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Showing posts from January, 2025

Why Elon Musk is part of the controversy involving D.C.s deadly plane crash

In the late evening hours of Jan. 29, a U.S. Army helicopter collided with a descending American Airlines passenger plane over the Potomac River en route to the Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. There were no survivors . The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) — which is experiencing a severe vacancy of top leadership positions — has come under fire for suspected negligence amid a staffing and funding deficit. The head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association has said its too early to speculate on the cause, while the National Transportation Safety Board continues its investigation. Currently, CNN reports the FAA has open listings for: associate administrator of airports, an associate administrator for security and hazardous materials safety, chief counsel, assistant administrator of communications, assistant administrator of government and industry affairs, and assistant administrator for policy, international affairs and environment. The lack of leadership ...

Tesla profits dropped by 70 percent last quarter

Hot on the heels of Elon Musk 's  dire emai l to X employees about how the social media platform is "barely breaking even," another one of Musk's companies had some  concerning  news to share. On Wednesday evening, Tesla shared its latest earnings report, covering Q4 of 2024. According to Tesla, the EV company brought in $25.7 billion in total revenue over the final months of last year. SEE ALSO: Tesla stock slides after first-ever delivery drop Those Q4 2024 revenue numbers actually show a nearly two percent increase when compared to the same quarter in 2023. However, while revenue is up, net income is down. Way down . According to Tesla's quarterly report, the company made $2.3 billion in net income in Q4 2024. Net income is the amount the company actually made after subtracting its expenses from its revenue total. That's a whopping 70 percent decrease in net income compared to Q4 2023. As The Verge points out, Tesla's net income for the fin...

Google's mandatory update to improve Pixel 4a battery performance is going very, very wrong for some users

The Pixel 4a battery performance program, announced by Google earlier this month, is now in full swing. Google identified that certain Pixel 4a variants required a software update to improve battery stability, prompting the company to roll out an Android 13 update on January 8. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/isvn1Mo via

Microsoft launches Intel-powered Surface Laptop 7 and Surface Pro 11 for business

The new Surface Laptop 7 features Intel's latest processor (up to a Core Ultra 7 268V) alongside Intel Arc Graphics and up to 32GB of LPDDR5X memory. It is offered with your choice of 13.8-inch or 15-inch touchscreen display coated in Gorilla Glass 5, and can be configured with up... Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/Vv1jQIn via

Atari releases Asteroids watches for game's 45th anniversary – they're already sold out

The result of a collaboration between Atari and luxury watch brand Nubeo, the Asteroids watches are available from the latter's website in five different styles, each with a different colored band: nebula blue, plasma pumpkin, supernova red, nova nightfall, and celestial citrine. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/UG65Zie via

Hold the line dont resign: Federal workers on Reddit fight back against Trump buyout

On Tuesday , President Donald Trump dangled a "buyout" offer in front of 2 million federal workers, encouraging them to resign en masse. The mass email blast from the Office of Personal Management (OPM), designed to rattle employees into quitting, aligns with a key objective of Project 2025 — clearing the ranks of federal workers to install MAGA loyalists . The move is already backfiring. On r/fednews , the Reddit hub for federal employees, workers are rejecting what they see as an intimidation tactic. Posts urge colleagues to stand their ground and resist being pushed out. The consensus remains clear: don’t take the bait. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk and the Roman salute: What it is and why it doesn't matter what you call it "We took an oath to serve our country and fellow Americans. They can drag me out," says the title of one such post . " They can’t fire us as easily as they thought, so they are trying to scare us into quitting, don’t fall for it! ...

iOS 18.3 is here. 3 major changes to know

Apple has officially launched iOS 18.3 , bringing fresh updates to iPhones worldwide. While it doesn’t pack the same headline-grabbing punch as iOS 18.2’s packed Apple Intelligence upgrades , the latest version still offers some decent enhancements, especially for fans of Apple’s growing Visual Intelligence capabilities. SEE ALSO: The Apple iPad Mini is back down to its lowest-ever price While Visual Intelligence steals the spotlight, iOS 18.3 also smooths out a few rough edges. Expect minor UI adjustments for the keyboard and calculator, ironing out some lingering bugs for a more seamless experience. Here’s a closer look at what’s new in iOS 18.3: Visual Intelligence Apple continues to refine its Visual Intelligence toolset, delivering two new features for iPhone 16 users: Instant Event Detection: Visual Intelligence can now extract the date and time from images and prompt you to add the event directly to your Calendar. No more manually typing in details — just shoot, s...

