Chipolo has launched a new Bluetooth tracker that works with both Apple Find My and Google Find My Device networks. The Chipolo Pop comes in the same form factor and colors as the Chipolo One, which is one of Engadget’s best Bluetooth trackers for 2025. But unlike One that only works with the Chipolo app, the company’s Spot line that only works with Apple Find My and its Point-branded trackers that only work with Google’s network, Pop is compatible with all three. 

The Chipolo Pop has a range of 90 meters or 300 feet, longer than the older Chipolo models’ 200-feet range. It’s dust and water-resistant (IP55) and is powered by a replaceable CR2032 battery that can keep the tracker running for up to a year. Pop works with Apple’s Find My network on iPhones installed with iOS 14.5 or later and iPads with iPadOS 14.5. Android phones and tablets must be running Android 9 or later with Google Play Services if you want to link them with the Pop tracker. Even if you technically don’t need the Chipolo app, installing it will give you access to extra features like the ability to call your phone by double-pressing the tracker, as well as the ability to change its ring volume to up to 120 dB and to change its ring tone. 

A single Pop tracker will set you back $29, but you can get a four-pack in various colors for $89 instead of $116. If you order straight from Chipolo’s website, you could get your order as soon as April 20. You can also pre-order the tracker from Amazon, though the model will be released on the e-commerce website on April 30. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/chipolos-pop-bluetooth-tracker-works-with-both-apples-and-googles-find-my-networks-120014022.html?src=rss

Just before the weekend, the US Customs and Border Protection published a list of products excluded from Trump’s tariffs, including smartphones, PCs, memory chips and let’s say 80 percent of everything we write about at Engadget.

However, that’s more because they’ll be siloed into a specific product category. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in an interview on Sunday: “Those products are going to be part of the semiconductor sectoral tariffs, which are coming.”

The new exclusions would exempt many devices and parts from both the 10 percent global tariff and the steeper tariff on China. Lutnick told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that, in doing this, the president was “just making sure everyone understood that all of these products are outside the reciprocal tariffs and they are going to have their own separate way of being considered.”

He added that semiconductor tariffs are coming “in probably a month or two.” Maybe reassess that Switch 2 pre-order.

— Mat Smith

Get Engadget’s newsletter delivered direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

Everything else you might have missed

• How to use the Apple Passwords app

• Doctor Who The Robot Revolution review: Meet Belinda Chandra

• The best wireless headphones

• The Last of Us season 2 premiere review

• The Meta Quest 3S is on sale for a record-low price

The Espresso 15 Pro is a pricey, good portable monitor

It’s bright, it’s portable, it’s expensive.

Engadget

At $699, it’s a bit pricey, but the Espresso 15 Pro has pretty much everything you could want in a travel-friendly 15-inch display. And if you’re regularly wielding two screens on the go, this could be an investment. It’s brighter than predecessors, has a slick design and a stand and can even add touch support to Macs — if you want that.

Continue reading.

OpenAI is phasing out GPT-4.5 for developers

GPT-4.1 is actually newer and, importantly, cheaper to run.

OpenAI is sunsetting GPT-4.5 from its developer API in favor of its new GPT-4.1 model. (Yeah, confusing. When it launched, OpenAI described GPT-4.5 as its best and most capable model so far, in part because it was a more natural conversationalist. Can’t find it? OpenAI says GPT-4.1 is exclusively for developers using OpenAI’s API. So you won’t find it as an option in the public-facing ChatGPT interface.

Continue reading.

Samsung keeps rugged gadgets alive with new phone and tablet

IP-rated for enterprise.

Samsung

Samsung has announced two new rugged devices, the Galaxy XCover 7 Pro and the Galaxy Tab Active 5 Pro, which feature removable backplates and user-replaceable batteries.

It’s an enterprise affair but comes with all of Samsung’s Galaxy AI features and Google’s latest features, like Circle to Search. The toughness credentials include IP68 water and dust resistance, MIL-STD-810H certification for drops, programmable buttons and a battery you can replace yourself.

Continue reading.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/the-morning-after-engadget-newsletter-111558256.html?src=rss

Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares the news that China has halted all rare earth exports globally — including to the U.S., Japan, and Germany. Fortune reports: After Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, China retaliated on April 4 with its own duties as well as export controls on several rare earth minerals and magnets made from them. So far, those export controls have translated to a halt across the board, cutting off the U.S. and other countries, according to the New York Times. That’s because any exports of the minerals and magnets now require special licenses, but Beijing has yet to fully establish a system for issuing them, the report said.

