Collecting fallen (or “shed”) elk antlers is a popular pastime in elk-heavy places like Montana, but it’s usually a pretty low-tech, on-the-ground affair. That’s why last year’s story about a US Black Hawk helicopter descending from the skies to harvest shed elk antlers on a ranch was such an odd one.

Was it really possible that US military personnel were using multimillion-dollar government aircraft to land on private property in the Crazy Mountains—yes, that’s their actual name—just to grab some antlers valued at a few hundred bucks?

Antler hunt

In May 2025, Montana rancher Linda McMullen received a call from a neighbor. “He said, ‘Linda, there’s a green Army helicopter landed on your place, picking up elk antlers,’” McMullen told The New York Times last year. “I said, ‘Are you joking?’ He said, ‘I’m looking at them with binoculars.’”

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Amazon has begun equipping managers with a dashboard that tracks not just whether corporate employees show up to the office but how long they stay once they’re there, according to an internal document obtained by Business Insider. The system, which started rolling out in December, flags “Low-Time Badgers” who average less than four hours daily over an eight-week period and “Zero Badgers” who don’t badge into any building during that span.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Internet videos have always been addicting, but short-form content is a whole other beast. Whatever platform you watch them on, these brief clips pull you in and don’t let go, and, before you know it, you’ve mindlessly scrolled through hours of videos, most of which you’ll never remember watching.

YouTube Shorts are no exception. But unlike TikTok or Instagram, short-form content is not the main source of videos on the platform. YouTube, of course, hosts long-form videos first and foremost, and is the sole reason why many of us visit the site or app. Shorts are just an afterthought, but an afterthought that YouTube pushes hard. You might hop on to watch a specific video, or check out new content from your subscriptions, but to do so, you’ll have to push past rows of “Shorts” all vying for your attention. God help your afternoon if you accidentally click on one.

If you like YouTube Shorts, please disregard. But for the rest of us that just want to find and watch standard videos on YouTube, there’s now some respite: As part of a larger update to search filters and content discovery, YouTube is now allowing users to filter out Shorts in searches. The company is pitching this as a way to separate searches between either Shorts or traditional videos, but you’ll never catch me searching specifically for Shorts. What YouTube has done here, at least for users like myself, is to create a way to exclude Shorts from any particular search.

How to remove YouTube Shorts from search

To start, open YouTube and search for something. You should now see a series of options along the top of the display, one of which is “Videos.” Choose it, and you’ll reload the search with only long-form videos. Huzzah. You can also do the same from the greater search filters settings: On desktop, when the results appear, select “Filters” in the top right then look for “Type” on the left of the “Search filters” pop-up window. On mobile, tap the three dots icon, then choose “Search filters.” On both platforms, you’ll find the “Videos” option here.

Unfortunately, this isn’t something you can set and forget: You’ll need to choose this option every time you search for something, which is definitely a bummer. That said, at least there’s some way to filter Shorts out of a search—especially if those Shorts were impacting your ability to find what you were looking for in the first place.

YouTube might not ever let us disable Shorts completely, but there are tools to get around them. You can choose to limit how many Shorts you watch in any given day—though the guardrails aren’t necessarily strict. The company also lets you tell them to show you fewer Shorts on the home page, but if that’s not enough, you can also install an extension to block Shorts from your feeds.

Other changes to YouTube filters

In addition to this new Shorts filter, YouTube made some adjustments to filters and sorting options. “Sort By” is now known as “Prioritize,” and while YouTube doesn’t say whether it changed the function, it does say the menu “aims to maximize utility.” The company also changed the “View count” sort option to “Popularity.” The menu still takes view count into consideration, but also watch time, to sort videos in a search by the algorithms’ assumed popularity.

Finally, YouTube is removing the “Upload Date – Last Hour” and “Sort by Rating” options from search. The company says you can still find videos uploaded most recently from the “Upload Date” filters.

ExpressVPN is back on sale again, and its two-year plans are up to 78 percent off right now. You can get the Advanced tier for $101 for 28 months. This is marked down from the $382 that this time frame normally costs. On a per-month basis, it works out to roughly $3.59 for the promo period.

We’ve consistently liked ExpressVPN because it’s fast, easy to use and widely available across a large global server network. In fact, it’s our current pick for best premium VPN. One of the biggest drawbacks has always been its high cost, and this deal temporarily solves that issue.

