Over the weekend, Windows Latest noticed that Microsoft’s official Copilot Discord server began automatically blocking the term “Microslop.” As shown in a screenshot, any message containing the word is automatically prevented from posting, and users receive a moderation notice explaining that the message includes language deemed inappropriate under the server’s rules. From the report: Windows Latest found that sending a message with the word “Microslop” inside the official Copilot Discord server immediately triggers an automated moderation response. The message does not appear publicly in the channel, and instead, only the sender sees the notice stating that the content is blocked by the server because it contains a phrase deemed inappropriate.

Of course, the internet rarely leaves things there. Shortly after Windows Latest posted about Copilot Discord server blocking Microslop on X, users began experimenting in the server with variations such as “Microsl0p” using a zero instead of the letter “o.” Predictably, those versions slipped past the filter. Keyword moderation has always been something of a cat-and-mouse game, and this isn’t any different.

What started as a simple keyword filter quickly snowballed into users deliberately testing the restriction and posting variations of the blocked term. Accounts that included “Microslop” in their messages first got banned from messaging again. Not long after, access to parts of the server was restricted, with message history hidden and posting permissions disabled for many users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook is clearly no longer the hot social media property it once was—younger generations are now far more likely to spend their time on TikTok, Snapchat, or Instagram—but there are still billions of people logging into the Facebook site and mobile apps each month.

During its 20+ years of existence, Facebook has added a whole host of features and options on top of its platform, and branched out in multiple different areas. There’s plenty on offer in the modern-day Facebook that you may not know about.

Whether you’re using Facebook daily or you haven’t touched your account for months, these hacks and tips will help you get more from the app: Find out how to stop people from tagging you, how to clear your tracks on Facebook, how to look back on a friendship, and more.

Adjust the algorithm to limit AI slop in your Facebook feed

Let the Facebook algorithm know what you’re interested in.
Credit: Lifehacker

The Facebook algorithm isn’t always well tuned to your tastes and interests, and that might extend to AI slop as well as friends and family members you don’t particularly want to hear from. The solution is to give the algorithm a few nudges in the right direction.

Tap or click on the three dots in the top right corner of any post in your news feed, and you’ve got a few options: You can tell Facebook you’re not interested in something, mute posts from this source for 30 days, or permanently hide this person or page.

There are also options to tweak the algorithm in the other direction—select Interested if you want to see more of this type of content in your feeds.

Change your privacy settings to stop other people from finding you on Facebook

Facebook can cause you problems when it comes to people from your past reaching out, wanting to know how you’re getting on these days. While it can make for some serendipitous reconnections, there may well be old colleagues, friends, and relatives you’d rather not hear from every again.

You can control how available you are on Facebook by heading to the website and clicking your profile picture (top right). Choose Settings & privacy > Privacy Center > Common privacy settings > Profile information and then select your Facebook account. On the next screen, select How people can find and contact you.

There are a few settings you can tweak here: You can stop people finding you through your email address or phone number, and you can stop your Facebook profile from showing up in web search results. You can also decide whether message requests from people who you’re not connected to make it into your main inbox.

Choose who you want to see your Facebook posts

Your posts on Facebook can be visible to specific groups of people.
Credit: Lifehacker

Just like on Instagram or Snapchat, you can limit the audience for certain posts—though it’s not immediately obvious where the option is. When you’re composing a post, you need to tap on the Friends drop-down list just below your name (it might say something else, like Public, if you’ve already changed the audience for posts).

The menu you see next lets you limit the post to any group of Facebook friends you like: Whether it’s two people or 200 people. You can either specify the friends who can see the post, or the friends who can’t, and you can make new custom lists of contacts by going to your friends directory and choosing Create List.

See your entire Facebook friendship history with someone

There’s quite a cool way of looking back on the moments you’ve shared with a Facebook friend—at least on this particular social media platform, anyway. Head to the Facebook profile page of a contact, then click the three dots on the right and See friendship.

You then get shown photos, posts, and events you’ve both been involved in. Assuming you both use Facebook fairly often, it’s a nice trip down memory lane (you might also see some of this shared content in your feed when your friend has a birthday).

