All the News that Matters

• Fedora 42 Nix Critical Privilege Escalation Fix GHSA-g3g9-5vj6-r3gj
  update to 2.31.4 fixes nix-daemon critical GHSA-g3g9-5vj6-r3gj (CVE-2026-39860) https://github.com/NixOS/nix/security/advisories/GHSA-g3g9-5vj6-r3gj

• Fedora 42 Thunderbird Update 149.0.1 Advisory FEDORA-2026-db2b4e5b64
  Update to latest upstream version.

• Ubuntu 25.10 Rack Advisory USN-8182-1 Security Issues and Threats
  Several security issues were fixed in Rack.

• Fedora 43 Skopeo Critical DoS Security Fix FEDORA-2026-75c2b7868a
  Automatic update for skopeo-1.22.2-1.fc43, podman-5.8.2-1.fc43, buildah-1.43.1-1.fc43. Changelog for skopeo * Tue Apr 14 2026 Packit - 1:1.22.2-1 - Update to 1.22.2 upstream release

• Fedora 43 Podman CVE-2026-34986 Denial of Service Security Update
  Automatic update for skopeo-1.22.2-1.fc43, podman-5.8.2-1.fc43, buildah-1.43.1-1.fc43. Changelog for skopeo * Tue Apr 14 2026 Packit - 1:1.22.2-1 - Update to 1.22.2 upstream release

• Fedora 43 libexif Medium Denial of Service Info Leak Vulnerability
  Update to 0.6.26, fixing several CVEs https://github.com/libexif/libexif/releases/tag/v0.6.26

• New Media Drivers Merged For Linux 7.1
  The media subsystem updates have been merged for the ongoing Linux 7.1 merge window and includes new hardware support...

• Proton 11 Enters Beta Testing with Support for Breath of Fire IV, Unknown Faces
  Valve released today the beta version of the upcoming Proton 11 open-source compatibility tool for Steam Play, based on Wine and additional components for playing Windows games on Linux systems.

• New NTFS File-System Driver Submitted For Linux 7.1
  Making today very exciting in Linux 7.1 merge window land was a pull request being sent out for introducing the new, modern NTFS file-system driver. Linus Torvalds has yet to comment if he's going to merge the new driver but it looks like it's ready for providing a better Linux NTFS experience over the current NTFS3 driver that was upstreamed by Paragon Software a few years ago and hasn't seen too much feature progress...

• FunOS: Ubuntu LTS with JWM and No Snaps
  With Ubuntu LTS under the hood and JWM on top, FunOS keeps things light, snap?free, and ready for you to assemble your own workspace.

• Linux 7.1 sched_ext Brings cgroup Sub-Scheduler Groundwork, Idle SMT Sibling Improvement
  The extensible scheduler "sched_ext" code for allowing Linux scheduling behavior to be defined via BPF programs is seeing some useful improvements with the in-development Linux 7.1 kernel...

• Linux Mint Will Adopt a Longer Development Cycle Starting with Linux Mint 23
  Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre revealed today in the monthly newsletter for March 2026 that Linux Mint will adopt a longer development cycle starting with the upcoming Linux Mint 23 release.

• How to Add User to Sudo Group
  Sudo users have the most authority over the system, including the ability to install, remove, update packages, and modify system files.

• Linux Mint Targets Christmas 2026 for Next Major Release
  Linux Mint 23 Alfa is now based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Linux kernel 7.0, marking the start of development for the project’s next major release.

• Rust 1.95 Released With Several Improvements
  Rust 1.95 was released to the wild today as the latest feature update to this popular programming language...

• Duane O’Brien Takes OSI’s Hot Seat
  O’Brien’s first job at OSI won’t be polishing the logo; it’ll be navigating a community still concerned over the group’s Open Source AI Definition and last year’s messy board election.

• Linux 7.1 Delivers Performance Regression Fix For Sheaves
  The Linux 7.1 kernel is bringing performance improvements for Sheaves, the per-CPU caching layer introduced several kernel cycles ago (Linux 6.18) for better efficiency on today's high core count hardware. Sheaves began as an opt-in feature but since Linux 7.0 is now being used for all caches...

• Zorin OS 18.1 Released With Lite Edition, Better App Support, and Linux 6.17
  Zorin OS 18.1 is now available with the new Lite edition, Linux kernel 6.17, LibreOffice 26.2, and broader hardware support.

• exFAT For Linux 7.1 Helps Reduce File Fragmentation, Fixes
  The exFAT file-system changes have landed for the in-development Linux 7.1 kernel...

