“We are an AI, robotics company,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced last April. Despite the fact that the company’s revenues are overwhelmingly derived from selling new electric vehicles, such prosaic activities hold no luster for the boss. Instead, Tesla’s future, according to Musk, depends upon a (claimed) sub-$30,000 driverless two-seater, revealed to the world last October in a staged demonstration on a film set. But Musk’s plans just hit a snag: The company must find some new names.

As spotted by Sean O’Kane at TechCrunch, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has informed Tesla that it will not be allowed to trademark the word “robotaxi” to describe the vehicle. According to the USPTO, the term is far too generic. Indeed, a Google n-gram search shows a steady growth in the use of “robotaxi” starting more than a decade ago.

According to the USPTO, the term is merely descriptive. The agency cites evidence from Wikipedia, The Verge, and the Amazon-backed autonomous vehicle startup Zoox in its denial of Tesla’s trademark application.

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In an ideal world, you’d lead a long and happy life only ever shutting down and restarting your PC via the Start menu. Click the power icon, choose your option, and you’re done. However, life doesn’t always work out like we plan it, and sometimes you may need to trigger a restart or shutdown from the command prompt instead.

Maybe something is stopping the Start menu from working, or perhaps you find yourself on a screen where the Start menu isn’t available. One of the scenarios where I use the command prompt to shut down Windows is when I’m in the initial setup phase for the operating system and don’t want to complete it right away.

The shutdown command can turn off your PC on a timer.
Credit: Lifehacker

You might also have loaded the command prompt interface to try and troubleshoot a problem that’s stopping Windows from working—in which case you need to know how to power off or reboot your computer without pressing and holding the power button. (If you are having PC issues, see also this lesser-known emergency restart option.)

Using the command prompt

If you’re completely new to the command prompt, it’s the text-based interface hidden away in Windows, a remnant of the old days before computer operating systems had pointers and graphical user interfaces, and still useful for running a variety of low-level system operations.

PowerShell doesn’t look too different to the command prompt at first glance.
Credit: Lifehacker

The command prompt is also accompanied by PowerShell, which is a more modern and feature-rich version of this interface. As far as these shutdown and restart commands are concerned, you can use either for the job, but if you ever need to run more advanced text commands, scripts, and automations, PowerShell is better set up to accommodate them.

You can launch either the command prompt or PowerShell from the Start menu: Just type the first few letters of either utility into the search box at the top to find them. There are various other options too, like right-clicking on the Start menu button and choosing Terminal, or by typing “cmd” into the search box on the taskbar and hitting Enter.

Using the “shutdown” command

The text command you need to either shut down or restart your Windows computer is ‘shutdown’. If you type it into the command prompt or PowerShell and then hit Enter, you’ll get a full description of shutdown, and all the ways you can use it (by the way, you can add “| more” to this or any command to see a page of text at a time).

Type “shutdown /s” to trigger a standard shutdown

The most basic flags you’ll need are “shutdown /s” and “shutdown /r” to power off and restart your computer, respectively. In both cases you’ll see a dialog box on screen telling you what’s happening, and the action is taken in less than a minute. These commands will initiate a normal shutdown process, so you’ll be prompted to save any unsaved work in your open programs that usually do that.

This will restart Windows and launch the advanced boot options screen.
Credit: Lifehacker

Type “shutdown /s /f” to force a shutdown

To force all apps to close without any further prompting—perhaps if you need to make sure the shutdown or restart goes through without a hitch—add the “/f” to the end of your command (so, either “shutdown /s /f” for a shutdown or “shutdown /r /f” for a restart). You do this at your own risk though, with the risk of losing data that hasn’t already been saved, and it’s probably best left as a last resort.

Type “shutdown /r /o” to access advanced boot options

For troubleshooting purposes, the “shutdown /r /o” command is useful because it reboots your computer into the advanced boot options screen. That’s the one that gives you access to features such as using a USB drive to recover your PC, running the built-in start-up repair utility, and rolling back recent updates to Windows. You can also get back to the command prompt from here without starting the operating system.

