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Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 28.
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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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Stop the doom scroll with these four wellness settings on iOS and Android.
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TikTok has reached a settlement in a closely-watched lawsuit over social media addiction, narrowly avoiding a trial that's scheduled to begin jury selection Tuesday. Terms of the deal, which was reported by The New York Times, weren't disclosed.
TikTok's settlement comes about one week after Snap reached a settlement in the same case. The trial is expected to move forward in Los Angeles with Meta and YouTube as the only defendants. Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiff, said in a statement to NYT that they were "pleased" with the settlement and that it was "a good resolution." TikTok didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trial stems from a 2023 lawsuit brought by a California woman known in court documents as "K.G.M." She sued Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube and alleged that their platforms were addictive and had harmed her as a child. The judge in the case previously ordered the companies' executives, including Mark Zuckerberg and Adam Mosseri, to testify. YouTube's top exec, Neal Mohan, is also likely to testify, according to The New York Times.
The lawsuit is the first among several high-profile cases against social media companies to go to trial this year. Meta is expected to head to court in New Mexico in early February in a case brought by the state's attorney general, who
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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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 Amazon today has a match of the record low price on the AirPods Pro 3, available for $199.00, down from $249.00. This is only the second time in 2026 that we've tracked the AirPods Pro 3 at this low price on Amazon, which matches the best deal we saw over the holiday season.
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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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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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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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Four chatbots agree on which team will win. I also got predictions on the coin toss, the halftime show, the most expensive ads, the national anthem and viewership numbers.
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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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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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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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