• Reaches peaks

• Rough road

Only the U.S. and a few European countries are supported right now

At launch, trails are only available in the U.S. and in four European countries: Austria, Germany, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland. “New trails in different regions will be added periodically,” says a Garmin support page.

Garmin’s original announcement didn’t mention this restriction, so much of the chatter I’m seeing about this online involves disappointment from users outside this handful of countries. This writer in the U.K., for example, calls the feature “NoTrails” (referencing competitor AllTrails, get it?) 

In the U.S., I’m definitely seeing some trails, but not enough to make the feature particularly useful. 

I’m just not seeing a lot of trails

I like to run and hike on trails, and I live near a county park that is absolutely riddled with hikeable, runnable, and mountain bike-able trails. There’s a local trail running group that meets six times a week, seemingly always at a different spot (I’m sure they repeat their favorites, but there is plenty of variety on offer). So what does Garmin Trails have in its database for my area?

Here’s Garmin on the left, and the county trails website on the right: 

Garmin, left; Allegheny County website, right.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin/Allegheny County

Kudos to Garmin for knowing about the Rachel Carson trail, that long one that appears as a black line. It’s 46 miles long and quite well-known in the area. Garmin has it listed as a series of short segments. They are correctly labeled as “hard” difficulty. 

But the entire North Park area has two trails? I’m not even sure how a person would find out about the Orange and Green trails without learning about all the others in the park. Where is the Red trail, with its red-and-blue branch with all the switchbacks? Where is the flat half-mile trail by the nature center that I always took my kids on when they were little? Where is the White trail that circles the baseball fields?

As for those Orange and Green trails, both are labeled with their correct distance, but they’re also both marked as “easy,” which they are definitely not. I did a trail run last week that included the whole Orange trail and part of the Green. It was about five miles and had 800 feet of elevation gain. That’s not an easy trail at all. 

I asked a Garmin rep where the trail data comes from, and was told Garmin used, “a variety of sources and our in-house cartography team.” As far as I can tell, they aren’t copied from AllTrails or any other source, or at least not directly. (Might be better if they were; AllTrails has the Green trail more reasonably labeled as moderate rather than easy.)

Browsing through other areas I’m familiar with, it seems that the most iconic trails in any spot are in the database, so this tool isn’t useless, just incomplete (hopefully temporarily). A few of the gorge trails I remember most fondly from Ithaca, NY are in there. Yellowstone National Park has plenty of labeled trails. 

I asked fellow Lifehacker writer Daniel Oropeza to look for trails in areas he was familiar with, and he compared the Three Sisters Waterfall area in Garmin and AllTrails. Garmin has one trail to the waterfall, while there are actually four; the wider area has 19 trails in the Garmin database, but 143 in AllTrails. 

Garmin, left; AllTrails, right.
Credit: Beth Skwarecki/Garmin, Daniel Oropeza/AllTrails

It’s free to browse trails, but you must pay to send them to your watch

Garmin Trails seems to be a pot-sweetener for the new Connect+ subscription tier. The Trails feature itself is free, but only subscribers to Connect+ (or Maps+, another Garmin offering) can send trail courses from this database to their devices. Compatible devices include anything that supports courses, like most recent Fenix, Forerunner, and Instinct watches (and Edge cycling computers). A watch that supports maps, like the new Forerunner 970, would be a natural pairing with this new feature.

Trails also seems to be a slightly different version of the Courses feature that Garmin has had for a while. (You can find Courses at this link, if you have a Garmin login). Courses can be private or user-created; there’s currently no way for users to create a trail. That means there can be multiple versions of the same trail, and courses that don’t correspond to a specific trail—somebody who ran part of the Orange and part of the Green, let’s say, because that happened to be convenient for them on the day they created that course. 

If more trails get added to Garmin Trails, it could eventually be a useful feature. The trail ratings, comments, and filters are handy to have. But AllTrails already has those features, and you can load AllTrails routes to your Garmin watch if you subscribe to AllTrails Plus, which is $35.99/year—cheaper than Garmin Connect+, which will cost you $6.99/month or $69.99/year.

Rice plants can inherit tolerance to cold without changes to their genomes, according to a decade-long study carried out by researchers in China. From a report: The work, published in Cell this week, strengthens the evidence for a form of evolution in which environmental pressures induce heritable changes that do not alter an organism’s DNA. The study conducted experiments that demonstrate, for the first time, the mechanism for these changes — ‘epigenetic’ tweaks to chemical markers on the plant’s DNA that don’t actually tinker with the sequences themselves.

