Every month you can go on the Epic Games Store and snag a usually pretty decent game for absolutely free. It’s not clear if this largesse is meaningfully moving the needle in the company’s battle to establish itself as a competitor to Steam, but it’s certainly a nice bonus. And after giving away $2,229 worth of free…
Some subreddits will require you to pay to see content.
On Wednesday, OpenAI published the latest version of its “Model Spec,” a set of guidelines detailing how ChatGPT should behave and respond to user requests. The document reveals a notable shift in OpenAI’s content policies, particularly around “sensitive” content like erotica and gore—allowing this type of content to be generated without warnings in “appropriate contexts.”
The change in policy has been in the works since May 2024, when the original Model Spec document first mentioned that OpenAI was exploring “whether we can responsibly provide the ability to generate NSFW content in age-appropriate contexts through the API and ChatGPT.”
ChatGPT’s guidelines now state that that “erotica or gore” may now be generated, but only under specific circumstances. “The assistant should not generate erotica, depictions of illegal or non-consensual sexual activities, or extreme gore, except in scientific, historical, news, creative or other contexts where sensitive content is appropriate,” OpenAI writes. “This includes depictions in text, audio (e.g., erotic or violent visceral noises), or visual content.”
Elon Musk launched a $97.4 billion bid to take control of OpenAI. The Wall Street Journal reported a group of investors led by Musk’s xAI submitted an unsolicited offer to the company’s board of directors on Monday. The group wants to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI’s for-profit arm.
When asked for comment, an OpenAI spokesperson pointed Engadget to an X post from CEO Sam Altman. “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want,” Altman wrote on the social media platform Musk owns.
On Friday, OpenAI’s board of directors officially rejected Musk’s bid. “OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition,” the company said in a response attributed to Bret Taylor, the chair of OpenAI’s board of directors. “Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity.”
Taylor, incidentally, was the chairman of Twitter’s board before Musk bought the social media platform for $44 billion in 2022.
“OpenAI is not for sale, and the board has unanimously rejected Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to disrupt his competition. Any potential reorganization of OpenAI will strengthen our nonprofit and its mission to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity.”
—Bret Taylor, Chair, on behalf of…
— OpenAI Newsroom (@OpenAINewsroom) February 14, 2025
“It’s time for OpenAI to return to the open-source, safety-focused force for good it once was,” Musk said in a statement his attorney shared with The Journal. “We will make sure that happens.”
It’s hard to say how serious this bid from Musk is and what — if any — chance it has to succeed. OpenAI is not a traditional company, and the nonprofit structure Sam Altman and others at the company want it to get away from may in fact protect it from Musk’s offer. Were OpenAI a for-profit company with publicly traded shares Musk’s bid would likely trigger what’s known in corporate law as a Revlon moment, where, under certain circumstances, the company’s board of directors would be forced to sell to the highest bidder to maximize shareholder profits.
Update 02/14 4:34PM ET: Added response from OpenAI’s board of directors.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-board-unanimously-rejects-elon-musks-974-billion-takeover-bid-215221683.html?src=rss
Researchers discovered the body of water—now the largest known underground thermal lake in the world—while investigating a column of steam rising from limestone.
As prominent anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed to the nation’s top health position Thursday, Louisiana Surgeon General Ralph Abraham sent a memo to the state’s health department saying that the state “will no longer promote mass vaccination” and barred staff from running seasonal vaccine campaigns, according to a report by the Times-Picayune of New Orleans.
The memo echoes directives that state health employees say they were told in October and November. In meetings at the time, employees learned of a policy shift that would end seasonal campaigns for flu, COVID-19, and mpox vaccines, but it was to be implemented discreetly and not put in writing.
According to Abraham’s memo, the abandonment of lifesaving vaccination campaigns is in service of individual choice. “For many illnesses, vaccines are one tool in the toolbox of ways to combat severe illness,” according to The New York Times, which also obtained a copy of the memo.
Check out all your favorite streaming content with an Amazon Fire TV Stick HD at its lowest price.
Researchers have uncovered a sustained and ongoing campaign by Russian spies that uses a clever phishing technique to hijack Microsoft 365 accounts belonging to a wide range of targets, researchers warned.
The technique is known as device code phishing. It exploits “device code flow,” a form of authentication formalized in the industry-wide OAuth standard. Authentication through device code flow is designed for logging printers, smart TVs, and similar devices into accounts. These devices typically don’t support browsers, making it difficult to sign in using more standard forms of authentication, such as entering user names, passwords, and two-factor mechanisms.
