Dads can be just as hard to shop for as moms — really, finding the perfect gift for any parent can be a struggle. But if you’re shopping for a father who’s into consumer tech, though, we can help. Below, we’ve consulted our many hours of gadget testing and put together a list of standout gift ideas, from VR headsets to pizza ovens to smartwatches to meat thermometers. And don’t worry, there are budget-friendly options in here too that can help the dad who’s always traveling, those who like to tinker with their own tech and others.

Best gifts for dads in 2025

Check out the rest of our gift ideas here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/best-gifts-for-dads-170014057.html?src=rss

The Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle blasted off from SpaceX’s Starbase in Texas for its ninth test flight on Tuesday, 7:37 PM Eastern time. It was the first Starship flight that reused a Super Heavy booster, which was also used for the vehicle’s seventh test flight. During the vehicle’s seventh and eighth flights, its second stage, or the Starship spacecraft itself, exploded during ascent. This time, the stage (also known as the “Ship”) completed its ascent burn and even reached space, but it was one victory in a test flight with mixed results.

SpaceX’s Starbase launch tower caught the Super Heavy booster after it flew back with its “chopstick” arms during the two previous flights. For this one, the company conducted tests with the booster it didn’t do before, such as making it fly at a higher angle during its descent. Doing so increases the atmospheric drag on the booster, slowing it down as it descends so that it requires less propellant. As such, the company had decided to let the booster splash down into the ocean, as the testing would make it more difficult for the Starbase chopstick arms to catch it. SpaceX lost contact with the Super Heavy shortly after it started its landing burn, however, and it experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” six minutes after launch. 

Meanwhile, the Ship stage was able to take on a suborbital trajectory and was supposed to deploy eight Starlink simulator satellites while it was in space. It was ultimately unable to deploy the simulator satellites, because its payload bay door got stuck and wouldn’t open. The Ship also encountered an attitude control error that prevented it from getting into the position it needed to take for reentry. It started to tumble due to a leak that caused loss of main tank pressure, before SpaceX lost contact with it 46 minutes into the flight. While a controlled splashdown was impossible to achieve, the company still expects Ship’s debris to fall within the planned hazard area in the Indian Ocean. 

SpaceX will not be getting all the data it was hoping to get from this flight, but Elon Musk said there’s still a “lot of good data to review.” He also said that the company will be flying the Starship over the next three flights once every three to four weeks. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/spacexs-ninth-starship-test-flight-reaches-space-but-fails-to-deploy-fake-satellites-120057474.html?src=rss

This year’s Amazon Prime Day is coming soon, so it’s a good time to start thinking about the things you’ll want to look for once the deal wave hits. Everything from gadgets to clothes to household necessities will be on sale during the event as part of the Prime Day deals, and if you’re a Prime member, you’ll have access to all of the discounts. Engadget will be surfacing all of the best tech deals we can find, but there are some important things to know ahead of time so you can get exactly what you want out of this year’s Prime Day.

When is Prime Day 2025?

Amazon Prime Day 2025 will be back this year sometime in July, but the official dates have not been released yet.

What is Prime Day?

Prime Day is Amazon’s members-only shopping event, which means you’ll have to be a Prime subscriber on Prime Day to take advantage of most of the savings. Amazon still offers a 30-day free trial to new Prime subscribers, so you can start your free trial closer to July and participate in the event.

How often is Prime Day?

Amazon Prime Day typically comes around annually in July. In the last few years, Amazon has also had its “Big Deal Days” in October, which is effectively a second Prime Day and the unofficial kickoff to the holiday shopping season.

How does Prime Day work?

Prime subscribers can go to Amazon’s site on Prime Day to see all of the exclusive deals they have access to. Prime subscribers do not have to do anything additional to get Prime Day sales: the discounts you see on product pages will show up in your cart automatically. If you’re not a Prime subscriber and you go to Amazon to shop on Prime Day, you’ll likely see tons of items on sale but only “with Prime;” those discounts will not be available to those who are not active Prime subscribers.

If you don’t pay for Prime and have no intention of doing so, you should still check out Amazon on Prime Day for sales that are available to all shoppers — there are always a few of them. Plus, it’s very likely that other retailers like Target and Best Buy will have their own competing Prime Day sales during that time frame, too.