In our review we were able to get fast download and upload speeds, losing only 7 percent in the former and 2 percent in the latter worldwide. We found that it could unblock Netflix anywhere, and its mobile and desktop apps were simple to operate. We gave ExpressVPN an overall score of 85 out of 100.

The virtual private network service now has three tiers. Basic is cheaper with fewer features, while Pro costs more and adds extra perks like support for 14 simultaneous devices and a password manager. Advanced sits in the middle and includes the password manager but only supports 12 devices.

The Basic plan is $78 right now for 28 months, down from $363, and the Pro plan is $168, down from $560. That’s 78 percent and 70 percent off, respectively. All plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee for new users, so you can try it without committing long term if you’re on the fence.

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

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/expressvpn-two-year-plans-are-up-to-78-percent-off-right-now-180602025.html?src=rss

Linus Torvalds has weighed in on an ongoing debate within the Linux kernel development community about whether documentation should explicitly address AI-generated code contributions, and his position is characteristically blunt: stop making it an issue. The Linux creator was responding to Oracle-affiliated kernel developer Lorenzo Stoakes, who had argued that treating LLMs as “just another tool” ignores the threat they pose to kernel quality. “Thinking LLMs are ‘just another tool’ is to say effectively that the kernel is immune from this,” Stoakes wrote.

Torvalds disagreed sharply. “There is zero point in talking about AI slop,” he wrote. “Because the AI slop people aren’t going to document their patches as such.” He called such discussions “pointless posturing” and said that kernel documentation is “for good actors.” The exchange comes as a team led by Intel’s Dave Hansen works on guidelines for tool-generated contributions. Stoakes had pushed for language letting maintainers reject suspected AI slop outright, arguing the current draft “tries very hard to say ‘NOP.'” Torvalds made clear he doesn’t want kernel documentation to become a political statement on AI. “I strongly want this to be that ‘just a tool’ statement,” he wrote.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Kindle has become the default e-reader for many bookworms, and I get it. I’ve used Kindles for well over a decade, and I’ve enjoyed using my latest Paperwhite quite a bit. It helped me read more than 30 books last year, so I’m not complaining.

The basic Kindle setup is okay, but if you learn your way around the device’s gestures, hidden features, and additional services, you can really get a lot out of this unassuming reading device.

Kindle Gestures that you really should know

There’s only one button on the Kindle. Everything else happens using touch. And like every touchscreen device, there are countless gestures you need to know to use the device. The most obvious ones are for the page turns. You can swipe or tap right to go to the next page and swipe or tap left for the previous one. If you have a Paperwhite Signature Edition, you can also double tap on the back or sides of the device to move to the next page.

Tap on the top of the Kindle to bring up the toolbar, where you can go back to the Home screen, change the settings, view the table of contents, and more.

If you tap the bottom left corner, you can cycle between different stats like reading progress, page number, time left in chapter, and more. Oh, and if you want to quickly change the font size, just pinch in or out to zoom in on the text (like you would zoom into images on your phone).

Want to take a screenshot of what’s on your Kindle screen? Tap any two opposite corners of the screen together (top-right and bottom-left or top-left and bottom-right). The screen will flash for a second, and the image will be saved as a PNG in the root directory. Connect your Kindle to your Mac or PC to retrieve the image file.

Easily navigate between chapters

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

The Kindle isn’t the easiest device to navigate, especially when you’re reading a book where you need to jump between different chapters. Here, again, a hidden gesture can help. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up a new Page Flip mode. You’ll see a slider at the bottom, which you can use to move forward and back. There are buttons to jump to the next chapter as well (I use this all the time).

Switch to dark mode and schedule warm light

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

If you love reading in bed, you’ll want to enable dark mode. Pull down from the top edge to bring up the quick settings panel. Here, tap the Dark Mode button to quickly invert the colors. You’ll now read white text on a black background. While you’re here, also check out the Warm Light settings (if you have a Kindle Paperwhite, Oasis, or Scribe). Use the slider to increase the warmth of the screen, making it more amber-toned.

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

This is especially useful for reading in the evenings or at night, but I like it so much I keep it enabled at all times. You can also set your color temperature to change on a schedule, so that the display slowly warms up in the evening hours. Do this under Settings > Device Options > Display Settings > Schedule.

