This is a video highlighting the endangered Palm Cockatoo, the only non-cartoon bird known to make and play instruments, crafting drumsticks and using them to beat out a rhythm to attract a mate. Mates love good rhythm. Me? I have no rhythm. One time I tried to impress a date with my own drumming at Rock Band but by the time I’d finished my solo she was gone and raccoons were going through the garbage in my kitchen.

The Moon is rusting — and it’s Earth’s fault. Nature: Scientists have found that oxygen particles blown from Earth to the Moon can turn lunar minerals into hematite, also known as rust. The discovery adds to researchers’ growing understanding of the deep interconnection between Earth and the Moon — and shows how the Moon keeps a geological record of those interactions, says Ziliang Jin, a planetary scientist at Macau University of Science and Technology in China. He and his colleagues reported their findings earlier this month in Geophysical Research Letters.

Most of the time, both Earth and the Moon are bathed in a stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun. But for around five days each month, Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, blocking most of the flood of solar particles. During that time, the Moon is exposed mainly to particles that had been part of Earth’s atmosphere before blowing into space — a phenomenon known as Earth wind. That wind contains ions of various elements, including hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. When those charged particles hit the Moon, they can implant themselves into the upper layers of lunar soil and trigger chemical reactions.

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Google is rolling out its Gemini AI assistant to Google TV, bringing conversational AI to over 300 million devices. Users will be able to ask Gemini for help with TV recommendations, show recaps, reviews, or even general tasks like homework help, vacation planning, or learning new skills. TechCrunch reports: The company stresses that Gemini’s addition doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to do the same things you used to be able to do through the (non-AI) Google Assistant integration. Those commands will still work, says Google. The Gemini rollout to Google TV begins on the TCL QM9K series starting today. Later in the year, Gemini will arrive on the Google TV Streamer, Walmart onn 4K Pro, 2025 Hisense U7, U8, and UX models, and 2025 TCL QM7K, QM8K, and X11K models. More functionality will be added over time.

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SpaceX scored its 500th landing of a Falcon 9 first stage booster on an otherwise routine flight earlier this month, sending 28 Starlink communications satellites into orbit. Barring any unforeseen problems, SpaceX will mark the 500th re-flight of a Falcon first stage later this year.

A handful of other US companies, including Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, and Stoke Space, are on the way to replicating or building on SpaceX’s achievements in recycling rocket parts. These launch providers are racing a medley of Chinese rocket builders to become the second company to land and reuse a first stage booster.

But it will be many years—perhaps a decade or longer—until anyone else matches the kinds of numbers SpaceX is racking up in the realm of reusable rockets. SpaceX’s dominance in this field is one of the most important advantages the United States has over China as competition between the two nations extends into space, US Space Force officials said Monday.

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iFixit’s teardown of Apple’s iPhone Air reveals a device dominated by its battery, which occupies approximately two-thirds of the internal space while critical components including the logic board cluster at the top. The battery matches the component used in Apple’s iPhone Air MagSafe battery pack and can be swapped between devices.

The top-heavy component layout addresses the bendgate vulnerability that damaged logic boards in previous thin iPhone models when pressure was applied to the device’s middle section. Despite the iPhone Air’s thinner profile, iFixit awarded it a 7 out of 10 repairability score, citing reduced component layering that provides more direct access to the USB-C connector, battery, and other serviceable parts compared to standard iPhone models. The dual-entry system further contributes to the device’s serviceability.

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Facebook Dating has added two new AI tools, because clearly a large language model is what the search for love and companionship has been missing all this time. The social media platform introduced a chatbot called dating assistant that can help find prospective dates based on a user’s interests. In the blog post announcing the features, the example Meta provided was “Find me a Brooklyn girl in tech.” The chatbot can also “provide dating ideas or help you level up your profile.” Dating assistant will start a gradual rollout to the Matches tab for users in the US and Canada. And surely everyone will use it in a mature, responsible, not-at-all-creepy fashion.

