A team of NASA engineers is preparing to test elbow joints in a large cryogenic chamber to evaluate the fabric of the next-generation spacesuits designed to be worn by astronauts on the Moon. The Cryogenic Ice Testing, Acquisition Development, and Excavation Laboratory, or CITADEL for short, was built to test robot parts for non-crewed missions launching to places like the icy moons of the solar system. CITADEL is now being used for humanity's long-anticipated return to the Moon. “We want to understand what the risk is to astronauts going into permanently shadowed regions, and gloves and boots are key because they make prolonged contact with cold surfaces and tools,” Zach Fester, an engineer with the Advanced Suit Team at NASA Johnson and the technical lead for the boot testing, said in a statement. While most cryogenic facilities use liquid nitrogen to cool an object, CITADEL uses compressed helium to reach temperatures as low as -370 Fahrenheit (-223 Celsuis). To avoid that the CITADEL is equipped with four load locks, drawer-like chambers through which test materials can be inserted while maintaining its chilled vacuum state. CITADEL also has a robotic arm to grab test materials, as well as visible and infrared light cameras to capture the entire testing process. In the past, NASA would use its actual astronauts for thermal testing, forcing them to insert their gloved hands inside a chilled glove box, grab a frigid object and hold onto it until their skin temperatures dropped as low as 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius). The space agency now uses a custom-built manikin hand and foot for testing inside CITADEL. The manikin's extremities are equipped with a system of fluid loops to mimic the flow of warm blood through the appendages, and dozens of temperature and heat flux sensors collect data from inside the gloves and boots. The Moon's south pole is of great interest to scientists as it may hold water ice in permanently shadowed regions, but it does present a harsh environment due to extreme temperatures and areas where the Sun's light doesn't reach. The Artemis astronauts will spend somewhere around two hours at a time inside craters that may contain ice deposits, where temperatures can reach a chilling -414 degrees Fahrenheit (-248 degrees Celsius), according to NASA. Astronauts returning to the Moon will don new, fashion-forward spacesuits. Axiom Space partnered with Prada to draw on the brand's expertise in design and materiasl, while also trying to provide an aesthetically pleasing look for the astronauts on the Moon. The ongoing tests in CITADEL will help NASA prepare criteria for its next-generation AxEMU spacesuits. Shane McFarland, technology development lead for the Advanced Suit Team at NASA Johnson, said in a statement, “This test is looking to identify what the limits are: How long can that glove or boot be in that lunar environment? We want to quantify what our capability gap is for the current hardware so we can give that information to the Artemis suit vendor, and we also want to develop this unique test capability to assess future hardware designs.” NASA's Artemis 3 mission is set to launch in 2027, sending astronauts on a journey across previously unexplored areas of the Moon. Get the best tech, science, and culture news in your inbox daily. News from the future, delivered to your present. The Jones Road Fire tore through over 15,300 acres of drought-stricken Pine Barrens—leaving a smoky scar visible from space. Solar Orbiter pieced together 200 ultraviolet images to show our star's million-degree atmosphere in all its glory. A stellar occultation this month gave scientists an opportunity to scrutinize the seventh planet from the Sun. Asteroid Donaldjohanson has turned out to be a picturesque waypoint as NASA's mission heads toward Jupiter's Trojan asteroids. We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our sites.

Mast cells are part of our immune system, protecting our body from viruses, bacteria, and even harmful substances released by snake and insect bites. While these symptoms allow the body to destroy or expel invaders, oversensitive mast cells cause allergic reactions, including life-threatening and hard-to-treat conditions. As detailed in a study published Monday in the journal Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy, researchers have developed a compound that blocks mast cells from triggering particularly hard-to-treat and sometimes life-threatening reactions. These include irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), asthma, chronic itching, and migraines. Traditionally considered pseudo-allergic reactions, these conditions have more recently been classified as a type of allergy, according to the researchers. The compound seems to greatly reduce symptoms, and as a consequence, lower fatality risk. “We thus see this as an extremely promising substance,” Christa Müller, a co-author of the study who researches medicinal chemistry of membrane proteins at the University of Bonn, said in a university statement. Unlike some allergic reactions, in which immune cells called antibodies alert mast cells to the presence of invaders, these hard-to-treat conditions occur when mast cells are triggered through direct activation not involving antibodies. This triggers reactions “of a specific nature that have been difficult to treat, and remain so to this day,” Müller explained. 15 years ago, Müller and colleagues identified a receptor named MRGPRX2 in the mast cells' membrane that “switches on” these sorts of reactions when certain molecules attach to it. To address this, the team tested promising compounds from a collection of 40,000 previously gathered by Müller's department. In this way, the team discovered a molecule that can attach to the receptor and block it, effectively switching it off. They used that molecule to develop a substance that still works in very low doses, and proved its efficacy at eliminating life-threatening allergic reactions in lab mice and blocking the MRGPRX2 receptor on isolated human mast cells. Nevertheless, it holds potentially life-saving implications for patients with some inflammatory conditions and those at risk of anaphylactic shock. Get the best tech, science, and culture news in your inbox daily. A new case study is the latest to suggest that GLP-1 therapy can tamp down people's unhealthy cravings of drugs like alcohol and cocaine. Evolution has largely deprived us of our ability to swivel our ears, but those vestigial muscles still activate when we listen intently, according to new research. While scratching worsens inflammations, it also protects us from some infections, as new research suggests. We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our sites.

