“Where is everybody!?”
It was around 1950. UFO mania had recently ramped up across the world, with dozens of reported sightings of strange flying machines fueling rampant speculation regarding their origins.
The eminent physicist Enrico Fermi was visiting his colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico that summer, and the mealtime conversation turned to the subject of UFOs. Very quickly, the assembled physicists realized that if UFOs were alien machines, that meant it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light. Otherwise, those alien craft would have never made it here.
The last few years have seen an ongoing debate over what rights AI companies have to utilize copyrighted material. The latest development tips the scales in favor of use: A judge has rejected Universal Music Group, ABKCO and other music publishers’ preliminary bid to block Anthropic from using their lyrics to train its AI assistant Claude, Reuters reports.
US District Judge Eumi Lee ruled that UMG and co had submitted too broad a request and failed to demonstrate that Anthropic’s use of the lyrics caused the companies “irreparable harm.” Lee stated, “Publishers are essentially asking the Court to define the contours of a licensing market for AI training where the threshold question of fair use remains unsettled.”
The case dates back to 2023, when UMG joined some of its fellow music publishers in suing Anthropic for copyright infringement. They claimed that Anthropic used and distributed copyrighted material, including at least 500 songs. “Anthropic’s copyright infringement is not innovation; in layman’s terms, it’s theft,” UMG stated at the time.
The two sides came to a partial agreement in January of this year. Anthropic confirmed it would maintain current guardrails for reproducing, displaying or distributing copyrighted material. It also agreed to “expeditiously” respond to the music producers’ copyright concerns with a written statement outlining how it plans to or why it won’t do so in an individual case.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-might-get-to-use-universal-music-groups-lyrics-after-all-133020685.html?src=rss
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
If you like to do your own home repairs and improvements, you know that a good tool set is a game changer. Having the right bits, blades, and other miscellaneous tools can save you time and effort, not to mention cutting down on the trips to the hardware store you’ll need to make while working on a project. But these smaller things can add up quickly, exhausting your DIY budget. Here are some good deals on bits, blades, measuring tools, and accessories for all your DIY projects.
With so many different sizes and types of hardware, having the right drill or driver bit can be tricky. If you’re doing more than one specific project, a variety of bits is your best bet in order to handle the broadest possible array of fastener types. But all those bits can add up quickly. Here are some good deals on bits for almost any type of hardware you’ll encounter in your DIY adventures.
A set of 21 Bosch drill bits ranging in size from 1/16 inch to ½ inch is on sale for $26.46, 48% off its regular price. These are multi-material bits that can drill through wood, plastic, and aluminum. They will fit a drill with a standard chuck as well as an impact driver.
A 20-piece set of DeWalt bits is on sale for $15.29, 43% off its typical price. This set includes a small range of drill bits, a variety of driver bits, a magnetic bit extension, and a drywall bit holder that are compatible with a drill or an impact driver.
Saw blades can be expensive, but not having a few extras on hand can mean extra trips to the hardware store when you’re working on a project. Here are some deals on saw blades to keep you going on your DIY projects.
A set of 30 Bosch t-shank jigsaw blades are on sale for $34.78, 46% off their regular price. The set comes with a range of wood and metal blades that will fit a jigsaw with a t-shank blade receptacle.
A set of 12 DeWalt reciprocating saw blades is on sale for $24.80, 53% off their usual price. This set includes a range of wood and metal blades.
A 10-pack of 7 ¼ inch Makita general purpose wood circular saw blades is on sale for $55.12, 34% off their typical price. These blades will fit a 7 ¼ inch circular saw.
Having the right measuring tools can make or break your DIY project, but these tools can be expensive. Here are some deals on measuring tools to get the right cut the first time.
The Crescent Lufkin 25-foot tape measure is on sale for $8.90, 44% off its regular price. This tape has a locking mechanism to keep it extended hands-free and a stiff metal tape to reach longer distances without buckling.
The Bosch 50-foot laser level is on sale for $66.44, 44% off its regular price. This tool will project a plumb line as well as a horizontal level line that’s helpful for projects like hanging shelves or cabinets.
The Crescent Lufkin 100-foot tape measure is on sale for $16.99, 36% off its typical price. This tape is useful for larger areas, landscaping, and grading.
Attachments for your tools can make them more versatile, and setting up a jig to make a repetitive task faster and more precise will simplify your DIY projects.
A right-angle drill adapter is on sale for $12.99, 46% off its regular price. This adapter allows you to use your drill in tight spaces, and it comes with nut driver attachments.
A Milescraft pocket hole jig is on sale for $20.99, 36% off its usual price. This jig allows you to drive screws at an angle and conceal your fastener for a strong, clean joint on woodworking projects.