The shutdown command can also be used to stop a shutdown.
Credit: Lifehacker

Time your shutdown by adding “/t”

Another flag that can be useful is the “/t” flag followed by a space and a number. This puts the shutdown or the restart on a delay, giving you time to close apps or finish downloads. The number is the number of seconds Windows should wait, and it can go from 0 (instant) all the way up to 315360000—that’s 10 years, if you were wondering. If the seconds are set to anything above zero, the “/f” flag is also applied.

Stop a shutdown with “shutdown /a”

One final one that you might find helpful: You can use “shutdown /a” to abort a shutdown that’s currently underway (perhaps one that you’ve set on a timer). For a full rundown of all the ways you can use this command, including some advanced options for IT managers (such as remote shutdowns), check out the official Microsoft documentation.

Modded by the Italians of Youtube channel Carmagheddon, this is what is believed to be the world’s shortest wheelbase car, a chopped FIAT Panda. The wheelbase is so short that pressing the brakes causes the car to attempt a headstand. That’s fun. And by fun I mean dangerous, which is fun for some people. Just not me, I find boredom exhilarating. When the internet goes out I’m in my prime.

Google’s latest Android Security Bulletin patches 46 security vulnerabilities impacting Android devices, one of which is a zero-day flaw in FreeType that may be under “limited, targeted exploitation.”

The security update for May includes fixes for a range of issues: most are an elevation of privilege flaws, though there are a few information disclosure and denial of service vulnerabilities and one remote code execution bug. All are considered high severity. May’s patch also addresses vulnerabilities with Qualcomm, MediaTek, Arm, and Imagination Technologies components.

One active exploit

The zero-day addressed with the latest update is a remote code execution flaw labeled CVE-2025-27363. It impacts FreeType, an open-source font rendering library, and allows attackers to exploit how the program processes certain files. The bug affects FreeType versions 2.13.0 and below and was first reported by security researchers at Facebook in March 2025, though details as to how it has been exploited have not been disclosed.

What Android users need to do

If you have an Android device, you should get a notification to install the latest security update as soon as it’s available. Google pushes patches to Pixel phones and the core Android Open Source Project (AOSP) code, while other device manufacturers—Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia—typically issue updates around the same time.

This month’s patches apply to AOSP versions 13, 14, and 15, with separate updates dated 2025-05-01 and 2025-05-05 (the latter addresses all of the flaws identified). Note that Google ended support for Android 12 as of March 31, meaning devices running this and older versions won’t receive security updates even though they may be affected by some of the vulnerabilities.

If you’re not sure whether your device has been patched, check for available updates via Settings > Security & privacy > System & updates > Security update and follow the prompts to download and install.

Switzerland will hold a national referendum on the introduction of electronic identity cards after opponents of the legislation secured enough signatures to force a public vote. The Federal Chancellery confirmed Wednesday that 55,344 valid signatures were submitted against the Federal Act on Electronic Identity passed last December.

The proposed e-ID would enable citizens to apply online for criminal record extracts, driving licenses, and age verification when purchasing alcohol. This marks the second referendum on e-ID implementation, after voters rejected a previous version in 2021. The government has revised its approach, making the new system free, optional, and fully state-operated rather than privately managed. If approved, the e-ID would come into force no earlier than 2026, though the collection effort suggests privacy concerns remain paramount for many Swiss voters.

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After more than a week of teasing it on social media, Whoop has finally announced the release of its 5.0 device, along with a version called the “MG” (medical grade) that can do ECG readings and estimate blood pressure. Members can upgrade for a $49 fee or by extending their membership in one of the three new membership tiers: One ($199/year), Peak ($239/year, similar to current offerings) or Life ($359/year). 

Whoop is the screenless fitness tracker that earned four stars in my review of the 4.0 model for its integrated fitness and recovery tracking and its handling of strength training. It’s only available by subscription, with the hardware being sort of a bonus that comes with membership. That means upgrades to the hardware are handled a bit differently than for a device you outright purchase; more on that below. 