Lock your Kindle

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Not everyone needs to know what’s on your Kindle, right? If you read a lot in school, or public areas, you can lock down your Kindle using an optional setting. Go to Settings > Device Options > Security and Privacy > Device PIN. You can then set a numeric unlock code up to 12 digits long, but it might be easier to stick to a four or six-digit code.

Send documents and books to Kindle wirelessly

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Reading on your Kindle doesn’t need to be limited to books you buy from the Kindle store. In fact, you can send any PDF or DRM-free ebook to your Kindle, and wirelessly. I have previously outlined multiple methods for doing this, ranging from using an email address, to using the Kindle app. But the one I keep coming back to is Amazon’s own Send to Kindle website. Open it on any browser, sign in with your account, drag and drop a document in a supported format (.DOC, .DOCX, .HTML, .TXT, .PDF and .EPUB), and send it off. Once you sync your Kindle using Wi-Fi, these documents will be available to read on it, just like that.

Show your book covers as screensavers

Credit: Amazon

Every time I set up a new Kindle, I’m surprised that this is a feature that I still need to enable manually. By default, Kindles shows a couple of images as screensavers when turned off. That’s because of the e-ink display, which lets them show a static image without using power. These default screensavers, though, are boring. You can make this feature much more interesting (and useful) by showing the cover of the book you were last reading as the screensaver instead. Go to Settings > Device Options and enable the Display Cover feature.

Read long articles on Kindle

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

Kindle’s built-in browser is pretty barebones and laggy, but you can still read long articles on it. For a smoother experience, though, you can wirelessly send articles to your Kindle, where they’ll show up in form of books, devoid of ads, formatting, and images.

The simplest way to do this is by using Amazon’s Send to Kindle Chrome extension. Visit a page, trigger the extension, and send it off to your e-reader.

If you don’t use Chrome, you can also use a dedicated service like Push to Kindle to send articles to your Kindle. You can send up to 10 articles a month for free, and a $2.99/month plan unlocks all limits.

Export your highlights and notes

Credit: Khamosh Pathak

If you’re using your Kindle to research or read non-fiction books for school or work, you’ll end up with a lot of highlights. Those highlights, just sitting in your Kindle, aren’t that useful. Amazon has a dedicated website that lists all the highlights from all the books you’ve purchased via the Kindle Store, but it’s not your only option.

Personally, I prefer Clippings, which also works for content not bought from the Kindle Store. With it, you can import all the highlights and notes from your Kindle books and personal documents using a browser extension. You can view and organize all your notes from your browser, too, but if you want to export them to a document, you’ll need to pay for a $1.99/month Professional plan.

Borrow books to read from your local library, for free

There are many places where you can rent and borrow books to read legally and for free. The most popular option is using the Libby app from Overdrive, which loans you books via your library card or student ID. In the Libby app, go to Shelf > Loans > Read With… > Kindle. Here, sign in with your Amazon account and verify your Kindle device. Then, tap Get Library Book. Voila, an ebook from your local library will instantly show up on your Kindle device.

De-Amazon your Kindle

Lastly, you can take inspiration from my colleague Pranay, who uses his Kindle without any Amazon services. You can set up a Kindle without an Amazon account and use it as a perfectly good e-reader. You can buy DRM-free books online from various sources and transfer them to your Kindle simply by transferring the ebook files to your Kindle storage or using the Send to Kindle feature I talked about above.

Every third booth at CES showed off some new AI product or other. If you wanted to find a robotic lawn mower, throw a rock. Humanoid robots, smart locks and super thin TVs were everywhere. But if you went looking for sustainability products, you’re going to have to hunt a bit.

Last year, the Sustainability section at the Las Vegas Convention Center had 20 booths. This year, there were 38, but that’s in part due to the combination of the energy and sustainability categories. So exhibitors like South Korea’s largest electric utility company, a nuclear power company from the same country and lots of battery manufacturers. There was also an AI data platform booth in the section that had nothing to do with sustainability as far as I can tell. Guess the organizers just ran out of room for all the AI.

Within the sustainability section, and at other CES venues, I found a few encouraging displays of sustainable products — organizations and devices that were trying to address the multitude of problems the world is facing when it comes to energy production, climate and pollution.