A DeWalt magnetic bit guide set is on sale for $12.99, 35% off its regular price. This set includes a magnetic bit sleeve, a bit extension, and three driver bits that will fit an impact driver or standard drill.
Shopping for tech? Lifehacker can help you make the right decision. Browse our tech reviews and head-to-head comparisons for everything from laptops and smartwatches to e-bikes and home gyms. Subscribe to our deals newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox, or browse our best-of lists directly on Amazon, including:
When it debuted in 2022, Apple’s 10th-generation iPad sat in something of a no-man’s land, bringing a long-overdue design revamp at an inflated price. A year and a half later, Apple gave the slate a $100 price cut and immediately turned it into a much more enticing value. Now, the company has quietly released a follow-up. Dubbed the iPad (A16), the new tablet is a far less dramatic update, one with welcome performance improvements that otherwise refuses to rock the boat. It even lacks the Apple Intelligence features Apple has endlessly promoted over the past year.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Compared to the iPad Air, iPad Pro and iPad mini, this might be the easiest Apple tablet to grok — it’s the cheapest, it only comes in one size and it’s clearly designed for the core iPad Things. That doesn’t make it a slam dunk, though.
Almost everything about the latest iPad is identical to the previous entry-level iPad from 2022, which brought many of the iPad Air’s features down to a lower price. The design is unchanged, with the same dimensions, weight, bezels, display and aluminum finish as before. Apple now lists the screen as being 11 inches instead of 10.9 inches, but it’s merely rounding up for marketing purposes — the size is no different.
There are still competent 12-megapixel cameras on the front and back, with the selfie cam conveniently located along the device’s long edge for FaceTime calls. The same reliable Touch ID fingerprint sensor is built into the power button in lieu of Face ID. Two speakers, one on either end, sit behind a (misleading) quartet of grilles, while a lone USB-C port continues to max out at basic USB 2.0 transfer speeds. There’s no difference in accessory support either, and the whole thing is available in the same bold colors: blue, pink, yellow or silver.
Battery life, meanwhile, still checks in at around 10 hours per charge, give or take a few depending on how you push it. I got 11 hours and 19 minutes out of the slate after playing a 1080p movie on loop at roughly 70 percent brightness and volume (and with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth disabled). Gaming and media editing will naturally sap it faster.
Most of this is still perfectly fine for a $349 tablet. The last iPad was a light and comfortable slab, with a substantial aluminum finish and flat sides that made it feel modern. This one is no different. And iPadOS is still a level above Android and Windows tablets when it comes to app and game support, long-term updates and features optimized for large displays. But if the 10th-gen iPad was a “tick” update, the iPad (A16) is clearly a “tock.”
That said, there are some important changes, namely a faster chip, more memory and higher storage options, plus a few minor tweaks like Smart HDR 4 processing for photos and support for Bluetooth 5.3 instead of Bluetooth 5.2. It’s a spec bump through and through, with most of those tweaks being for the better, although I do think that some of the things that haven’t been touched could really use an update next time.
As the name implies, the latest iPad’s headline upgrade is its A16 chip. This is a slightly weaker version of the A16 Bionic found in 2022’s iPhone 14 Pro and the regular iPhone 15 from 2023. Compared to that SoC, this A16 has five CPU cores instead of six and four GPU cores instead of five.
But in practice, it’s still more than fast enough for the vast majority of things people do with iPads: browsing the web, streaming video, reading ebooks, viewing and editing photos, playing most games and the like. I tested this iPad against my personal 13-inch iPad Air M2 for much of this review, and the two consistently booted up and loaded popular apps at virtually the same speed. The few times the Air M2 was quicker, the difference wasn’t long enough to be significant.
Geekbench 6 results back this up: The iPad (A16) earned a single-core CPU score of 2,582, while the iPad Air M2 was only marginally better at 2,632. This is a roughly 20 percent jump from the 10th-gen iPad, though the most recent iPad Air M3 still measures about 16-18 percent faster. But for media consumption and common work tasks, it won’t feel slow anytime soon.
These performance gains are helped by the 6GB of RAM, which is 2GB more than the last model and twice as much as the 9th-gen iPad from 2021. While this is still 2GB short of the iPad Air and lower-spec iPad Pros, getting more memory for the same price is always a good thing: It lets the tablet hang onto apps and Safari tabs longer before it has to start refreshing things for new tasks. It will only improve the chances of the device holding up four or five years down the road, too.