Google open-sources Pebble smartwatch software framework

Google has announced that PebbleOS is now available for download under an open-source license, signaling its support for volunteers who continue to maintain Pebble devices. In a surprising twist, Pebble Technology's original founder has also confirmed his interest in re-entering the "Pebble game" sooner rather than later. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/CHkp85K via

Deepseek AI says large-scale, malicious cyberattack is limiting registration

DeepSeek AI , the hottest name in generative AI right now, says it’s weathering "large-scale malicious attacks" after becoming the most-downloaded app on Apple’s App Store , overtaking OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the process. SEE ALSO: Could Trump ban DeepSeek? What the TikTok ban saga tells us. The China-based AI startup has experienced explosive growth over the past week , drawing comparisons to the viral launch of ChatGPT itself. DeepSeek AI's open-source large language model (LLM), DeepSeek R1, claims to boast performance that rivals its Western competitors — allegedly at half the cost and with significantly less computing power, too. A massive migration of users to DeepSeek’s platform, available as a free web app and on iOS and Android, has strained its infrastructure . Alleged cyberattacks have only added to the strain, forcing the company to temporarily limit new registrations, as noted on its status page . DeepSeek has not elaborated on the nature or scale of th...

Fujifilm to invest $640 million to boost semiconductor materials production

Fujifilm Holdings has announced an ambitious plan to invest approximately ¥100 billion ($640.5 million US) by March 2027 to increase its global semiconductor materials production capacity. Nikkei reports that the company intends to expand its operations in key markets, including the United States, Japan, and South Korea, where major chipmakers... Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/oQjG2R1 via

NYT Strands hints, answers for January 27

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands , the New York Times ' elevated word-search game. Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections . If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle,...

Trumps foreign aid freeze halts funding for digital diplomacy bureau

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively put a freeze on most foreign aid. One lesser-known effect of this 90-day freeze? Funding has been halted for the State Department's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP), a fairly new bureau that utilizes diplomacy to create technological partnerships and tackle emerging cyber threats. SEE ALSO: Will Oracle take over TikTok? Trump says he'll make a decision in 30 days According to a new report by The Record , the freeze on foreign aid has effectively brought the bureau, which has tens of millions of dollars in funding, to a "standstill." The report notes some of the projects that the CDP has worked on such as deploying a "cyber incident response team" in Costa Rica, training with the Vietnamese government on nefarious cyber activity from North Korea, and landing a subsea telecommunications cable in Tuvalu. In addition to the halt in funding, the ...

Siri's new AI smarts fail at sports trivia, claims Philadelphia Eagles won 33 Super Bowls

According to the report from One Foot Tsunami's Paul Kafasis, when asked "Who won Super Bowl?" for each number from 1 through 60, Siri correctly provided the winner for only 20 out of the 58 Super Bowls that have been played so far. That translates to a success rate of just 34%. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/7gEcHpw via

How Inheritance successfully used an iPhone to "steal" most of its scenes

Inheritance filmmaker Neil Burger reveals all the ways filming with an iPhone gave them access to locations and shots they otherwise would not have been able to achieve. Inheritance is now in theaters. from Mashable https://ift.tt/RbuskaV https://ift.tt/LTBI2Mr

X barely breaking even, Musk reportedly emailed staff

Social platform X is "barely breaking even," owner Elon Musk emailed employees, the Wall Street Journal reported. "Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we're barely breaking even," Musk reportedly said. In a story about banks preparing to sell billions of dollars in debt borrowed by X , WSJ printed other parts of the email: "Over the last few months, we've witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes...We are also seeing other platforms begin to adopt our commitment to free speech and unbiased truth." SEE ALSO: DOGE officially announced. How the Elon Musk-led department will work The latter sentence refers to Meta, which is removing fact-checks in favor of community notes, which X already has. Elon Musk has denied writing this to staff, posting on X, "This report is false. I sent no such email. WSJ is lying." Since his takeover of then-Twitter in 2022 , Mashable has reported...