How to prep for Prime Day

First, make a list. It’s best to go into Amazon Prime Day as prepared as possible; that means knowing exactly what you want so you stay focused and avoid distractions. Make note of the most important items you want to pick up on Prime Day ahead of time. You can either do this the old-fashioned way on a sticky note, or you can use Amazon’s wish list feature. For the latter, add the items you want to buy on Prime Day to your wish list (or, even better, make a dedicated wishlist with only your Prime Day desirables) and return to that list during the shopping event. Not only will you have everything you want all in one place, but you’ll also be able to see which of those items are cheaper on Prime Day than they were when you originally added them to your list.

Second, use a price tracker. Sites like CamelCamelCamel and Keepa let you monitor the price of specific items on Amazon. You can check out price history charts and you can make your own price-drop alerts, receiving emails when something you want gets a discount. Both CamelCamelCamel and Keepa also have some browser extensions you can download so you don’t have to navigate away from an Amazon product page to check its price history.

Amazon Prime Day deals

Amazon Prime Day typically lasts a couple of days, but for the past few years, the company has started pushing out deals well before the event actually kicks off. We anticipate the same happening this year, with early Prime Day deals kicking off possibly as soon as Amazon officially announces the dates of Prime Day 2025.

While we wouldn’t call the following sales “early Prime Day deals” just yet, they do represent some of the best deals you can get on Amazon right now as we wait for the full details of Prime Day to be revealed. We’ll update this list as prices change and as we find even more of the best Amazon deals you can get.

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

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/amazon-prime-day-2025-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-annual-july-sales-event-120028400.html?src=rss

A former Minnesota waitress unknowingly helped North Korean workers steal $17.1 million in wages from over 300 American companies through an elaborate remote work scheme, federal prosecutors said this week. Christina Chapman operated a “laptop farm” from her home, managing dozens of computers that allowed North Koreans using stolen U.S. identities to work as legitimate tech employees.

The FBI estimates this broader infiltration involves thousands of North Korean workers generating hundreds of millions annually for the sanctions-hit regime. Chapman, recruited via LinkedIn in 2020 to serve as “the U.S. face” for overseas IT workers, handled logistics including receiving company laptops, installing remote access software, and processing falsified employment documents.

The North Korean workers accessed the devices daily from overseas, with some maintaining jobs for months or years at major American corporations. Chapman earned just under $177,000 before the FBI raided her Arizona operation in October 2023, seizing over 90 computers. She pleaded guilty in February to wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering charges, facing up to nine years in prison at her July sentencing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Love or hate them, leaf blowers are undeniably effective: They have have transformed the chore of clearing leaves off your property from a back-straining misery into a (very noisy) stroll across it. And while it’s true that old-school gas-powered leaf blowers have been maligned as loud, polluting scourges, these days you can get a clean, battery-powered model that won’t ruin your relationship with your neighbors while actively destroying the climate.

And you might have good reason to. While leaf blowers are seemingly simple, single-use tools (you know, blowing leaves into piles), they’re a lot more versatile than that. By my count, my leaf blower is actually at least six tools in one.

Gutter cleaner

Your home’s gutters protect your property by directing rainwater away from your foundation and walls. But to keep doing that, gutters need maintenance and regular cleaning to ensure they’re not filled with leaves, birds’ nests, and other debris.

Cleaning gutters can be a dangerous and dirty chore—or you can buy yourself a gutter cleaning kit that attaches to your leaf blower. Using your leaf blower in this way allows you to stay firmly on the ground, keeps you far away from the mulch-y, damp stuff collecting in your gutters, and makes the job much faster, because you don’t have to keep resetting a ladder every five minutes.

Snow shovel

Clearing snow from your sidewalk, driveway, and other areas of your property can cause back strain, heart attacks, and a generally grim view of the world in general. But if you have a leaf blower, you don’t need a shovel. Leaf blowers are surprisingly effective at clearing away snow as long that’s relatively dry and powdery—admittedly, if the snow is dense and wet you’re probably still going to need a shovel to clear it. But if you’re looking at a lot of fresh, light snow, that leaf blower will make short work of it.

A portable air dryer

Leaf blowers aren’t complex—they blow air out one end, and that’s it. This means yours can act as a portable air dryer. Just washed your car and don’t want to spend the next half hour drying it off by hand? A leaf blower will gently dry it for you. Having guests over and your patio furniture is damp? Leaf blower to the rescue. In fact, just about anything and anyplace where water beads up can be quickly dried with a leaf blower.

