For most of their evolutionary history, narwhals have relied more on sound than sight to survive in the Arctic’s dark icy waters.

The speckled toothed whales—sometimes referred to as “unicorns of the sea” for the long, spiral tusks that protrude from the heads of males—navigate, hunt, and communicate using echolocation. By emitting a series of calls, whistles, and high frequency clicks—as many as a thousand per second—and listening for the echoes that bounce back, they are able to locate prey hundreds to thousands of feet deep and detect narrow cracks in sea ice where they can surface to breathe.

But as global temperatures continue to rise, the acoustic world narwhals depend on is rapidly shifting throughout their range, from northeastern Canada and Greenland to Norway’s Svalbard archipelago and Arctic waters in Russia. It’s getting louder.

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Starbucks has been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and automation — testing robots that take drive-through orders, virtual assistants that help baristas recall recipes and manage schedules, and scanning tools that count inventory — as the 55-year-old coffee chain tries to reverse several years of struggling sales.

The company last week reported its first same-store sales increase in two years in the U.S., where it earns roughly 70% of its revenue. Shares still slid 5% on concerns that heavy spending, including $500 million to boost staffing, had hurt profits. CEO Brian Niccol, who joined in 2024 after engineering Chipotle’s turnaround, told the BBC he is confident consistent growth will address that; the company has pledged to find $2 billion in cost savings over three years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Your social media feed is probably showing you something totally different, but this week, young people are fleeing TikTok (or at least posting about fleeing TikTok), AI and humanity are locked in a high-stakes dance battle, AI food is yelling at everyone, and we’re learning a lot about “young hos.”

TikTok refugees head to Upscrolled

Since it was released in 2017, social media platform TikTok has been the way young people communicate, but that could be changing. Alarm over recent changes in the app’s privacy policy and accusations that its new, American owners are messing up the algorithm have some users deleting their accounts and leaving. Or at least saying they’re leaving. But where will they go?

The last time this kind of thing happened, TikTokers headed to another Chinese social media app called RedNote, but this time, a lot of people say they’re migrating to Upscrolled. The app, which briefly hit number one on the app store charts, was created by Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian entrepreneur Issam Hijazi. Upscrolled promises an antidote to the “Double standards, algorithmic bias, selective censorship, and profit over principle” of other social media platforms. The app doesn’t allow “hate speech” but promises less censorship of ideas, no shadow-banning, no data-sharing, and “No black-box AI” for curation, all delivered in a form-factor that’s familiar to users.

So, what’s the downside? Well, it’s a small team and it seems to be having some issues with the number of downloads. More troubling are reports of a flood of antisemitic material appearing on the site. In a statement to The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Upscrolled spokeperson Gabriella Bord wrote, “Our content moderation hasn’t been able to keep up with the massive rise of users this week,” and “We’re working with digital rights experts to grow our Trust & Safety team and are beefing up our content moderation to prevent this,” so maybe the moderation team is just having some growing pains.

Viral video of the week: human vs. AI baby dancing

This week’s viral video is more of a viral video trend, and it involves a battle of dancing babies.

It starts with the post below, from @mindalchemy0236, which I apologize for in advance.

An ad for the “Baby Dance” app, this video has been viewed over 100 million times. It became so overplayed on TiKTok that users fought back in the only way they could: Through dance. In a modern re-enactment of the American myth of John Henry vs. the Steam Engine, users on TikTok are locked in dance battle with AI. People responded to the annoying ad with videos of their human children doing the same dance for real, joking that it was to save $1.98, the app’s price.

Kids got into it, throwing shade at AI at the same time.

Then grown-ups got in on it,

Grannies started doing it,

and celebrities like Lisa Rinna got into the act.

So it turned into a whole thing, and according to some users, human users ended up winning because TikTok’s algorithm is showing more human remakes than the original ad that annoyed everyone. What does it all mean? Is this how the robot-human war will be decided? How does it relate to the original dancing baby, one of our first internet memes? Is history turning back on itself and should we invest in Ally McBeal reruns? I just don’t know, but for what it’s worth, John Henry won the battle with the steam shovel, but the effort exhausted him and he died.