“What they’re showing is extremely convincing; I would say that it’s a landmark in the field,” says Leandro Quadrana, a plant geneticist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris-Saclay. Michael Skinner, who studies epigenetic inheritance at Washington State University in Pullman, says the study adds to the growing body of evidence challenging the prevailing view of evolution that the only way that adaptations emerge is through gradual natural selection of randomly arising DNA mutations. This study shows that the environment isn’t just a passive actor in evolution, but a selective force inducing a targeted change.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Tuesday, Google launched Veo 3, a new AI video synthesis model that can do something no major AI video generator has been able to do before: create a synchronized audio track. While from 2022 to 2024, we saw early steps in AI video generation, each video was silent and usually very short in duration. Now you can hear voices, dialog, and sound effects in eight-second high-definition video clips.

Shortly after the new launch, people began asking the most obvious benchmarking question: How good is Veo 3 at faking Oscar-winning actor Will Smith at eating spaghetti?

First, a brief recap. The spaghetti benchmark in AI video traces its origins back to March 2023, when we first covered an early example of horrific AI-generated video using an open source video synthesis model called ModelScope. The spaghetti example later became well-known enough that Smith parodied it almost a year later in February 2024.

Read full article

Comments

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

When it comes to speakers, Sonos has the best reputation and the best companion app on the market. If you’re interested in seeing what the hype is all about, it’s a great time to test the waters, as Sono’s entry-level speaker, the Sonos Roam 2, has reached a record low price, according to price tracking tools.

The portable, waterproof device is on sale for $134 (originally $179) at Amazon, part of a small Sonos sale that also includes the a discount on the larger Sonos Move 2 (also currently at its lowest price ever).

Sonos Roam 2

Connectivity Technology: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Audio Output Mode: Mono

$134.00
at Amazon

$179.00
Save $45.00

$134.00
at Amazon

$179.00
Save $45.00

The Roam 2 is Sonos’ addition to the portable outdoor speaker market, and like most Sonos speakers, it integrates seamlessly into the Sonos ecosystem so you can use it to play multi-room media. If you get more than one speaker, you can pair them to create true stereo sound as well.

This speaker can also double as a speakerphone. There’s an in-app EQ for you to fiddle around with, it has wireless charging, is waterproof with an an IP67 rating, and offers support for both Alexa and the Sonos voice assistant. (You can learn more in PCMag’s “good” review.)

The defining characteristic of this speaker is its great audio quality despite its small size (2.4 by 6.6 by 2.4 inches) and light weight (0.95 pounds). The Trueplay feature, which uses microphones to gauge your surroundings and adjust the audio accordingly, gives it an edge over the competition.

Note that while Sonos has traditionally been praised for its speakers’ companion app, people have recently complained about the app dropping some features. However, the company appears to be trying to rectify their issues, and it’s still the best app for speakers I have used.

At this price, it’s a great opportunity to try your first Sonos speaker, or add a portable one to your existing Sonos ecosystem.

Harvard University’s Galileo Project is using AI to automate the search for unidentified anomalous phenomena, marking a significant shift in how academics approach what was once considered fringe research. The project operates a Massachusetts observatory equipped with infrared cameras, acoustic sensors, and radio-frequency analyzers that continuously scan the sky for unusual objects.

Researchers Laura Domine and Richard Cloete are training machine learning algorithms to recognize all normal aerial phenomena — planes, birds, drones, weather balloons — so the system can flag genuine anomalies for human analysis. The team uses computer vision software called YOLO (You Only Look Once) and has generated hundreds of thousands of synthetic images to train their models, though the software currently identifies only 36% of aircraft captured by infrared cameras.

The Pentagon is pursuing parallel efforts through its All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, which has examined over 1,800 UAP reports and identified 50 to 60 cases as “true anomalies” that government scientists cannot explain. AARO has developed its own sensor suite called Gremlin, using similar technology to Harvard’s observatory. Both programs represent the growing legitimization of UAP research following 2017 Defense Department disclosures about military encounters with unexplained aerial phenomena.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I really like the iPhone’s Dynamic Island, the pill-shaped cutout near the top of the device’s screen. It’s an aesthetically pleasing way to check your battery percentage, record voice notes, and control music playback, among many other things. Since many MacBooks have a display notch too, you can use an app to bring an iPhone-like Dynamic Island to your laptop. Doing this makes the cutout look like a useful design feature rather than an abrupt gap in the screen, and some apps even let you move the giant volume and brightness adjustment popups to the Dynamic Island.