Filter cleaner

Have a vacuum, furnace, or other filter that’s dirt-clogged to the point of unsuitability? Cleaning it will make the machine it fits into run better, but it’s a chore: Shaking it out isn’t very thorough, and rinsing it with water means you have to build in time for it to dry before you put it back in place. So use a leaf blower to blow out that filter in seconds and put it right back to work.

Caution: Some suggest using your leaf blower to clear out your dryer vent. While this may appear to work, it’s also a bad idea: The leaf blower can compact lint inside the vent, making its performance worse and increasing the chance of a fire greater. Stick with cleaning out those filters via another method.

Seed spreader

Got a lawn to seed but short on time? Pick up a seed spreader attachment for your leaf blower (this is a real thing I am not making up). It works really well at spraying seeds (or herbicides, or muck pellets, or anything else you want to spread over a large area) quickly and efficiently. (You can even make your own with a drill, saw, a plastic bottle or funnel, and some tape.)

Wire threader

If you’ve ever tried to thread a wire through a conduit, you know there’s a certain amount of black magic involved—even the most straightforward conduit can have you feeling like it leads through an alternate dimension where the laws of physics don’t apply. But with your trusty leaf blower and a plastic bag, you can run that wire through the conduit in seconds: Attach the wire to a standard lightweight plastic bag, drop it in one end of the conduit, and let your leaf blower blow that bag straight through to the other end.

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There’s something to be said for a one-time payment that actually sticks. This bundle on StackSocial pairs Microsoft Office Professional 2021 with Windows 11 Pro for just $54.97 (down from nearly $419), and it’s the kind of deal that makes sense if you’re setting up a new PC or finally updating an old one. The Office license is for life—no subscription, no annual fees, and it covers all the essentials, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Access, and the free version of Teams. Everything installs locally on one Windows PC, so there’s no hopping between browser tabs or worrying about renewing in 12 months.

The Windows 11 Pro license, also included, is the full upgrade, not just cosmetic tweaks but real functionality gains. It’s got advanced tools like BitLocker encryption, Hyper-V virtualization, and Windows Sandbox for anyone dealing with professional-level tasks or sensitive data. If you’re switching from Windows 10 Home, you’ll notice productivity bumps too: snap layouts, tabbed File Explorer, and Copilot baked into the OS. That last one is Microsoft’s AI helper that lives on your taskbar. You can press the Windows key + C to launch it and ask it to summarize web pages, open apps, or adjust settings—all with plain English.

There are a few caveats. Note that you’ll need at least 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage to run it, plus TPM 2.0 and UEFI support, so older PCs may be out. You can only use Office on one PC, and the license is tied to that device, not your Microsoft account, so it doesn’t travel with you if you upgrade to a new computer later. The Windows 11 Pro key gives you a bit more flexibility (it can be activated on up to two devices). And while it’s not compatible with virtual machines or Parallels, the deal still offers solid value for most everyday or professional users looking to avoid recurring costs. Just be sure to activate it within 30 days of buying.

For the last three months or so, I’ve been learning to use (and love) a Bambu Labs A1 3D printer, a big, loud machine that sits on my desk and turns pictures on my computer screen into real-world objects.

In the first part of my series about diving into the wild world of 3D printers, I covered what I’d learned about the different types of 3D printers, some useful settings in the Bambu Studio app (which should also be broadly useful to know about no matter what printer you use), and some initial, magical-feeling successes in downloading files that I turned into useful physical items using a few feet of plastic filament and a couple hours of time.

For this second part, I’m focusing on what I learned when I embarked on my first major project—printing upgrade parts for the A1 with the A1. It was here that I made some of my first big 3D printing mistakes, mistakes that prompted me to read up on the different kinds of 3D printer filament, what each type of filament is good for, and which types the A1 is (and is not) good at handling as an un-enclosed, bed-slinging printer.

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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols writes in an op-ed for The Register: I use AI a lot, but not to write stories. I use AI for search. When it comes to search, AI, especially Perplexity, is simply better than Google. Ordinary search has gone to the dogs. Maybe as Google goes gaga for AI, its search engine will get better again, but I doubt it. In just the last few months, I’ve noticed that AI-enabled search, too, has been getting crappier.

In particular, I’m finding that when I search for hard data such as market-share statistics or other business numbers, the results often come from bad sources. Instead of stats from 10-Ks, the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) mandated annual business financial reports for public companies, I get numbers from sites purporting to be summaries of business reports. These bear some resemblance to reality, but they’re never quite right. If I specify I want only 10-K results, it works. If I just ask for financial results, the answers get… interesting. This isn’t just Perplexity. I’ve done the exact same searches on all the major AI search bots, and they all give me “questionable” results.