But none of it quite achieved Engadget’s best of CES status this year. Some of what we saw was utility-scale, some wasn’t quite ready for consumer consumption and other stuff was too niche or had too many caveats to make the list. I won’t go so far as to say sustainability is dead at CES, because that sends me into dark downward spirals, but it’s getting sparse out there, friends.

Here are the companies I saw that had promise and innovative ideas. And gosh darn it, at least these guys are trying.

Shine Turbine 2.0

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

This little guy could be a precursor to some serious personal wind power generation. That’s where the company is heading. For now, the Shine 2.0 can use as little as a light breeze to start generating power to charge your smartphones, laptops or even a power station. The whole unit weighs three pounds and sets up in around two minutes. The second generation model can output up to 75 watts and the company is working on a third version that goes up to 100 watts for even more substantial energy production.

Learn more at Shine.

Flint battery tech

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

When I approached Flint’s booth, the rep told me the company made cellulose batteries. And I thought, like paper-wrapped batteries? Nope. The chemicals inside the batteries are made from cellulose. They have a solvent-free, lithium-free, PFAS-free chemistry and break down by 70 percent in four weeks in a composting environment. They use the same basic architecture as a lithium-ion cell, with an anode, cathode and separator with ion transfers between the two. As of now, Flint is focused on partnering with manufacturers, and consumer products are on the horizon.

Learn more at Flint.

Clear Drop soft plastics compactor

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

The Clear Drop is a soft plastics compactor that creates eight by twelve by four-inch bricks out of hundreds of grocery bags, bubble wrap, ziplocks and plastic packaging. One brick is equivalent to a 30-pound trash bag-worth of bags. Once the brick is created, it can be shipped to one of Clear Drop’s partner facilities in a pre-paid USPS shipping envelope. They currently work with a few US-based recycling facilities and hope to one day create an infrastructure to include municipal recycling.

Learn more at Clear Drop.

Alpha Power by CPTI

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

From what I’ve learned at the show, perovskite is the hottest thing in solar right now. It’s a mineral compound that’s been used to create more efficient solar panels. Some so sensitive to light that just indoor illumination is enough to create usable energy. Alpha Power by CPTI creates lightweight, flexible perovskite solar panels that can conform to multiple surfaces. Again, this is a company that’s partnering with manufacturers, so look for panels built into your laptop to charge it under the glare of your too-harsh office lights.

Learn more at CPTI.

Green Vigor

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

Down in the lower levels of the Venetian Expo at CES I found Green Vigor in the Hong Kong pavilion. This small company has two solutions to create energy for buildings by harnessing the potential energy from existing systems. HydroVigor generates power from water systems. So every time someone washes their hands or flushes a toilet in a building, the roof-top system generates a bit of power. CoolVigor uses the same principles to harness energy from HVAC systems. HydroVigor is currently in use in many buildings in Singapore and Hong Kong and they’re working to expand to more buildings globally.

Learn more at GreenVigor.

Jackery Solar Gazebo

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

This outdoor hangout spot can produce up to 10kWh of power on a given day. It’s a modular design that lets you choose louvered walls, sunshades, lights and fans when you order it and the solar panels are so strong that a full-sized human Jackery rep was able to stand on a sample panel in front of me and nothing cracked (though the company officially rates it at 20 pounds of snow per square foot). You can use the power directly, tie it into your home system, feed it into the grid or hook it up to one of Jackery’s many power stations to save the power for later. The gazebo costs $12,000 and will ship in mid-2026.

Learn more at Jackery.

Bluetti RV Solar System

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

Bluetti, like Jackery, is known for its vast lineup of portable and fixed power stations and batteries. This year, it brought a new power station made with bio-based plastic as well as a DIY system for adding solar power to your existing RV.

Learn more at Bluetti.

Airloom wind power generation

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

Engadget’s Anna Washenko does a great job of explaining the tech behind Airloom. In short it’s a roller coaster for wind that’s comprised of 40 percent less mass than a standard wind turbine and uses 42 percent fewer parts and 96 percent fewer unique parts. That makes it faster to deploy and cheaper to instal. I can also be sited in more places. Again, this is a utility-scale solution, geared towards data centers and their insatiable need for energy to power Very Important AI Things.

Learn more at Airloom.