AI food yelling videos: brain rot that’s good for you

I’m always trying to find good things about artificial intelligence. So far I got:

• Helping to cure cancer

• Finding Waldo

But I’m adding videos of food yelling at people.

For real though. This growing meme format involves asking AI to make videos of food angrily telling you how to properly and safely prepare and store it. They’re entertaining, educational, and if one person remembers to throw away rice that’s left out, it could save a life and be worth all that cooling water. Kids need to know all this junk and for some reason they like brain rot. Check out these meaty boys:

And these angry fellas:

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of every food tip on the hashtag, but I watched a bunch of these videos and so far, they’re solid.

What does “young ho” mean?

I’m sure you know what both “ho” and “young” mean, but put them together and it becomes something else, both a reclamation of the word “ho” and an expression of youth-based solidarity.

The trend started with mildly insulting, older-people-bag-on-youngins posts on X like this one:

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

But over on TikTok, @kensdremgurl went viral by laying down a mini-manifesto for young hos:

Summing up the list with, “all a young ho is is someone who’s freed themself from being inconvenienced.”

Other TikTokers started listing which young ho traits they share

and making their own observations, adding these traits to the list:

• Getting up at 7:50 to be at work at 8.

• Throwing away the containers from Chinese food, even if their mom wants to save them.

• Airfrying chicken nuggets.

• Eschewing fitted sheets.

• Removing snow from car windows with a fork.

We’ve finally made it to February, but, with the ongoing long nights, you might want a pick-me-up to get you through the rest of winter. Take the Apple iPad mini with the A17 Pro chip, which is on sale for $400, down from $500. Its small size is perfect for cozying up on the couch or to use on your daily commute. 

Apple released this iPad mini in late 2024 and it was a solid update. We gave it an 83 in our review thanks to the power of its A17 Pro chip and that it comes with a minimum of 128GB of storage. The model currently on sale comes with 128GB, Wi-Fi and all four color options: Blue, Purple, Space Gray and Starlight. 

We named the Apple iPad mini our favorite compact iPad — though, to be fair, its only competitor is itself. Still, it’s a good iPad with an 8.3-inch Liquid Retina display, Apple Intelligence and 12MP Wide back and 12MP Ultra Wide cameras. For 20 percent off, it’s a great option for a light, useful way to entertain yourself through the rest of winter and beyond. 

Check out our coverage of the best Apple deals for more discounts, and follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-latest-ipad-mini-is-100-off-right-now-140900983.html?src=rss

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

Mini LED tech has finally filtered down to more mainstream big-screen TVs, but the pricing jumps fast once you start looking at premium brands and larger screen sizes—that’s why the current price on Sony’s 85-inch Bravia 5 stands out. It’s selling for $1,698 on Amazon (down from $2,399.99) which is the lowest it’s been so far, according to price trackers. At this size, that discount meaningfully shifts the math, especially if you’re after a large screen from a brand known for dependable processing and a polished smart TV experience, rather than chasing raw specs alone.

Sony Bravia 5

$1,698.00
at Amazon

$2,399.99
Save $701.99

$1,698.00
at Amazon

$2,399.99
Save $701.99

The Bravia 5 steps is the successor to Sony’s X90L, swapping full-array local dimming for Mini LED backlighting and adding a higher number of dimming zones. It runs Google TV (version 12), supports Dolby Vision, and handles DTS audio passthrough. There’s also a practical perk for Sony soundbar owners: the TV’s built-in speakers can function as a center channel. On the gaming side, two HDMI 2.1 ports support 4K at 120Hz, along with variable refresh rate and G-sync compatibility. That said, Game Mode isn’t flawless. Pixel response times are on the slower side, which can introduce noticeable motion blur, particularly in fast-paced titles. SDR brightness is strong enough for daytime viewing, but HDR output doesn’t deliver the kind of punch you might expect from a Mini LED panel at this size and price.