In the meantime, shipments of rare earths have been halted at many ports, with customs officials blocking exports to any country, including to the U.S. as well as Japan and Germany, sources told theÂTimes. China’s Ministry of Commerce issued export restrictions alongside the General Administration of Customs, prohibiting Chinese businesses from any engagement with U.S. firms, especially defense contractors. While the Trump administration unveiled tariff exemptions on a range of key tech imports late Friday night, China’s magnet exports were still halted through the weekend, industry sources told the Times. Beijing’s export halt is notable because China has a stranglehold on global supplies of rare earths and magnets derived from them. They also represent an asymmetric advantage in that rare earths constitute a small share of China’s exports but have an outsize impact on trade partners like the U.S., which relies on them as critical inputs for the auto, chip, aerospace, and defense industries.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anthropic announced that its Claude AI can integrate with Google Workspace. This tie-in allows the AI assistant to access any information in Gmail, Google Documents and Google Calendar. Enterprise-level customers even get a special cataloguing option for Documents that aims to offer even better speed and accuracy when retrieving information. 

This update could make Claude more helpful when it comes to using the chatbot for scheduling or accessing information within the Google ecosystem. The blog post with the announcement specified that the Enterprise option comes with special security controls for confidentiality, but doesn’t detail if or how other users might be able to keep Claude from accessing sensitive information that might be stored in an email or document. Google Workspace integration is available in beta now for all paid Anthropic customers.

Anthropic is also adding a Research feature. Queries in this mode are intended to offer thorough answers to queries that “explores different angles of your question automatically and works through open questions systematically.” Claude’s responses in Research will include citations for fact-checking. Anthropic says this feature can be combined with the Google integration for analyzing information stored across multiple different locations, such as notes about complicated work or school projects. Research is available in the US, Japan and Brazil as an early beta for users on the Max, Team and Enterprise plans.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropics-claude-can-now-read-your-emails-181511019.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader shares a report: None of the frontier AI research labs have presented any evidence that they are on the brink of achieving artificial general intelligence, no matter how they define that goal, but Google is already planning for a “Post-AGI” world by hiring a scientist for its DeepMind AI lab to research the “profound impact” that technology will have on society.

“Spearhead research projects exploring the influence of AGI on domains such as economics, law, health/wellbeing, AGI to ASI [artificial superintelligence], machine consciousness, and education,” Google says in the first item on a list of key responsibilities for the job. Artificial superintelligence refers to a hypothetical form of AI that is smarter than the smartest human in all domains. This is self explanatory, but just to be clear, when Google refers to “machine consciousness” it’s referring to the science fiction idea of a sentient machine.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, Elon Musk, and other major and minor players in the AI industry are all working on AGI and have previously talked about the likelihood of humanity achieving AGI, when that might happen, and what the consequences might be, but the Google job listing shows that companies are now taking concrete steps for what comes after, or are at least are continuing to signal that they believe it can be achieved.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication.

Meta has made virtual reality (VR) accessible to many more people, offering good VR headsets for much cheaper than the competition. Right now, the 128GB Meta Quest 3S Batman: Arkham Shadow Bundle is on sale for $269 (originally $299.99), the lowest price it has been, according to price-tracking tools. You can double the storage for $369 (originally $399.99); that version has dropped to $350 in the past. The bundle includes the Batman game (with a list price of $49.99) and a three-month trial subscription to the Meta Quest+ service that’s normally $7.99 a month. There are also other bundles available with other Meta accessories.

Get Batman: Arkham Shadow and a 3-Month Trial of Meta Quest+ Included — All-in-One Headset

Meta Quest 3S 128GB

$269.00
at Amazon

$299.99
Save $30.99

$269.00
at Amazon

$299.99
Save $30.99

Get Batman: Arkham Shadow and a 3-Month Trial of Meta Quest+ Included — All-in-One Headset

Meta Quest 3S 256GB

$369.00
at Amazon

$399.99
Save $30.99

$369.00
at Amazon

$399.99
Save $30.99

It’s true, the Meta Quest 3 has better graphics, but it costs substantially more (currently $499.99) than the 3S version. Lifehacker staff writer Stephen Johnson tested both VR headsets to decide which of the two is better, and the Meta Quest 3S was his winner—you can read a more in-depth review of the Quest 3S here. There just isn’t enough of a difference between the two models to justify the additional cost, with the Quest 3S’s graphics looking very close to the 3 and running the same games and apps.