Where the iPad (A16) lags behind its higher-end siblings is multi-core and graphics performance. In Geekbench 6, the tablet’s multi-core CPU score was about 40 percent below the iPad Air M2 (6,185 vs. 10,006), while its GPU score was about 55 percent worse (19,448 vs. 42,920). Other graphics benchmarks were largely the same: It scored about 60 percent lower than the Air M2 in 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme test (with an average of 15.2 fps vs. 37.6 fps) and anywhere between 45 to 55 percent worse on GFXBench’s Aztec Ruins benchmark, depending on the resolution. Of course, the difference will be a little greater with the newer iPad Air M3.
This sounds more dramatic on paper than it does in real life. Many everyday iPad workloads won’t tax the chip’s multi-core abilities all that hard, and the scores above are still a good 15 to 30 percent higher than the last entry-level iPad. I could still play Call of Duty Mobile at its highest settings (120 fps mode aside) without any hitches. Diablo Immortal warned that maxing out its settings would put the device under “high” load — with the Air M2, it only goes up to “medium” load — but I still got through the opening areas totally fine. (It does seem to drain the battery a bit faster, though.) You can still edit RAW photos in Lightroom or create music in GarageBand without major frustration.
Still, the Air is better if you ever want to push things further. This is easiest to see in the newest and most taxing iPadOS games. With Infinity Nikki, for instance, playing at ultra or high settings on the new iPad brought a constant bit of choppiness and some slowdowns during more involved animations. It also warmed up the device’s back and drained the battery faster. The game was still totally playable at medium settings, but there’s less need to knock it down on the iPad Air M2, where it looked sharper and ran smoother at high settings. Likewise, the Air will be noticeably quicker to export higher-res videos in apps like Adobe Premiere Rush.
Arguably, the main benefit of the iPad Air’s M-series chip and extra RAM has less to do with today than it does the future. Features like Apple Intelligence and the Stage Manager multitasking mode aren’t available here, nor are some especially demanding games. Those aren’t essential right now — though omitting Stage Manager does make the device more cumbersome to use with an external display — but there’ll always be some risk that the next great iPadOS feature or power-hungry game won’t work (or work as well) with this entry-level model.
The best improvement with the iPad (A16) is also the simplest: It now starts with 128GB of storage, which is twice as much as the last model. There’s also a new 512GB option for $649. There isn’t much to say about this besides “good.” It’s a common-sense upgrade that makes the tablet a much safer long-term investment than its predecessor, especially when there’s no hope of Apple ever letting us upgrade storage manually.
In his iPad Air M3 review, my colleague Nathan Ingraham argued that it’s time for Apple to update the Air’s display with a higher refresh rate or a mini LED panel, as the OLED tech exclusive to the iPad Pros represents a major upgrade on its own. Since the iPad (A16)’s screen is no different than the last one, I want to make a follow-up case for the entry-level model, albeit on a smaller scale.
Out of context, the IPS display here is still totally adequate. It’s comfortably sized, it’s sharp enough, it’s not a massive smudge magnet and it doesn’t have any serious color accuracy issues. A tablet is nothing if not a big display, and most of the people Apple is targeting with this one will still enjoy watching and reading stuff on it. I can also live with the 60Hz refresh rate — that’s the minimum in 2025, but it’s a harsher limitation on a $599 (or $799) tablet like the iPad Air than a $349 device.
The other restrictions are more annoying. This screen still isn’t laminated, most notably, which means there’s a visible air gap between the LCD panel and the glass above. This helps the screen’s repairability but makes it look cheaper and feel more distant when you interact with the glass. This is particularly discernible with the Apple Pencil: Writing out notes on the iPad Air is both quieter and more natural. Those who’ve never used a higher-end iPad probably won’t care, but once you notice the difference, you can’t unsee it.
The display also lacks an anti-reflective coating, so it’s worse at fending off glare. It’s certainly not unusable outdoors, but you’ll see your reflection much more clearly on the iPad (A16) than you will on the iPad Air M2 in sunlight. You’re much more likely to have to angle its display to make things out. Unlike the iPad Air and iPad Pro, the base iPad isn’t tuned for the wider P3 color space either. While the difference in color reproduction between the iPad Air and iPad (A16) is nowhere near as dramatic as the one between the Air and the iPad Pro, colors on the Air can still look slightly bolder and less washed-out when you put the two side-by-side.
I appreciate that Apple wants to keep its “good, better, best” hierarchy intact, but at this point the iPad Pro’s display is so far ahead of the rest of the lineup that there’s room to even things out. If the next Air can upgrade to 120Hz, as Nathan suggests, then the next entry-level iPad should at least have a laminated display with better glare protection. Those aren’t premium features anymore.