What’s in the Whoop 5.0

The 5.0 device looks a lot like the 4.0, but Whoop calculates that it is 7% smaller. This change means that straps and other accessories from the 4.0 won’t fit the new device. (Longstanding members with more than 1,500 recoveries will receive a “Milestone collection” box with extra bands.) 

The 5.0 has a 14-day battery life, the company says, more than double that of the 4.0. There is also a new power pack (the battery that you slide on to charge the device while you wear it). Only members of the Peak and Life tiers will get the wireless power pack; the lowest tier membership comes with a wired charger. 

Otherwise, the 5.0 hardware is similar to the previous edition, but with internal upgrades—a 60% faster processor, the company says, and “enhanced sensors.” 

The difference between the 5.0 and MG

The MG (“medical grade”) Whoop device adds the ability to take an ECG from your wrist, in much the same way as an Apple Watch or Fitbit (you’ll touch metal contacts with the fingers of your other hand while wearing it). 

The MG device comes with a Whoop Life membership, the most expensive tier at $359/year. 

What you get with each of the three membership tiers

The three new membership tiers are One ($199/year), Peak ($239/year), and Life ($359/year). One is a stripped-down membrership, Peak is similar to what Whoop users have right now, and Life is a new offering with extra health features. Here’s the breakdown: 

Whoop One ($199/year)

One is the budget membership. You get a wired charger instead of the wireless power pack, and a “CoreKnit” band, which seems to be a new material that isn’t as nice as the SuperKnit bands offered with the higher tiers.

If you downgrade to this level, you’ll lose a few features that Whoop members currently all get: the Health Monitor (with its readings of HRV, respiratory rate, resting heart rate, and skin temperature) or the Stress Monitor, which tells you in real time how much stress you seem to be under.

Whoop Peak ($239/year)

Peak is the most similar to the single subscription level that was offered with the 4.0, both in price and features. If your subscription renews without you choosing a tier, you’ll end up on Peak. 

You’ll also get the new Healthspan feature (coming soon) that tells you your “Whoop age” and your “pace of aging,” and gives recommendations to improve those metrics. 

Whoop Life ($359/year)

Life is the top tier membership, and comes with the MG rather than 5.0 hardware. It includes everything in Peak, including the Healthspan feature. 

With the MG you’ll be able to take ECG readings, and Whoop is also introducing a feature (currently in beta) to estimate your blood pressure. You’ll need to calibrate it with readings from a blood pressure cuff to start using it. 

How upgrades to the Whoop 5.0 or MG will work

If you’re currently a Whoop member, and were looking forward to upgrading your hardware for free (as the Whoop FAQ states), here’s the fine print. 

Whoop tells me that members who pay for another 12 months of membership will get the 5.0 (or MG) hardware for free. So if you’re six months into your current membership, you can buy a 12-month extension, thus having 18 months left on your membership, and get a new device. 

If you don’t want to extend your membership, you can opt to pay a $49 upgrade fee to get the 5.0 device to use on your current membership term. 

Whoop says that when you upgrade, they’ll send you a “gift kit” that you can use to pass along your old 4.0 device to a friend. It includes a sanitizing wipe and a fresh SuperKnit band. 

What if I don’t upgrade? 

Whoop memberships will still work with the 4.0 device, and you’ll still get access to everything the Peak membership offers, including the new Healthspan feature when it comes out. If your membership renews without you choosing a tier, you’ll be rolled into the Peak membership. 

Updated 5/8/2025 at 3:30pm to note that the age metric is called “Whoop age” and not “fitness age.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aggressively promoting a future where AI becomes the dominant form of social interaction, claiming that AI friends, therapists, and business agents will soon outnumber human relationships. During a recent media blitz across multiple podcasts and a Stripe conference appearance, Zuckerberg cited statistics suggesting “the average American has fewer than three friends” while claiming people desire “meaningfully more, like 15 friends” — positioning AI companions as the solution to this gap.