Welcome to Garbage In/Garbage Out (GIGO). Formally, in AI circles, this is known as AI model collapse. In an AI model collapse, AI systems, which are trained on their own outputs, gradually lose accuracy, diversity, and reliability. This occurs because errors compound across successive model generations, leading to distorted data distributions and “irreversible defects” in performance. The final result? A Nature 2024 paper stated, “The model becomes poisoned with its own projection of reality.” […]

We’re going to invest more and more in AI, right up to the point that model collapse hits hard and AI answers are so bad even a brain-dead CEO can’t ignore it. How long will it take? I think it’s already happening, but so far, I seem to be the only one calling it. Still, if we believe OpenAI’s leader and cheerleader, Sam Altman, who tweeted in February 2024 that “OpenAI now generates about 100 billion words per day,” and we presume many of those words end up online, it won’t take long.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX made some progress on another test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket Tuesday, finally overcoming technical problems that plagued the program’s two previous launches.

But minutes into the mission, SpaceX’s Starship lost control as it cruised through space, then tumbled back into the atmosphere somewhere over the Indian Ocean nearly an hour after taking off from Starbase, Texas, the company’s privately-owned spaceport near the US-Mexico border.

SpaceX’s next-generation rocket is designed to eventually ferry cargo and private and government crews between the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The rocket is complex and gargantuan, wider and longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet, and after nearly two years of steady progress since its first test flight in 2023, this has been a year of setbacks for Starship.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Advanced robots don’t necessarily need to look like C3PO from “Star Wars” or George Jetson’s maid Rosie, despite all the hype over humanoids from Wall Street and Big Tech. In fact, some of the biggest skeptics about human-shaped robots come from within the robotics industry itself. […] The most productive — and profitable — bots are the ones that can do single tasks cheaply and efficiently. “If you look at where robots are really bringing value in a manufacturing environment, it is combining industrial or collaborative robots with mobility,” ABB managing director Ali Raja tells Axios. “I don’t see that there are any real practical applications where humanoids are bringing in a lot of value.”

“The reason we have two legs is because whether Darwin or God or whoever made us, we have to figure out how to traverse an infinite number of things,” like climbing a mountain or riding a bike, explains Michael Cicco, CEO of Fanuc America Corp. “When you get into the factory, even if it’s a million things, it’s still a finite number of things that you need to do.” Human-shaped robots are over-engineered solutions to most factory chores that could be better solved by putting a robot arm on a wheeled base, he said.

“The thing about humanoids is not that it’s a human factor. It’s that it’s more dynamically stable,” counters Melonee Wise, chief product officer at Agility Robotics, which is developing a humanoid robot called Digit. When humans grab something heavy, they can shift their weight for better balance. The same is true for a humanoid, she said. Using a robotic arm on a mobile base to pick up something heavy, “it’s like I’m a little teapot and you become very unstable,” she said, bending at the waist.

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SpaceX’s Starship Flight 9 successfully launched and reached space — marking the first reuse of a Super Heavy booster — but both rocket stages were ultimately lost mid-mission due to a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in a statement: “Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight! Leaks caused loss of main tank pressure during the coast and re-entry phase. Lot of good data to review.” Musk said the next three Starship test launches could lift off every three to four weeks in the days ahead. Space.com reports: The mission lifted off from Starbase today at 7:37 p.m. EDT (2337 GMT; 6:37 p.m. local Texas time), sending the 40-story-tall rocket into the Texas sky atop a pillar of flame. It was a milestone launch, marking the first-ever reuse of a Super Heavy booster; this one earned its wings on Flight 7 in January. (SpaceX swapped out just four of its Raptors after that mission, meaning that 29 of the engines that flew today were flight-proven.) “Lessons learned from the first booster refurbishment and subsequent performance in flight will enable faster turnarounds of future reflights as progress is made towards vehicles requiring no hands-on maintenance between launches,” the company wrote in a Flight 9 mission preview.