Meta platforms blocked posts by abortion pill providers

Meta platforms Instagram and Facebook blocked and hid posts by abortion pill providers , the New York Times reported. The company confirmed to the Times that it blurred some posts and suspended some providers' accounts. The actions have reportedly ramped up this week following Trump's inauguration . SEE ALSO: Report: Meta's fact checking program failed to spot most disinformation This month, before the inauguration, Meta made several major changes to its platforms, including removing fact-checks and relaxing hate speech policies . A Meta spokesperson told the Times that the post-blocking and account suspensions aren't related to the moderation changes and attributed some of the incidents to the "overenforcement" of rules prohibiting pharmaceutical drug sales without proper certification. Aid Access, Women Help Women, Just the Pill, and Hey Jane are abortion pill providers impacted by these actions, the Times reported. In recent weeks, Instagram...

AMD confirms microcode vulnerability revealed in beta BIOS update

The vulnerability was first noticed by Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher at Google's Project Zero. Ormandy spotted a reference to the flaw in the release notes of an Asus beta BIOS update for one of its gaming motherboards. "It looks like an OEM leaked the patch for a major upcoming... Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/fkZxCVQ via

Seagate is now sampling 36TB hard drives based on HAMR technology

Seagate started shipping hard drives with HAMR tech in December 2024, turning a long-awaited technological advancement into a commercial reality. Now, the storage specialist is announcing that even more advanced HAMR drives, with capacities of up to 36 terabytes, are on the way. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/r2n0OcE via

Sony's next-gen XM6 headphones might drop this summer

Recent FCC filings give us a sneak peek into what could be Sony's next-gen XM6 headset. Drawings suggest a slightly tweaked physical design from the current XM5 model. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/jq7YJ0B via

EA shares dip nearly 20% after Dragon Age, FC 25 disappoint during the holidays

As of writing, shares of EA are trading for $115.80. Ahead of the announcement, the stock was changing hands at $142.35. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/9ZDisGW via

John Carmack developed Doom's engine during a 28-hour coding marathon

Doom was originally released for DOS in December 1993, but work on the project began in November 1992. As with many modern projects, id Software developers faced delays, and the game's code still wasn't ready for release. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/WH2bFVr via

Assassins Creed Shadows has a little something for everybody

It turns out the way to get me interested in a new Assassin's Creed (well, more interested than I already was) is to include features from the AC games I played 10 to 15 years ago. To be a little more specific, Ubisoft's latest open-world stabbing simulator Assassin's Creed Shadows builds on the recent RPG-ish entries like Valhalla by incorporating mechanics and design philosophies from older entries like Brotherhood and Syndicate . From Valhalla , it borrows the idea of training and deploying subordinate assassins on helpless, unsuspecting doofus guards in your time of need. From the older games, it takes and (from what I can tell) heavily improves on the two-protagonist setup, with one representing stealth and the other combat. Crucially, it's also got the goods from the newer games, like a very pretty and naturalistic feudal Japan setting, and consequential dialogue choices. After playing Shadows for about three hours at a preview event, I came away fairly i...

At 1.87 pounds, Fujitsu's FMV Note U breaks records as the lightest laptop on the market

At CES 2025, Asus shared that its new Zenbook A14 with Ceraluminum chassis weighted under 980 grams (2.16 pounds). Ceraluminum is a combination of ceramic and aluminum, and is said to be both lightweight and durable. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/oyXQajN via

Android announces new hearing aid and screenreader connectivity for Galaxy and Pixel

Android users who use assistive devices can anticipate in a new era of connection and control, right on their phone. New to the Samsung Galaxy S25 and harnessing its wireless audio LE Audio tech, Android will be adding next generation Bluetooth connectivity compatible with GN Hearing and Oticon Intent hearing aid devices. According to the company, this enables users of such devices to more efficiently access controls like hands-free calling, settings presets, and lower latency Bluetooth connections. SEE ALSO: Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025 live blog: Galaxy S25 series, AI tools, and more Bluetooth LE Audio technology is a relatively new standard in hearing aid tech, with lower latency connection significantly reducing the delay between sources of audio and the hearing aid itself. The update was announced as part of Samsung's annual Unpacked event, and will also be available to Google Pixel 9 users who opt-in to the Android 16 beta. It will be added to the Galaxy S24 with...