Gaotu Innovation Energy Group

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

If you are looking for a solar-powered anything, hit up Gaotu. At the company’s booth, I saw hats, a fishing chair, a backpack, a sunbrella and a car roof-top enclosure that unfurls to charge up your Tesla. The Shenzhen-based company has been in business for 18 years and plans to just keep sticking solar panels on anything it can.

Learn more at Gaotu.

Segway Muxi cargo e-bike

Amy Skorheim for Engadget

The single largest booth in the CES sustainability section was Segway. This year, the company showed off two new e-bikes, which our own Dan Cooper covered. This one here is the Muxi, a cargo bike with an easily swappable battery, an optional passenger seat with foot pegs and an optional middle basket. Plus a beverage cup holder.

Learn more at Segway.

If we don’t all fall into the ocean before then, perhaps CES 2027 will have a stronger showing of sustainability tech. In the meantime, I’ll take a modicum of comfort in these few brave organizations still dedicated to keeping us afloat.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/ces-so-very-big-so-little-sustainability-tech-180000648.html?src=rss

Dell’s XPS 14 now costs over $2,000. An AMD executive predicts that PC builders will likely make piecemeal upgrades this year, instead of building entirely new systems. And new AI supercomputers from NVIDIA and AMD are gobbling up the RAM market. At CES 2026, it was hard not to notice the dire year ahead for the computing industry, one that will likely lead to higher prices and more limited availability for consumer goods across the board.

Really, though, the show just confirmed what was apparent since RAM prices skyrocketed over the last few months, driven by demand from AI datacenters. As Samsung’s marketing leader, Wonjin Lee, told Bloomberg at CES: “There’s going to be issues around semiconductor supplies, and it’s going to affect everyone. Prices are going up even as we speak.”

Dell’s new XPS 14 and XPS 16 are among the earliest systems hit by these demands. Last year’s models started at $1,699 and $1,899, respectively, and we were initially told the new models would actually come in cheaper at $1,650 and $1,850. But Dell later announced a shocking price jump: The XPS 14 now starts at $2,050, while the XPS 16 is $2,200.

While it didn’t take much to configure the earlier models upwards of $2,000, it’s genuinely wild to me that the entry-level models are already starting there. And meanwhile, Apple still hasn’t budged its $1,599 MacBook Pro 14-inch pricing. At least Dell still comes in cheaper than the $2,499 MacBook Pro 16-inch.

On the desktop front, AMD’s David McAfee, Corporate Vice President and GM of Client Channel Business, noted that the longevity of the company’s AM4 and AM5 platforms might be a boon for gamers, since they can upgrade their CPUs without buying new RAM kits and motherboards. That allows for a pathway to better performance without paying out the nose for over-priced RAM.

“I think that will be potentially a trend that we see in 2026 with more component upgrades, as opposed to full system swap outs and, and altogether rebuilds,” he said in a group interview with Engadget and other outlets. “Some of the most popular CPUs that are still running in gamers’ platforms are parts like the 2600 back to the Pinnacle Ridge days, or 3000 series… Stepping even from there into a little bit more modern 5,000 series processors in an AM4 socket and motherboard, there’s a pretty big boost there.”

McAfee added that around 30 to 40 percent of AMD’s business still revolves around the AM4 platform, even without the specter of a wild memory market.

“There’s no product that has memory in it that’s immune to some of these forces around DRAM pricing and, and what it’s doing to the market,” he said, when asked about potential GPU price increases. “I think the, the truth is the volatility that we’ve seen over the past two months or so has really been unprecedented.”

Looking ahead, he said he expects prices to settle within the first three to six months of the year, but he didn’t discuss his reasoning further. As an aside, he also noted that AMD’s X3D chips, which feature 3D V-cache, actually don’t see much of a hit from slower RAM. Their high amounts of onboard L2 and L3 cache make up for less ideal memory transfer speeds, McAfee said.

That McAfee commented at all about the state of RAM is noteworthy. Every PC maker I’ve asked, including Dell and Acer, refused to comment on the volatile state of the memory industry ahead of CES. Perhaps they were hoping things would calm down before they had to price their new systems. Ultimately, they’re beholden to an increasingly limited supply of RAM.

And where is all that memory going? At CES, NVIDIA announced its new Vera Rubin AI supercomputer, which supports up to 54TB of RAM across 36 Vera CPUs and 20.7TB of memory across 72 GPUs. AMD, as well, announced its new Helios AI rack, which supports up to 31TB of memory across 72 AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs. Given the endless appetite for computing to power AI model building and inferencing, there’s likely going to be a significant demand for these beastly systems.