ChatGPT, OpenAI's text-generating AI chatbot, has taken the world by storm since its launch in November 2022. What started as a tool to supercharge productivity through writing essays and code with short text prompts has evolved into a behemoth with 300 million weekly active users. 2024 was a big year for OpenAI, from its partnership with Apple for its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, the release of GPT-4o with voice capabilities, and the highly-anticipated launch of its text-to-video model Sora. OpenAI also faced its share of internal drama, including the notable exits of high-level execs like co-founder and longtime chief scientist Ilya Sutskever and CTO Mira Murati. OpenAI has also been hit with lawsuits from Alden Global Capital-owned newspapers alleging copyright infringement, as well as an injunction from Elon Musk to halt OpenAI's transition to a for-profit. The company has been trying to shore up its relationship with Washington as it simultaneously pursues an ambitious data center project, and as it reportedly lays the groundwork for one of the largest funding rounds in history. Below, you'll find a timeline of ChatGPT product updates and releases, starting with the latest, which we've been updating throughout the year. If you have any other questions, check out our ChatGPT FAQ here. OpenAI is preparing to launch an AI system that will be openly accessible, allowing users to download it for free without any API restrictions. OpenAI released a new AI model called GPT-4.1 in mid-April. However, multiple independent tests indicate that the model is less reliable than previous OpenAI releases. Questions have been raised regarding OpenAI's transparency and procedures for testing models after a difference in benchmark outcomes was detected by first- and third-party benchmark results for the o3 AI model. OpenAI introduced o3 in December, stating that the model could solve approximately 25% of questions on FrontierMath, a difficult math problem set. Epoch AI, the research institute behind FrontierMath, discovered that o3 achieved a score of approximately 10%, which was significantly lower than OpenAI's top-reported score. OpenAI has launched a new API feature called Flex processing that allows users to use AI models at a lower cost but with slower response times and occasional resource unavailability. Flex processing is available in beta on the o3 and o4-mini reasoning models for non-production tasks like model evaluations, data enrichment, and asynchronous workloads. The system is designed to prevent models from giving advice that could potentially lead to harmful attacks, as stated in OpenAI's safety report. The company claims o3 is the most advanced reasoning model it has developed, while o4-mini is said to provide a balance of price, speed, and performance. The new models stand out from previous reasoning models because they can use ChatGPT features like web browsing, coding, and image processing and generation. But they hallucinate more than several of OpenAI's previous models. Open AI introduced a new section called “library” to make it easier for users to create images on mobile and web platforms, per the company's X post. OpenAI said on Tuesday that it might revise its safety standards if “another frontier AI developer releases a high-risk system without comparable safeguards.” The move shows how commercial AI developers face more pressure to rapidly implement models due to the increased competition. OpenAI is currently in the early stages of developing its own social media platform to compete with Elon Musk's X and Mark Zuckerberg's Instagram and Threads, according to The Verge. GPT-4.5 will be available in a research preview for paying customers. OpenAI has launched three members of the GPT-4.1 model — GPT-4.1, GPT-4.1 mini, and GPT-4.1 nano — with a specific focus on coding capabilities. It's accessible via the OpenAI API but not ChatGPT. In the competition to develop advanced programming models, GPT-4.1 will rival AI models such as Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro, Anthropic's Claude 3.7 Sonnet, and DeepSeek's upgraded V3. OpenAI plans to sunset GPT-4, an AI model introduced more than two years ago, and replace it with GPT-4o, the current default model, per changelog. OpenAI may launch several new AI models, including GPT-4.1, soon, The Verge reported, citing anonymous sources. GPT-4.1 would be an update of OpenAI's GPT-4o, which was released last year. OpenAI started updating ChatGPT to enable the chatbot to remember previous conversations with a user and customize its responses based on that context. This feature is rolling out to ChatGPT Pro and Plus users first, excluding those in the U.K., EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. It looks like OpenAI is working on a watermarking feature for images generated using GPT-4o. Blaho also found mentions of other tools: “Structured Thoughts,” “Reasoning Recap,” “CoT Search Tool,” and “l1239dk1.” OpenAI is offering its $20-per-month ChatGPT Plus subscription tier for free to all college students in the U.S. and Canada through the end of May. More than 130 million users have created over 700 million images since ChatGPT got the upgraded image generator on March 25, according to COO of OpenAI Brad Lightcap. The image generator was made available to all ChatGPT users on March 31, and went viral for being able to create Ghibli-style photos. In a series of posts on X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company's new image-generation tool's popularity may cause product releases to be delayed. “We are getting things under control, but you should expect new releases from OpenAI to be delayed, stuff to break, and for service to sometimes be slow as we deal with capacity challenges,” he wrote. OpenAI made a notable change to its content moderation policies after the success of its new image generator in ChatGPT, which went viral for being able to create Studio Ghibli-style images. The company has updated its policies to allow ChatGPT to generate images of public figures, hateful symbols, and racial features when requested. OpenAI had previously declined such prompts due to the potential controversy or harm they may cause. However, the company has now “evolved” its approach, as stated in a blog post published by Joanne Jang, the lead for OpenAI's model behavior. OpenAI wants to incorporate Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) into all of its products, including the ChatGPT desktop app. OpenAI expects its revenue to triple to $12.7 billion in 2025, fueled by the performance of its paid AI software, Bloomberg reported, citing an anonymous source. OpenAI on Tuesday rolled out a major upgrade to ChatGPT's image-generation capabilities: ChatGPT can now use the GPT-4o model to generate and edit images and photos directly. The feature went live earlier this week in ChatGPT and Sora, OpenAI's AI video-generation tool, for subscribers of the company's Pro plan, priced at $200 a month, and will be available soon to ChatGPT Plus subscribers and developers using the company's API service. Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, will lead the company's global expansion and manage corporate partnerships as CEO Sam Altman shifts his focus to research and products, according to a blog post from OpenAI. Lightcap, who previously worked with Altman at Y Combinator, joined the Microsoft-backed startup in 2018. OpenAI also said Mark Chen would step into the expanded role of chief research officer, and Julia Villagra will take on the role of chief people officer. OpenAI has updated its AI voice assistant with improved chatting capabilities, according to a video posted on Monday (March 24) to the company's official media channels. Users on ChatGPT's free tier can now access the new version of Advanced Voice Mode, while paying users will receive answers that are “more direct, engaging, concise, specific, and creative,” a spokesperson from OpenAI told TechCrunch. OpenAI and Meta have separately engaged in discussions with Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries regarding potential collaborations to enhance their AI services in the country, per a report by The Information. One key topic being discussed is Reliance Jio distributing OpenAI's ChatGPT. Reliance has proposed selling OpenAI's models to businesses in India through an application programming interface (API) so they can incorporate AI into their operations. OpenAI, Meta, and Reliance have not yet officially announced these plans. Noyb, a privacy rights advocacy group, is supporting an individual in Norway who was shocked to discover that ChatGPT was providing false information about him, stating that he had been found guilty of killing two of his children and trying to harm the third. Showing ChatGPT users a tiny disclaimer that the chatbot can make mistakes clearly isn't enough. You can't just spread false information and in the end add a small disclaimer saying that everything you said may just not be true.” OpenAI says its o1-pro uses more computing than its o1 “reasoning” AI model to deliver “consistently better responses.” It's only accessible to select developers who have spent at least $5 on OpenAI API services. OpenAI charges $150 for every million tokens (about 750,000 words) input into the model and $600 for every million tokens the model produces. Noam Brown, who heads AI reasoning research at OpenAI, thinks that certain types of AI models for “reasoning” could have been developed 20 years ago if researchers had understood the correct approach and algorithms. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, in a post on X, that the company has trained a “new model” that's “really good” at creative writing. The company has mostly concentrated on challenges in rigid, predictable areas such as math and programming. we trained a new model that is good at creative writing (not sure yet how/when it will get released). this is the first time i have been really struck by something written by AI; it got the vibe of metafiction so right.PROMPT:Please write a metafictional literary short story… OpenAI rolled out new tools designed to help developers and businesses build AI agents — automated systems that can independently accomplish tasks — using the company's own AI models and frameworks. The tools are part of OpenAI's new Responses API, which enables enterprises to develop customized AI agents that can perform web searches, scan through company files, and navigate websites, similar to OpenAI's Operator product. OpenAI intends to release several “agent” products tailored for different applications, including sorting and ranking sales leads and software engineering, according to a report from The Information. The most expensive rumored agents, which are said to be aimed at supporting “PhD-level research,” are expected to cost $20,000 per month. The jaw-dropping figure is indicative of how much cash OpenAI needs right now: The company lost roughly $5 billion last year after paying for costs related to running its services and other expenses. It's unclear when these agentic tools might launch or which customers will be eligible to buy them. The latest version of the macOS ChatGPT app allows users to edit code directly in supported developer tools, including Xcode, VS Code, and JetBrains. According to a new report from VC firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), OpenAI's AI chatbot, ChatGPT, experienced solid growth in the second half of 2024. ChatGPT has experienced significant growth recently due to the launch of new models and features, such as GPT-4o, with multimodal capabilities. ChatGPT usage spiked from April to May 2024, shortly after that model's launch. Using OpenAI's latest default model for ChatGPT, GPT-4o, as a reference, nonprofit AI research institute Epoch AI found the average ChatGPT query consumes around 0.3 watt-hours. However, the analysis doesn't consider the additional energy costs incurred by ChatGPT with features like image generation or input processing. ChatGPT users will see an updated “chain of thought” that shows more of the model's “reasoning” steps and how it arrived at answers to questions. While OpenAI had previously allowed users to ask ChatGPT questions without signing in, responses were restricted to the chatbot's last training update. OpenAI says the “agent” is intended for instances where you don't just want a quick answer or summary, but instead need to assiduously consider information from multiple websites and other sources. OpenAI says it collects user posts from the subreddit and asks its AI models to write replies, in a closed environment, that would change the Reddit user's mind on a subject. OpenAI first previewed the model in December alongside a more capable system called o3. OpenAI is pitching its new model as both “powerful” and “affordable.” A new report from app analytics firm Appfigures found that over half of ChatGPT's mobile users are under age 25, with users between ages 50 and 64 making up the second largest age demographic. The gender gap among ChatGPT users is even more significant. Appfigures estimates that across age groups, men make up 84.5% of all users. OpenAI says that ChatGPT Gov enables agencies to more easily manage their own security, privacy, and compliance, and could expedite internal authorization of OpenAI's tools for the handling of non-public sensitive data. Younger Gen Zers are embracing ChatGPT, for schoolwork, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. In a follow-up to its 2023 poll on ChatGPT usage among young people, Pew asked ~1,400 U.S.-based teens ages 13 to 17 whether they've used ChatGPT for homework or other school-related assignments. Twenty-six percent said that they had, double the number two years ago. OpenAI says that it might store chats and associated screenshots from customers who use Operator, the company's AI “agent” tool, for up to 90 days — even after a user manually deletes them. While OpenAI has a similar deleted data retention policy for ChatGPT, the retention period for ChatGPT is only 30 days, which is 60 days shorter than Operator's. Operator promises to automate tasks such as booking travel accommodations, making restaurant reservations, and shopping online. Operator, OpenAI's agent tool, could be released sooner rather than later. Changes to ChatGPT's code base suggest that Operator will be available as an early research preview to users on the $200 Pro subscription plan. The changes aren't yet publicly visible, but a user on X who goes by Choi spotted these updates in ChatGPT's client-side code. TechCrunch separately identified the same references to Operator on OpenAI's website. OpenAI has begun testing a feature that lets new ChatGPT users sign up with only a phone number — no email required. However, users who create an account using their number can't upgrade to one of OpenAI's paid plans without verifying their account via an email. Multi-factor