Rather than authenticating the user directly, the input-constrained device displays an alphabetic or alphanumeric device code along with a link associated with the user account. The user opens the link on a computer or other device that’s easier to sign in with and enters the code. The remote server then sends a token to the input-constrained device that logs it into the account.
For decades, politically minded action movies often involve the President of the United States (fictional ones, usually). While most POTUSes need to be rescued from evil terrorists or rivals, there are times when the Big Cheese takes matters into their own hands. You don’t get to win the Electoral College without…
In 2019, Haley Olson’s life in Grant County, Oregon, was upended when people in town appeared to know about private nude photos that Olson kept on her phone. Worse, some of the people appeared to have seen and shared the photos. The incidents all had some relationship to the local sheriff’s department, where Olson was dating one of the deputies.
In July, for instance, a stranger in a sheriff’s office uniform approached her to say that he had “heard there’s some pretty smokin’ pictures of you going around the sheriff’s office.” Someone else saw a married couple, both of whom worked for the sheriff’s office, looking at Olson’s photos on the husband’s phone. Other people also approached Olson with knowledge of her recent out-of-state arrest. One person called her “the drug dealer that likes to f— cops.”
What was going on?
This week Google added Veo 2 to YouTube Shorts and—wow, this article is already gibberish. Let me back up.
YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s TikTok knockoff competitor. Veo2 is Google’s AI tool for generating videos. As of this week, you can use that AI to make clips for YouTube Shorts. This innovative and revolutionary change will forever alter the vertical videos most people scroll past so they can find the thing they actually wanted to watch.
According to a confusingly worded announcement post, you can now create clips to add to your Shorts simply by typing a sentence. Anyone can create a Short right in the YouTube mobile app either by combining footage already saved to their phone or by recording directly. Now there’s a third option: generating horrifying footage using AI.
“Need a specific scene but don’t have the right footage?” the post asks. “Simply use a text prompt to generate a video clip that fits perfectly into your narrative, or create a whole new world of content.”
I can’t think of any place less appealing than a “whole new world of content.” The very phrase conjures up mental images of a digital purgatory, an endless void of placeholder content where the unworthy are sent to after a life lived passively consuming.
So naturally I wanted to try this out.
I fired up the YouTube application on my phone found that the feature is a little buried. To generate a clip, you need to click the Add button in the bottom-left corner and then—instead of clicking one of the photos or videos on your phone—tap the Create button at the top of the screen. After that, you can type your prompt and tap Create.
You’ll see four thumbnails—tap one and the AI will generate a clip for you. This will be added to your timeline, meaning you can edit it into the rest of the Short however you like.
I played around with this a few times, mostly with cats eating planets (I wanted to see it). The results were not particularly convincing from a feline or astronomical perspective—I’d say it resembled the feeling of a fading memory of a dream more than actual video footage—but I certainly ended up with a video that included the elements I described.
There’s one more way you can use these videos—as an animated background for your Shorts. To do this, tap the down arrow on the toolbar to expand it, tap the Green Screen option, then tap the AI sparkle instead of one of your photos. As before, you will be given four thumbnails to choose from—the one you choose will become a video. You can then record yourself talking as the video loops in the background. Honestly, this seems like a decent use for AI—a quick and disposable visual flare for a video that is also quick and disposable.
For what’s it’s worth, we have an article about how to hide YouTube Shorts from your feed, as does seemingly every other website on the internet. I wonder why that is.
Metal Slug Tactics is all about customization: choosing your characters, picking their loadouts, and then deciding which modifications you want to implement into their weapons. But not all mods are available from the beginning of the game.
This month, Lenovo and IBM announced a strategic partnership focused on helping Saudi Arabia deploy AI successfully. IBM and Lenovo are tightly coupled given Lenovo acquired both its server and its business PC business from IBM. This means that Lenovo policies and IBM policies are more closely coupled due to these mergers than would typically be the case, and both companies share the same high regard for service quality, ethics, innovation and technology advancement.
Both companies are also somewhat complementary in that IBM tends to live in tightly focused markets where its unique solutions play major roles, while Lenovo is a much broader vendor with interests ranging from consumer electronics (an area that IBM was never able to perform in) to server farms.
IBM’s focus on AI predates Lenovo’s, though Lenovo has been far more aggressive with robotics than IBM has been, suggesting that while there are still some overlaps, they are mostly minor and manageable.
