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The loss of the federal EV tax credits may have been a huge blow to prospective buyers, but California wants to fill that gap for its residents. Governor Gavin Newsom's proposed budget for 2026-2027, which was released on Friday, includes a "light-duty zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) incentive program" that details a one-time infusion of $200 million.
According to the budget summary, this incentive program is "a critical part of the Administration's strategy to keep ZEVs affordable and accessible for all." The proposed budget still has to make it through the state's legislature later this year, but if passed, the new incentive would help continue the momentum of EV adoption across California. In the third quarter of 2025, the state saw almost 30 percent of auto sales being EVs, according to the California Energy Commission.
There are no details in the budget summary outlining how exactly the $200 million would break down on a per-vehicle basis, but USA Today reported that the rebate would be an "on the hood" instant discount for EVs. Previously, buyers would get up to $7,500 back in federal tax rebates on new EV
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Bose recently announced the pending end of cloud support for its SoundTouch line of home speakers. This will, in effect, turn the smart speakers into dumb speakers as they will no longer have access to many features and any related software updates. Well, there's a spot of good news for SoundTouch owners. The company is turning to an open source model for the software, allowing third parties to keep the music playing.
The company has already begun mailing out the API documentation to customers so "independent developers can create their own SoundTouch-compatible tools and features." This will take some time, so Bose is also extending the end-of-life (EoL) date for the SoundTouch speakers. They were set to stop receiving cloud updates in February, but that has been moved to May 6.
It made a couple of other changes to make life a bit easier for SoundTouch owners. The speakers will still be able to use AirPlay and Spotify Connect after EoL, which was so
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But as some reviewers have noted, the boosts from DLSS aren't always as impressive in real life as they are in marketing materials. And it's often less powerful systems—like gaming laptops—that see the most modest benefits. So, I decided to test it out myself.
Here are my Nvidia DLSS 4 results on a gaming laptop. Keep reading for the exact laptop I used and the various gains (or lack thereof) I saw in a handful of different high-profile games.
The laptop I used for these tests
When Nvidia boasted about the awe-inspiring eight-fold improvement in Cyberpunk 2077 performance, those tests were done under ideal conditions. According to the fine print, it was achieved on a PC with an RTX 5090 at 4K resolutions with all the graphical bells and whistles turned on, and in DLSS performance mode.
But that's far from your typical gaming PC. Most modern gaming PCs are budget laptops—like the Lenovo LO
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