authentication also isn't supported without a valid email. ChatGPT's new beta feature, called tasks, allows users to set simple reminders. OpenAI is introducing a new way for users to customize their interactions with ChatGPT. OpenAI suggests traits like “Chatty,” “Encouraging,” and “Gen Z.” However, some users reported that the new options have disappeared, so it's possible they went live prematurely. November 30, 2022 is when ChatGPT was released for public use. There is a free version of ChatGPT that only requires a sign-in in addition to the paid version, ChatGPT Plus. And nonprofit organization Solana officially integrated the chatbot into its network with a ChatGPT plug-in geared toward end users to help onboard into the web3 space. ChatGPT is AI-powered and utilizes LLM technology to generate text after a prompt. Due to the nature of how these models work, they don't know or care whether something is true, only that it looks true. Yes, there is a free ChatGPT mobile app for iOS and Android users. It's not documented anywhere that ChatGPT has a character limit. However, users have noted that there are some character limitations after around 500 words. Everyday examples include programming, scripts, email replies, listicles, blog ideas, summarization, etc. Advanced use examples include debugging code, programming languages, scientific concepts, complex problem solving, etc. That's because ChatGPT lacks context awareness — in other words, the generated code isn't always appropriate for the specific context in which it's being used. There are multiple AI-powered chatbot competitors such as Together, Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude, and developers are creating open source alternatives. OpenAI has said that individuals in “certain jurisdictions” (such as the EU) can object to the processing of their personal information by its AI models by filling out this form. This includes the ability to make requests for deletion of AI-generated references about you. Although OpenAI notes it may not grant every request since it must balance privacy requests against freedom of expression “in accordance with applicable laws”. In its privacy policy, the ChatGPT maker makes a passing acknowledgement of the objection requirements attached to relying on “legitimate interest” (LI), pointing users towards more information about requesting an opt out — when it writes: “See here for instructions on how you can opt out of our use of your information to train our models.” Recently, Discord announced that it had integrated OpenAI's technology into its bot named Clyde where two users tricked Clyde into providing them with instructions for making the illegal drug methamphetamine (meth) and the incendiary mixture napalm. An Australian mayor has publicly announced he may sue OpenAI for defamation due to ChatGPT's false claims that he had served time in prison for bribery. CNET found itself in the midst of controversy after Futurism reported the publication was publishing articles under a mysterious byline completely generated by AI. The private equity company that owns CNET, Red Ventures, was accused of using ChatGPT for SEO farming, even if the information was incorrect. They claim that the AI impedes the learning process by promoting plagiarism and misinformation, a claim that not every educator agrees with. Several tools claim to detect ChatGPT-generated text, but in our tests, they're inconsistent at best. But OpenAI recently disclosed a bug, since fixed, that exposed the titles of some users' conversations to other people on the service. But OpenAI is involved in at least one lawsuit that has implications for AI systems trained on publicly available data, which would touch on ChatGPT. Text-generating AI models like ChatGPT have a tendency to regurgitate content from their training data. Alyssa Stringer was formerly the Audience Development Manager for TechCrunch. Prior to her experience in audience development, Alyssa worked as a content writer and holds a Bachelor's in Journalism at the University of North Texas. Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla Wait, how did a decentralized service like Bluesky go down? Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized' ads Report: Adam Neumann's Flow raises $100M+, more than doubles valuation to $2.5B Government censorship comes to Bluesky, but not its third-party apps … yet Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything'

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. In addition, the slide published by ComputerBase reveals that N2 is two quarters away from mass production, which means that TSMC is on-track to start making 2nm-class chips in late Q4 2025, as expected. Although TSMC's N2 is the company's first process technology to adopt gate-all-around (GAA) nanosheet transistors, the node has lower defect density than its predecessors at the same stage of development, two quarters before mass production (MP). The predecessors — N3/N3P, N5/N4, and N7/N6 — all relied on well-known FinFET transistors. So, despite being TSMC's first node using GAA nanosheet transistors, the N2 defect density is getting lower quicker (well, steeper) than that of its predecessors before the high volume manufacturing (HVM) milestone. Across all nodes shown — N7/N6 (green), N5/N4 (violet), N3/N3P (red), and N2 (blue) — defect densities drop significantly as production ramps, though at different rates depending on node complexity. Notably, N5/N4 displayed the most aggressive early defect reduction, while N7/N6 showed a more gradual yield improvement. TSMC stated that its N2 fabrication technology got more new tape outs than predecessors (as TSMC now risks producing N2 chips for smartphone and HPC customers), so the defect density decrease curve mostly proves that. The fact that N2's defect reduction rate aligns well with previous FinFET-based nodes is particularly significant, given the risk factors associated with introducing an all-new transistor architecture. It suggests that TSMC has successfully transferred its process learning and defect management expertise into the new GAAFET era without major setbacks (at least based on what TSMC discloses). Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom's Hardware. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York,

Kash Patel, a far-right extremist and conspiracy theorist who just so happens to be the director of the FBI, tweeted Friday about the arrest of a judge in Wisconsin who he alleges tried to obstruct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). But it wasn't long before Patel deleted the tweet. “Just NOW, the FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on charges of obstruction—after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week,” Patel wrote in his tweet from 10:11 a.m. “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject—an illegal alien—to evade arrest,” Patel continued. Try searching for something else.” Patel's new version of the tweet appears to have identical wording, so it's a complete mystery why he deleted it. The U.S. Department of Justice didn't immediately respond to questions about Patel's tweet emailed Friday. ICE agents reportedly arrived at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 to arrest a Mexican citizen in Judge Hannah Dugan's courtroom, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The Journal-Sentinel spoke with five experts who all had different opinions on Dugan's alleged conduct, but none thought