This partnership has the potential to grow into something even more powerful.
The old IBM that existed before the 90s was a powerhouse with a technological reach extending from the desktop to mainframes. It was the majority of the tech industry in its prime, and parts were sold off by a number of CEOs over time, leaving it far smaller than it once was.
In contrast, Lenovo has been growing very rapidly over this same period. Its biggest growth spurts came when it acquired the IBM PC company and again when it acquired IBM’s x86 business. In both cases, those businesses became powerful peers to other technology companies that predated Lenovo in those spaces.
In an interesting way, Lenovo has developed a unique skill in terms of fixing the IBM businesses it acquired which largely had to do with adequately funding and focusing on them. IBM’s leadership strength is in AI with watsonx (which predated the AI wave by several decades), and with quantum computing research which is believed to be the next wave of technological advancement.
Lenovo, on the other hand, is extremely innovative with hardware, is aggressively moving into automotive and robotic space and could likely use some of IBM’s extreme focus on ethics and security to better differentiate its solutions in a variety of market segments.
The end result is that this partnership could deepen the relationship between these two firms and make both stronger as they share information and augment each other’s capabilities. It is particularly useful that both companies’ CEOs are willing to work with others, and both companies have a strong partnership care and feeding process which should assure the success of this endeavor.
While IBM has been instrumental in discovering new technologies in a variety of markets thanks to IBM Research, IBM’s current focus is narrower, suggesting it can’t make the greatest use out of a number of the technologies it has discovered or developed. But Lenovo, through the partnership, is far broader, suggesting that if the partnership extends to IBM Research, Lenovo should be able to bring many of these otherwise languishing concepts to market. More important, it could complete solutions that IBM lacks the breadth to complete, and Lenovo lacks the scale to achieve, for instance, an autonomous robotaxi deployment with a secure automated mainframe based on a highly secure control hub.
It is always exciting to see a partnership between two natural partners. IBM and Lenovo, thanks to Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM assets, are natural partners because Lenovo has what IBM lacks in breadth and IBM has what Lenovo lacks in depth. The combination is very close to the same capabilities as the old IBM that once led the technology market. These two firms are capable of working together very closely. If they pull this off, the future should be significantly enhanced for both firms.
Thinking about getting a new iPhone? You certainly have options: Apple’s latest generation of smartphones, the iPhone 16 series, offers four different models, each with their own pluses and minuses. If you’re not set on having the latest and greatest, you could consider last year’s iPhone 15, or even 2022’s iPhone 14. They’re all great.
However, there’s one iPhone that stands out from the rest: the iPhone SE. Unlike every other iPhone Apple currently sells, this one has a Home button. In fact, the phone looks nearly identical to the iPhone 8 Apple released back in 2017, which itself borrows the design from 2014’s iPhone 6. That means it has a smaller, lower quality display than many might be used to these days, a single camera that isn’t as capable as those on newer iPhones, and poor battery life for its size. In short, the current SE is a bit of a black sheep, and is probably not the iPhone I’d recommend you buy in 2024—even if it only costs $429.
That price is the main selling point of the SE brand, especially when this particular model launched back in 2022. Apple takes the design from the last generation (in this case, the iPhone 8 style), packs a modern chip inside, and slashes the MSRP. In effect, you get an iPhone that can keep up with the performance of the flagship Apple phones, but at half the cost, if not more. Sure, the cameras aren’t as good and the device looks a bit dated, but again, you get a lot of iPhone for the price.
To be frank, if you’re eyeing a mid-range device at a good price, I wouldn’t recommend buying an iPhone at all right now. But if you can wait until next week, Apple might just have exactly what you’re looking for in a brand-new SE (which, according to rumors, might even have a different name).
The new SE looks like it’s dropping soon. Apple CEO Tim Cook posted on X on Thursday, announcing a Feb. 19 launch of “the newest member of the family.” While Cook didn’t elaborate, it seems like this could be the time to reveal the new SE.
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The iPhone SE rumor mill has been churning for some time now, but Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman summed up what’s new with the 2025 iPhone SE quite succinctly. Gurman said you can expect Apple’s latest “budget” iPhone to look a lot like the iPhone 14, which means a 6.1-inch edge-to-edge OLED display booting the Home button in favor of Face ID. Apple is shipping the SE with the A18 chip, the same SoC found on the latest iPhone 16 series. It’ll also have an Apple-made cellular modem, ditching the usual models from Qualcomm, though it’s not clear whether that will have any meaningful gains in cellular performance. It will also come with a USB-C port, which will let Apple sell the phone in the EU.