Put simply: Our global supply of memory is being sacrificed to appease the AI industry. That’s good news for the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft and NVIDIA, but bad news for anyone who cares about PCs and the consumer products we use every day. Get ready for a year of price hikes.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/ces-2026-proved-the-pc-industry-is-hosed-this-year-174500314.html?src=rss

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Premium noise-canceling wireless earbuds don’t come cheap, and Bowers & Wilkins earbuds (a brand owned by Samsung) are definitely at the top end of that category. But in a market crowded with ANC earbuds that do little more than meet the bare minimum, these justify their price tag by leaning into thoughtful features, sound quality, and build that go beyond the basics. Right now, a brand-new pair of Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 earbuds are going for $279.99 (originally $399) on Woot, their lowest price ever.

Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 ANC Earbuds

$279.99
at Woot

$399.00
Save $119.01

$279.99
at Woot

$399.00
Save $119.01

Compared to the Pi7, the Pi8 has improved noise cancellation, higher-grade 12mm drivers with Carbon Cone technology, and an upgraded digital-to-analog converter alongside an updated digital signal processor. Its charging case also functions as a Bluetooth transceiver, making it seamlessly functional with in-flight entertainment when you’re on the go. CNET, in a glowing review, dubbed them “easily among the best-sounding earbuds out there,” and they also have a more secure and comfortable fit than their predecessors, making them more ergonomic. The review does note that they don’t have a 3.5mm headphone port but do include a USB-C to 3.5mm cable adaptor.

The Pi8 earbuds have the latest Bluetooth 5.4 with support for aptX Adaptive and aptX Lossless for top-quality wireless streaming, as well as an IP54 dust and sweat rating. The case offers around 6.5 hours per charge with ANC on, going up to 13.5 hours with the charging case and a 15-minute quick charge that gives you 2 hours of playback. While 6.5 hours is decent, it’s not best-in-class compared to competitors that reach the eight to 10 hour mark. And although it has three built-in mics for calls, users also note that background noise can occasionally leak through.

Ultimately, if premium sound quality, music fidelity, and rare features like wired retransmission are at the top of your priority list, the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 earbuds are a comfy and travel-friendly option with competitive ANC. However, if your top priorities are maximum noise cancellation and battery life, you may want to consider the (lower-priced) Bose QuietComfort earbuds instead.

Craigslist, the 30-year-old classifieds site that looks virtually unchanged since the dial-up era, continues to draw more than 105 million monthly users and remains enormously profitable despite never spending a cent on advertising or marketing. The site ranks as the 40th most popular website in the United States, according to Internet data company Similarweb.

University of Pennsylvania associate professor Jessa Lingel called it the “ungentrified” Internet. Unlike Facebook Marketplace, Etsy, or DePop, Craigslist doesn’t use algorithms to track users or predict what they want to see. There are no public profiles, no rating systems, no likes or shares. The site effectively disincentivizes the clout-chasing and virality-seeking that dominates platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Craigslist began in 1995 as an email list for a few hundred San Francisco Bay Area locals sharing events and job openings. Engineer Craig Newmark even recruited CEO Jim Buckmaster through a site ad. The two spent roughly a decade battling eBay in court after the tech giant purchased a minority stake in 2004, ultimately buying back shares and regaining full control in 2015.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

WASHINGTON, DC—This week, NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, said he has “full confidence” in the space agency’s plans to use the existing heat shield to protect the Orion spacecraft during its upcoming lunar mission.

Isaacman made the determination after briefings with senior leaders at the agency and a half-day review of NASA’s findings with outside experts.

“We have full confidence in the Orion spacecraft and its heat shield, grounded in rigorous analysis and the work of exceptional engineers who followed the data throughout the process,” Isaacman said Thursday.

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The ANC headphones from Sony and Bose are great, but they look like gadgets, not music gear. Luckily, Marshall is offering these Monitor III ANC earbuds, which offer a cool retro look. And right now, they’re available for the lowest price ever, at $279.99 (down from $379.99), beating the heavyweights from Sony and Bose on price.