The Super Heavy had a somewhat different job to do today; it conducted a variety of experiments on its way back down to Earth. For example, the booster performed a controlled rather than randomized return flip and hit the atmosphere at a different angle. “By increasing the amount of atmospheric drag on the vehicle, a higher angle of attack can result in a lower descent speed, which in turn requires less propellant for the initial landing burn,” SpaceX wrote in the mission preview. “Getting real-world data on how the booster is able to control its flight at this higher angle of attack will contribute to improved performance on future vehicles, including the next generation of Super Heavy.” These experiments complicated Super Heavy’s flight profile compared to previous missions, making another “chopsticks” catch at Starbase a tougher proposition. So, rather than risk damaging the launch tower and other infrastructure, SpaceX decided to bring the booster back for a “hard splashdown” in the Gulf of Mexico on Flight 9. That was the plan, anyway; Super Heavy didn’t quite make it that far. The booster broke apart about 6 minutes and 20 seconds into today’s flight, just after beginning its landing burn. “Confirmation that the booster did demise,” [Dan Huot, of SpaceX’s communications team] said during the Flight 9 webcast. Super Heavy’s flight ended “before it was able to get through landing burn,” he added.

Ship, by contrast, improved its performance a bit this time around. It reached space today on a suborbital trajectory that took it eastward over the Atlantic Ocean — the same basic path the vehicle took on the truncated Flight 7 and Flight 8. But Flight 9 got choppy for Ship after that. The vehicle was supposed to deploy eight dummy versions of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites about 18.5 minutes after liftoff, which would have been a landmark first for the Starship program. That didn’t happen, however; the payload door couldn’t open fully, so SpaceX abandoned the deployment try. Then, about 30 minutes after launch, Ship started to tumble, which was the result of a leak in Ship’s fuel-tank systems, according to Huot. “A lot of those [tanks] are used for your attitude control,” he said. “And so, at this point, we’ve essentially lost our attitude control with Starship.” As a result, SpaceX nixed a plan to relight one of Ship’s Raptor engines in space, a test that was supposed to happen about 38 minutes after launch. And the company gave up hope of a soft splashdown for the vehicle, instead becoming resigned to a breakup over the Indian Ocean during Ship’s reentry.

The company therefore will not get all the data it wanted about Flight 9. And there was quite a bit to get; for example, SpaceX removed some of Ship’s heat-shield tiles to stress-test vulnerable areas, and it also tried out several different tile materials, including one with an active cooling system. But the company plans to bounce back and try again soon, just as it did after Flight 7 and Flight 8. You can watch a recording of the launch on YouTube.

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unixbhaskar shares a report from Phoronix: The X86_NATIVE_CPU Kconfig build time option has been merged for the Linux 6.16 merge window as an easy means of enforcing “-march=native” compiler behavior on AMD and Intel processors to optimize your kernel build for the local CPU architecture/family of your system. For those wanting to “-march=native” your Linux kernel build on AMD/Intel x86_64 processors, the new CONFIG_X86_NATIVE_CPU option can be easily enabled for setting that compiler option on your local kernel builds.

The CONFIG_X86_NATIVE_CPU option is honored if compiling the Linux x86_64 kernel with GCC or LLVM Clang when using Clang 19 or newer due to a compiler bug with the Linux kernel on older compiler versions. In addition to setting the “-march=native” compiler option for the Linux kernel C code, enabling this new Kconfig build option also sets “-Ctarget-cpu=native” for the kernel’s Rust code too.

“It seems interesting though,” comments unixbhaskar. “If the detailed benchmark shows some improvement with the option selected, then distros might start to adopt it for their flavor.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince warned that LaLiga’s ISP blocking campaign — intended to stop football piracy — has caused widespread collateral damage by blocking millions of unrelated websites, including emergency services, in Spain. He called the strategy “bonkers” and expressed fear that lives could be lost due to the overblocking. TorrentFreak reports: Posting to X last week, Prince asked if anyone wanted any general feedback, declaring that he felt “in an especially truthful mood.” The first response contained direct questions about the LaLiga controversy, the blame for which LaLiga places squarely on the shoulders of Cloudflare. For the first time since Cloudflare legal action failed to end LaLiga’s blocking campaign, Prince weighed in with his assessment of the current situation and where he believes it’s inevitably heading.