The Meta founder’s vision extends beyond casual interaction to therapeutic and commercial relationships, with personalized AI that “has a deep understanding of what’s going on in this person’s life.” Meta has already deployed its AI across Instagram, Facebook, and Ray-Ban smart glasses, reaching nearly a billion monthly users.

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If you’ve been meaning to add a security camera to your backyard, driveway, or any dimly lit spot around the house, the Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera might be the kind of no-fuss solution that works. It’s battery powered, which makes it a standout for renters or anyone who doesn’t want to mess with wiring or hiring an electrician. And at $64.99 on Amazon—down from $129.98—it’s currently sitting at its lowest price to date (according to price-trackers), making it easier to justify trying out a new piece of tech without overcommitting.

Blink Outdoor 4 Floodlight Camera

$64.99
at Amazon

$129.98
Save $64.99

$64.99
at Amazon

$129.98
Save $64.99

You’re looking at a completely wire-free setup with motion-triggered floodlights and a built-in camera—all powered by four D-cell batteries and two AAs (meaning it can go pretty much anywhere wifi reaches). That alone makes it worth considering if you’ve got areas around your home where power outlets just don’t exist, notes this ZDNet review. The floodlight automatically turns on when it detects motion, shining up to 700 lumens—plenty to light up dark driveways, side yards, or alleyways. The camera itself captures 1080p video with infrared night vision, and according to PCMag’s review, it handled detection pretty well, especially once fine-tuned in the app.

Keep in mind, Blink’s full set of features—like cloud storage, video history, and smart alerts—are tied to its subscription plans, which start at $3 per month for one device and $10 per month for unlimited devices. A free 30-day trial is included (so you can test out those features without pressure), but after that, you’ll need to pay if you want ongoing access to clips and advanced features. You can also store your clips locally by connecting a USB flash drive (sold separately) to the included Sync Module 2. If you’re looking for something with constant recording or a wired connection for uninterrupted power, this isn’t the pick for you. But if you’re piecing together an affordable, wire-free security setup, this one has the basics covered.

Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates ratcheted up his feud with Elon Musk, accusing the world’s richest man of “killing the world’s poorest children” through what he said were misguided cuts to US development assistance.

Gates, who is announcing a plan to accelerate his philanthropic giving over the next 20 years and close down the Gates Foundation altogether in 2045, said in an interview that the Tesla chief had acted through ignorance.

In February, Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) in effect shut down the US Agency for International Development, the main conduit for US aid, saying it was “time for it to die.”

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from SFGATE: When the pandemic upended the world of higher education, Robin Pugh, a professor at City College of San Francisco, began to see one puzzling problem in her online courses: Not everyone was a real student. Of the 40 students enrolled in her popular introduction to real estate course, Pugh said she’d normally drop three to five from her roster who don’t start the course or make contact with her at the start of the semester. But during the current spring semester, Pugh said that number more than doubled when she had to cut 11 students. It’s a strange new reality that has left her baffled. “It’s really unclear to me, and beyond the scope of my knowledge, how this is really happening,” she said. “Is it organized crime? Is it something else? Everybody has lots of theories.”

Some of the disengaged students in Pugh’s courses are what administrators and cybersecurity experts say are “ghost students,” and they’ve been a growing problem for community colleges, particularly since the shift to online instruction during the pandemic. These “ghost students” are artificially intelligent agents or bots that pose as real students in order to steal millions of dollars of financial aid that could otherwise go to actual humans. And as colleges grapple with the problem, Pugh and her colleagues have been tasked with a new and “frustrating” task of weeding out these bots and trying to decide who’s a real person.

The process, she said, takes her focus off teaching the real students. “I am very intentional about having individualized interaction with all of my students as early as possible,” Pugh said. “That included making phone calls to people, sending email messages, just a lot of reaching out individually to find out ‘Are you just overwhelmed at work and haven’t gotten around to starting the class yet? Or are you not a real person?'” Financial aid fraud is not new, but it’s been on the rise in California’s community colleges, Cal Matters reported, with scammers stealing more than $10 million in 2024, more than double the amount in 2023.
Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, the president of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges and a professor at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita, said the bots have been enrolling in courses since around early 2021.