Apple Pencil and Magic Keyboard support is another ongoing pain point. Like its predecessor, the iPad (A16) isn’t compatible with the Pencil Pro (Apple’s best stylus) or the older, second-gen Pencil. That means the only stylus you can buy with pressure sensitivity — a key feature for digital artists that lets you make darker marks by pressing down harder — is the original Pencil, which is nearly a decade old (!), isn’t as comfortable as the newer models and can’t attach to the tablet magnetically. It also requires a USB-C cable and a USB-C to Lightning adapter to charge. All of this is bad.
You can still get the $79 USB-C Pencil, which is nicer to hold and can attach to the iPad’s side magnetically but isn’t pressure-sensitive and still requires a separate cable to pair and charge. Really, though, most people who want an iPad for drawing should start with the iPad Air. I’ve never been a big fan of this iPad’s Magic Keyboard Folio either, as its Surface-style kickstand is hard to keep stable on your lap and it lacks backlit keys. That’s tough given its exorbitantly high price of $249.
As noted above, the iPad (A16) isn’t compatible with Apple Intelligence, which is Apple’s catch-all term for the suite of generative AI features it’s gradually rolled out since late last year. In fact, it’s the only major device Apple has released without the AI tools since they became available.
Right now, though, you won’t miss much without them. Sure, the “Clean Up” feature that lets you scrub unwanted objects from photos is nice. Some of the writing-assistance tools are fine if you’re completely out of gas, and being able to access ChatGPT through Siri is convenient. But just as many of the tricks are either half-cooked or, let’s say, less than essential. A promised Siri revamp has been significantly delayed. If anything, many people will appreciate that their tablet won’t push AI onto them with every update. There’s always a chance Apple Intelligence becomes more useful down the road, and buying the iPad (A16) means locking yourself out of that potential future. But it’s not there yet, and Apple is reportedly well aware of that, so we can’t call it a major omission today.
The iPad (A16) isn’t a massive leap forward from the last entry-level iPad, and some of its display and accessory quirks are getting long in the tooth. We still recommend stepping up to the iPad Air if you can swing it: It’s faster and more futureproof, with small but meaningful upgrades to the screen, better accessory support and speakers that sound less compressed. It’s also worth the upgrade if you want to use your iPad as a pseudo laptop replacement without spending top dollar. If you see a great deal on refurbished iPad Air M2, that’s a good buy as well.
But for $250 less than the latest Air, the iPad (A16) does well to meet most iPad users where they live. It’s largely well-built and plenty quick for reading, watching and playing things, with solid battery life and an eternally easy-to-use OS. If you’re upgrading from a 9th-gen iPad or older, buying for a kid or just looking for a competent slate you won’t use for hours every day, it should be plenty of tablet for your needs. It’s not the most delightful iPad, but it’s good enough for the masses.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/ipad-2025-with-a16-review-no-apple-intelligence-no-problem-132641539.html?src=rss
It was only a matter of time, and Luís Azevedo of Little White Lies magazine has done it, editing clips from ‘The Office’ to make the characters appear to be severed employees of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Would I watch nine seasons of it? Why stop at nine? I’ll watch anything. My favorite are franchises that get run into the ground and just keep going, plowing up mole people for at least three more seasons than they should have run. I’m also no stranger to counting the kernels in popcorn ceilings.
Block has laid off 931 workers, which make up around eight percent of its entire staff, according to TechCrunch and The Guardian. The publications have viewed an email, wherein the financial technology company’s co-founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey, has discussed the latest organizational changes. Dorsey said that Block is eliminating roles based on three areas, starting with strategy. The company is letting 391 people go, because it’s reducing “teams that are off strategy.” It’s also parting ways with 460 workers who scored a “below” rating or are trending towards a “below” rating in its internal performance tracking metrics.
Finally, Block is laying off 80 managers, as well as moving 193 to individual contributor roles, to flatten the organization and remove layers of middle management between workers and the high-level bosses they’d now have to report to. In his email, Dorsey denied that the layoffs were made to hit any specific financial target and headcount goal, or because the company was replacing workers with artificial intelligence. He said that it was all about strategy and because flattening its org will allow it to “move faster and with less abstraction.” The CEO admitted, however, that everyone in Block has equity in the company and that the reorganization “will help [it] focus and execute better to do just that.” Block’s stock prices have plummeted by around 30 percent this year.