Undo your activity on Facebook

You can remove a reaction you’ve left on Facebook.
Credit: Lifehacker

If you’ve logged a comment or a like on Facebook that you later regret, you can take it back: On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then pick Settings & privacy > Activity log. This is a record of everything you’ve done on Facebook.

Choose Comments to get to your comments and likes, and to remove them if necessary. You can also delete posts you’ve made, and searches you’ve run on Facebook—it’s a central hub for viewing and managing your digital tracks on the social media app.

Download and save your Facebook photos

Facebook used to be the best place to post photos, and it may well be that you’ve got a ton of pictures on the platform that you haven’t saved anywhere else. Maybe you took them before photo backup from phones was so seamless—or perhaps they were snapped with an actual camera and scanned in (remember that?).

You don’t have to go through images and videos individually to get all this content exported from Facebook and put somewhere else (like Google Photos). On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then Settings & privacy > Settings > See more in Accounts Center > Your information and permissions.

Finally, you will see the Export your information option: This lets you get all of your data out of Facebook, including pictures, posts, and messages. Be sure to choose the Higher quality option for Media quality to get the best versions of your images and videos.

Stop people from tagging you on Facebook

Facebook lets you manually review posts you’re tagged in.
Credit: Lifehacker

You don’t necessarily want other people tagging you in pictures and other content (which means these posts will then be visible to your network too). You can enable manual tagging approval to stop this from happening: On the web, click your profile picture (top right), and select Settings & privacy > Settings > Profile and tagging.

When you’ve enabled tag reviews, you’ll get notifications on Facebook when someone else tags you. You then have the option to approve or block the tag (the tagger won’t be notified directly, but may notice if the tag hasn’t been accepted).

Control the type of ads you see on Facebook

Adverts are an inescapable part of the Facebook experience, but you can at least take some control over the types of ads you see, and from which companies. On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then choose Settings & privacy > Privacy Center > Common privacy settings, and Manage in Accounts Center under Ads preferences.

There’s lots you can do here: You can change the categories of adverts you see, hide ads from specific advertisers, and even access ads you might have saved—so if there’s a purchase you do want to make and didn’t get around to, you can do that here.

Keep your conversations on Facebook secret

Facebook Messenger chats can disappear automatically.
Credit: Lifehacker

Some of us will be using Facebook Messenger far more than the main site, and the messaging component of the platform can be tweaked and customized in multiple ways. For example, you can set messages to disappear after a set amount of time if you’d rather keep conversations off the record.

From inside a Facebook Messenger chat on mobile, tap the contact or group chat name at the top, then pick Disappearing messages. Note that the setting you choose will be applied to all messages from every sender, and a notification will be posted to the chat if you make a change.

You can give nicknames to your friends and family on Facebook

If you want to add some spice to a group chat, you can assign a nickname to the contacts in it: Tap on the group name at the top of the chat, then choose Nicknames. Bear in mind that everyone else will see the nicknames you set (and can change them to something else), and that you can use nicknames or real names when tagging people in the chat.

Snapchat launched all the way back in 2011, and has had quite the journey since: It practically invented the stories format that every social media platform uses, and helped drive the shift from public and permanent online sharing to the more private and temporary approach most of us prefer today.

The app is also packed with more features than you might be aware of—in fact, it could reasonably claim to be the most capable and versatile social media app out there. From location alerts and data saving, to custom notifications and clever camera tricks, here’s how to get the most out of Snapchat.

Use Snapchat’s buried Data Saver mode to use less storage and prolong your battery life

Snapchat comes with a Data Saver mode that does exactly what it sounds like—it saves on data usage. Snaps and stories won’t load automatically in the background like normal, so you’ll need to manually tap them to trigger the download and see the media. This helps when you’re traveling and away from reliable wifi, and because there’s less background downloading going on, you should save a little battery life too. To enable it, from your profile, tap the cog icon (top right) to open the app settings, then tap Data Saver.

Get notifications only for specific Snapchat stories

Get notifications for specific stories.
Credit: Lifehacker

There’s a lot going on in Snapchat, so if you’ve got a significant number of friends, you can quickly get overwhelmed with notifications—especially when it comes to stories. With a little bit of tweaking, you can just get alerts for the stories you care about most.

