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New versions of Apple's ubiquitous tracking pucks are set to hit stores this week. Here's what Apple changed and all you need to know about how they work.
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 Google today announced that it is expanding its more affordable Google AI Plus subscription plan to 35 countries and territories, including the United States.
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If you own certain Belkin Wemo devices, they'll stop working as soon as Jan. 31. Here's what to know before it happens.
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Gamepad Tester is a portable app that allows you to test your Xbox controller's buttons, triggers, thumbsticks, and vibration motors for issues. It is straightforward to use; open it up and begin the test. You can easily run through your different buttons to see if there are any issues that could compromise gameplay.
[License: Freeware | Requires:
11|10|8|7 | Size: 4 MB ]
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 The second-generation AirTag is available to order now in the U.S. and dozens of other countries, but it is launching later in some other countries.
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 Apple CEO Tim Cook has responded to events in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after two people were shot and killed by U.S. federal immigration agents this month.
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Meta has started blocking links to ICE List, a website that compiles information about incidents involving Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents, and lists thousands of their employees' names. It seems that the latter detail is what caused Meta to take action in a move that was first reported by Wired.
ICE List is a crowdsourced Wiki that describes itself as "an independently maintained public documentation project focused on immigration-enforcement activity" in the US. "Its purpose is to record, organize, and preserve verifiable information about enforcement actions, agents, facilities, vehicles, and related incidents that would otherwise remain fragmented, difficult to access, or undocumented," its website states.
Along with notable incidents, the website also lists the names of individual agents associated with ICE, CBP and other DHS agencies. According to Wired, the website's creators said much of that information had come from a "leak," though it appears to be based largely on public LinkedIn profiles. As Wired notes:
Links to ICE List have been spreading widely for several weeks, including on Meta's platforms. There are numerous links to the website on Threads, some of which go back several w
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The French government is saying au revoir to Microsoft Teams and Zoom as it embraces a home-grown alternative. By next year, civil servants across all departments will have switched to French videoconference platform Visio, as EuroNews reports.
As with Teams and Zoom, Visio has an AI-powered transcription tool. Visio runs on a French company's cloud infrastructure as well. The platform has around 40,000 users and it's been in testing for the last year. The government expects the switch to help reduce costs by as much as €1 million ($1.2 million) each year for every 100,000 users.
The decision to ditch Microsoft Teams and Zoom is part of a broader effort to rely less on foreign software services — particularly US ones. Under the Suite Numérique project, France also plans to jettison the likes of Gmail and Slack for government use.
"The aim is to end the use of non-European solutions and guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool," David Amiel, minister for the civil service and state reform, said. "This strategy highlights France's commitment to digital sovereignty amid rising geopolitical tensions and fears of foreign surveillance or ser
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Owen Poole covers today's top tech stories, including how TikTok's new American owners will impact your feed. Plus, Apple announced an updated AirTag that promises to track things even more easily. The European Commission starts investigating Elon Musk's Grok for generating explicit images, following its bans in various countries.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that his office is investigating whether TikTok is truly censoring content critical of Trump, days after ByteDance finalized a deal to spin off its business in the US. Newsom made the announcement in response to a post on X, claiming that you can no longer send messages in the app with the word "Epstein" in it. Newsom's office, in a separate post, said it was able to independently confirm instances wherein TikTok suppressed content critical of President Donald Trump.
The governor's office told Politico that it tried to send a direct message with the word "Epstein" in it and got a warning that it could not be sent because it may violate TikTok's community guidelines. Newsom's team is now "launching a review of this conduct and is calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law."
If you'll recall, ByteDance finalized a deal for a new US entity just as TikTok was about to be banned in the US. ByteDance only owns 19.9 percent of the new entity called the TikTok USDS Joint Venture, while the new investors own 80 percent. Oracle, Silver Lake and Emirati fund MGX have a 15 percent stake each. The US business will now retrain TikTok's algorithm on US data and will also be in charge of content moderation.
After the US entity's announcement, users started
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Here's a use of AI that appears to do more good than harm. A pair of astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) developed a neural network that searches through space images for anomalies. The results were far beyond what human experts could have done. In two and a half days, it sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts, discovering 1,400 anomalous objects.
