Plus, is there still hope for the Last Starfighter sequel?

The crowdfunding campaign for Mangione’s legal defense has raised over $730,000.

Save $600 on this powerful vacuum and sophisticated self-emptying and refilling mopping robot during Amazon’s limited-time 43% off sale.

Social media apps aren’t exactly known for their privacy and security features, but TikTok users are getting a little bit of help with a built-in tool to monitor their account security and keep their information safe. The new Security Checkup dashboard shows you where your TikTok security is lacking with step-by-step guidance to update your settings.

How to use TikTok’s Security Checkup

To get to your security dashboard on TikTok, go to your profile and tap Settings and privacy > Security and permissions. Security Checkup will show you which settings have been completed and which need attention, with guidance on how to update each:

• Adding an email and/or phone number for account recovery

• Enabling two-step verification

• Creating a passkey with device-based authentication like Face ID or Touch Unlock

• Checking which devices are logged into your account (and removing any that are unauthorized or aren’t in use)

TikTok will also flag “unusual account behavior” and log it in your Security Checkup for you to review.

TikTok isn’t the only social media platform with this kind of security feature. Meta, for example, has a Security Checkup on Instagram that guides users through improving their password strength, enabling two-factor authentication, and adding account recovery information. You can find this in your profile settings (tap the three vertical lines) and go to Accounts Center > Password and Security > Security Checkup to select the account you want to evaluate.

Google has a similar dashboard that shows you where you are signed in with your Google account, apps and services you’ve connected, recent security activity, sign-in and recovery settings, and recommendations for improving your account security.

Samsung has dropped the price of their top-of-the-line Android tablet by $180 and they’re offering up to $800 of stackable trade-in credit too.

Airport security will probably always be somewhat of a hassle, but one friction point you can potentially minimize is utilizing a digital ID in place of a physical one—and if you’re an Android user, your passport added to Google Wallet’s ID pass is officially accepted by TSA.

It’s certainly convenient to not have to carry or keep track of your physical passport when you travel, and a digital passport in ID pass can get you through security screening if you don’t have a REAL ID after the requirements take effect on May 7. That said, your digital passport doesn’t completely replace your physical document, which you’ll still need when traveling internationally and in situations where you have to present identification outside of TSA.

Here’s how to digitize your passport and other forms of identification for the next time you fly.

How to add your passport to Google Wallet

To add your passport to ID pass, open Google Wallet on your Android device and tap the + icon. Tap ID > ID pass, then hit the Get Started button. The app will guide you through a series of instructions to scan your passport and your face, which will take several minutes to complete and approve.

You can also add a state-issued ID (like your driver’s license) to Google Wallet using this same process—just select ID > Driver’s license or state ID instead of ID pass.

How to use other digital IDs for travel

At the time of writing, Apple Wallet and Samsung Wallet do not support passports, and ID pass for Google Wallet is the only digital passport accepted at TSA for domestic travel. However, your driver’s license or identification card stored in Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, or a state-specific mobile app can also get you through security screening if issued by one of the following states:

• Arizona

• California

• Colorado

• Georgia

• Hawaii

• Iowa

• Louisiana

• Maryland

• New Mexico

• New York

• Ohio

• Puerto Rico

• Utah

• Virginia

• West Virginia

To add an ID to Apple Wallet, tap the + icon in the app and hit Driver’s License or State ID. Select your eligible state, and follow the prompts. For Samsung Wallet, click the + icon, tap Digital IDs > Driver’s License/State ID, and follow the instructions to scan your ID and face and authenticate with your fingerprint or a PIN. Note that some of the states listed (like New York and Utah) require you to use a state-specific app for digital IDs instead of your device’s digital wallet.

Even if you have a digital ID, don’t count on being able to use it at every airport. Check TSA’s digital ID map before you leave home to make sure any airport you are traveling through accepts eligible digital IDs.

(On the flip side, TSA PreCheck members traveling on Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Alaska Airlines out of a select number of airports can clear security solely on facial recognition—no physical or digital documents required.)

About 252 million years ago, volcanic eruptions triggered the End-Permian Mass Extinction, also known as the Great Dying. About 96 percent of marine species were wiped out—but were things just as grim on land?

Scientists have debated whether this event caused nearly as much terrestrial destruction. Now, researchers from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology (NIGPAS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences suggest that terrestrial ecosystems did not suffer nearly as much as the oceans.

Led by paleontologist Feng Liu, the NIGPAS team found evidence for refugiums, oases where life thrived despite the devastation. Not only did these refugiums give life a chance to survive the mass extinction event, which lasted 200,000 years, but they are now thought to have been crucial to rebuilding ecosystems in much less time than was previously assumed.

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Pro-level noise cancellation, amazing battery life, deep bass, and supreme comfort make these among the best $249 headphones anywhere.