From your profile page, tap the cog icon (top right), then Notifications—from here you can turn off notifications for stories generally. You can then add story notifications specifically for your favorite contacts, one by one. Tap through to the friend’s profile page, then tap on the three dots (top right): Choose Story Settings > Story Notifications to make sure you get alerts for this particular person.

You can create snaps with multiple cameras at once

You don’t have to limit yourself to just one camera for your snaps: You can capture photos and videos from both the selfie and rear cameras on your phone simultaneously, so you can comment on or react to what you’re seeing. When you’re in the main capture screen, tap the drop-down arrow on the right, then pick Dual Camera. Tap on the Dual Camera icon again to choose from four layout options—including one where a cut out of you gets superimposed over the main view.

Use Snapchat’s Snap Map to let someone know when you’ve arrived safely

You can set up location alerts for trusted friends and family.
Credit: Lifehacker

This isn’t something that you’ll want to use widely, but it’s handy for family members and partners: As an extension of the Snap Map location sharing feature, you can also ping a specific contact when you get home (or arrive at any other place on the map).

Head to the contact’s main profile page, tap the three dots (top right), then choose Arrival notifications. You can pick My home, or tap Add to set up another location—it could be school, football practice, or whatever you like.

Let your friends decide if they want to view your custom Snapchat stories

One of Snapchat’s most appealing features is the way you can create custom stories for custom audiences, and these can be set up from your profile page: Just tap New Story. However, you don’t have to pick the contacts who can view your story yourself—you can let your friends decide if they want to get involved instead.

Once you’ve created a story, create a new snap in the usual way, then tap the sticker icon (top right), and Story. This lets you post an invite link to any of your stories, so your contacts can decide for themselves whether they want to see your vacation adventures or thousands of your pet pictures.

The snap can be posted to individuals, or to one of your other stories, so you still get full control over who can see what (and you can kick out story viewers at any time).

You can search through your Snapchat memories

There are some powerful search options for your Snapchat memories.
Credit: Lifehacker

Snapchat is focused on content creation, which means you may not realize how much you can do with the photo and video memories that the app builds up for you. From your profile page, tap the three dots (top right), then Memories to make sure they’re being saved (you can also save individual snaps as you capture them).

You can get to your memories later by tapping the image icon to the left of the shutter button on the main capture screen—and there’s a powerful search capability built right in. Try searching for pets, sunsets, locations, or dates (like “August 2023”) and you’ll get results back more or less instantly.

You’ll also see certain images and videos picked out by Snapchat and grouped as flashbacks, and any of your memories can be reposted again as snaps or stories (with new edits, if needed).

Yopu can permanently save your Snapchat chats

Snapchat is known for its ephemerality, but your pictures, videos, and text messages don’t have to disappear right after they’ve been viewed. You can keep them around for longer in certain conversations, turning the app into more of a conventional messaging tool.

From inside any of your one-to-one or group chats, tap the header bar at the top, then the three dots (top right). Choose Delete Chats and you can set them to never expire. You can also save images, videos, and text permanently by tapping and holding on them in the chat, then choosing Save in Chat.

You can make your own Snapchat stickers

You can add your own stickers to the Snapchat selection.
Credit: Lifehacker

Anything in your image and video snaps can be cut out as a sticker, ready to be used again in future posts. When you’ve captured the content, tap the scissors icon on the right, and you get three selection tools for picking out the sticker you want. Once you’ve done the cutting, you can reposition the new sticker anywhere you want in the current snap, and find it in the future by tapping on the sticker icon in the top right corner of the capture screen.

You can also use Snapchat in a web browser

Snapchat isn’t just for mobile, and there’s an official web app that offers most of the features you get on Android and iOS. It also makes typing much easier, so if you use Snapchat as a general messaging app, this is something worth looking into. You can view stories on the web, and even send snaps—though you’ll be limited to using your computer’s webcam, so these will mostly just be snaps of your face and whatever room you happen to be in.