Alcove brings the Dynamic Island to your Mac

Credit: Pranay Parab

I’ve been using Alcove on a MacBook without a notch and I’m still finding it pretty useful. This app’s developer is known to focus on design, just as they did with Klack—an app that makes your Mac’s keyboard sound vintage. Alcove’s neat status updates highlight useful information in a slick interface. It takes over your Mac’s volume and brightness adjustment popups and moves those to the notch. This is a better implementation than Apple’s giant popups, which hide a significant part of the screen temporarily—a problem they’ve since fixed on iOS.

You can also use Alcove to keep a tab on Focuses, changes in songs, and access playback controls. The app can even show some of these changes on your Mac’s lock screen. I also like the app’s animations, from the small visualizer that shows up when you play music to the different themes of the brightness and volume sliders. If you choose the Glow theme for the volume slider, the color of the slider changes from green to red when you exceed 80% volume. 

Credit: Pranay Parab

This app supports gestures, so you can use horizontal two-finger swipes on your MacBook to skip to the next song or go back to the previous song. You can use vertical swipes to expand playback controls or to dismiss live activities that show up in the notch. 

You can try all of the app’s features for a couple days without paying, and once the free trial is over, you’ll have to pay $17 to continue using the app. The price may be a bit steep for someone who just wants music playback controls and nothing else, but Alcove is among the few apps that truly recreates the iPhone’s Dynamic Island on your Mac, right down to all the delightful animations.

Other useful notch apps

There are lots of other apps that make good use of the MacBook’s notch, but these are my favorites:

• Notchnook ($25): This is another well-designed app and offers a few more features than Alcove and costs a bit more. You get more widgets, shortcuts, and even a mirror that lets you check your frame before a video call. Notchnook’s file tray lets you quickly AirDrop files or store them in a temporary shelf, which makes it easy to move files around.

• Mediamate (€7): You can use this app for music controls, to slim down the massive brightness and volume controls, and to choose where to place those control sliders. You can place them in the notch or use slimmer sliders in the middle of the screen.

• Tuneful ($4): This one is a music-focused notch app, which lets you connect to both Apple Music and Spotify. You can use it to show playback controls and the currently playing song in the notch, but it also includes gesture-based playback controls. In case you don’t want it in the notch, you can enable its mini player to show the album art and playback controls in other areas of the display.

OnlyFans is on the selling block, according to a report by Reuters. The current owner of the adult entertainment platform, Fenix International Ltd, is in talks to sell to an investor group at a valuation of around $8 billion. This group is being led by an entity called the Forest Road Company, which is an investment firm based in Los Angeles.

The platform generated $6.6 billion in revenue just in 2023, so the idea of an $8 billion payout doesn’t seem that far-fetched. OnlyFans became a global phenomenon during the COVID-19 pandemic and it takes 20 percent of all creator earnings.

Investor interest has peaked over the past several months as impressive earning statements became public. It has managed to triple its revenue since 2020, which is something many companies that experienced pandemic-related boosts cannot say.

Sources have stated that a deal could be reached within the next week or two. However, Fenix International Ltd have also been in talks with other potential buyers. An IPO is also being considered, an idea that’s been floating around since 2022.

However, an outright purchase is more likely than a public offering. This is due to the porn of it all. The company tried to get around this by announcing a ban on sexually explicit content in 2021, but reversed course before the ban even went into place. OnlyFans is, after all, primarily for sexually explicit content.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/onlyfans-is-in-talks-to-sell-for-8-billion-165318788.html?src=rss

Is it weird to have nostalgia for an operating system? I don’t mean missing a particular feature that’s been removed from modern versions or a specific productivity setting that’s no longer supported. I mean a sense of longing for the vibes of the computer interface you grew up with, an ache for the aesthetics of user interfaces past.

I would have thought I was immune to this particular brand of nostalgia. Then I happened upon Desktop Survivors 98, a new Vampire Survivors-style “bullet heaven” autoshooter that leans hard into the aesthetics of the late ’90s Windows machines I grew up with. And while that low-res, 256-color presentation is what drew me in, it was the intriguing mouse-controlled gameplay underneath that has kept me coming back for more retro-styled action all week.