she should be charged with a crime. Marshals Service confirmed on Friday that Dugan was arrested around 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. Dugan appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries and has been charged with two felonies, obstruction and concealing an individual, according to the Journal-Sentinel. Dugan made no comment during the hearing, but her attorney reportedly said, “Judge Dugan wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest. It was not made in the interest of public safety.” A former federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, Franklyn Gimbel, who spoke with the Journal-Sentinel, called her arrest “outrageous,” and noted that the FBI could have simply invited her to show up and surrender herself. But theatrics are obviously a big deal for the very media-conscious Trump regime. Dugan, 65, got her bachelor's degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981 and earned her JD in 1987, according to the Associated Press. She was elected to the county court, Branch 31, in 2016 and worked at Legal Action of Wisconsin and the Legal Aid before that. Trump has made it clear that he's going to go after judges as a way to impose his particular brand of fascism on the United States. Musk tweeted about the case Friday, writing, “More judicial corruption.” Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI director in late February in a vote of 51-49, with every Democratic senator and two Republicans, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, voting no. Patel was a board member for Trump Media, the company that owns Donald Trump's Truth Social, before resigning that role to take his job at the FBI and has made at least $2.6 million from consulting and media deals, according to ABC News. Patel also wrote an absolutely unhinged children's book depicting Donald Trump as a king, titled The Plot Against the King. And yet many of Patel's supporters on social media have been frustrated by perceptions that the FBI director has been slow to enact retribution against perceived enemies. We'll see if that changes now that Patel is doing his best to usher in the “arrest judges” stage of fascism. Get the best tech, science, and culture news in your inbox daily. The oligarch said he'll scale back his involvement in DOGE but will remain throughout Trump's presidency. They tagged a Tesla showroom with messages like "F Off DOGE" and "WE DO NOT CONSENT" We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our sites.

How much are you willing to pay for a better display? When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Starting at $999 with a speedy M4 processor, strong build quality, and long battery life, it's incredibly well-liked, especially among people already in Apple's ecosystem.But the MacBook Pro, with its gorgeous display, more ports, and more performant chips is right there. You might see those upgrades and think that it's worth the extra cash.And it's true — on a pure spec sheet basis, the MacBook Pro is better in almost every way. Some people may be willing to splurge for the nicer screen, better speakers, and the promise of more performance. It's unsurprising that the MacBook Air and Pro have a family resemblance. Whichever you choose, you'll get Apple's latest design, with blocky sides, curved corners, sturdy aluminum build quality, and a mirror-shiny aluminum Apple logo. One of the bigger changes you'll notice is in size and weight. Because the MacBook Air models don't use a fan, they can be extremely thin. The svelte MacBook Air only has three ports: a pair of Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. No matter which you get, you'll get three USB Type-C ports (Thunderbolt 5 on the M4 Pro and M4 Max or Thunderbolt 4 on M4), an HDMI output, and a full-size SD card slot, and MagSafe 3. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. If you don't use a ton of peripherals on the go, the MacBook Air's selection is sparse but usable. The MacBook Pro's ports allow for lots of extra peripherals. Either can be expanded with a USB Type-C hub or dock. The MacBook Pro keeps it simple with two options: silver and space black. But the Air has four choices: silver, starlight, midnight, and sky blue. In the Pro line, Apple uses active cooling, which means you'll have fans and heat pipes on the processor. Under light use, the fans have been silent in my experience. M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max all have similar single-core performance. But the cores scale significantly between the chips, so if you're a professional working with artificial intelligence, video editing, simulations or other multi-core workloads, the more powerful chips make a lot of sense. For people who are primarily browsing the web, checking and sending emails, creating documents and slide decks, M4 should be plenty powerful. For some, the display might be the top reason to upgrade from a MacBook Air to a MacBook Pro. The MacBook Air's screen is good enough for most people. Both are LED-backlit IPS displays, and in our testing, they get very bright. On the MacBook Pro, Apple also offers its nano-texture display as a paid upgrade. It's an extra $150, but the matte screen looks beautiful and works wonders outside. For a thin laptop, Macbook Air is pretty good. The 13-inch model has four speakers, and they're fine for casually listening to music and even for making calls without a headset on. Of course, the thicker MacBook Pro does mean better speakers. Like the 15-inch Air, both 14-inch and 16-inch Pro models have six-speaker systems with force-cancelling woofers, but you get higher quality sound. The 16-inch MacBook Pro have the best speakers I've ever heard on a laptop, though I wouldn't pay just for that. Ever since Apple switched to its own Arm-based chips with M1, battery life has been improving. With any of these systems, you should be able to close the lid, leave it unplugged on your desk, and find it still going a day or two later. In our battery test, which browses the web, streams video, and runs light OpenGL tests, the 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 ran for 15 hours and 14 minutes. All of which is to say, any of these laptops should get you through the day without a problem. And while the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros will last longer, keep in mind that part of that is because they are heavier than the Air, so there's some give and take. I can handle less battery life if I'm getting more than 12 hours on a charge and the Air is easier to carry around. There's a reason that the MacBook Air is Apple's most popular laptop, and that's because of the price. The 13-inch Air starts at $999 with a 10-core M4 CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. The 15-inch Air starts at $1,199 with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD. In recent years, the $999 price point was reserved for a previous generation chip. Bumping up to an M4 Pro starts at $1,999 (with a 12-core CPU, 16-core GPU, 24GB of RAM, and the same 512GB SSD), while an M4 Max starts at $3,199. And the 16-inch MacBook Pro gets even pricier, starting at $2,499 with an M4 Pro with 14-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 24GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Of course, those are all the lowest possible prices, and Apple's upgrades to RAM and storage are often absurd, with hundreds of dollars for storage and RAM upgrades. Be sure to get what you want at purchase, though, because you won't be able to upgrade down the line. It has a nicer screen, more ports, stronger performance, and longer battery life. In practice, though, the MacBook Air is a better machine for most people. It's lighter and easier to carry around, it has plenty of performance for the average person for either personal or professional use, and it lasts plenty long on a charge. While I think the 14-inch MacBook Pro is the sweet spot for screen size (and personally own one), I've used a 13-inch MacBook Air for work for awhile and adore it. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M4 serves as a sort of middle of the road pick if you're looking to upgrade for the display and more ports but don't need M4 Pro or M4 Max. If you need the Pro features or would benefit from M4 Pro or M4 Max, you probably already know it. For most people, spending less still gets an extremely capable Mac. The MacBook Air is best for most people, but the MacBook Pro has some niceties if you can afford it, or if you're doing very intensive work. Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York,