Snapchat has a hidden dark mode—and other themes

A dark mode for Snapchat is available.
Credit: Lifehacker

There are a variety of different themes for Snapchat on mobile that you can choose between, though these options are pretty well hidden in the app. From your profile page, tap the cog icon (top right), then choose App appearance to get to the themes. Swipe left and right to cycle through them, including light and dark modes and numerous others. If you’re a Snapchat+ subscriber ($3.99 a month), the benefits include being able to customize individual theme elements yourself.

Starlink is getting ready to launch its second generation of satellites, and it’s expected to match the speeds of a traditional terrestrial network. During a keynote at Mobile World Congress, Starlink execs detailed the roadmap for the company’s upgrade towards the next generation of satellites called V2.

“The goal of Starlink Mobile … is to provide a terrestrial-like connectivity when you’re connected to the satellite system,” Michael Nicolls, SpaceX’s senior vice president of Starlink engineering, said during the MWC keynote. “In the right conditions, it should look and feel like you’re connected to a high-performing 5G terrestrial network.”

Nicolls detailed that the V2 satellite constellation could offer download speeds up to 150 Mbps in ideal conditions, comparing it to a broadband experience. According to Starlink, next-gen satellites will offer 100 times the data density of its predecessors, which should help users with faster streaming and browsing as well as more reliable voice calls. Notably, Nicolls added that the V2 satellite constellation would offer better coverage to Earth’s polar regions, which are known to have unreliable coverage with traditional networks.

Nicolls said that SpaceX is planning to send out more than 50 V2 satellites on each SpaceX launch starting in mid-2027, with a goal of building out a full constellation in six months. Outside its MWC presser, Starlink also announced a partnership with German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. The partnership would help Deutsche Telekom address internet coverage gaps in Europe using Starlink’s constellation, starting in 2028.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/starlinks-next-gen-satellite-network-could-provide-150-mbps-speeds-by-end-of-next-year-192118368.html?src=rss

At MWC 2026, Motorola announced a partnership with the GrapheneOS Foundation to bring the hardened, Google-free Android variant to future devices. Until now, the OS had been designed exclusively for Google Pixel phones. “We are thrilled to be partnering with Motorola to bring GrapheneOS’s industry-leading privacy and security-focused mobile operating system to their next-generation smartphone,” a GrapheneOS statement reads. “This collaboration marks a significant milestone in expanding the reach of GrapheneOS, and we applaud Motorola for taking this meaningful step towards advancing mobile security.”

GrapheneOS is a privacy and security focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility developed as a non-profit open source project. It’s often referred to as the “de-Googled OS” because Google apps are not available by default. However, users can install them via a sandboxed version of Google Play Services.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

X is rolling out a built-in “Paid Partnership” label that creators can apply to sponsored posts, replacing the hashtag workarounds they’ve had to rely on until now. The feature, announced by the platform’s head of product Nikita Bier, adds a toggle that places a disclosure label directly below a post’s content. It can also be applied retroactively.

The label is meant to help creators comply with years-old FTC regulations requiring clear disclosure of sponsored content. The agency sent out letters reminding influencers about this requirement in 2017, and Instagram added a disclosure feature that same year. Without a native tool, X creators had been left to use hashtags like #ad and #paidpartnership.

X has been trying to court creators for some time with tools like ad-revenue sharing and creator subscriptions, but the platform still struggles with major image issues following a string of scandals like Grok creating CSAM. The Elon Musk-owned platform is under investigation both domestically and abroad for the AI agent’s behavior.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/x-adds-paid-partnership-labels-so-users-can-more-easily-identify-ads-183528227.html?src=rss

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Apple is gearing up for a series of product announcements on Wednesday. So, naturally, the company revealed two of those products on Monday. There’s the iPhone 17e, Apple’s latest “affordable” iPhone, which largely just updates the chip to the A19. In the same vein, the company is updating its iPad Air line with the M4 chip. If you’re hoping for other big iPad Air upgrades, however, keep waiting.

The iPad Air is the same, just now with M4

If you put the M4 iPad Air side-by-side with the M3 iPad Air, you might mix the two up. That’s because Apple has changed virtually nothing about the overall design and appearance of these tablets. The 11-inch M4 Air looks like the 11-inch M3 Air, as do the two 13-inch variants.