Start me up

When it comes to capturing the feel of the ’90s computer environment, Desktop Survivors 98 gets everything just right. This is in large part due to rampant theft of familiar old-school icons; items like My Computer, Calculator, Minesweeper, Search, and more look like they were taken directly from a classic Microsoft tile set. The game’s low-res desktop backgrounds and Windows also look like they came out of a years-old Microsoft style book.

Read full article

Comments

Glitch, the coding platform where developers can share and remix projects, will soon no longer offer its core feature: hosting apps on the web. From a report: In an update on Thursday, Glitch CEO Anil Dash said it will stop hosting projects and close user profiles on July 8th, 2025 — but stopped short of saying that it’s shutting down completely.

Users will be able to access their dashboard and download code for their projects through the end of 2025, and Glitch is working on a new feature that allows users to redirect their project subdomains. The platform has also stopped taking new Pro subscriptions, but it will continue to honor existing subscriptions until July 8th.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I do think it’s time to start assuming everything you see online is fake.

The internet is full of content produced by real people, of course (this article included). But AI-generated media is getting so realistic, that it almost puts you at a disadvantage to presume the content you’re scrolling past on your feeds is legitimate.

Don’t skip this article because you know what AI content looks like—the current stuff your algorithm delivers to your social media feeds is easy to spot if you know what you’re looking for. But even if you can identify AI slop the second it hits your eyeballs, you need to know you’re not ready for the next wave of AI-generated videos. That wave isn’t just on its way—it’s already here.

AI content is already fooling people

Most of us are acutely aware of the “AI video” look: This “tragic” video of a cat parent saving their kitten by throwing it out of a burning airplane is obvious AI slop to most who watch it. You probably know Trump isn’t working this construction site, and you most assuredly can understand this family of cat farmers is, in fact, AI-generated.

But there are the videos that aren’t so obvious, especially to those of us not quite so in tune with AI, or technology in general. You might know this video of babies dancing in a circle is AI, but plenty of the people in the comments didn’t (assuming they aren’t bots, either). You might also be able to tell that this family of pets isn’t really watching a bird investigate a toy alligator, but, again, plenty can’t. And there is no end to the America’s Got Talent videos that feature “realistic” yet impossible visuals—that still capture the hearts of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people. (I weep.)

But I’m not writing this piece today because I’m concerned about how many of these “believable” AI videos are tricking way too many people into thinking they’re real. I am worried about that, but those worries pale in comparison to my new fears.

So far, most of the AI videos taking over social media feeds rely mainly on their visuals and background sounds to sell their alleged authenticity. You’ll notice none of the characters in any of these videos actually speak. If they do, it’s immediately off-putting, with out of sync lip movements and, typically, robotic voices. It’s been easier for AI creators to put the emphasis on the realism of the people and animals in their videos, and hope you’re wowed enough by a baby dancing with a lion to not think, “this is bullshit, right?”

Even OpenAI’s Sora video model, which shocked me with its quality in February of last year, was working off of its realistic visuals. A video of woman “filming” her reflection through a train window too real for comfort, but Sora wasn’t spitting out fully-rendered conversations. If you see such a scene on your feeds, you probably assume, of course, it’s a real video—or at least one generated by humans.

AI video is about to change completely

Something happened this week that only made me more pessimistic about the future of truth on the internet. During this week’s Google I/O event, Google unveiled Veo 3, its latest AI video model. Like other competitive models out there, Veo 3 can generate highly realistic sequences, which Google showed off throughout the presentation. Sure, not great, but also, nothing really new there.

But Veo 3 isn’t just capable of generating video that might trick your eye into thinking its real: Veo 3 can also generate audio to go alongside the video. That includes sound effects, but also dialogue—lip-synced dialogue.

In order to demonstrate Veo 3’s audio/video capabilities, Google showed off a clip of an old sailor at sea. The video quality is sharp and realistic, and the words the man speaks are synced to his lip movements. Of course, knowing the video is AI, you notice quirks that give away the game (to my eye, this looks like a high quality animation more than a live action shot) but I am quite confident this video would fool a lot of fans of fake AGT videos.

But even this clip wasn’t what inspired my newfound fears—it was the videos that users started making once they got their hands on Veo 3. PetaPixel has a great roundup of some of the “best” Veo 3 videos people have made so far, but I’ll highlight some of the ones that should scare you most.