Other rumors suggest the SE 4 will have a single 48 MP rear camera, and 8GB of RAM. That extra RAM would allow the SE 4 to run Apple Intelligence, which is obviously important to Apple, but perhaps not to anyone who has already turned it off.
If those features come to pass, this would be quite the upgrade over the current iPhone SE. The SE 3 is rocking a 4.7-inch 750p LCD, a much smaller and lower resolution display than what’s rumored. It also uses the A15 Bionic chip, which is still powerful enough in 2024 (it’s the same chip used in the iPhone 14), has a Lightning port, a 12 MP rear camera, 4GB of RAM, and, of course, a Qualcomm 5G modem.
The SE always borrows from the previous generation of iPhone, and right now, that’s likely the iPhone 14. Based on these rumors, the new SE would have some edge over the iPhone 14: The 14 has 12 MP rear cameras, 6GB of RAM, a Lightning port, and doesn’t support Apple Intelligence, all of which the rumored SE improves upon. And while the 14’s A15 Bionic chip is plenty powerful for iOS 18, the A18 would be a noticeable upgrade for the SE 4. The A15 was the newest iPhone chip at the time when the SE 3 came out, so it’d make sense for the SE 4 could get the iPhone 16’s A18 chip.
There’s also a potential name change in store for the iPhone SE 4, as noted leaker Majin Bu (don’t you have Saiyans to fight?) has said Apple is considering naming it the iPhone 16E, pushing it as a budget version of its most recent model rather than a separate line altogether. Bu’s report follows a similar statement from popular Chinese account Fixed Focus Digital.
Aside from the internals, leakers have also now gotten their hands on supposed dummy units of the iPhone SE 4. As expected, these look a lot like the iPhone 14, but with two noticeable changes.
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The biggest changes here, at least according to a video from also coming from Majin Bu, are the swap to a USB-C port and the move to a single camera lens. As previously noted, the former is necessary for the phone to be sold in the EU and constitutes a modest upgrade over the 14, while the latter is likely a cost-cutting measure, but could still be considered an upgrade if the single lens is more powerful than the prior dual lenses, as rumored. Notably, while the move to a single camera lens is a change from the iPhone 14, the current iPhone SE also only uses a single camera lens, and it does provide for a less noticeable camera bump.
Over the old SE, the Home button is also now gone, and noticeably, a notch is here in place of the Dynamic Island Apple made standard on all new iPhones starting with the iPhone 15. That’s not wholly a surprise, given the base iPhone 14 had a notch too, but anyone who was hoping Apple would leave notches entirely in the past after the iPhone 15 announcement will likely need to wait for the SE 5 (or whatever it’s called) to see that wish come true.
Bu isn’t the first leaker to come forward with an iPhone SE 4 dummy, although their post is certainly clearer than prior looks, especially regarding the notch.
Of course, the value of a rumored SE all hinges on the price. Ideally, Apple would keep the same $429 price point for the SE 4—which, itself, was a hike from the $399 starting price for past SE models. These rumors point to a excellent all-around iPhone that omits certain modern or “Pro” features like a Camera button, Action button, zoom lens, titanium build, 120Hz ProMotion display, Always-On display, Dynamic Island, and a brightness maximum of 2,000 nits. Hopefully, scrapping these features most users don’t want or need can motivate Apple to price the SE accordingly. As of this writing, rumors don’t suggest what Apple will do, one way or another.
At the end of the day, most people looking to buy an iPhone want something that can handle iMessage and FaceTime, run their favorite apps, and take great photos and videos. The SE traditionally handles these tasks without issue, so if the fourth-generation iPhone SE does indeed deliver on these rumors and is priced appropriately, it might be the best iPhone for most of us.
In 2022, Obsidian Entertainment was the only first-party Xbox studio to ship a new game, Pentiment. And in 2025, the Microsoft-owned studio has already launched one big RPG, Avowed, and is set to release a second one, The Outer Worlds 2, later in the year. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Obsidian has quietly…
A measles outbreak in an area of Texas with abysmal vaccination rates continues to mushroom, with cases doubling since Tuesday and expanding into additional counties.
