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 Apple on Monday invited selected journalists and content creators to a "special Apple Experience" on Wednesday, March 4 in New York, London, and Shanghai. And now, rumors are surfacing about Apple's broader plans for that week.
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Here are hints and the answer for today's Wordle for Feb. 18, No. 1,705.
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 There is a long list of new features in the iOS 26.4 beta, many of which we highlighted yesterday, but we've since discovered several other smaller changes that Apple made in the software.
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More than a million people around the world reported the popular video site had gone dark. Just in time for Olympics coverage!
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While some Hollywood icons are feeling doom and gloom over the AI-generated clip, labor unions are fighting back with legal threats.
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 In 2020, Apple added a digital car key feature to its Wallet app, allowing users to lock, unlock, and start a compatible vehicle with an iPhone or Apple Watch. The feature is currently offered by select automakers, such as Audi, BMW, Hyundai, Kia, Genesis, Mercedes-Benz, and Volvo, and Toyota is now rolling out support as well.
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A lawsuit by radio host David Greene alleges that Google used his voice to train its AI. Google denies the allegation.
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 Apple is speeding up its work on three AI wearable devices, reports Bloomberg. Apple is developing AI smart glasses, a wearable AI pin or pendant, and AI AirPods, all of which will connect to the iPhone and will interface with the smarter version of Siri that's in the works.
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 Apple today provided public beta testers with the first release of an upcoming macOS Tahoe 26.4 update for testing purposes. The public beta comes a day after Apple provided the beta to developers.
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ExpressVPN is back on sale again, and its two-year plans are up to 81 percent off right now. You can get the Advanced tier for $88 for 28 months. This is marked down from the $392 that this time frame normally costs. On a per-month basis, it works out to roughly $3.14 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.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/save-up-to-81-percent-on-expressvpn-two-year-plans-right-now-180602273.html?src=rss
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Apple's latest developer beta adds AI-generated Apple Music playlists and early testing for encrypted RCS messaging.
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Please remember that the SaaSpocalypse is a narrative, not a material fact.
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Do you really want to cart around a puck with your groundbreaking smart glasses?
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Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Feb. 18, No. 717.
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OpenAI and OpenClaw's alliance may set the stage for a growing trend of agentic AI in 2026.
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NEW RESOURCES Found via Reddit: Burrfect. From the Reddit announcement: "A major struggle we've had brewing at home is that espresso recipe info is incredibly thin and fragmented. Maybe 85% of the […]
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Could Apple unveil new MacBooks next month? We expect to see M5 chip updates soon with a budget MacBook and OLED MacBook Pros to follow later in the year.
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Security experts have urged people to be cautious with the viral agentic AI tool, known for being highly capable but also wildly unpredictable.
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And probably new MacBooks, iPads, and an affordable iPhone very soon, too.
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Anker introduced a nifty little charger at CES 2026, which is a refresh of the pre-existing Nano Charger. It's already on sale for $30 for Prime members, or $10 off its regular price.
The 45W charger includes a smart display that shows real-time data like power flow, temperature and charging status. It also features "fun animations to keep things cheerful." Anker says it can recognize what's being charged and automatically adjust certain metrics to ensure a longer battery lifespan.
To that end, it works with just about everything. The company advertises that this charger is a good fit for the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods and Samsung devices, among others. The new Nano Charger is on
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NEW RESOURCES Daily Star: AI wiki turns Epstein files into encyclopedia. "The new site Jikipedia, styled as a Wikipedia clone, compiles dossiers on individuals mentioned in the emails released by the US […]
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It had already changed "Full Self-Driving" to "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)."
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YouTube is experiencing an outage across the United States, with users in other countries like Canada, India, the Philippines, Australia and Russia also having problems with accessing the website. The issue seems to have started at around 8 PM Eastern time and reached 338,000 reports on Downdetector before starting to taper down. More users reported having issues accessing the app, but I personally lost access to the web homepage first.
As of 9:22 PM, users are still reporting being unable to access YouTube on Reddit. As of 9:33 PM, users are complaining that they still can't access the service, though others say it's back up for them. Some people are reporting partial restoration of service, with the homepage now being accessible but not seeing any recommended videos.