The Meta Quest 3S has a Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 processor, 8GB of RAM, a display resolution of 1,832 by 1,920 (per eye), and a refresh rate of 120Hz. Once you put them on, the horizontal field of view is 96 degrees, and the vertical view is 90 degrees. The audio is stereo, which is nice, and the speakers are compatible with 3D spatial audio. When it comes to battery life, expect up to two and a half hours of juice before having to recharge (expect it to take about two hours for a full charge).

It looks like OpenAI is building its own X-like social media network, according to a report by The Verge. We don’t have many specifics, but we do know there’s an internal prototype that adds a social feed to ChatGPT’s image generation tool.

It remains unclear if OpenAI will launch this social network as a standalone app or if it will be integrated within the ChatGPT app, which is what the prototype indicates. The report does suggest that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been asking for feedback about the social network from people outside of the company.

One potential reason for this step is that the app would allow OpenAI to gather real-time data from users to train its AI models. It’s also a potentially diversifying move for the company.

Although it’s uncertain if this project will ever see the light of day, one thing is probable — it’ll likely get under the skin of Elon Musk, who owns X. Altman and OpenAI have been at odds with Musk for some time. The company rejected his offer to buy OpenAI, instead offering to “buy Twitter” for just $9.7 billion dollars. It’s worth noting that the offer is four times lower than what Musk paid for the platform and that Altman purposefully used the word Twitter and not X.

OpenAI has also recently countersued Musk, accusing the billionaire of staging press attacks and malicious campaigns against the company on X. The suit also accuses Musk of making “harassing legal claims,” referring to his initial suit, and a “sham bid for OpenAI’s assets.”

The company also published an email from Musk’s time at OpenAI in which he suggested merging with Tesla. Altman and his crew have stated that Musk was present during talks about OpenAI going for-profit and that he suggested he be given majority equity, control of the board and the CEO position. Musk left OpenAI in 2018 and founded xAI, which somehow just bought X in some kind of shady ouroboros of corporate tomfoolery.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-is-apparently-making-a-social-network-175842370.html?src=rss

Heads up: If you’ve rented a car from Hertz, your data may have been exposed in a data breach. While Hertz itself was not attacked, affected customers had sensitive data leaked—including, in some cases, Social Security numbers.

What happened with Hertz?

This week, Hertz posted a “Notice of Data Incident” on its website, informing customers about a 2024 episode involving Cleo Communications. Cleo operates a file transfer platform that Hertz uses for “limited purposes.” Despite those limited purposes, Hertz confirmed that actors exploited zero-day security flaws in Cleo’s network and accessed Hertz customer data. It appears actors accessed this data in both October and December of last year.

Following an analysis of the affected data on April 2, Hertz now says the following user data was impacted in this breach: customer names, contact information, dates of birth, credit card information, driver’s license information, as well as workers’ compensation claims data. In some cases, actors accessed even more sensitive data, including government identification numbers (including Social Security numbers), passport information, Medicare and Medicaid IDs, and informations about injuries via vehicle accident claims. Hertz says only “a very small number of individuals” are impacted by this latter category of information, but it’s a serious breach nonetheless.

Hertz says it has reported the situation to law enforcement, and is reaching out to regulators as well. The company says Cleo launched an investigation, and patched the security flaws that lead to the breach in the first place—though that will likely not be of much comfort to affected customers.

According to TechCrunch, Hertz contacted several U.S. states, notably California and Maine, about the data incident. The company said that at least 3,400 customers in Maine were impacted by the breach, but stopped short of naming the total number of affected customers. It seems the data breach affects users around the world, too. In addition to the U.S., Hertz posted its announcement on its websites in Australia, Canada, the EU, New Zealand, and the UK.

What should I do if my Hertz data was breached?

Hertz maintains that this user data has not been used to commit fraud, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Bad actors can use the information leaked in this breach to steal your identity, open bank accounts, and take out credit cards and loans in your name. As such, you should take steps to protect your identity.

The company is offering two years of Kroll identity monitoring and dark web monitoring services to impacted customers for free. Accept the offer: A service like Kroll will keep an eye out for any fraud associated with your data, and help protect you from the repercussions.

While Kroll will do a lot of the work for you, there’s more you can do here to keep yourself protected. For starters, you can obtain a free credit report from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion once a year. Since each is independent, you can stagger your requests to effectively check your full credit once every four months. If you have been involved in this security incident (or any one like it) you can also put a freeze on your credit to ensure no one can access your report for any reason.