This clip shows a streamer playing Fortnite. Everything, including the game footage, was generated with Google’s AI:

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

This clip shows three concerts that never happened, featuring musicians and crowds that do not exist. The music isn’t good, but that’s not the point. The music, from the vocals to the instrumentals, was generated entirely by the AI, and then synced to lips, drums, guitars, and strings:

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

But this clip is, without a doubt, the one that should sound the alarm for each and every one of us. Someone generated a fake video of a fake car show, featuring fake interviews with fake attendees. It’s far from perfect, but any AI quirks are totally overshadowed by the surface-level realism here. Not only would the AI’s Got Talent fans buy this, I would buy this, especially if I wasn’t looking out for it:

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

It’s the visuals; it’s the dialogue; it’s the crowds; it’s the lighting; it’s the candid laughter at “mistakes;” it’s the sound of the mic being “bumped” into. Congratulations on noticing the dialogue often doesn’t make sense, or that the people in the background defy the laws of physics—you won’t notice it when it hits mid-scroll on TikTok or Instagram.

Even Veo 2, which isn’t as powerful as Veo 3, now offers tools for realism, like the ability to dictate how you want the camera to move. And both models are available in Flow, Google’s AI video editor of sorts. Creators now have the ability to generate highly realistic AI content that feels like it was filmed in-person, and the tech is only getting better.

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

Google’s best AI video generator tools cost $250 a month through its new AI Ultra subscription plan. That’s expensive, but not out of reach for plenty of people interested in making AI-generated content. But the $20 per month plan, AI Pro, still comes with Veo 2 and Flow access. The rate limits are lower, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see some realistic slop come out of those limitations, too.

It’s time to be a full-time skeptic

None of this tech is perfect. I’m not here to tell you that everything Veo 3 spits out is indistinguishable from real content, or that the videos are absent any of the usual AI tells. In fact, there’s clearly something up with Veo 3’s training data: As 404 Media reports, the model continuously generates the same weird “dad joke” whenever you ask for a generation of a comedian performing standup.

What I’m saying is, it’s time to turn on your bullshit detectors and keep them active full time. When engaging with videos on the internet—especially short-form algorithmic clips—you might be safer operating under the assumption the content is fake from the jump, and require proof beyond a reasonable doubt that what you’re seeing wasn’t generated with a simple prompt and a $250 budget. That feels extreme, but after what I’ve seen this week, I don’t really see another way to engage with this content going forward.

We’re in scary territory now. Today, it’s demos of musicians and streamers. Tomorrow, it’s a politician saying something they didn’t; a suspect committing the crime they’re accused of; a “reporter” feeding you lies through the “news.”

I hope this is as good as the technology gets. I hope AI companies run out of training data to improve their models, and that governments take some action to regulate this technology. But seeing as the Republicans in the United States passed a bill that included a ban on state-enforced AI regulations for ten years, I’m pretty pessimistic on that latter point.

In all likelihood, this tech is going to get better, with zero guardrails to ensure it advances safely. I’m left wondering how many of those politicians who voted yes on that bill watched an AI-generated video on their phone this week and thought nothing of it.

This Memorial Day deal sucks… in a good way. The Dyson 360 Vis Nav may have the best suction of any robot vacuum. This purple dirt eater usually retails for $1,000. But you can get it for a mere $800 this holiday weekend. That’s a record low.

The deal is featured on Dyson’s website, Amazon and Best Buy. Even the world-famous Ginsu knife Mecca, QVC, got in on the action.

Dyson says the 360 Vis Nav sucks debris as well as its cordless stick vacuums. The company claims it’s twice as powerful as any of its competitors. For the technically minded, it offers 22,000 Pa/pascals of suction pressure. In short, that’s a lot. Your dirty, pet-hair-infested floor won’t stand a chance.

The D-shaped robovac has a little actuator protruding from its sides. It’s an alternative to the side sweepers on competing models. The little duct only opens when cleaning edges and corners.

Valentina Palladino for Engadget

In addition to its suction, the vacuum’s most impressive feature is its obstacle avoidance. Engadget’s Valentina Palladino tested it with small objects left on the floor, but the Dyson never got stuck. Many competitors run into all sorts of obstacles on a typical run.

There are a few drawbacks. The 360 Vis Nav doesn’t mop. It also lacks an auto-emptying dust bin. (Although doing it manually is quick and easy.) It also lacks LiDAR. That means mapping your home can be slower and vacuuming at night won’t be as smooth. What this model offers is the best suction possible and top-notch obstacle avoidance. And for $200 off its retail price, that’s not too shabby.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/dyson-memorial-day-deals-include-200-off-the-360-vis-nav-robot-vacuum-162737610.html?src=rss