Downdetector also got thousands of reports of Google being down at around 8 PM Eastern time. As of 9:53 PM, Engadget Managing Editor Cherlynn Low reports that both YouTube and Google Home Assistant are still inaccessible for her. As of 10:12PM Eastern, Team YouTube posted on X that the issue has been completely fixed. While it didn't say why YouTube went down, the team acknowledged the problem before 9PM and posted an update 20 minutes later that its recommendation system was having issues, even though its homepage was back.
Update, February 17, 202
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We asked registered dietitians for their top healthy air fryer recipes. Their picks are perfect for easy meals.
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Two amazing games will be available soon for Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
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Anyone who's been paying even a little bit of attention to tech news lately could have made a reasonable guess that AI will be a big topic at Samsung's Unpacked next week. Ahead of the event, Samsung teased some of what's to come for AI in terms of the Galaxy S26 smartphone lineup's photography tools.
The S26 phones will feature a new camera system using Galaxy AI that combines capturing, editing and sharing of photos and videos. "Users will be able to turn a photo from day to night in seconds, restore missing parts of objects in images, capture detailed photos in low light, and seamlessly merge multiple photos into a single, cohesive result," a company rep said. The video clips Samsung shared demonstrated the before and after results of using its AI tools, which will all be housed in a single app rather than needing to switch between multiple image editing programs.
Updated cameras are just part of what will be on the schedule for Samsung's big mobile showcase. The expected Galaxy S26, Galaxy S26 and Galaxy S26 Ultra will likely have a lot of AI-centric features.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/samsung-teases-mobile-ai-photography-tools-ahead-of-unpacked-233000358.html?src=rss
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At Google's annual midyear developer showcase, we expect to see updates for Android, Chrome, XR and everything Gemini.
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Check out Ponies, the new spy thriller series starring Haley Lu Richardson and Emilia Clarke.
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We'll soon get a closer look at a bunch of features and updates Google has planned for Android and its other services. The company has confirmed that Google I/O 2026 will take place on May 19 and 20. As always, Google will stream some of the keynotes and sessions for free, including the opening keynote (during which the company makes the bulk of its major I/O announcements).
Although I/O is primarily a conference for developers, it's typically where we first learn about major upcoming Android changes, which of course affect tens of millions of people. Expect a lot of news about Google's AI efforts as well, such as what's next for Gemini.
— Sundar Pichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2026
As has been the case for several years, Google revealed the conference's dates for 2026 after enough folks completed a puzzle on the I/O website. This year's puzzle has multiple "builds" to play through, all of which use Gemini.
They start with a mini-golf game in which a virtual caddy that's powered by Gemini offers some of the most anodyne advice imaginable. The second build is a nonogram. If you've ever played a Picross game, you'll know what to do here. It's about using logic to place tiles on a grid in order to create
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Xbox has revealed the second batch of Game Pass additions for February. There are quite a few heavyweights in the mix this time, including Kingdom Come: Deliverance II and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Let's start with what's available today, though. Xbox previously said Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora (Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on Cloud, Xbox Series X/S, handheld and PC) would arrive today, while Avowed joins the Game Pass Premium library on Cloud, Xbox Series X/S and PC on the same day it hits PS5.
There's another Game Pass addition today in the form of Aerial_Knight's DropShot (Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass on Cloud, Xbox Series X/S, handheld and PC). I've been looking forward to this after digging solo developer Aerial_Knight's previous games as well as the demo.
This is a single-player skydiving FPS in which you'll have to fend off enemies to grab the only parac
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Half of social media users said they want better labels on AI-generated and edited posts.
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Forum members discuss their discomfort with mass deportation efforts, debate how federal agents have interacted with civilians, and complain about their working conditions.
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Billboards that wouldn't make sense to people outside the tech industry have become common in the Bay Area. One company took the microtargeting game to another level.
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 Apple today released new public beta firmware for the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, and AirPods 4. The firmware is limited to developers and public beta testers at the current time, and it has a build number of 8B5034f. Apple first provided this firmware last week, but it was only available to developers at the time.