The other AI addition is Meet Cute, which uses a “personalized matching algorithm” to deliver a surprise candidate that it determines you might like. There’s no explanation in the blog post about how Meta’s algorithm will be assessing potential dates. If you don’t want to see who Meta’s AI thinks would be a compatible match each week, you can opt out of Meet Cute at any time. Both these features are aimed at combatting “swipe fatigue,” so if you’re 1) using Facebook, 2) using Facebook Dating, and 3) are really that tired of swiping, maybe this is the solution you need.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/facebook-adds-an-ai-assistant-to-its-dating-app-225754544.html?src=rss

In 2024, the US Supreme Court unanimously ruled to defend a pretty obvious idea about free speech: viz., that the government cannot punish people or companies simply for saying things that government officials dislike or disagree with. Being a media organization, this principle is of fundamental importance to Ars Technica.

Unfortunately, nearly one year on, the government is routinely trying to censor voices it doesn’t like. The recent blow-up surrounding late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel is just one of the most obvious examples of the new censorship regime. But the case also shows that, even where courts do not act, the public can still successfully push for change.

Disfavored speech

Here’s how Justice Sonia Sotomayor put the basic free speech principle last year:

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Fortune: The dramatic rise in unemployment among Americans under 25 — especially recent graduates — has become one of the most troubling economic headlines of 2025. Recent insights from economists, central bankers, and labor market analysts signal that this appears to be a uniquely American challenge, underpinned by a “no hire, no fire” economy rather than solely by the rapid ascent of artificial intelligence.

For many Gen Z workers, the struggle to land a job can feel isolating and fuel self-doubt. But that frustration recently got some high-level validation: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell echoed economists’ concerns about the cooling labor market, telling reporters at his regular press conference following the Federal Open Market Committee that it’s an “interesting labor market” right now, adding that “kids coming out of college and younger people, minorities, are having a hard time finding jobs.” Noting a low job finding rate, along with a low redundancy rate, he said, “you’ve got a low firing, low hiring environment.” and noting that it’s harder than ever for young jobseekers to break in.

While recent months have been dubbed by Deutsche Bank “the summer AI turned ugly,” and some major studies find AI adoption disrupting some entry-level roles, Powell was less sure. AI “may be part of the story,” but he insisted the main drivers are a broadly slowed economy and hiring restraint. Top economists at Goldman Sachs and UBS tackled the subject soon after and found Powell to be mostly on the money. This isn’t an AI story, at least not yet. “The U.S. labor market experience is peculiar,” said Paul Donovan, UBS Chief Economist. “Young Euro area workers have a record low unemployment rate. In the UK, the young persons’ unemployment rate has fallen steadily. Employment participation by young Japanese workers is near all-time highs. It seems highly implausible that AI uniquely hurts the employment prospects of younger US workers.”

“It might be tempting to blame technology… Machines, robots, or computers replacing humans is an ever-popular dystopian scenario.” Donovan concludes that the U.S. pattern “more convincingly fits a broader hiring freeze narrative, affecting new entrants to the workforce.”

Goldman Sachs economist Pierfrancesco Mei said last Thursday that “finding a job takes longer in a low-turnover labor market.” He argued that “job reallocation,” or the pace at which new jobs are created and existing ones destroyed, has been on the decline since the late 1990s… “almost all the variation in turnover since the Great Recession mostly falls on younger workers” and is taking place as “churn.” Goldman found that in 2019, it took a young unemployed worker about 10 weeks to find a new job in a low-churn state; now that’s 12 weeks on average.

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NASA has named its new group of astronaut candidates, including the first person to have orbited Earth before joining the agency’s corps.

The space agency on Monday introduced the four men and six women who comprise its 2025 trainee class during a ceremony held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Following two years of basic training, the new candidates will be eligible for mission assignments in low-Earth orbit and on the Moon, as NASA’s Artemis program works toward sending the first humans to Mars.