Just about the only thing new about the M4 Air, is, well, M4. This isn’t Apple’s newest chip—that would be the M5—but the M4 is one generation newer than the M3, so you should expect some performance gains between the two. The M4 chip in the Air comes with an eight-core CPU with three performance cores and five efficiency cores, a nine-core GPU, 120GB/s memory bandwidth, and 12GB of RAM. That’s one less performance core than the M3 Air, but one more efficiency core. What’s likely going to be more dramatic is the extra 4GB of RAM, as the M3 Air only comes with 8GB. You should be able to run more tasks at once on the new Air without iPadOS needing to refresh an app or page.

We won’t know exactly how those changes will affect performance until testers get their hands on the M4 iPad Airs. However, Apple says the new iPad is up to 30% faster than the previous generation, and up to 2.3 times faster than the M1 iPad Air. (Apple tends to compare its latest products to those from multiple generations past, as the difference is often more subtle from generation to generation). To me, that means this is certainly not an iPad that M3 Air users need to consider upgrading to, but if it would likely be a good option for anyone with an older Air—or older iPad—to jump to.

With that M4 chip, Apple is adding the N1 chip and C1X modem to the iPad Air. The N1 chip comes with all M4 iPad Airs, and supports standards like Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and Thread, a smart home standard. If you buy the cellular iPad Air, you’ll get C1X, Apple’s in-house modem that it says is 30% more efficient than the modem in the M3 iPad Air.

Aside from those points, this is the same iPad Air as the M3 model. It comes in an 11- or 13-inch option, with 12MP rear and front cameras; USB-C connectivity with Touch ID; the same battery life (Apple says 10 hours of video playback); and both still start with 128GB of storage. And, notably, it still omits a high-refresh 120Hz display for the usual 60Hz. That’s disappointing.

How to buy the M4 iPad Air

You can preorder an M4 iPad Air on March 4, starting at $599 (the same starting price as Apple’s newly-announced iPhone 17e) for the 11-inch 128GB model. The 13-inch starts at $799 for the 128GB model. Adding cellular adds $150 to the price. Apple says that the M4 iPad Air will officially launch on Wednesday, March 11—the same day as the iPhone 17e, as well as Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series.

The iPad Air, the middle child in Apple’s tablet lineup, has been upgraded to the M4 chip with increased RAM and… Well, there’s not a whole lot else if I’m being honest. At the very least, the new iPad Air M4 models remain at the same price as the iPad Air M3, with the 11-inch version starting at $599 and the 13-inch at $799. I would give Apple more credit if it had increased the starting storage or added literally anything else.

If you put them side by side, you might not be able to tell the difference, but this upgrade would benefit creatives and professionals more than anything. There’s a significant performance bump from the M3 to the M4, and the increased RAM is doing a lot of work, especially if you’re taking advantage of Apple Intelligence.

If you’re using an M1-powered iPad Air or something even older, though, the new iPad Air M4 should be a compelling upgrade. Pre-orders start at 9:15AM ET on March 4, with the units arriving a week later. We expect full reviews will be published by then. But in the meantime, let’s dive into what the performance gains might look like and what we’re missing out on in this year’s iteration of the iPad Air.

iPad Air M4 vs. iPad Air M3: Performance and battery life

The most significant difference between the two iPad Air generations is their chipsets. The latest iPad Air launches with the M4 chip versus its predecessor’s M3 chip, and it gets a bump in RAM from 8GB to 12GB.

I don’t give much fanfare to incremental chip increases because the performance gain is usually minimal. However, the M4 is up to 30 percent faster than the M3, according to Apple. That might be noticeable to even casual users, especially as the years go on and iPadOS becomes more demanding. For power users, it’ll mean more demanding work like video editing will be noticeably quicker.

For those in need of the fastest internet speeds, the new iPad Air is also equipped with Apple’s N1 chip, which enables Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, the latest connectivity technology. However, I really don’t imagine the average user needing up to 46 gigabits per second of internet speed compared to the iPad M3’s 9.6 Gbps on Wi-Fi 6. If you do, you’re in the tax bracket for an iPad Pro.