Dorsey explained that the company is laying off nearly 1,000 workers all at once instead of over time, because it’s behind in its actions. “We need to move to help us meet and stay ahead of the transformational moment our industry is in,” he wrote. In addition to the layoffs, Block is also closing 748 previously open jobs and is only leaving key leadership and critical roles, along with those that have already progressed to offer stage, open. Block, which owns Square and Cash App, also underwent a reorganization in early 2024. It laid off nearly 1,000 people back then, as well, to make the company leaner and to limit its headcount to around 12,000 workers. As TechCrunch notes, Block had around 11,300 workers around the world by December 2024, which means its headcount is now far below the original goal it set for itself in 2023.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/block-reportedly-lays-off-almost-1000-employees-130056952.html?src=rss
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
I love soundbars. I’m still traumatized by having to rig speakers all over my living room to get decent audio back in the day—not to mention finding a place for a damn subwoofer—so enjoying high quality audio from an easy-to-set-up, compact soundbar like the Sonos Arc is a great relief. It’s on sale now for Amazon’s Big Spring Sale for $649.00, 28% off the list price.
The Arc is a slick-looking piece of kit—a 45-inch oval cylinder that’s only 4.3 inches wide and 3.5 inches tall and is available in black or white—but more importantly, the Arc’s sound quality is top-notch, whether you’re watching movies or listening to music.
The Sonos Arc is powered by Dolby’s Atmos system that creates a three-dimensional “sound globe” that lets you hear anything from any direction—jets sounds like they’re overhead and whispers sound like they’re right in your ear. There’s even a dialogue enhancer so you don’t miss any lines. As for music, just put on Hawkwind’s “Master of the Universe” and tell me it doesn’t change your life.
Our pals over at PC Mag put a Sonos Arc through its paces and were impressed enough to give it four stars and name it an Editor’s Choice.
Shopping for tech? Lifehacker can help you make the right decision. Browse our tech reviews and head-to-head comparisons for everything from laptops and smartwatches to e-bikes and home gyms. Subscribe to our deals newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox, or browse our best-of lists directly on Amazon, including:
In recent years the US military has made much of a concept known as tactically responsive launch. This essentially means that if there is some rapidly developing threat in space—say an adversary takes out a key national defense satellite—the military would like the capability to rapidly fuel a satellite on Earth, mate it to a rocket, and launch it into space.
The US Space Force first demonstrated this tactically responsive capability with a launch on Firefly’s Alpha rocket in 2023. As part of this “Victus Nox” test flight, a satellite was encapsulated into a payload fairing and mated to the rocket and completed all final launch preparations within 27 hours.
But what if there were an even faster way to respond? That’s the vision behind a new, $60 million federal award to a new space company named Gravitics for a concept called an orbital carrier.
A day without a company announcing some new way AI can supposedly make our lives better is rare. Today it’s Amazon, which has announced a new AI-powered feature called “Interests.” It lets you enter personalized shopping prompts based on your, well, interests and price limits — and it arrives just in time for Amazon’s Spring Sale.
Interests can handle prompts with everyday language, like “Brewing tools and gadgets for coffee lovers” or “Natural makeup products for summer glow from top brands.” The AI-powered feature will then look through Amazon’s store to see current offerings and send you notifications about any deals, new products or restocks that are relevant to your prompt. Shopping on Amazon can sometimes feel like a never-ending pit of decent enough options, so hopefully this feature provides a more tailored selection.
Amazon has only released Interests to a small group of customers in the US and only through the app or mobile website. You can check if it’s available to you by looking under the “Me” tab in the Amazon shopping app. Otherwise, Amazon plans to roll out Interests to all of its US users in the coming months.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/amazon-has-a-new-ai-powered-tool-for-shopping-125314016.html?src=rss
There’s a good chance learning a new language is one of your New Year’s resolutions, unless you’re hoping Google Translate will be enough for your next international adventure. Either way, you’ll need a reliable method to guide you through speaking and understanding the foreign language of your choosing. Fortunately, we’re no longer confined to flashcards and textbooks as you can learn using your phone from the comfort of your couch.
Many of the best language learning apps today offer a multi-tier approach, with AI-powered conversations, extensive vocab libraries and even podcasts you can listen to to help you master your target language. Whether you’re just starting because you’re just trying to understand what Bad Bunny means when he says “un verano en Nueva Yol,” or you want to brush up on your Korean before that planned vacation, there’s a language learning app to suit your needs.
Memrise has a library of more than 200 languages to learn. From Spanish to isiXhosa, Memrise can teach you all the basics and dive into more regional differences. As a Spanish learner, I could choose to learn from Spain or Mexico and I enjoyed that Memrise didn’t just teach me a more generalized version of the language. While Memrise could be great for polyglots, its hefty $60 monthly fee was too steep and prevented it from gleaning one of our top slots.
Dr. Pimsleur believed speaking and listening were key to learning a new language. This app allows you to take its audio lessons offline, even going as far as integrating into Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. As a commuter, I appreciated having a lesson or two stored away for my journey to the office. However, I wanted more ways to practice reading and writing. With other apps offering podcasts for listening along and other forms of teaching, Pimsleur didn’t offer enough to make our list.