Optical illusions are great fun, and they fool virtually everyone. But have you ever wondered if you could train yourself to unsee these illusions? Our latest research suggests that you can.

Optical illusions tell a lot about how people see things. For example, look at the picture below.

The Ebbinghaus illusion.
Credit:
Hermann Ebbinghaus

The two orange circles are identical, but the one on the right looks bigger. Why? We use context to figure out what we are seeing. Something surrounded by smaller things is often quite big. Our visual system takes context into account, so it judges the orange circle on the right as bigger than the one on the left.

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Google parent Alphabet has agreed to buy cyber security start-up Wiz for $32 billion, the biggest acquisition in the search group’s history, according to Financial Times, which cites sources. From the report: Alphabet held talks over a $23 billion acquisition of Wiz last year, although the negotiations collapsed after some of the cyber security company’s directors and investors became worried about antitrust hurdles.

The deal, which will rank as the biggest deal of the year so far, will be announced on Tuesday morning, a person said. It will probably still face scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission under President Donald Trump, whose new chair Andrew Ferguson has maintained guidelines giving the agency the ability to block large deals used by his predecessor Lina Khan.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There’s a new Google AI model in town, and it can generate or edit images as easily as it can create text—as part of its chatbot conversation. The results aren’t perfect, but it’s quite possible everyone in the near future will be able to manipulate images this way.

Last Wednesday, Google expanded access to Gemini 2.0 Flash’s native image generation capabilities, making the experimental feature available to anyone using Google AI Studio. Previously limited to testers since December, the multimodal technology integrates both native text and image processing capabilities into one AI model.

The new model, titled “Gemini 2.0 Flash (Image Generation) Experimental,” flew somewhat under the radar last week, but it has been garnering more attention over the past few days due to its ability to remove watermarks from images, albeit with artifacts and a reduction in image quality.

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A massive $900 limit on trade-in credit, or $300 off without trade, are the latest incentives to make the Galaxy S25 Ultra your favorite smartphone ever.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost science station accomplished a lot on the Moon in the last two weeks. Among other things, its instruments drilled into the Moon’s surface, tested an extraterrestrial vacuum cleaner, and showed that future missions could use GPS navigation signals to navigate on the lunar surface.

These are all important achievements, gathering data that could shed light on the Moon’s formation and evolution, demonstrating new ways of collecting samples on other planets, and revealing the remarkable reach of the US military’s GPS satellite network.

But the pièce de résistance for Firefly’s first Moon mission might be the daily dose of imagery that streamed down from the Blue Ghost spacecraft. A suite of cameras recorded the cloud of dust created as the lander’s engine plume blew away the uppermost layer of lunar soil as it touched down March 2 in Mare Crisium, or the Sea of Crises. This location is in a flat basin situated on the upper right quadrant of the side of the Moon always facing the Earth.

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The tusk may have belonged to a Columbian mammoth, an Ice Age species that disappeared over 11,000 years ago.

HR software startup Rippling has sued competitor Deel, alleging that Deel orchestrated corporate espionage by recruiting an employee within Rippling to steal trade secrets, including customer data, sales strategies, and internal records. The lawsuit (PDF) claims the spy shared confidential information with Deel executives and a reporter, leading to legal action under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Deel denies wrongdoing and plans to counter the claims. CNBC reports: The two startups are among the most world’s most valuable. Investors valued Rippling at $13.5 billion in a funding round announced last year, while Deel told media outlets in 2023 that it was worth $12 billion. Deel ranked No. 28 on CNBC’s 2024 Disruptor 50 list. “Weeks after Rippling is accused of violating sanctions law in Russia and seeding falsehoods about Deel, Rippling is trying to shift the narrative with these sensationalized claims,” a Deel spokesperson told CNBC in an email. “We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims.”

Rippling confirmed its findings earlier this month. The company’s general counsel sent a letter to three Deel executives that referred to a new Slack channel, and the Deel spy quickly looked for it. Rippling subsequently served a court order to the spy at its office in Dublin, Ireland requiring him to preserve information on his mobile phone. “Deel’s spy lied to the court-appointed solicitor about the location of his phone, and then locked himself in a bathroom — seemingly in order to delete evidence from his phone — all while the independent solicitor repeatedly warned him not to delete materials from his device and that his non-compliance was breaching a court order with penal endorsement,” Rippling said in Monday’s filing. “The spy responded: ‘I’m willing to take that risk.’ He then fled the premises.” “We always prefer to win by building the best products and we don’t turn to the legal system lightly,” Parker Conrad, Rippling’s co-founder and CEO, said in a Monday X post. “But we are taking this extraordinary step to send a clear message that this type of misconduct has no place in our industry.”

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