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Linux is renowned for supporting incredibly ancient hardware, but there are limits to even what Linux developers can support. Linux kernel developer Ingo Molnar proposed in an RFC patch thread to remove support for these ancient 32-bit processors due to the few people running these chips combined with the latest Linux kernels. Compatibility has allegedly reached a point where supporting these chips is causing more headaches in the codebase than it's worth. Molnar also stated that Linus Torvalds has similar feelings and desires to "...leave i486 support behind." Specifically, ending i486 and early Pentium support will allegedly remove 14,104 lines of code inside 80 files in the Linux kernel. Linux developers have considered removing i486 support as far back as 2022, but there now appears to be mounting pressure to execute those wishes. The i486 introduced several key technologies, such as a large on-chip cache and an integrated floating-point unit, components that are used in almost every single modern CPU. Depending on the model, i486 chips took advantage of 1000nm down to 600nm process nodes, with clock speeds ranging from around 20 MHz to 100 MHz. Production of the last i486 chips was discontinued in 2007. The original Pentium, introduced in 1993, brought along improvements from the i486 series, including a dual-integer pipeline design and a more advanced floating-point unit. The first-generation Pentium (or P5) was built on an 800nm process with clock speeds ranging from 60 MHz to 66 MHz, depending on the model. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. © Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York,

“It's deeply concerning that one of the best AI researchers I've worked with […] was denied a U.S. green card,” wrote Brown. “A Canadian who's lived and contributed here for 12 years now has to leave. Green cards can be denied for all sorts of reasons, and the decision won't cost Chen her job. While the government has accused some of these students of supporting Palestinian militant groups or engaging in “antisemitic” activities, others have been targeted for minor legal infractions, like speeding tickets or other traffic violations. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has turned a skeptical eye toward many green card applicants, reportedly suspending processing of requests for legal permanent residency submitted by immigrants granted refugee or asylum status. AI labs like OpenAI rely heavily on foreign research talent. According to Shaun Ralston, an OpenAI contractor providing support for the company's API customers, OpenAI filed more than 80 applications for H1-B visas last year alone and has sponsored more than 100 visas since 2022. H1-B visas, favored by the tech industry, allow U.S. companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in “specialty occupations” that require at least a bachelor's degree or the equivalent. According to a study from Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, 66% of the 50 “most promising” U.S.-based AI startups on Forbes' 2019 “AI 50” list had an immigrant founder. Responding to a Nature poll of over 1,600 scientists, 75% said that they were considering leaving for jobs abroad. Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla Wait, how did a decentralized service like Bluesky go down? Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized' ads Report: Adam Neumann's Flow raises $100M+, more than doubles valuation to $2.5B Government censorship comes to Bluesky, but not its third-party apps … yet Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything'

Is TP-Link undercutting its competitors by selling at a loss? When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. TP-Link is known for its affordable home networking products and has reportedly cornered 65% of this market. According to Bloomberg, the DOJ is investigating whether the company achieved this through predatory pricing, wherein it sells goods at a loss to obtain a monopoly. This investigation began in late 2024, especially as the company got tied to Salt Typhoon cyberattacks allegedly backed by Beijing. It was previously owned by TP-LINK Technologies, a Shenzhen, China-based corporation, and only fully established itself as an independent organization in October 2024. The company says it is unaware of any inquiry. "To date, TP-Link Systems Inc. has not received any inquiry from the Department of Justice regarding these matters. As a U.S.-based company, TP-Link operates with the utmost integrity and transparency, and stands ready to cooperate fully with any government inquiries, should they arise," a spokesman tells Tom's Hardware. Still, U.S. officials are concerned about whether the corporate restructuring is enough to insulate it from meddling by the Chinese government, with some experts claiming that it still has a broad presence in mainland China. "Unlike competitors, TP-Link owns its manufacturing and R&D operations, enabling cost savings and enhanced control over the security of our vertically integrated supply chain," the spokesman told us. "We do not sell products below cost and maintain a policy of transparency in our business practices, ensuring fair pricing for our valued customers." Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. The Federal government is apparently doing this to hedge its bets, as Bloomberg says that criminal prosecution of predatory pricing is rather complicated — the government must prove that the company is selling at a loss and that it will recoup its losses by jacking up prices when it has a monopoly on the market. Civil cases have a lower evidentiary requirement, making it easier for the Justice Department to win its case. If proven guilty, TP-Link could be fined up to a maximum of $100 million. Furthermore, its executives could be slapped with a $1 million penalty, plus possible imprisonment of up to 10 years. This policy has continued under Trump's leadership, with Director of Criminal Enforcement Emma Burnham of the DOJ Antitrust Division saying that the agency will focus on companies and individuals, including “everyday products we all rely on, as well as for vital goods and services the government needs to ensure our national security and provide critical infrastructure.”Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher.