Marshall Monitor III Headphones

$279.99
at Amazon

$379.99
Save $100.00

$279.99
at Amazon

$379.99
Save $100.00

These Monitor III headphones feature the iconic Marshall script logo, a retro brass control knob (instead of touch buttons), and a textured black vinyl finish that mimics Marshall guitar amps.

Other than the looks, the most impressive part is the battery life. These will last you for 70 hours of ANC playback (and 100 hours without ANC). That is a staggering number; for comparison, the Sony XM6 gets you 30-40 hours of playback per charge. The headphones are also collapsible, folding into a small ball. They come with a hard-shell travel case and are pretty lightweight, too, at 250 grams. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack here, but the box does include a USB-C to 3.5mm cable for wired listening.

They feature the signature Marshall sound, warm and punchy. They are tuned for listening to rock, heavy metal and guitar-heavy music, and offer a more fun sound profile compared to Sony or Bose, which can sound a bit more flat or balanced.

In its review, PCMag gave the Monitor IIIs a 4.0 star rating, noting that they deliver a “pleasing audio signature, a comfortable fit with intuitive controls, easy portability, and excellent battery life.”

Clicks is an apologetically gadgety company, making gear that feels charmingly out-of-place in a world where almost every smartphone out there is an all-screen slab. That was obviously two years ago when the company first revealed its keyboard case that brought tactile typing to the iPhone and eventually other Android devices. Rather than that being a one-off curiosity, the company had two new announcements at CES 2026: a magnetic keyboard accessory that also doubles as a battery bank and small, squat mobile phone with a keyboard. And while there isn’t a working prototype of the Clicks Communicator available for the press to see, I got to check out the new Power Keyboard talk with Clicks co-founder and former BlackBerry marketing director Jeff Gadway about where he thinks his products fit into the smartphone world.

At first glance, the $79 Power Keyboard feels like a big improvement over the original Clicks Keyboard case. It magnetically attaches to any phone with Qi2 and connects over Bluetooth. The keyboard itself is similar to the original Clicks keyboard, but there’s a dedicated number row which is a nice improvement. But the thing that really caught my eye was its old-school slider form factor. When closed, the Power Keyboard sits on the back of your phone like a thick wireless battery pack — but it satisfyingly slides up to reveal the keyboard like the Palm Pre or BlackBerry Torch smartphones of old.

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

The Power Keyboard’s last trick is that it can charge your phone up when attached. The battery itself isn’t huge, so you’re not going to fully recharge a modern smartphone. But it’s still a nice addition for if you need some power in a pinch. You can also set it up so it doesn’t charge your phone and instead uses all the battery to power the keyboard; in that situation, the keyboard will last weeks without a charge. Or you can designate a percentage that can only be used by the keyboard — for example, if the battery pack’s charge drops below 20 percent, it’ll stop charging your phone and instead save that power for the keyboard.

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

As someone who has never owned a smartphone with a keyboard, I can’t say how good the Clicks keyboard actually is — there would be a definite learning curve before I got comfortable with it. It certainly feels tiny to me, but if you just type on and trust autocorrect you should get the hang of it before too long. Whether the benefits of using a physical keyboard matter are up to you to decide. It’s nice seeing a bigger screen unobstructed by the virtual keyboard, but I feel far too set in my touchscreen ways to consider switching it up. But some people just loved their keyboards, and for them this gadget might hit the spot.

The Clicks Communicator is the more unexpected of the two new devices the comapny is working on, but without a working demo model I can’t render any judgement about how it will actually work. When it was announced, Clicks specifically said they were targeting people who used multiple devices, a demographic that I wasn’t fully convinced was large enough to justify the Communicator’s existence. But Gadway assured me the company had done plenty of research before moving into the hardware production phase.

“You’ve got people who are mandated to carry a second device for corporate deploy. Then you’ve got people who are small business owners and want to have a separate phone for their small business,” he said. “In markets like Europe, there’s a requirement for employers to give people the option to have a separate device and create more separation. You’ve got travelers who want a second SIM, and then you’ve got this growing cohort of digital detox, digital minimalism, digital well-being people.” None of those segments might be huge on its own, but add it all up and the Clicks team felt like they had a decent opportunity.

Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

The other half of the thought process was making the Communicator different from an iPhone or Pixel — instead of having two essentially identical devices, Clicks wanted to make the Communicator with a distinct focus. “Our thought process was that complementary devices in tech are on the rise,’ Gadway said. “You wear an Oura Ring and you wear a smart watch; you carry an e-reader for reading and a tablet for content consumption. So why shouldn’t your second phone be better at certain things than your first phone instead of just being a straight duplicate?”

That’s where the squarish, 4-inch touchscreen, keyboard and custom implementation of the Niagara Android launcher, which is a list-based UI rather than a grid of apps. The custom Clicks implementation of it focuses on your messaging apps and quickly triaging through new items (hence the Communicator name). The keyboard itself is touch sensitive and can be swiped across to navigate and take actions on what you see. But the Communicator is just an Android phone at heart which means you can install any apps that you find essential — though its form factor changes what it is best used for. “You can download whatever apps you want, but we’ve optimized it to be better at specific things,” Gadway said. “So, you know, do you want to watch letterboxed TikTok videos on this? Probably not. You could, but it’s not the thing you’re going to reach for to do that. But we’re not going to give you a product that restricts what you can do.”

The good thing about being a smaller hardware maker is that Clicks doesn’t need to sell millions of these — they’re just interested in offering an alternative for people who might enjoy it, just as they’ve done with their keyboard accessories. Of course, the Communicator is a bigger investment; it’s up for pre-order now for $399 (that’s Pixel 9a territory, for comparison). Once it launches in the second half of the year, we’ll find out if it can find its audience.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/the-clicks-co-founder-explains-who-its-tiny-communicator-phone-is-for-170000501.html?src=rss

Meta has announced three new agreements to purchase nuclear power for its AI infrastructure as well as the Prometheus supercluster, a 1-gigawatt data center being built in Ohio. The social media giant is partnering with power companies Vistra, TerraPower and Oklo to deliver an expected 6.6 gigawatts of generation to its projects by 2035.

The company’s agreement with TerraPower will fund the development of two new reactors capable of delivering up to 690 megawatts of power as early as 2032. The deal also gives Meta rights to energy from six other reactors that could deliver an additional 2.1 gigawatts by 2035. All this power would come from TerraPower’s “Natrium” reactors, which use sodium instead of water as a coolant.

A partnership with Oklo will bring 1.2 gigawatts of nuclear power online as early as 2030. Meta says the agreement opens the door to the construction of multiple Oklo reactors, which it claims will create thousands of construction and long-term operations jobs in Ohio. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is one of Oklo’s largest investors, and owns just over 4 percent of the company.

Meta’s agreement with Vistra focuses on keeping existing nuclear plants running longer and boosting their output. Through new 20-year deals, Meta will buy more than 2.1 gigawatts of electricity from some of Vistra’s existing plants in Ohio, while also backing added capacity at those sites, plus another in Pennsylvania. Vistra expects the added capacity, totaling 433 megawatts, to come online in the early 2030s.

Big tech is increasingly turning to nuclear to power its AI ambitions. Meta signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy for nuclear power last year. Meanwhile Microsoft is famously reopening Three Mile Island and will be the plant’s sole customer as part of a 20-year deal.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/meta-announces-a-slew-of-nuclear-energy-agreements-165337159.html?src=rss

Poisoned arrows or darts have long been used by cultures all over the world for hunting or warfare. For example, there are recipes for poisoning projective weapons, and deploying them in battle, in Greek and Roman historical documents, as well as references in Greek mythology and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Chinese warriors over the ages did the same, as did the Gauls and Scythians, and some Native American populations.

Archaeologists have now found traces of a plant-based poison on several 60,000-year-old quartz Stone Age arrowheads found in South Africa, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. That would make this the oldest direct evidence of using poisons on projectiles—a cognitively complex hunting strategy—and pushes the timeline for using poison arrows back into the Pleistocene.

The poisons commonly used could be derived from plants or animals (frogs, beetles, venomous lizards). Plant-based examples include curare, a muscle relaxant that paralyzes the victim’s respiratory system, causing death by asphyxiation. Oleander, milkweeds, or inee (onaye) contain cardiac glucosides. In Southeast Asia, the sap or juice of seeds from the ancar tree is smeared on arrowheads, which causes paralysis, convulsions, and cardiac arrest thanks to the presence of toxins like strychnine. Several species of aconite are known for their use as arrow poisons in Siberia and northern Japan.

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