Dig deep on Google Earth and you’ll inevitably find a surprise or two. Maybe you’re looking at far-flung islands in the middle of an ocean or checking in on something closer to home.

A few years ago, online sleuths found an image of a B-2 stealth bomber in flight over Missouri. The aircraft is smeared in the image because it was in motion, while the farm fields below appear as crisp as any other view on Google Earth.

There’s something else that now appears on Google Earth. Zoom in over rural North Texas, and you’ll find a satellite. It appears five times in different colors, each projected over wooded bottomlands in a remote wildlife refuge about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Dallas.

Read full article

Comments

An anonymous reader shares a report: OpenAI is working on its own X-like social network, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. While the project is still in early stages, we’re told there’s an internal prototype focused on ChatGPT’s image generation that has a social feed. CEO Sam Altman has been privately asking outsiders for feedback about the project, our sources say. It’s unclear if OpenAI’s plan is to release the social network as a separate app or integrate it into ChatGPT, which became the most downloaded app globally last month.

Launching a social network in or around ChatGPT would likely increase Altman’s already-bitter rivalry with Elon Musk. In February, after Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase OpenAI for $97.4 billion, Altman responded: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.” Entering the social media market also puts OpenAI on more of a collision course with Meta, which we’re told is planning to add a social feed to its coming standalone app for its AI assistant. When reports of Meta building a rival to the ChatGPT app first surfaced a couple of months ago, Altman shot back on X again by saying, “ok fine maybe we’ll do a social app.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following a limited, four-month preview, Google is making its Veo 2 video generation model available to more people. The company has begun rolling out the tool to Gemini Advanced users, who can use it to create 720p clips that are up to eight seconds long. “The more detailed your description, the more control you have over the final video,” Google says of the model.

For the time being, Gemini will only generate footage in 16:9 landscape orientation, meaning it won’t be great for creating social video. That said, Google notes you can upload videos directly to TikTok or YouTube through Gemini’s share sheet, and any footage you create through the chatbot will automatically be formatted as a MP4 file. Relative to the model’s iteration, Google says Veo 2 has a better understanding of real-world physics and human motion.

If you want to start using Gemini to generate video clips, you’ll need Google’s $20 per month One AI Premium Plan. Once the company completes the roll out of Veo 2, video generation will be available in every language you can use Gemini on both on the web and mobile. Separately, Google is bringing Veo 2 generation to Whisk. For the uninitiated, Whisk is an experimental AI application the company offers through its Google Labs beta platform. It allows you to generate images from both text and image prompts, and with Veo 2 now baked in, you can use Whisk to animate what you create through the app.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-brings-veo-2-video-generation-to-gemini-advanced-170014422.html?src=rss

Google is rolling out a new way to generate videos, as well as animate existing images, using AI. The catch? These videos are really short, and you have to pay to play.

On Tuesday, Google announced that Gemini Advanced and Google One AI Premium users can now make AI-generated videos using the company’s Veo 2 video model. Google originally unveiled this model back in December, touting the model’s improved understanding of real-world physics, nuanced human emotions, and ability to generate specific types of shots (e.g. low angle, close-up, shallow depth of field).

While Veo 2 is capable of generating 4K videos at several minutes in length, that’s not the experience Gemini Advanced users will get here. Instead, you’ll be able to make eight-second videos at 720p—quite the limitation. Speaking of limits, there’s a cap on the number of videos you can generate with Veo 2 each month, though Google isn’t disclosing that publicly. Instead, the company says it’ll warn you when you’re approaching your limit, which doesn’t seem like a particularly transparent system.

While Gemini Advanced users will be able to use Veo 2 directly in Gemini, Google One AI Premium subscribers also have access to the model in Whisk—the company’s AI media generator. As part of the Veo 2 rollout, Google is announcing Whisk Animate, which uses Veo 2 to animate an image you generated with Whisk.

How to generate Veo 2 videos with Gemini Advanced

If you pay the $20 per month for Gemini, Veo 2 is rolling out right now. To start, open Google’s chatbot, then pick “Veo 2” from the model dropdown. From here, prompt the AI like you would normally, only this time with a specific video in mind. While Google encourages users to describe things like short stories for Veo 2 to work with, remember that you only get eight seconds of video generation max. That’s quite the short story.