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Recently we were introduced to OpenClaw, an AI that allows users to create their own agents to control apps like email, Spotify and home controls. Now, Sam Altman has announced that OpenAI has absorbed OpenClaw by hiring developer Peter Steinberger "to drive the next generation of personal agents," he wrote on X. Steinberger confirmed the news on his own blog. "I'm joining OpenAI to work on bringing agents to everyone. OpenClaw will move to a foundation and stay open and independent."
Steinberger was also in talks to join Meta, with both companies reportedly making offers in the "billions," according to Implicator.AI. The primary attractant was said to be OpenClaw's 196,000 GitHub stars and 2 million weekly visitors rather than its codebase.
OpenClaw became buzzy in the last few weeks thanks to its multifaceted ability to carry out tasks. People have used it to create agents that can write code, clear their inboxes, do online shopping and other assistant-like jobs. On its website, OpenClaw touts its ability to interact with popular apps and sites including WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, iMesage, Hue and Spotify.
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We're still waiting for Apple CarPlay compatibility for Tesla EVs, but it's been pushed back thanks to a slight hitch with iOS 26, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In the latest Power On newsletter, Gurman said that Tesla's plans to adopt CarPlay have been delayed due to app compatibility issues as well as low adoption rates for iOS 26.
It's been a long wait for Tesla drivers who want CarPlay compatibility, especially since initial rumors indicated a late 2025 rollout and Bloomberg reported that Tesla was testing CarPlay in its vehicles in November. However, Gurman's latest newsletter revealed that there were some compatibility issues between Apple Maps and Tesla's in-house navigation software, which also supports the self-driving features.
To address this, Apple released an iOS 26 update that would better synchronize the two navigation apps, especially when a driver would use Tesla's
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly been asking tech companies for information on accounts posting anti-ICE sentiments. According to The New York Times, DHS has sent hundreds of administrative subpoenas to Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta over the past few months. Homeland Security asked the companies for names, email addresses, telephone numbers and any other identifying detail for accounts that have criticized the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or have reported the location of its agents. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with some of the requests
Administrative subpoenas are different from warrants and are issued by the DHS. The Times says they were rarely used in the past and were mostly sent to companies for the investigation of serious crimes, such as child trafficking. Apparently, though, the government has ramped up its use in the past year. "It's a whole other level o
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Anker introduced a nifty little charger at CES 2026, which is a refresh of the pre-existing Nano Charger. It's already on sale for $30, which is a discount of $10 or 25 percent.
The 45W charger includes a smart display that shows real-time data like power flow, temperature and charging status. It also features "fun animations to keep things cheerful." Anker says it can recognize what's being charged and automatically adjust certain metrics to ensure a longer battery lifespan.
To that end, it works with just about everything. The company advertises that this charger is a good fit for the iPhone, Apple Watch, AirPods and Samsung devices, among others. The new Nano Charger is on the s
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Meta has backed away from highly controversial facial recognition tech in its products and services before, but seemingly not so far that it isn't willing to have another crack at it. A new report from The New York Times claims Mark Zuckerberg's company wants to add facial recognition to its lineup of branded smart glasses at some point this year.
The NYT spoke to four anonymous people with knowledge of Meta's plans, who told the publication that the feature is codenamed "Name Tag" internally. As you'd expect, it would let people wearing Meta-powered Oakley or Ray-Ban glasses identify people and "get information about them" using AI.
Such technology naturally carries huge privacy and ethical risks, which is reportedly why Meta was hesitant to unveil Name Tag at a conference for the blind last year. It also may have
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Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson wrote a letter to Apple that warned the company its choice of articles in Apple News could violate the law.
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 Apple has fully acquired the rights to its hit Apple TV series "Severance," bringing future seasons and content in-house under Apple Studios, Deadline reports.
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NEW RESOURCES Phys.org: New database enables comparative archaeological and historical urbanism. "…a team led by researchers from the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation (DLU) at the Max Planck Institute […]
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The prospect of disruptions from artificial intelligence has hung over the economy for years. But this week advances in software tools precipitated a sell-off on Wall Street.
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Denmark is considering giving people copyright control over their own likeness, voice, and features to combat AI deepfakes.
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