Gone are the large, yellow disc sets of yesteryear; now Rosetta Stone lives squarely in the digital age with its app. Using the same visual learning tools as the old-school Rosetta Stone, the app shows you pictures and terms to get you to understand what things mean. Users can repeat after voice recordings and match phrases to the images to learn slowly. Rosetta Stone could be great for beginners, but in order to get access to all 25 languages and a lifetime subscription, you’d have to dish out $400. There are cheaper apps on this list that provide comparable experiences.
Similar to Discord, HelloTalk provides voice and chat rooms to talk to folks from different countries. Its users can learn regional terms and talk about cultural differences. With a paid subscription, you can practice with a tutor or their AI chatbot. If you’re looking to learn a new language outside of your inner circle, HelloTalk can be a great fit. I enjoyed connecting with others on the app, but, as always when meeting strangers online, beware — some users treat it like a dating app. Fortunately, there are apps on this list that offer a similar AI learning approach without that added concern.
As an intermediate Spanish learner, I was looking for an app that best catered to my needs, but I know everyone learns differently. So for each app, I assessed based on several factors. Can beginners use this to gain confidence? Will advanced speakers feel challenged? Are there enough opportunities to test reading and writing skills? How many ways can you learn vocabulary words? For those who want to have more conversations, what opportunities did each app provide to speak in that language? Bonus points if an app helped you learn a bit of the culture surrounding that language.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/best-language-learning-app-120001600.html?src=rss
We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.
Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is back—and while it’s no Prime Day, it still brings a solid lineup of discounts for anyone looking to snag big-ticket items for less. Running from March 25 through March 31, this seven-day sale is only in its second year but already feels like a decent excuse to shop. You don’t need to be a Prime member to grab deals, though Amazon claims members get “more and better” prices. If you don’t want to commit, the 30-day free trial might be worth it just for the week. Just set a reminder to cancel if you’re not planning on keeping it.
One of the more eye-catching markdowns right now is on the Arlo Pro 5S 2K Spotlight Camera (3-Pack)—it’s down to $217.78 from $449.99, which, according to price-trackers, is the lowest it’s ever been. This three-camera bundle is designed for people who want decent home security without a complicated install. Each camera is completely wire-free and captures 2K resolution video. That means the footage is sharp enough to see license plates or faces from a distance, and you can digitally zoom in without everything turning into a blur. They have built-in spotlights and color night vision, which kicks in when motion is detected, giving you a better view at night.
That said, these cameras don’t come with local storage unless you already own the Arlo Smart Hub ($99, down from $110), which lets you record to a USB drive. If you don’t, you’ll need an Arlo Secure plan—$7.99/month for a single camera or $17.99/month for unlimited ones. That subscription unlocks cloud recording, activity zones, advanced object detection, and smart alerts. You can also step up to a $24.99/month plan that adds 24/7 emergency response. On the plus side, the Pro 5S 2K works with Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, SmartThings (and Apple HomeKit if paired with a hub)—so it’s flexible if you’re already using smart home gear, according to this PCMag review.
Shopping for tech? Lifehacker can help you make the right decision. Browse our tech reviews and head-to-head comparisons for everything from laptops and smartwatches to e-bikes and home gyms. Subscribe to our deals newsletter, Add to Cart, for the best sales sent to your inbox, or browse our best-of lists directly on Amazon, including:
wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Google late Tuesday rushed out a patch for a sandbox escape vulnerability in its flagship Chrome browser after researchers at Kaspersky caught a professional hacking operation launching drive-by download exploits. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-2783, was chained with a second exploit for remote code execution in what appears to be a nation-state sponsored cyberespionage campaign [dubbed Operation ForumTroll] targeting organizations in Russia.
Kaspersky said it detected a series of infections triggered by phishing emails in the middle of March and traced the incidents to a zero-day that fired when victims simply clicked on a booby-trapped website from a Chrome browser. The Russian anti-malware vendor said victims merely had to click on a personalized, short-lived link, and their systems were compromised when the malicious website was opened in Chrome. Kaspersky said its exploit detection tools picked up on the zero-day, and after reverse-engineering the code, the team reported the bug to Google and coordinated the fix released on Tuesday.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In the ever-evolving landscape of online trading, Finzilo.com has emerged as a trusted platform for traders seeking innovation, efficiency, and security. Offering a wide range of tools, markets, and account types, it caters to both beginners and seasoned professionals, ensuring a seamless trading experience tailored to individual needs.
In this Finizlo.com review, we delve into the standout features and offerings of Finzilo.com to showcase why it continues to attract traders worldwide.
Finzilo.com inspires traders with an innovative, all-inclusive trading platform boasting a wide range of accomplished functions. Whether you’re a beginner exploring financial markets or a seasoned professional in need of advanced strategies, the platform delivers.