“It’s been going on for quite some time,” she said. “I think the reason that you’re hearing more about it is that it’s getting harder and harder to combat or to deal with.” A spokesperson for the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office estimates that 0.21% of the system’s financial aid was fraudulently disbursed. However, the office was unable to estimate the percentage of fraudulent attempts attributed to bots.

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After gaining attention from Neowin and DistroWatch last week, the sole maintainer behind AnduinOS 1.3 — a Linux distribution styled to resemble Windows 11 — decided to reveal himself. He turns out to be Anduin Xue, a Microsoft software engineer, who has been working on the project as a personal, non-commercial endeavor built on Ubuntu. Neowin reports: As a Software Engineer 2 at Microsoft (he doesn’t work on Windows), Anduin Xue says he’s financially stable and sees no need to commercialize AnduinOS. Explaining the financial aspects of the project, he said: “Many have asked why I don’t accept donations, how I profit, and if I plan to commercialize AnduinOS. Truthfully, I haven’t thoroughly considered these issues. It’s not my main job, and I don’t plan to rely on it for a living. Each month, I dedicate only a few hours to maintaining it. Perhaps in the future, I might consider providing enterprise solutions based on AnduinOS, but I won’t compromise its original simplicity. It has always been about providing myself with a comfortably themed Ubuntu.”

In our coverage of the AnduinOS 1.3 release last week, one commenter pointed out that the distro is from China. For some, this will raise issues, but Anduin Xue addressed this in his blog post, too, saying that the source code is available to the public. For this reason, he told lacing the operating system with backdoors for the Chinese government would be “irrational and easily exposed.” For those worried that the distribution may be abandoned, Anduin Xue said that he intends to continue supporting it and may even maintain it full-time if sponsorship or corporate cooperation emerges.

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Login credentials belonging to an employee at both the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Department of Government Efficiency have appeared in multiple public leaks from info-stealer malware, a strong indication that devices belonging to him have been hacked in recent years.

Kyle Schutt is a 30-something-year-old software engineer who, according to Dropsite News, gained access in February to a “core financial management system” belonging to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. As an employee of DOGE, Schutt accessed FEMA’s proprietary software for managing both disaster and non-disaster funding grants. Under his role at CISA, he likely is privy to sensitive information regarding the security of civilian federal government networks and critical infrastructure throughout the US.

A steady stream of published credentials

According to journalist Micah Lee, user names and passwords for logging in to various accounts belonging to Schutt have been published at least four times since 2023 in logs from stealer malware. Stealer malware typically infects devices through trojanized apps, phishing, or software exploits. Besides pilfering login credentials, stealers can also log all keystrokes and capture or record screen output. The data is then sent to the attacker and, occasionally after that, can make its way into public credential dumps.

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The Trump administration’s steep staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) triggered shutdowns of several climate-related programs Thursday.

Perhaps most notably, the NOAA announced it would be shuttering the “billion-dollar weather and climate disasters” database for vague reasons. Since 1980, the database made it possible to track the growing costs of the nation’s most devastating weather events, critically pooling various sources of private data that have long been less accessible to the public.

In that time, 403 weather and climate disasters in the US triggered more than $2.945 trillion in costs, and NOAA notes that’s a conservative estimate. Considering that CNN noted the average number of disasters in the past five years jumped from nine annually to 24, shutting down the database could leave communities in the dark on costs of emerging threats. All the NOAA can likely say is to continue looking at the historic data to keep up with trends.

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This is a visualization from Global Data (some really hard-hitting data here) comparing the sizes of various monsters and aliens from pop culture movies, shows, and video games. It begins with the tiny soot sprites from Hayao Miyazaki movies, and ends with the 10.45-trillion light year wide Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill from Japanese mecha anime Gurren Lagann. That sees a little extreme. Was a BILLION light years not big enough? I can’t even fathom the distance of a single light year. Heck, if I’m being honest I can barely wrap my head around the length of a half marathon.