What's the keyboard shortcut to directly open the Windows Task Manager?

If you don't know it, it's about time you learn it... plus a few more Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/W2aLRPi via

All LGBTQ pages already deleted from White House website

Various pages about LGBTQ rights and lives in the U.S. have been wiped from the official White House site, LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD has reported . Whitehouse.gov received a makeover on Inauguration Day , and not only in looks. Information shared by the Biden administration has been deleted and replaced with profiles on Trump administration officials and his day one actions. The deleted information includes pages about the LGBTQ community. Various search terms, like "lesbian," "gay," and "bisexual," only contain a single result: a rollback of Biden-era executive orders , including "Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals" from 2022. SEE ALSO: Is Instagram blocking the #Democrat hashtag? "Transgender" turns up two results, the aforementioned and Trump's new executive order stating, among other things, that there are only two genders. "LGBTQ" turns...

Energizer enters the laptop market with low-cost EnergyBook line

Energizer, one of the world's largest battery brands, will soon add a line of portable computers to its livery called "EnergyBook Classic." French company Avenir Telecom recently announced the new devices at CES, explaining that it wants to bring an accessible, affordable, yet durable PC system to a broad range... Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/cQzKIq3 via

6 Trump Inauguration speech highlights — and how the internet reacted

Donald Trump is officially the 47th President as of Inauguration Day . In a 30-minute speech, Trump proclaimed that "the golden age of America begins right now," and promised many changes. Here are a few of them below, along with how viewers on social media reacted to it: Declaring a national emergency at the southern border Trump ran on an anti-immigration stance, discussing ending birthright citizenship and planning sweeping deportations during his campaign. On Monday, Trump mentioned that he would declare a national emergency at the southern border of the U.S., halting immigration. Trump used the term "criminal aliens," which was stated several times in Project 2025 (the conservative policy wishlist for Trump's second term). Following the speech, the Trump administration shut down CBP One , an app for migrants to legally enter the U.S. The effects were instant: Tweet may have been deleted 'Rescinding' the Green New Deal The " Green New...

Samsung Galaxy AI features leak ahead of Unpacked 2025

A new leak has seemingly revealed the hotly anticipated Samsung Galaxy S25 will see a major Galaxy AI upgrade. The new leak comes from veteran smartphone leaker Evan Blass, who published what seems to be a marketing video showing off some of the new features coming to Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite of features. These features are expected to launch alongside the Samsung Galaxy S25 series , which will likely be unveiled at Samsung’s latest Galaxy Unpacked event , set to take place on Wednesday, January 22.  Galaxy AI brings agentic AI features to the Galaxy S25 series The leaked video starts with a user being woken up by the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra’s alarm, after which a feature called Insights delivers information like the weather, sleep scores, and other data that the user might want to see when they first wake – all in a single scrollable screen. The video then cuts to another user who asks Google’s Gemini assistant to “find a pet-friendly Italian restaurant with outdoor seati...

Nvidia releases a critical GPU driver update to fix multiple security vulnerabilities

Nvidia has released a critical GPU driver update to address eight security flaws that could allow attackers with local access to execute malicious code. The vulnerabilities affect consumer GeForce GPUs as well as Nvidia RTX, Quadro , NVS, and Tesla products. The latest driver updates resolve all of these issues, any updates version 553.62 or newer, or 539.19 and above are good to go, depending on the driver branch you are using. Read Entire Article from TechSpot https://ift.tt/RF5iNZD via

NYT Strands hints, answers for January 20

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands , the New York Times ' elevated word-search game. Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections . If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle,...