A week ago, officials reported nine confirmed cases in Gaines County, at the border of New Mexico, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates among kindergartners in the state at just about 82 percent. On Tuesday, the cases climbed to 24, all in Gaines. In Friday’s update, the state health department reports that the case count has now reached 48 and spread to three nearby counties, which also have vaccination rates below the 95 percent threshold that prevent vaccine-preventable diseases from spreading onward.
Gaines now reports 42 cases. There’s one case reported in Lynn County to the northeast, which has a 91 percent vaccination rate. Terry County, with a vaccination rate of 94 percent, reports three cases, and Yoakum County, with a vaccination rate of 92.5 percent, reports two cases. Terry and Yoakum are both directly north of Gaines.
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The problem with Netflix’s algorithmic recommendations is that it creates an entertainment echo chamber where viewers’ tastes are confirmed instead of challenged. Right now, there’s probably a TV series languishing in Netflix’s back catalog that would blow your mind, if only you knew about it. But it’s probably not in English.
Netflix has a huge catalog of excellent foreign-language shows, so many that finding a place to start can be daunting. As Lifehacker’s expert on “what’s good on TV,” I’ve put together a list of the best of the best “not in English” Netflix series, listed in order of Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation score. If you can deal with subtitles, I bet you’ll find your new favorite show somewhere below.
I’m starting this list with Marianne, maybe my favorite TV show of all time. I love horror, but I’ve seen so much of it that I’m rarely actually spooked by anything anymore. French series Marianne, though, legitimately creeped me out. A deeply unsettling series about a horror writer whose nightmares come true, Marianne carefully builds an atmosphere of dread that’s practically suffocating at times, then releases the pressure valve with gruesome, Grand Guignol set pieces at exactly the right time. It’s horror for grown-ups, and it’s really good.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
K-drama Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a legal show like no other. Park Eun-bin plays the title character, Woo Young-woo, a woman with autism who made herself into a legal savant by memorizing seemingly all of Korea’s laws. Extraordinary Attorney Woo‘s heroine is a fully fleshed out character—she’s a woman who has autism, not “autism personified”—and the show is as much about the different cases she tries each week as it is about her navigating a world she doesn’t fit into.
This brilliant, stylish, crime thriller begins with some heavy Tarantino influence, but it’s a bait-and-switch. Money Heist‘s gang of misfits are cool, but they aren’t badass anti-heroes. They’re complicated, conflicted, damaged people who make bad decisions for good reasons, and good decisions for bad ones. Their audacious plan to rob Spain’s national mint of billions of Euros may seem like an Oceans’ Eleven lark at first, but it’s soon revealed as a desperate criminal act that blows up and spins farther out of control than anyone predicted.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
At its worst, “Nordic noir” transplants tired police procedural tropes to Northern European countries, and you end up with NCIS with parkas. At its best, though, Nordic noir is like The Chestnut Man, a grisly, gloomy series that combines serial killing, political corruption, and ancient, unspeakable pagan rituals into something unique, cliche-free, and perfect for binging. If you like the vibe of the first season of True Detective, check out The Chestnut Man.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Just the premise of this German sci-fi series should be enough for most people to watch it. In Cassandra, a typical suburban family moves into an isolated house that was built in the 1980s and was meant to be the “home of the future.” The massive old computers in the basement still work and the dusty household robot still clanks around, but something is very wrong with this house. If you’re like me, and you feel like you’re being haunted by both the past and computers, Cassandra will resonate deeply.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
Along with traditional foreign series, there’s a ton of anime on Netflix too; enough that the specialized genre deserves a separate list (stay tuned). I put Delicious in Dungeon here to represent all anime, and because I really like it. It’s good entry-level cartoon, a fantasy series influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and food, in which a group of intrepid adventurers eat their way through a monster-packed dungeon to save their friend. It’s a weird combo, but it’s held together by well-drawn characters, beautiful art, and lore that’s as rich as espagnole.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
I went into Dear Child cold, without knowing anything about it, and the first couple of episodes are so mysterious and dread-inducing, I wasn’t sure if it was going in a dark science fiction direction, or if it was more of a supernatural horror show. Turns out, it’s neither. Dear Child is a thriller based on real life, and its carefully paced, visually stunning depiction of captivity, torture, and brainwashing is way scarier than any made-up monsters. Germans really have a unique understanding of how authoritarian control degrades the human soul; go figure.
Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%
You can’t make a list of Netflix’s best foreign shows and not include Korean sensation Squid Game. I defy anyone to watch the first episode of this show and not keep going. Set in a near-future dystopia where rich people convince ordinary people compete in deadly versions of childhood games for a fortune, Squid Game provides pointed commentary on capitalism’s corruption of culture and is somehow is fun to watch at the same time. It’s brutal, addictive, fearless, darkly funny, and wildly original. Squid Game definitely earned its nearly universal approval among critics and viewers.
This stylish, action-packed period thriller takes place in the days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Jella Haase plays the title character, an imprisoned Stasi agent with an unusual skill set that includes making poison from a pufferfish and kicking serious ass. With the Cold War over, Kleo is released with all the other political prisoners and sets out for vengeance upon the spooks and government functionaries who ruined her life. If you like slick-as-hell action that isn’t stupid, check out Kleo.
Imagine The Breakfast Club, Parasite, and Train to Busan had a three-way baby and you have some idea of what All of Us are Dead is like. This Korean zombie epic is set at Hyosan High School, where regularly scheduled classes (and teenage romance, popularity jockeying, bullying, shenanigans, etc.) are briefly interrupted by an invasion of fast, deadly zombies. All of Us are Dead hits all the undead invasion notes perfectly—it’s brutal, violent, and action-packed—but it stands out from the pack by featuring characters you care about and thoughtful social commentary on youth and society, without ever devolving into “Heart-to-Heart Talk of the Dead” territory, like the later seasons of The Walking Dead.
Based loosely on a true story, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) tells the story of Moritz Zimmerman, a high school nerd who dreams of becoming a tech mogul and sticking it to the popular kids one day. So, like the title says, Moritz starts selling drugs online (fast) which expands his social circle, but creates exponentially expanding dangers in the form of cops, drug-dealers, and other crime-show complications. Fast, funny, and addictive, How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) is perfect binge-TV. There’s no score from Rotten Tomatoes, but trust me.
Rotten Tomatoes Score: None
Intense Belgian mind-fuck Tabula Rasa is criminally under seen—It doesn’t have enough online reviews to even have a Rotten Tomatoes rating—but it’s amazing. Main character Kai lost her memory after a car accident. She lives in a perpetual, confusing present in which her mind seems to “fill in the blanks” of her life with horrifying hallucinations. Or maybe her house is haunted. Or maybe she’s a killer who murdered a young man like the police think. Maybe someone else is setting her up for something. Maybe none of this is real. Tabula Rasa‘s “what is even happening?” plot holds up through the final twist, and its grotesque imagery is fascinating. This is a true hidden gem.
Rotten Tomato Score: None
James Howells, the IT pro who lost about 8,000 bitcoins in a landfill more than a decade ago, thinks he has one last chance to dig up his buried treasure before it’s lost forever.
He wants to buy the landfill.
In January, Howells lost a court battle with Newport City Council in Wales, which many expected would be his last shot at excavating the dump. But soon after, the Newport council revealed that it would be closing the landfill, arousing in Howells a new hope that the bitcoins—today worth nearly $800 million—might still be found.
Working at the intersection of Apple’s newest hardware and Linux kernel development, for the benefit of a free distribution, was never going to be easy. But it’s been an especially hard couple of weeks for Hector Martin, project lead for Asahi Linux, capping off years of what he describes as burnout, user entitlement, and political battles within the Linux kernel community about Rust code.
In a post on his site, “Resigning as Asahi Linux project lead,” Martin summarizes his history with hardware hacking projects, including his time with the Wii homebrew scene (Team Twiizers/fail0verflow), which had its share of insistent users desperate to play pirated games. Martin shifted his focus, and when Apple unveiled its own silicon with the M1 series, Martin writes, “I realized that making it run Linux was my dream project.” This time, there was no jailbreaking and a relatively open, if tricky, platform.
Support and donations came quickly. The first two years saw rapid advancement of a platform built “from scratch, with zero vendor support or documentation.” Upstreaming code to the Linux kernel, across “practically every Linux subsystem,” was an “incredibly frustrating experience” (emphasis Martin’s).
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Presidents Day is not until Feb. 17, 2025, but as is often the case, retailers have started their sales well in advance. Best Buy has the best sale I’ve seen so far, with great deals on major appliances and tech products, including headphones, TVs, soundbars, washers, and more. Here are my favorite deals from the sale worth considering.
![Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen) [GPS 40mm] Smartwatch with Starlight Aluminium Case with Starlight Sport Band S/M. Fitness and Sleep Trackers, Crash Detection, Heart Rate Monitor, Retina Display](https://www.prime-wow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/hero-image.fill_.size_autoxauto.v1732555459.jpg)
If you’re looking for a washer, peep this Samsung 4.5 Cu. Ft. Smart front load washer for $699.99 (originally $1,034.99), the lowest price it has been over the last few months, according to price-tracking tools. If you need other major appliances and like free TVs (who doesn’t?), Best Buy is offering a free 75-inch Samsung Crystal UHD TV when you buy two or more appliances and they total at least $2,499.99. Very doable if you need a stove or fridge.
More major appliance deals:
Fridge with $400 gift card: KitchenAid – 27 Cu. Ft. French Door Refrigerator — $2,799.99 (originally $3,699.99)
Fridge with $250 gift card: LG Counter-Depth MAX 26.5 Cu. Ft. French Door Smart Refrigerator — $1,899.99 (originally $2,299.99)
Washer: GE Profile 5.3 Cu. Ft. Stackable Smart Front Load Washer — $999.99 (originally $1,399.99)
Washer: LG 4.5 Cu. Ft. High-Efficiency Smart Front Load Washer — $999.99 (originally $1,349.99)
Range: Whirlpool 5.3 Cu. Ft. Freestanding Electric Range with Cooktop — $599.99 (originally $854.99)
Dishwasher: Samsung 24″ Top Control Smart Built-In Stainless Steel Tub Dishwasher — $529.99 (originally $854.99)
Samsung’s The Frame is perfect for those who don’t want a regular TV to be the centerpiece of their living room. The matte and anti-reflective screen truly makes it look like you have a piece of art hanging on your wall (I’ve been fooled by them before). You can get the 55-inch The Frame for $899.99 (originally $1,499.99), the lowest price it’s been over the last few months.
More TV deals:
Samsung 75-inch DU6950 Series Crystal UHD TV — $529.99 (originally $749.99)
Samsung 85-inch DU6950 Series Crystal UHD TV — $749.99 (originally $1,099.99)
LG 48-inch B4 Series OLED TV — $599.99 (originally $799.99)
LG 43-inch UT70 Series UHD TV — $219.99 (originally $399.99)
Buck for buck, there’s nothing that elevates a home theater setup like getting a soundbar and subwoofer combo. The JBL 5.1 Channel Soundbar and Subwoofer combo is $259.99 (originally $599.99), a killer deal and the cheapest it has been over the last few months. You can read more about the PCMag review here.
More soundbar and speaker deals:
JBL Xtreme3 Portable Bluetooth Speaker — $259.99 (originally $329.99)
LG 5.1.1 Channel S70TR Soundbar with Wireless Subwoofer and Rear Speakers — $299.99 (originally $399.99)
Sonos Arc 5.0.2 Channel Smart Soundbar with Dolby Atmos — $749.00 (originally $899.99)
An HP laptop with an i7 processor with 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $499.99 (originally $799.99) is impressive. Make sure you’re OK having a 15.6-inch screen, which is definitely on the bigger end of the spectrum. The resolution isn’t 4K (only Full HD) with an LED display, but if you care about performance over design and aesthetics, it’s a good choice.
More laptop deals:
Apple MacBook Air M3 chip 16GB RAM 256GB SSD — $899.00 (originally $1,099.99)
HP Touch-Screen Laptop Intel Core i3 8GB Memory 256GB SSD — $279.99 (originally $499.99)
Microsoft Surface Snapdragon X Plus 10 Core 16GB RAM 256GB SSD — $799.99 (originally $999.99)
Lenovo IdeaPad 1i Intel Core i5 8GB RAM 512GB SSD — $329.99 (originally $599.99)
Apple users will enjoy the budget Apple Watch SE 2nd Generation for $169 (originally $249) and the new AirPods 4 for $99.99 (originally $129.99). Both of these are at the lowest price they’ve been over the last few months.
More headphone deals:
Apple AirPods Pro 2 — $169.99 (originally $249.99)
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones — $349.00 (originally $429.99)
Beats Powerbeats Totally Wireless Earbuds — $129.99 (originally $199.99)
Bose Ultra Open-Ear True Wireless Open Earbuds — $229 (originally $299.99)
Finally, a note of caution: If you’ve been eyeing that Google Pixel 7 Pro deal at Best Buy, don’t buy it. It’s much cheaper over at Woot right now with more storage.