Where the Bravia 5 struggles most is contrast consistency and viewing flexibility. Despite the upgraded backlight, black levels and overall contrast don’t represent a major leap over the older X90L, and reflections can still be distracting in brighter rooms. The narrow viewing angle also limits its appeal for wide seating layouts. If pure picture performance is the priority, competing Mini LED models from TCL or Hisense, or even some OLED options, offer stronger contrast for similar money. Still, for buyers who value Sony’s processing, Google TV’s clean interface, and long-term brand reliability, this price drop makes the 85-inch Bravia 5 a far more compelling option than it usually is.

China’s decades-old network of elite high-school “genius classes” — ultra-competitive talent streams that pull an estimated 100,000 gifted teenagers out of regular schooling every year and run them through college-level science curricula — has produced the core technical talent now building the country’s leading AI and technology companies, the Financial Times reported Saturday.

Graduates of these programs include the founder of ByteDance, the leaders of e-commerce giants Taobao and PDD, the billionaire behind super-app Meituan, the brothers who started Nvidia rival Cambricon, and the core engineers behind large language models at DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen. DeepSeek’s research team of more than 100 was almost entirely composed of genius-class alumni when the startup released its R1 reasoning model last year at a fraction of the cost of its international rivals.

The system traces to the mid-1980s, when China first sent students to the International Mathematical Olympiad and a handful of top high schools began creating dedicated competition-track classes. China now graduates around five million STEM majors annually — compared to roughly half a million in the United States — and in 2025, 22 of the 23 students it sent to the International Science Olympiads returned with gold medals. The computer science track has overtaken maths and physics as the most popular competition subject, a shift that accelerated after Beijing designated AI development a “key national growth strategy” in 2017.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If all goes according to plan Monday, NASA’s launch team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida will load 755,000 gallons of super-cold propellants into the rocket built to send the Artemis II mission toward the Moon.

The fuel loading is part of a simulated countdown for the Space Launch System rocket, a final opportunity for engineers to rehearse for the day NASA will send four astronauts on a nearly 10-day voyage around the far side of the Moon and back to Earth. The Artemis II mission will send humans farther from Earth than ever before. The astronauts will be the first to launch on NASA’s SLS rocket and the first people to travel to the vicinity of the Moon in more than 53 years.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, NASA’s launch director for the Artemis II mission, will supervise the practice countdown from a firing room inside the Launch Control Center a few miles away from the SLS rocket at Kennedy Space Center. In a recent briefing with reporters, she called the Wet Dress Rehearsal—”wet” refers to the loading of liquid propellants—the “best risk reduction test” for verifying all is ready to proceed into the real countdown.

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Adding outdoor security cameras to your home setup can get expensive fast, especially once you factor in subscriptions and extra hardware. This deal on a Eufy SoloCam E30 four-pack makes that math a little more palatable. It’s currently $299.99 on Amazon, down from its usual $549.99 price, which is the lowest price it’s ever been, according to price-tracking tools. That brings each camera to about $75, which still isn’t cheap, of course—but unlike many other camera brands, these don’t require a monthly subscription, which is a great perk.

eufy Security SoloCam E30, 4-Cam Pack Kit

$299.99
at Amazon

$549.99
Save $250.00

$299.99
at Amazon

$549.99
Save $250.00

Each of these IP65-rated cameras runs on internal batteries that last about three months between charges, depending on how often motion is detected. Solar support helps extend that. Eufy says around two hours of direct sunlight per day is enough to keep them topped up. You can also hardwire the cameras if you want continuous recording, including short pre-roll clips, though the power cables are sold separately. You also get 360-degree pan and 70-degree tilt coverage per unit, which helps cut down on blind spots around driveways or yards. Video is captured in enhanced 2K resolution with an f/1.6 aperture, making nighttime footage via infrared night vision fairly crisp. There’s no built-in spotlight, so there’s no color night vision here, but for general monitoring, black-and-white is often enough.

Footage can be stored locally on the included HomeBase S280, which has 16GB built in, or on a microSD card up to 128GB (sold separately) if you want more space. Smart home support includes Alexa and Google Assistant, but Apple HomeKit is not supported. Two-way audio is included, and the HomeBase can support up to 16 cameras, so expanding later is an option. This setup is not for people who want cloud storage or advanced smart home integrations. It makes more sense for those who want local control, predictable costs, and broad coverage without wiring the entire house.