With a variety of trading instruments, seamless automation, and cutting-edge analytics, users can make well-informed decisions. Built on security, personalization, and user-friendly functionality, Finzilo.com has quickly established itself as a favorite among traders.
Finzilo.com excels by offering a vast array of markets, allowing traders to explore various avenues for profitable trading. The platform supports:
This broad range of offerings ensures traders can diversify their portfolios and capitalize on market opportunities.
Rating: 9.5/10
Finzilo.com provides five structured account levels to cater to traders of all experience levels:
This diverse range of account options ensures every trader can find a suitable starting point and upgrade as their journey progresses.
Rating: 8.5/10
Finzilo.com enhances the user experience with a well-curated news blog and an informative FAQ page.
This emphasis on education and support ensures traders are equipped to make informed decisions.
Rating: 9/10
Finzilo.com simplifies deposits and withdrawals, offering users multiple payment options, including bank transfers, credit/debit cards, and e-wallets.
Highlights:
This user-friendly approach to financial transactions makes Finzilo.com a reliable platform.
Rating: 9/10
Security is a top priority for Finzilo.com, ensuring user data and funds are well protected.
Key Features:
By prioritizing robust security measures, Finzilo.com instills confidence and trust among its users.
Rating: 10/10
Finzilo.com’s platform is optimized for lightning-fast trade execution, even during high-volatility periods.
Advantages:
These features are particularly valuable in fast-paced markets like forex and cryptocurrencies.
Rating: 9.5/10
Finzilo.com stands out for integrating AI trading tools into its platform, enhancing automation and precision.
Key Features:
This combination of human expertise and AI innovation positions Finzilo.com as a market leader.
Rating: 9/10
Finzilo.com combines innovation, security, and diversity to provide a comprehensive trading platform. With extensive market offerings, advanced AI tools, and flexible account options, the platform is designed to meet the needs of traders worldwide.
Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned professional, Finzilo.com offers the tools and support necessary to thrive in today’s dynamic financial markets.
In an op-ed for MIT Technology Review, authors Carsten T. Charlesworth, Henry T. Greely, and Hiromitsu Nakauchi make the case for human “bodyoids” that could reduce animal testing, improve drug development, and alleviate organ shortages: Why do we hear about medical breakthroughs in mice, but rarely see them translate into cures for human disease? Why do so few drugs that enter clinical trials receive regulatory approval? And why is the waiting list for organ transplantation so long? These challenges stem in large part from a common root cause: a severe shortage of ethically sourced human bodies. It may be disturbing to characterize human bodies in such commodifying terms, but the unavoidable reality is that human biological materials are an essential commodity in medicine, and persistent shortages of these materials create a major bottleneck to progress.
This imbalance between supply and demand is the underlying cause of the organ shortage crisis, with more than 100,000 patients currently waiting for a solid organ transplant in the US alone. It also forces us to rely heavily on animals in medical research, a practice that can’t replicate major aspects of human physiology and makes it necessary to inflict harm on sentient creatures. In addition, the safety and efficacy of any experimental drug must still be confirmed in clinical trials on living human bodies. These costly trials risk harm to patients, can take a decade or longer to complete, and make it through to approval less than 15% of the time.
There might be a way to get out of this moral and scientific deadlock. Recent advances in biotechnology now provide a pathway to producing living human bodies without the neural components that allow us to think, be aware, or feel pain. Many will find this possibility disturbing, but if researchers and policymakers can find a way to pull these technologies together, we may one day be able to create “spare” bodies, both human and nonhuman. These could revolutionize medical research and drug development, greatly reducing the need for animal testing, rescuing many people from organ transplant lists, and allowing us to produce more effective drugs and treatments. All without crossing most people’s ethical lines.
Although it may seem like science fiction, recent technological progress has pushed this concept into the realm of plausibility. Pluripotent stem cells, one of the earliest cell types to form during development, can give rise to every type of cell in the adult body. Recently, researchers have used these stem cells to create structures that seem to mimic the early development of actual human embryos. At the same time, artificial uterus technology is rapidly advancing, and other pathways may be opening to allow for the development of fetuses outside of the body. Such technologies, together with established genetic techniques to inhibit brain development, make it possible to envision the creation of “bodyoids” — a potentially unlimited source of human bodies, developed entirely outside of a human body from stem cells, that lack sentience or the ability to feel pain.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The European Space Agency is inviting proposals to inject competition into the European launch market, an important step toward fostering a dynamic multiplayer industry officials hope, one day, will mimic that of the United States.