“We picked the best and the brightest, the most skilled, the best looking, the best personalities to take these 10 spots,” said Sean Duffy, acting NASA administrator and secretary of transportation. “You are America’s best and brightest, and we’re going to need America’s best and brightest because we have a bold exploration plans for the future.”

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Steam’s seasonal sales are usually the peak moments to add new software to your library, but right now, Valve is offering a notable hardware discount. The Steam Deck starter model is currently on sale for 20 percent off its usual $399 price tag. That means you can snag yourself the gaming handheld with an LCD screen and 256GB of storage for $319. Steam hasn’t set an end date for this offer, so it might be worth acting quickly if you want to get in on this particular sale.

The Steam Deck is still the go-to for most PC gamers who want a handheld. Its balance of power, portability and price have kept it one of our top recommendations, even three years after the product’s debut. But keep in mind before you add this to your cart that this iteration does have a few limitations compared to the higher end Steam Decks. The LCD screen doesn’t have the true blacks of the OLED option, and serious players may run up against the storage limits of this model pretty quickly. But if you’ve been curious about a Steam Deck and aren’t looking to have a full library of big AAA downloads available all at once, this is a good time to pick up one of your own. Besides, with the $80 you’ll save, you can also grab a copy of current indie darlings Hollow Knight: Silksong and Hades II and still have money leftover.

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

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-lcd-steam-deck-is-20-percent-off-right-now-215238765.html?src=rss

LinkedIn has said it will start using some member profiles, posts, resumes and public activity to train its AI models from November 3, 2025. From a report: Users are rightly frustrated with the change, with the biggest concern isn’t the business networking platform will do so, but that it’s set to be enabled by default, with users instead having to actively opt out. Users can choose to opt out via the ‘data for generative AI improvement’ setting, however it will only apply to data collected after they opt out, with data up until that point still retained within the training environment.

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EventVPN, a new freemium VPN built by the same team and on the same infrastructure as ExpressVPN, launched on September 18 for iOS and macOS. It comes with unlimited free bandwidth, a relative rarity among free VPNs, and carries over ExpressVPN’s kill switch and post-quantum WireGuard protocol. Free users get 35 server locations and one device connection, while paid users get 125 locations and eight simultaneous connections.

EventVPN isn’t the first free VPN that actually aims to ensure user privacy — the free version of Proton VPN is also safe, as are a few others on our best VPN list, like hide.me and Windscribe. However, ExpressVPN isn’t wrong that free VPNs often don’t have their users’ interests at heart. The EventVPN announcement left me with one big question: what’s it doing to be safer, more private and/or better than other free options?

The most interesting feature of EventVPN — and one I can’t currently find duplicated on any other free VPN — is that it has no user data backend whatsoever. It uses Apple ID validation to manage accounts and connection tokens without storing any information itself. This doesn’t move the security needle much (Apple isn’t immune to data leaks either), but it does make it theoretically impossible for EventVPN to sell user information.

Of course, a clear privacy policy that EventVPN sticks to would accomplish the same thing. But just like with RAM-only servers automatically deleting user activity logs, it’s always nice to have an option other than trusting the VPN provider to keep its word. And to be fair, ExpressVPN has a clear privacy policy that it sticks to, so there’s good reason to believe EventVPN will do the same for its own policy.

There is one unfortunate cost to that relative privacy, though: EventVPN’s free plan requires you to watch ads. When I briefly tested it, I was shown one 30-second ad whenever I connected and another when I disconnected. It’s galling to be asked to watch ads for a service that also has a paid tier ($9.99 per month, or $69.99 for a year), since I’ve already named three other equally good freemium VPNs that don’t show ads at all. At least EventVPN anonymizes the ads, showing advertisers a masked identifier instead of any real info on you.

To sum up, EventVPN is a lot better than free VPNs that turn you into the product, but its ads put it a step behind ProtonVPN, hide.me, Windscribe and even TunnelBear. If ExpressVPN has always worked far better for you than any other provider, it might be worth using EventVPN as a backup free service. Otherwise, there are better options.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/heres-how-eventvpn-is-different-from-other-free-vpns-213014671.html?src=rss

As is now a long-standing custom, iFixit performed a full teardown of the latest iPhone—this time, the newly launched iPhone Air. These teardowns got pretty routine for a while, as Apple settled into a fairly consistent design for iPhones, but the new design of the iPhone Air offered an opportunity for compelling observations.