Now, despite the increase in speeds, the battery life between the M4 and M3 models remains the same. Apple claims all four models get up to 10 hours of battery life surfing the web on Wi-Fi or watching video (up to 9 hours on cellular). No complaints here.

iPad Air M4 vs. iPad Air M3: Design, display, audio and cameras

For better or worse, we’re not getting any changes in any of these departments, which is why I’m lumping them together.

The iPad Air comes in blue, purple, beige and gray. The 11-inch option measures 9.74 x 7.02 x 0.24 inches and the 13 comes in at 11.04 x 8.46 x 0.24 inches. As their names suggest, they’re both rather light, at 1.01 pounds (1.02 pounds for M4) and 1.36 pounds, respectively. My only wish was that we got new colors that popped a bit more.

Then there’s the displays. All four versions of the iPad Airs sport a Liquid Retina LED display at 264 ppi. The 11-inch supports a 2,360 x 1,640 resolution with a peak brightness of 500 nits, while the 13-inch offers a 2,732 x 2,048 resolution at 600 nits. It would’ve been nice to see an OLED or even Mini-LED panel make its way to the iPad Air, which could’ve made the screen more vivid and vibrant. But it’s more disappointing that we’re stuck at 60Hz unlike the Pro models that offer 120Hz, making their visual experience smoother.

Both products feature landscape stereo speakers. The iPad Air M3’s audio quality couldn’t live up to the iPad Pro, so I doubt the M4 model will.

You won’t catch me taking photos with an iPad, but for those of you who do, the iPad Air M4 features the same 12MP cameras on the front and back as its predecessor.

iPadOS 26, Apple Intelligence and Apple accessories

Nothing huge is happening to iPadOS or the Apple accessories in the iPad Air refresh. The revamped Magic Keyboard from last year still works with these new models, as does the Apple Pencil Pro. iPadOS 26, released last fall, was a major update but will still be familiar enough to anyone who has used an iPad before. The new iPad Air M4 is getting a significant boost in AI processing speeds, though, thanks to its new chip and 50 percent increase in RAM. However, unless you’re an AI power user, you probably won’t notice a difference there.

All that said, if your love language is spreadsheets, the full specs are helpfully laid out below:

iPad Air M4 vs. iPad Air M3: Specs at a glance

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/ipad-air-m4-vs-ipad-air-m3-the-few-new-things-in-apples-midrange-tablet-182701520.html?src=rss

The Analogue Pocket handheld retro console has proven to be extremely popular, as initial runs have sold out. The company just announced the system will be back in stock this week, along with the dock accessory. Preorders open up on March 4 at 11AM ET, with shipments going out this June.

That’s the good news. The bad news? The little console is getting slapped with a price increase. It’s shooting up to $240 from the recent price of $220, with the company placing the blame squarely on President Trump’s neverending tariffs. The device is assembled in China and Trump just hit the region with even more tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down the old ones. We love to suddenly pay more for gadgets that have been out in the wild for nearly six years, don’t we folks?

For the uninitiated, the Pocket isn’t an emulation machine. It plays actual Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges. It also integrates with various Game Boy accessories, like the camera and printer. The console can even handle Game Gear, TurboGrafx-16 and Atari Lynx games, but those require separate adapters.

We praised the Analogue Pocket in our official review, calling it “a clever little thing” that is sure to light up the nostalgia center of your brain. It even made our list of the best handheld consoles, which is notable given competition included stuff like the Steam Deck.

In any event, this drop will likely sell out quickly. We recommend parking a browser on the company website just prior to 11AM ET if you can stomach the new price.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-analogue-pocket-will-be-back-in-stock-this-week-but-theres-a-tariff-related-price-increase-182226016.html?src=rss

Charter Communications, operator of the Spectrum cable brand, has obtained Federal Communications Commission permission to buy Cox and surpass Comcast as the country’s largest home Internet service provider.

Charter has 29.7 million residential and business Internet customers compared to Comcast’s 31.26 million. Buying Cox will give Charter another 5.9 million Internet customers. The FCC approved the deal on Friday, but the companies still need Justice Department approval and sign-offs from states including California and New York.