The near-term plan for the European Launcher Challenge is for ESA to select companies for service contracts to transport ESA and other European government payloads to orbit from 2026 through 2030. A second component of the challenge is for companies to perform at least one demonstration of an upgraded launch vehicle by 2028. The competition is open to any European company working in the launch business.
“What we expect is that these companies will make a step in improving and upgrading their capacity with respect to what they’re presently working,” said Toni Tolker-Nielsen, ESA’s acting director of space transportation.”In terms of economics and physics, it’s better to have a bigger launcher than a smaller launcher in terms of price per kilogram to orbit.”
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Software developer Xe Iaso reached a breaking point earlier this year when aggressive AI crawler traffic from Amazon overwhelmed their Git repository service, repeatedly causing instability and downtime. Despite configuring standard defensive measures — adjusting robots.txt, blocking known crawler user-agents, and filtering suspicious traffic — Iaso found that AI crawlers continued evading all attempts to stop them, spoofing user-agents and cycling through residential IP addresses as proxies. Desperate for a solution, Iaso eventually resorted to moving their server behind a VPN and creating “Anubis,” a custom-built proof-of-work challenge system that forces web browsers to solve computational puzzles before accessing the site. “It’s futile to block AI crawler bots because they lie, change their user agent, use residential IP addresses as proxies, and more,” Iaso wrote in a blog post titled “a desperate cry for help.” “I don’t want to have to close off my Gitea server to the public, but I will if I have to.”
Iaso’s story highlights a broader crisis rapidly spreading across the open source community, as what appear to be aggressive AI crawlers increasingly overload community-maintained infrastructure, causing what amounts to persistent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on vital public resources. According to a comprehensive recent report from LibreNews, some open source projects now see as much as 97 percent of their traffic originating from AI companies’ bots, dramatically increasing bandwidth costs, service instability, and burdening already stretched-thin maintainers.
Kevin Fenzi, a member of the Fedora Pagure project’s sysadmin team, reported on his blog that the project had to block all traffic from Brazil after repeated attempts to mitigate bot traffic failed. GNOME GitLab implemented Iaso’s “Anubis” system, requiring browsers to solve computational puzzles before accessing content. GNOME sysadmin Bart Piotrowski shared on Mastodon that only about 3.2 percent of requests (2,690 out of 84,056) passed their challenge system, suggesting the vast majority of traffic was automated. KDE’s GitLab infrastructure was temporarily knocked offline by crawler traffic originating from Alibaba IP ranges, according to LibreNews, citing a KDE Development chat. While Anubis has proven effective at filtering out bot traffic, it comes with drawbacks for legitimate users. When many people access the same link simultaneously — such as when a GitLab link is shared in a chat room — site visitors can face significant delays. Some mobile users have reported waiting up to two minutes for the proof-of-work challenge to complete, according to the news outlet.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
GameStop announced it will invest part of its corporate cash in bitcoin and stablecoins, following MicroStrategy’s lead. The meme stock jumped more than 6% in extended trading Tuesday following the news. CNBC reports: The video game retailer said a portion of its cash or future debt and equity issuances may be invested in bitcoin and U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoins. As of Feb. 1, GameStop held nearly $4.8 billion in cash. The firm also said it has not set a ceiling on the amount of bitcoin it may purchase. The company said the move could expose it to volatility associated with cryptocurrency prices.
“Bitcoin, for example, is a highly volatile asset and has experienced significant price fluctuations over time. Our Bitcoin strategy has not been tested and may prove unsuccessful,” GameStop said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Register’s Richard Speed reports: Baffled by the plethora of Outlook options out there? You aren’t alone. Microsoft veteran Scott Hanselman posted a list of some more variants that could be used to do the same thing. It’s a problem common to several Microsoft products. A file needs to be opened, but which app should be used? Should it be Outlook New, or Outlook (New)? With tongue firmly in cheek, Hanselman listed some more options: Outlook (Zero Sugar), Outlook (Caffeine Free), and so on. Hanselman, Developer Community veep at Microsoft, also included Outlook ’95, although to our mind the peak came with the version of Outlook in Office 97. A happier, more trusting time when security was less important.
While users can create multiple Outlook profiles to store email account details and data locations, Hanselman’s post on Bluesky highlights an issue facing many users of Microsoft’s software: which incarnation of the application to use. Teams users often find themselves presented with a variety of applications — Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Teams (Personal), for example, can often appear side by side in the system tray. […]
There is a cautionary tale about what happened when a soft drinks company tried to replace a well-liked product with a “new” version and renamed the previous preferred version as “classic.” The list posted by Hanselman — who is also notable for tips on managing Microsoft’s personal information manager — is amusing, but also highlights the perils of having multiple, similarly functioning options to do the same thing, and the potential for confusing users.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