Chinese startup Manus AI, which works on building tools related to AI agents, has picked up $75 million in a funding round led by Benchmark at a roughly $500 million valuation, according to Bloomberg. Bloomberg's report suggests that the fresh round has quintupled the valuation of Manus, which previously raised somewhere north of $10 million from backers including Tencent and HSG (formerly Sequoia China). Manus came into the spotlight when the company launched a demo of a general AI agent that could complete various tasks in March. (In TechCrucnh's testing, it didn't work quite as well as advertised.) The company later launched paid subscription plans costing between $39 per month and $199 per month. Subscribe for the industry's biggest tech news Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch's coverage. Every Monday, gets you up to speed on the latest advances in aerospace. Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice.

This article is part of Gizmodo Deals, produced separately from the editorial team. We may earn a commission when you buy through links on the site. The Nintendo Switch 2 preorders went live last night. If you weren't one of the lucky few to score yours from Target, Best Buy, or Walmart, you'll have another shot at redemption by waiting up for the midnight release at your local store going into June 5. However, if you respect your sleep schedule enough to not do that, you can still secure yourself a sick new gaming console. It's at an affordable price point and has a wide catalogue of games just waiting to be played. Right now, you can even get it on sale. It's marked down between 12% and 16% for a limited time, and it's even bundled with a carrying case. It's a narrative sequel to Batman: Arkham Origins but puts you even more in control of the Dark Knight with the Meta Quest 3S' headset and wireless motion controllers. You'll also gain access to three months of Meta Quest+ which will allow you to play over 25 more games for no additional charge. Best of the bunch in my opinion honestly is Walkabout Minigolf. It's VR minigolf but it feels great to play, the course designs are super fun, and there's hidden golf balls on every course for you to find like a virtual Easter egg hunt. Just hanging out on the putting greens with you pals across multiple states. The new outside sensors allow for full-color passthrough, and a new action button allows you to switch quickly between virtual and mixed reality. Right now, you can get yourself the Meta Quest 3s bundled with a carrying case and Batman: Arkham Shadow for a good $58 off. The 128GB model has been discounted down to just $312 while the 256GB model is now down to just $415. It should hold you over hopefully until the Switch 2 is stocked on every shelf across America. Get the best tech, science, and culture news in your inbox daily. News from the future, delivered to your present. We may earn a commission when you buy through links on our sites.

The auto industry “has been so focused on autonomy and technology in the vehicle, it's driven prices to a place that most Americans simply can't afford,” chief commercial officer Jeremy Snyder said during the event, which Inside EVs live streamed. Interested buyers can place a $50 refundable reservation on the company's website. The base version of Slate's truck will squeeze 150 miles out of a 52.7kWh battery pack, which will power a single 150kW motor on the rear axle. For folks who get a little spooked at that number, Slate is offering a larger battery pack that it says will have about 240 miles of range. In its place there's a front trunk (or frunk) with 7 cubic feet of storage space, which happens to have a drain in case the owner wants to fill it with ice for that tailgate party. That towing capacity is lower than a more capable Ford F-150, and is even less than the smaller Ford Maverick, which can tow around 1,500 pounds. The Maverick has a 121.1-inch wheelbase and overall length of 199.7 inches Slate is deeply committed to the idea of customization, which sets it apart from any other EV startup (or traditional automaker). Slate is instead playing up the idea of wrapping its vehicles, something executives said they will sell in kits. Buyers can either have Slate do that work for them, or put the wraps on themselves. This not only adds to the idea of a buyer being able to personalize their vehicle, but it also cuts out a huge cost center for the company. As TechCrunch previously reported, the customization piece is central to how the company hopes to make up margin on what is otherwise a relatively dirt-cheap vehicle. But it's also part of the friendly pitch Slate is making to customers. Barman said Thursday that people can “make the Blank Slate yours at the time of purchase, or as your needs and finances change over time.” It's billing the add-ons as “easy DIY” that “non-gearheads” can tackle, and says it will launch a suite of how-to resources under the billing of Slate University. “Buy your accessories, get them delivered fast, and install them yourself with the easy how-to videos in Slate U, our content hub,” the website reads. A Slate authorized partner can come and do it for you.” The early library of customizations on Slate's website range from functional to cosmetic. Buyers can add infotainment screens, speakers, roof racks, light covers, and much more. Slate says people will be able to change their vehicle into, and back from, an SUV if they like — “no mechanics certification required.” All that said, Slate's truck comes standard with some federally mandated safety features such as automatic emergency braking, airbags, and a backup camera. The road to making a successful American automotive startup is littered with failures. In the last few years, Canoo, Fisker, and Lordstown Motors have all filed for bankruptcy. Those companies that are still around, like Rivian and Lucid Motors, are hemorrhaging money in an attempt to get high-volume, more affordable models to market. It's going after a low-cost EV first and foremost, and hopes to make that business viable by supplementing it with money from this deep customization play. But, much like Rivian and Lucid Motors, it also has deep-pocketed backers. And, aside from Bezos, has taken money from Mark Walter, Guggenheim Partners CEO and controlling owner of the LA Dodgers, as TechCrunch reported this month. Slate arguably could not have picked a more volatile time to make its debut, but it's also focused on domestic manufacturing, and may be insulated from some of the turmoil facing other startups and established automakers. “We believe vehicles should be affordable and desirable,” Barman said Thursday, adding that Slate's truck “is a vehicle people are actually going to love and be proud to own.” Bezos-backed Slate Auto debuts analog EV pickup truck that is decidedly anti-Tesla Wait, how did a decentralized service like Bluesky go down? Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell ‘hyper personalized' ads Report: Adam Neumann's Flow raises $100M+, more than doubles valuation to $2.5B Government censorship comes to Bluesky, but not its third-party apps … yet Columbia student suspended over interview cheating tool raises $5.3M to ‘cheat on everything'