Opponents of Charter’s $34.5 billion acquisition told the FCC that eliminating Cox as an independent entity will make it easier for Charter and Comcast to raise prices. But the FCC dismissed those concerns on the grounds that Charter and Cox don’t compete directly against each other in the vast majority of their territories.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: The Plain Dealer, Cleveland’s largest newspaper, has begun to feature a new byline. On recent articles about an ice carving festival, a medical research discovery and a roaming pack of chicken-slaying dogs, a reporter’s name is paired with the words “Advance Local Express Desk.” It means: This article was drafted by artificial intelligence. “This article was produced with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by Cleveland.com staff,” reads a note at the bottom of each robot-penned piece, differentiating it from those still written primarily by journalists. The disclosure has done little to stem the backlash that caromed across the news industry after the paper’s editor, Chris Quinn, published a Feb. 14 column lamenting that a fresh-out-of-college job applicant withdrew from a reporting fellowship when they found out the position included no writing — just filing notes to an AI writing tool.

“Artificial intelligence is not bad for newsrooms. It’s the future of them,” Quinn wrote, adding that “by removing writing from reporters’ workloads, we’ve effectively freed up an extra workday for them each week.” […] Quinn, for his part, says his paper’s use of AI to find, draft and edit stories is a success story that others must emulate if they want to survive. “It’s a tool,” he said in a phone interview last week. “If AI can do part of our job, then why not let it — and have people do the part it can’t do?” He added that the paper’s embrace of technology — including using AI to write stories summarizing its reporters’ podcasts and its readers’ letters to the editor — is already boosting its bottom line, helping it retain staff at a time when other newspapers are shrinking or even shutting down. Just 130 miles east of Cleveland, the 240-year-old Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said in January that it will close its doors this spring.

Quinn, who has led the Plain Dealer’s newsroom since 2013, said its newsroom has shrunk from some 400 employees in the late 1990s to just 71 today. Over the past three years, Quinn has implemented a suite of AI tools with various purposes: transcribing local government meetings, scraping municipal websites for story leads, cleaning up typos in story drafts, suggesting headlines and helping reporters draft follow-ups to articles they’ve already written. He said he is particularly pleased with an AI tool that turns podcasts by the paper’s reporters into stories for the website, which he said generated more than 10 million page views last year. He has documented those efforts in letters to readers and sought their feedback. But the paper’s latest experiment — using AI to turn reporters’ notes into full story drafts — has aroused indignation online and anxiety within the paper’s ranks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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I didn’t understand the need for a power station until this past winter gave me a rude awakening. Although I ultimately didn’t lose power, the prep for that what-if scenario of facing freezing temperatures without power was enough for me to decide to get one. While I went with the EcoFlow DELTA 3 Ultra Plus, I should have waited, because the more powerful EcoFlow Delta Pro 3 is $1,999 right now—a steep 46% discount from the $3,699 list price. This is its lowest price ever, according to price tracking tools.

EF ECOFLOW DELTA Pro 3 Portable Power Station

$1,999.00
at Amazon

$3,699.00
Save $1,700.00

$1,999.00
at Amazon

$3,699.00
Save $1,700.00

While I haven’t had a chance to put the power station to the test during a full blackout, I am impressed by the functionality of the EcoFlow app. You get the ability to prioritize which devices receive power the longest, so when battery power is scarce, the essentials will keep running while the other devices shut off. How that might work in the real world: You leave your refrigerator plugged in overnight, along with your phones and a heater. You can prioritize your refrigerator so if the battery runs low during the night, it will shut off power to your phone and heater to keep you fridge running longer. You can also monitor your energy use, and the app will automatically start charging your power station if it detects a storm is coming.

The power station is extremely quiet when in use. Although it’s heavy, it’s still easily portable with its handle and rear wheels. The unit has seven AC outlets total, including standard, RV, 240 V, and twist‑lock, four USB ports (A and C), two 12 V DC outputs, and solar charging inputs if you ever want to get extra accessories down the road.

The 4096 Wh battery can keep essentials running for a while—it can power the average fridge for up to 28 hours while keeping other essentials like Wi-Fi, lights, phone charging, and AC running simultaneously.