If you don’t see Veo 2 as an option, sit tight. Google says the full rollout could take a few weeks, so not all Gemini Advanced users will be able to access it today.

How to animate a Whisk image with Veo 2

Credit: Google

Google One AI Premium subscribers can give this one a shot over at labs.google/whisk. You can start by generating an image with Whisk as per usual—by prompting Whisk with whatever you want, or letting the AI randomly pick a generation for you.

Once your image generates, you’ll notice a new “ANIMATE” option at the top. Click this, then prompt the AI with how you’d like it to animate the image.

What’s the point of this?

I don’t have a subscription, so I can’t try out Veo 2 in any capacity. But according to Google’s demos, the model does a decent job of adhering to the prompts. For example, Google showed off how four different versions of a man eating ice cream—including 3D art, pixel art, illustration, and realistic generation—could be animated with a single prompt.

That said, it’s far from perfect: Each of these demonstrates the hallmark signs of AI-generated video, including visual glitches and elements morphing into one another. Some of the results here are also half-baked: The 3D art animation, for example, has the man bring the ice cream to his mouth, but never actually eat it, while the realistic generation shows him eating from his fingers, even though there is no ice cream there.

There’s a novelty to the feature, sure: You can generate a brief animation of any image you want—AI-generated or not. But I struggle to imagine the practical and widespread application here, especially since this feature is locked behind Google’s $20 per month paywall.

This is a video of the latest ‘ultra high efficiency’ dishwasher modded by Youtubers PlumberJohn and STS_3D. It can jump up and down on its legs (an important feature), quick-dry dishes with a flamethrower, and launch the dish racks out of the washer when a cycle is complete. Now that — that looks like a quality product. I can’t wait for my girlfriend to come home and see the upgrade! *standing on curb talking to firemen* I suspect it started in the kitchen.

There are physical editions of the iconic shooters Doom and Doom II coming out, thanks to Limited Run Games. All editions ship with both games, but the highlight is something called the Will it Run Edition. This one comes with all kinds of extra goodies, including a game box that actually runs the original Doom. You read that right. Box play Doom. All you have to do is connect a USB controller, as the box also has a port.

It costs $666, which is a nod to the devilish source material, and is being kept to a limited run of 666 copies. It comes with the aforementioned screen-enabled game box that runs Doom, but that’s just the beginning. The combo pack ships with the soundtrack on cassette, a certificate of authenticity and a trading card park with five cards.

It comes with a couple of toys based on one of the franchise’s most iconic enemies. There’s a detailed three-inch Cacodemon that connects to a five-inch base, which looks pretty nifty. There’s a smaller handheld Cacodemon that, you’ll never guess, also runs Doom.

Limited Run Games

This edition is available for Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The PC version, however, ships with a download code and not physical copies of both games. Preorders start on April 18 and end on May 18, with a release sometime after that.

If $666 is too rich, or demonic, for your blood, there are also cheaper editions available. The Big Box Edition costs $100 and ships with both games, a really big box, a trading card set and the soundtrack on cassette. The Standard Edition only includes the games and costs $30.

However, these aren’t straight ports of two 30-year-old games. The developer has made some enhancements for modern players. The visuals have been upgraded, with a native 60 FPS frame rate and 16:9 support. The weapon carousel has been updated for faster switching and the dev has added gyroscopic aiming. These titles now offer local four-player co-op and online play.

The games also include a bunch of new maps and long-standing community mods, with the ability to integrate new mods. There’s even a brand-new episode called Legacy of Rust that was co-designed by id, Nightdive Studios and MachineGames. Players can also switch between the original music and a modern soundtrack.

For those wondering why the developer would even make a box that runs Doom, it’s because the game’s ability to run on weird things has become a beloved meme at this point. Doom has been found running on pregnancy tests, rat brain neurons and even via gut bacteria.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/666-edition-of-doom-includes-game-box-that-itself-plays-doom-165022410.html?src=rss

An anonymous reader shares a report: A silent update rolling out to virtually all Android devices will make your phone more secure, and all you have to do is not touch it for a few days. The new feature implements auto-restart of a locked device, which will keep your personal data more secure. It’s coming as part of a Google Play Services update, though, so there’s nothing you can do to speed along the process.