“A huge percentage of the Internet sits behind us, including small businesses and emergency resources in Spain,” Prince explained. “The strategy of blocking broadly through ISPs based on IPs is bonkers because so much content, including emergency services content, can be behind any IP. The collateral damage is vast and is hurting Spanish citizens from accessing critical resources,” he added. […]

Despite LaLiga’s unshakable claims to the contrary, Prince believes that it’s not a case of ‘if’ disaster strikes, it’s ‘when.’ “It’s only a matter of time before a Spanish citizen can’t access a life-saving emergency resource because the rights holder in a football match refuses to send a limited request to block one resource versus a broad request to block a whole swath of the Internet,” Prince warned. “When that unfortunately and inevitably happens and harms lives, I’m confident policy makers and courts in Spain and elsewhere will make the right policy decision. Until then, it’ll be up to users to make politicians clear on the risk. I pray no one dies.”

The suggestion that LaLiga’s demands were too broad, doesn’t mean that Cloudflare is refusing to help, Prince suggested. On the contrary, there’s a process available, LaLiga just needs to use it. “We’ve always been happy and willing to work with rights holders in conjunction with judicial bodies to protect their content. We have a clear process that works around the world to do that,” Prince explained.

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If you’ve been eyeing a lightweight, all-purpose Chromebook for casual work, school, or everyday browsing, this open-box ASUS Chromebook CM30 might be worth a closer look. Currently priced at $179.99 (down from $329.99), it’s one of those mid-range 2-in-1s that doesn’t try to be everything, but nails the basics with enough flair to feel premium. The 10.5-inch WUXGA touchscreen is responsive and sharp, and thanks to the Kompanio 520 processor and 8GB of RAM, general multitasking is smooth, whether you’re juggling docs, Google Meet, or your Spotify tab. ChromeOS keeps things lean and fast, and you also get stylus support for quick notes or digital doodles.

It helps that the whole device is wrapped in a sturdy aluminum shell (made with 30% recycled materials), giving it that slightly rugged, school-bag-ready feel without adding bulk. The detachable magnetic keyboard is full-sized and easy to type on, and the included stand cover lets you switch between laptop and tablet mode without a fuss. The battery claims up to 12 hours of life, and while real-world usage may land a bit under that, you’ll still comfortably get through a school or work day without hunting for an outlet (which is really all you can ask from a sub-two-pound machine). Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3 keep connectivity solid, and the Titan C security chip adds a layer of peace of mind.

The Chromebook is an “Open Box” model, meaning that the units aren’t brand new—they’re returns or unsold inventory that may show minor signs of handling. You may find stickers or shelf wear on the packaging, but the product itself should be clean and fully functional, with a one-year warranty included. If you’re looking for a 2-in-1 Chromebook that’s not underpowered like budget models but still doesn’t stretch your wallet, this deal should hit that balance. That said, the 128GB eMMC storage isn’t expandable, and there’s only one USB-C port, so those who need lots of peripherals or file space might want to look elsewhere. For everyone else, especially students or remote workers, it’s a solid, sustainable pick.

A German court has sentenced two former Volkswagen executives to prison and handed suspended sentences to two others for their roles in the Dieselgate emissions scandal, marking the conclusion of a nearly four-year fraud trial. Politico reports: The former head of diesel development was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, and the head of drive train electronics to two years and seven months by the court in Braunschweig, German news agency dpa reported. Two others received suspended sentences of 15 months and 10 months. The scandal began in September 2015 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice of violation. saying that the company had rigged engine control software that let the cars pass emissions tests while they emitted far more pollution in actual driving.

The company has paid more than $33 billion in fines and compensation to vehicle owners. Two VW managers received prison sentence in the U.S. The former head of the company’s Audi division, Rupert Stadler, was given a suspended sentence of 21 months and a fine of 1.1 million euros ($1.25 million). The sentence is still subject to appeal. Missing from the trial, which lasted almost four years, was former CEO Martin Winterkorn. Proceedings against him have been suspended because of health issues, and it’s not clear when he might go on trial. Winterkorn has denied wrongdoing. Further proceedings are open against 31 other suspects in Germany.

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If you’ve been thinking about picking up a family tablet for streaming, casual browsing, or giving the kids something budget-friendly to play on, the 2023 onn. 11″ Tablet Pro is worth a look—especially at this price. It’s currently going for $74.99 as an open-box deal on StackSocial. For context, the same model is listed at $128.99 on Amazon. Open Box means it’s likely been handled or returned in-store, so while the packaging might not look brand new, the tablet itself has been verified to be in good working condition. The device runs Android 13 and feels very much like using a large phone. It’s got a familiar interface (if you’ve used an Android phone before), which makes it easy to jump into without a learning curve.