The creators of the AI model, David O'Ryan and Pablo Gómez, call it AnomalyMatch. The pair trained it on (and applied it to) the Hubble Legacy Archive, which houses tens of thousands of datasets from Hubble's 35-year history. "While trained scientists excel at spotting cosmic anomalies, there's simply too much Hubble data for experts to sort through at the necessary level of fine detail by hand," the ESA wrote in its press release.
After less than three days of scanning, AnomalyMatch returned a list of likely anomalies. It still requires human eyes at the end: Gómez and O'Ryan reviewed the candidates to confirm which were truly abnormal. Among the 1,400 anomalous objects the pair confirmed, more than 800 were previously undocumented.
Most of the results showed galaxies merging or interacting, which can lead to odd shapes or long tails of stars and gas. Others were gravitational lenses. (That's where the gravity of a foreground galaxy bends spacetime so that the light from a background galaxy is warped into a circle or arc.) Other discoveries included planet-forming disks viewed edge-on, galaxies with huge clumps of stars and jellyfish galaxies. Adding a bit of mystery, there were even "several dozen objects that defied classification altogether."
"This is a fantastic
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The streamer's hit show about mental health returns this week.
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Google AI Plus, the company's most affordable AI subscription plan, is now rolling out in the US. It will cost you $8 a month for its features, though you can get it for $4 a month for the first two months for a limited time only. AI Plus gives you access to 200GB of storage, as well as access to the Gemini 3 Pro model, Deep Research and Nano Banana Pro inside the Gemini app. Nano Banana Pro generates images that look so realistic, they're nearly indistinguishable from ordinary photos snapped on phones. Google even had to limit its usage due to high demand.
A subscription to AI Plus also expands your access to Google's AI filmmaking tool Flow, its image-to-video creator tool Whisk and its research assistant tool NotebookLM. In addition to the US, the plan is now making its way to 34 more countries, making it available in all regions where Google is selling its AI services. In the US, the new option costs less than half of a $20 AI Pro subscription, which comes with 2TB of storage and access to more tools like code assist. Google's most expensive AI plan, the AI Ultra, costs a whopping $250 a month and comes with 30TB of storage, along with all the AI tools the company can offer. Take note that if you're paying for a Google One Premium 2TB subscription, you'll also get all of AI Plus' features over the next few days.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.
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 Apple has long been rumored to be planning a dramatic redesign for the iPhone's 20th anniversary in 2027, ever since Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reported last May that the company is aiming for an all-glass device "without any cutouts in the display." But new comments from respected display industry analyst Ross Young appear to throw cold water on these claims.
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OpenAI quietly launches ChatGPT Translate, a standalone AI translation tool focused on tone and context, signaling a potential challenge to Google Translate.
The post OpenAI Quietly Rolls Out ChatGPT Translate to Take on Google appeared first on eWEEK.
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NEW RESOURCES Maps Mania: Mapping ICE Activity. "People Over Papers is a community-driven map showing reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. People Over Papers lets anyone submit sightings of possible […]
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ETA sharing on Apple Maps and Google Maps keeps contacts updated automatically while you drive safely. Learn step-by-step instructions for iPhone and Android.
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In one 30-second clip, you've caught someone breaking the law-but you might also have broken one yourself.
Smart cameras are everywhere now—mounted on porches, tucked under eaves, perched on fences, and watching over driveways, garages, and balconies. They're cheaper, easier to install, and produce sharper video than ever. But with that convenience comes a degree of legal uncertainty. Can you record anything your camera sees? What about what it hears? Can a neighbor make you take it down? And what if you rent instead of own?
We'll break down what the law actually says about surveillance at home—what's legally allowable, where things get complicated, and how to protect your home without accidentally violating someone else's privacy.
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Owning Microsoft Office Pro 2021 is one thing. Actually knowing how to unlock its full potential? That's another story. Right now, you can get a lifetime license to Office Pro 2021 for Windows plus a complete Microsoft training bundle for just $39.97 (MSRP: $239.99).
Office Pro 2021 gives you lifetime access to the classics — Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, Publisher, Access, and OneNote. It's a one-time install for your home or office without any monthly fees.
But this offer also includes 25 hours of structured Microsoft training. That means instead of fumbling through Excel formulas or guessing your way through PowerPoint design, you'll actually know how to work faster and smarter.
The included training covers everything from beginner to advanced lessons in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access. You'll even pick up in-demand tricks like VLO
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