The startup Slate Auto officially emerged from stealth mode late Thursday evening to debut its compact electric pickup truck. The company, which is partially backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, says it will sell the most basic version of its EV truck for about $25,000. Slate has been keeping details about its EVs under wraps, though some models have recently been spotted in the wild by sleuths or outright teased by the upstart automaker. The basic “Blank Slate” pickup that sells for that lowest price tag gets an estimated 150 miles of range from a 52.7-kilowatt-hour battery pack. It comes in only one color, a gray tone that's molded into its composite body panels, and offers only a single option: a larger 84.3-kWh battery that gives it an estimated 240 miles of range. (Slate did not quote a price for the larger battery option.) Slate CEO Chris Barman says that both the product and its production process have been designed from the outset to keep costs low. Instead, buyers can choose from a number of phone mounts. It's possible, however, that no two Slates on the roads will be identical. The $25K starting price is low, but Slate will offer more than 100 accessories—sold individually and in bundles—that buyers can install themselves or have installed by their Slate distributor for a set fee. Slate expects its average buyer to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on these accessories, with the higher costs for those who want to convert two-seat pickups into five-seat SUVs. The new automaker expects the two accessory kits that contain new body panels and roll structure, delivered in a flat pack, to be very popular. Required airbags for rear-seat passengers are built into the added roll cage that must be installed—with electronic sensors confirming its connection—before the newly converted Slate will restart. The target prices for each of these conversion kits is around $5,000, Barman says. It will have standard automatic emergency braking, for example, and the mandatory backup camera—the view of which is displayed in the driver's digital instrument cluster, because there's no central touchscreen. Other accessories include a console between the seats, kits to convert the standard manual window winders to electric systems, various seat covers, vehicle wraps, and of course various wheel styles to replace the standard 17-inch, five-lug steel wheels. Slate offers an optional SUV conversion that seats five. Barman says the battery cells, using a nickel-manganese-cobalt chemistry, will be supplied by Korean maker SK-On from a US production plant. They will power a single 150-kilowatt (201-horsepower) motor powering the rear wheels. That compares to the Maverick's 200-inch length, 73-inch width (again without mirrors), and 68- or 69-inch height. Slate offers a full 60-inch (5-foot) bed, versus the Maverick's 54 inches. Barman said Slate will target retail buyers to establish the brand and get as many personalized trucks on the road as possible to boost public awareness. Slate's EVs will also be sold to corporate customers purchasing the vehicles for fleets, Barman says, though she declined to offer a breakdown of what percentages of sales Slate estimates will go to those two sectors. The connection makes sense, since Slate Auto emerged from a startup lab partially funded by Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos. The online retailer already deploys tens of thousands of Rivian EV delivery vans, but a smaller EV could serve its purposes for specific uses as well. As Mark Twain once quipped, perhaps apocryphally: History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Anyone who's been following the auto business for about 20 years may have read Slate's news and sensed a faint echo, a distant and long-forgotten memory tugging at the corners of their minds. That would be V-Vehicles (later renamed NextAuto), a low-cost vehicle startup backed by famed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers; a few of its Silicon Valley cohorts; and Texas natural-gas magnate T. Boone Pickens. The company's intent was to create an ultra-low-cost, lightweight 40-mpg “V-Car” to be manufactured at a former headlight plant in Monroe, Louisiana. Buyers could wrap its white molded plastic body panels in any color they desired. It would be built from off-the-shelf parts and sold through a big-box store like Sam's Club, with a single stock number for simplicity. The V-Car was not a battery-electric vehicle; Pickens' participation pushed it toward natural-gas fueling. But the business model required startup funding from the US Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program to convert its plant. Ford, Nissan, and Tesla all received those loans in 2009—shortly followed by Fisker. Kleiner made two other automotive investments: Fisker Automotive and Think North America, a 2009 effort to manufacture the plastic-paneled, two-seat Norwegian Think electric car in the US. Here's hoping that Slate—whose little electric truck is an appealing size for many and seems affordable, especially to those without a burning desire to personalize their ride—fares somewhat better. Big Story: If Anthropic succeeds, a nation of benevolent AI geniuses could be born Scientists claim to have brought back the dire wolf Special Edition: The most dangerous hackers you've never heard of Exclusive: Up To 50% Off 6 Boxes With Factor Promo Code WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast.

This got me thinking:- How did analysts miss things so badly?- How do you cut through the fearmongering?- Why do you think people are valuing Alphabet more like a stock with low growth potential? - How did analysts miss things so badly?- How do you cut through the fearmongering?- Why do you think people are valuing Alphabet more like a stock with low growth potential? - How do you cut through the fearmongering?- Why do you think people are valuing Alphabet more like a stock with low growth potential? - Why do you think people are valuing Alphabet more like a stock with low growth potential? Youtube also increases ad load. More ads per video, combined with organic growth, higher engagement and wider distribution (smart TVs probably have insane metrics-- plus no real ad blockers there, either) mean they'll keep having display/video ads doing extremely well, too.[1] https://www.techspot.com/news/102765-who-prabhakar-raghavan-... [2] https://methodshop.com/why-google-search-sucks/ [1] https://www.techspot.com/news/102765-who-prabhakar-raghavan-... [2] https://methodshop.com/why-google-search-sucks/ reply reply reply