Many of the important components—including the entire logic board—are clustered up at the top of the phone, while the majority of its middle and body house a battery.

iFixit found that this battery is identical to the one included in Apple’s iPhone Air MagSafe battery pack—you can even swap the batteries between the pack and the phone with no problems.

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The U.S. General Services Administration has approved Meta’s AI system Llama for use by federal agencies, declaring that it meets government security and legal standards. Reuters reports: “It’s not about currying favor,” [said Josh Gruenbaum, the GSA’s procurement lead, when asked whether tech executives are giving the government discounts to get President Donald Trump’s approval]. “It’s about that recognition of how do we all lock in arms and make this country the best country it could possibly be.” Federal agencies will be able to deploy the tool to speed up contract review or more quickly solve information technology hiccups, among other tasks, he said.

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The onn. 10.1″ Android 14 tablet is on sale for $79.99 on StackSocial right now as part of an open-box deal. In this case, “open box” usually just means it’s leftover stock or a store return, so while the packaging might not look perfect, the device itself is tested, in new condition, and comes with a one-year warranty. For under $80, this tablet lands firmly in the everyday-use category (think streaming, browsing, and casual apps) without needing any subscriptions or hidden add-ons.

The tablet runs Android 14 right out of the box, which means you’re getting the latest interface and features without waiting for updates to trickle down. The screen is bright enough for watching shows, casual gaming, or scrolling, and the 2GHz octa-core processor with 3GB of RAM handles everyday multitasking reasonably well. Storage is limited to 32GB, but a microSD slot means you can add more space if needed. You won’t mistake the cameras (a 2MP front and 5MP rear) for those on a phone, but they’re serviceable for video calls or the occasional snapshot. Where the device pulls ahead of other low-cost tablets is its battery life: up to 17 hours (according to the manufacturer), which is enough to get through a full day of use without hugging a charger.

It also leans heavily toward being family-friendly. Google Kids Space and YouTube Kids are built in, giving parents some peace of mind with curated content, and Play Protect adds another layer of safety by scanning for malware in apps. Features like GPS and Google Assistant make it a handy travel companion too, even if it isn’t replacing a high-end tablet. The biggest trade-off is performance—this isn’t a powerhouse, and heavier apps will test its limits—but as a lightweight, affordable device for streaming, browsing, and keeping kids entertained, it does its job well.

Jimmy Kimmel is going back on the air. ABC owner Disney today issued a statement saying that Jimmy Kimmel Live will return on Tuesday.

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” Disney said in a statement today. “It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

Disney suspended the show after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened the company with license revocations for broadcast stations affiliated with ABC. After caving to the FCC, Disney faced a public backlash, and many users said they were protesting by canceling subscriptions to Disney-owned services.

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Google is back in court, hoping to avoid a painful breakup of its advertising business. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema has already ruled that Google operated an illegal monopoly in digital advertising, and now it’s time to learn the consequences of that behavior. Google’s had mixed luck with antitrust rulings lately, but it’s not a great sign that Google has so many legal woes that it can be hard to keep them all straight.

The case that just got underway is the remedy phase of the AdTech trial, in which the DOJ secured a ruling against Google several months ago. The remedy phase of the search trial wrapped up recently, which ended with Google holding on to Chrome but pledging an appeal to overturn the verdict. There’s also the Google Play antitrust case, which was brought by Epic Games. In this case, Google has already lost its appeal, putting some major app changes on the table as it plans yet another appeal.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Google are squaring off in Virginia federal court for the next two weeks or so, and there are no surprises in opening arguments. The government says the only way to deal with a monopolist like this is to break it up, but Google says it has already made numerous changes, and there’s no way to excise it from online advertising without breaking the market.

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