Google is preparing to release a new update to Play Services (v25.14), which brings a raft of tweaks and improvements to myriad system features. First spotted by 9to5Google, the update was officially released on April 14, but as with all Play Services updates, it could take a week or more to reach all devices. When 25.14 arrives, Android devices will see a few minor improvements, including prettier settings screens, improved connection with cars and watches, and content previews when using Quick Share.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia is rounding out its GeForce RTX 50-series graphics cards today with the official announcement of the mainstream RTX 5060 series. The company is announcing three new GPUs today: The 5060 Ti will launch on April 16 in both 8GB and 16GB variations, for $379 and $429, respectively. The regular RTX 5060 will follow at some point in May for the same $299 MSRP as the last-generation RTX 4060. It is also sticking with 8GB of RAM.

Obviously, it remains to be seen whether the company and its partners can actually stock these cards at these prices. GPUs from the top-tier RTX 5090 to the mainstream RTX 5070 have been difficult to impossible to buy at their announced MSRPs. And it’s not just Nvidia’s problem or a high-end problem—AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 series GPUs have also been hard to buy, as have Intel’s Arc B580 and B570 cards.

The new graphics cards’ specs essentially match numbers that have been floating around for a couple of months now. Both models include modest increases in the number of CUDA cores compared to the last-generation 4060 and 4060 Ti models, with the same amount of RAM and the same 128-bit memory interface. But an upgrade to GDDR7 instead of GDDR6 provides a healthy bump to memory bandwidth and is probably also partially responsible for an increase in peak power consumption. The 4060 Ti in particular was memory bandwidth-constrained at higher resolutions, so hopefully some extra bandwidth will make it a better choice for a decent 1440p gaming PC.

Read full article

Comments

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg considered resetting all Facebook users’ friend connections to boost the platform’s declining relevance, according to internal emails revealed Monday in a landmark FTC antitrust trial. In a 2022 message to executives, Zuckerberg proposed “wiping everyone’s graphs and having them start again,” referring to users’ friend networks. Facebook head Tom Alison questioned the idea’s viability, citing Instagram’s reliance on friend connections. Zuckerberg later testified that the plan was never implemented and that Facebook has “evolved” from its original purpose.

The FTC argues Meta violated competition laws by acquiring Instagram ($1B) and WhatsApp ($19B) as part of a “buy or bury” strategy outlined in Zuckerberg’s 2008 email stating, “It is better to buy than compete.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It’s officially Tax Day. If you already filed months ago, first off: Good for you. And secondly, you may have already received a pleasant surprise in the form of a slightly larger tax refund compared to last year. According to the most recent IRS report, over $211 billion has been refunded this cycle so far—a 5% increase over last year. On an individual basis, the average direct deposit refund amount is $3,186, up 3.2% from last year’s $3,088. But what’s driving these larger refunds?

Inflation adjustments boost refunds

The primary reason for the increase in tax refunds stems from the IRS’s annual inflation adjustments. For the 2024 tax year (filed in 2025), the IRS implemented significant increases to both standard deductions and tax brackets.

Standard deduction increases

The standard deduction—the amount taxpayers can subtract from their income before income tax is applied—saw notable increases:

• Single filers: $14,600 (up from $13,850 in tax year 2023)

• Married couples filing jointly: $29,200 (up from $27,700 in tax year 2023)

• Heads of household: $21,900 (up from $20,800 in tax year 2023)

Filers who are 65 or older or are blind may be eligible to claim an even higher standard deduction. For 2024, the amounts are:

• Single or head of household: an additional $1,950

• Married filing jointly: an additional $1,550

So for example, a 68-year-old single filer would claim a $16,550 standard deduction for tax year 2024. These increases mean that taxpayers who don’t itemize deductions (aka the vast majority of Americans) protect more of their income from taxation.

Tax bracket adjustments

In addition to higher standard deductions, the IRS also adjusted tax brackets for inflation. This adjustment effectively moved some taxpayers into lower tax brackets, reducing their overall tax burden even if their income increased slightly from the previous year.

What these adjustments mean for taxpayers

For many Americans, these adjustments have resulted in lower tax bills or higher refunds for the 2024 tax year. However, it’s worth noting that a larger refund isn’t necessarily a financial win—it means you’ve been giving the government an interest-free loan throughout the year.

Financial advisors often recommend adjusting your withholding if you consistently receive large tax refunds. This allows you to access more of your money throughout the year, potentially using it for investments or to pay down debt.

If you haven’t filed yet, today is the last day you can apply for an extension. Remember that it’s always better to file—even if you can’t pay what you owe—than not to file at all. The penalties for non-filing are substantially higher and can lead to much more serious consequences.