The 11-inch LCD screen, with a 1200×2000 resolution, is crisp enough for Netflix or YouTube, and the 2.2GHz Octa-Core processor paired with 4GB RAM gives it just enough power to juggle casual multitasking—think video calls, browsing, and maybe a bit of app-based gaming. You’re also looking at 128GB of internal storage, which is generous for this price range, plus a microSD slot if you need extra room for downloads. The dual-camera setup (5MP on the front and 8MP on the back) isn’t winning any awards, but it’ll get the job done for video chats and quick snaps.

It also has a headphone jack (which isn’t a given anymore), a USB-C port for fast charging, and built-in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. Also, the 16-hour battery claim gives it real potential as a travel companion (it’s enough to last through long travel days or keep a kid entertained without constant charging). Plus, bonus points for Google Kids Space and Entertainment Space already baked in, which makes this a decent shared family device. Just keep in mind that while it checks a lot of boxes, it’s not a powerhouse—if you’re looking to run intensive apps or use it for work, this might fall short. But for basic day-to-day use, it’s a pretty compelling option under $80.

On Tuesday afternoon, just a few hours before a launch attempt of the ninth flight test of SpaceX’s Starship vehicle, Elon Musk spoke with Ars Technica Senior Space Editor Eric Berger to talk about where his space company goes from here.

In recent weeks, Musk has dialed back his focus on politics and said he wants to devote the majority of his time to SpaceX and his other companies. So what does that mean?

The conversation came just ahead of the opening of Starship’s launch window, at 6:30 pm CT (23:30 UTC) in South Texas. Here is a lightly edited transcript of the interview.

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Anthropic is continuing to trickle down features to its free users. The latest one to make the leap out of subscriber-only mode is web search, which the company introduced to its AI chatbot Claude in March. According to Anthropic, connecting Claude to the web allows it to deliver more accurate responses based on the most up-to-date information available online. This feature is available to all Claude users starting today.

In addition, Anthropic has begun beta tests for voice mode on its mobile apps. This option lets users interact with Claude in natural conversations in an expansion of the platform’s existing dictation tools. There will be five voice options available to assign to Claude, and the AI assistant can provide full transcripts and voice mode summaries after a conversation.

May has been a busy month for Anthropic, which just launched two new models last week. Opus 4 is a powerful coding-focused system that can use multiple tools in parallel and can run for several hours at a time, while Sonnet 4 is a hybrid reasoning model designed to move between quick queries and more complex ones. The current beta testing of voice mode will default to Sonnet 4.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-brings-web-search-to-free-claude-users-224222689.html?src=rss

After a year of rumors, Salesforce has officially acquired cloud data management firm Informatica in an $8 billion equity deal. “Under the terms of the deal, Salesforce will pay $25 in cash per share for Informatica’s Class A and Class B-1 common stock, adjusting for its prior investment in the company,” notes TechCrunch. From the report: Informatica was founded in 1993 and works with more than 5,000 customers across more than 100 countries. The company had a $7.1 billion market cap at the time of publication. This acquisition will help bolster Salesforce’s agentic AI ambitions, the company’s press release stated, by giving the company more data infrastructure and governance to help its AI agents run more “safely, responsibly, and at scale across the modern enterprise.” “Together, we’ll supercharge Agentforce, Data Cloud, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Customer 360, enabling autonomous agents to act with intelligence, context, and confidence across every enterprise,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in the press release. “This is a transformational step in delivering enterprise-grade AI that is safe, responsible, and deeply integrated with the world’s data.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Sunday, independent AI researcher Simon Willison published a detailed analysis of Anthropic’s newly released system prompts for Claude 4’s Opus 4 and Sonnet 4 models, offering insights into how Anthropic controls the models’ “behavior” through their outputs. Willison examined both the published prompts and leaked internal tool instructions to reveal what he calls “a sort of unofficial manual for how best to use these tools.”

To understand what Willison is talking about, we’ll need to explain what system prompts are. Large language models (LLMs) like the AI models that run Claude and ChatGPT process an input called a “prompt” and return an output that is the most likely continuation of that prompt. System prompts are instructions that AI companies feed to the models before each conversation to establish how they should respond.

Unlike the messages users see from the chatbot, system prompts typically remain hidden from the user and tell the model its identity, behavioral guidelines, and specific rules to follow. Each time a user sends a message, the AI model receives the full conversation history along with the system prompt, allowing it to maintain context while following its instructions.

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