• Raspberry Pi OS ends open-door policy for sudo
  Command prefix will require password by defaultThe latest version of Raspberry Pi OS now requires a password for sudo by default.…

• GDB source-tracking breakpoints
  One of the main abilities of a debugger is setting breakpoints.GDB: The GNU Project Debugger now introduces an experimental featurecalled source-tracking breakpoints that tracks the source line a breakpointwas set to. Introduction Imagine you are debugging: you set breakpoints on a bunch ofsource lines, inspect some values, and get ideas about how to change yourcode. […]

• Arch Linux's Archinstall 4.2 Fixes Botched Disk Encryption Security
  Archinstall 4.2 is now available as the latest update to this very convenient, text-based Arch Linux OS installer...

• Zorin OS 18.1 Boosts Windows App Support by 40%, Improves Window Tiling
  Zorin OS 18.1 is out today as the first minor update to the latest Zorin OS 18 series of this Ubuntu-based distribution that aims to convert more Windows users to switch to Linux due to its friendly look and feel.

• Find the Last Logged-In Users on Linux with Lastlog Command
  In this article, you will learn how to use the lastlog command on Linux to check the most recent login of all users or a specific user, as well as how to clear a single or all user’s last login records.

• Forlinx FAI-ARA240-M Packs Ara240 NPU into M.2 2280 Module
  Forlinx Embedded has officially launched the FAI-ARA240-M, an M.2-based AI accelerator built around the NXP Ara240 processor. The module provides a discrete NPU for offloading inference workloads from embedded host systems. The Ara240 processor was first seen during the launch of the OK-MX9596-C. Forlinx provides additional details with this module, which delivers up to 40 […]

• Encrypt Files on Linux with Hideout and Skip the Terminal
  This minimalist GTK app puts GPG?powered file encryption behind a drag?and?drop interface that even a Linux newbie can use on the first try.

• Intel's New Core Series 3 Is Its Answer To the MacBook Neo
  Intel has launched a new budget-focused Core Series 3 processor line for lower-cost laptops -- "Intel's response to budget CPUs that are appearing in laptops like the Apple MacBook Neo," writes PCWorld's Mark Hachman. From the report: Intel unexpectedly launched the Core Series 3, based on its excellent "Panther Lake" (Core Ultra Series 3) architecture and 18A manufacturing, for devices for home consumers and small business on Thursday. Intel announced that a number of partners will launch laptops based upon the chip, including Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, and others. Although those laptops will be available beginning today, a number of them will begin shipping later this year, the partners said. All of it -- from the specifications down to the messaging -- feels extremely aimed at trimming the fat and delivering to users just what they'll want. Intel's new Core Series 3 family just includes two "Cougar Cove" performance cores and four low-power efficiency "Darkmont" cores, with two Xe graphics cores on top of it. Intel isn't really worrying about AI, with an NPU capable of just 17 TOPS, though the company claims the CPU, NPU, and GPU combined reach 40 TOPS of performance. Yes, laptops will use pricey DDR5 memory, but at the lower end: just DDR5-6400 speeds. Support for three external displays will be included, though, maximizing multiple screens for maximum productivity. Intel used the term "all day battery life" without elaboration. [...] Intel Core Series 3 delivers up to 47 percent better single-thread performance, up to 41 percent better multi thread performance, and up to 2.8x better GPU AI performance, Intel said. Compared against Intel's older Core 7 150U, Intel is saying that the new chip will outperform it by 2.1 times in content-creation and 2.7 times the AI performance. [...] We still don't know what Intel will charge for the chip, nor do we know what you'll be able to buy a Core Series 3 laptop for.
  
  
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• Sperm Whales' Communication Closely Parallels Human Language, Study Finds
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: We may appear to have little in common with sperm whales – enormous, ocean-dwelling animals that last shared a common ancestor with humans more than 90 million years ago. But the whales' vocalized communications are remarkably similar to our own, researchers have discovered. Not only do sperm whale have a form of "alphabet" and form vowels within their vocalizations but the structure of these vowels behaves in the same way as human speech, the new study has found. Sperm whales communicate in a series of short clicks called codas. Analysis of these clicks shows that the whales can differentiate vowels through the short or elongated clicks or through rising or falling tones, using patterns similar to languages such as Mandarin, Latin and Slovenian. The structure of the whales' communication has "close parallels in the phonetics and phonology of human languages, suggesting independent evolution," the paper, published in the Proceedings B journal, states. Sperm whale coda vocalizations are "highly complex and represent one of the closest parallels to human phonology of any analyzed animal communication system," it added. [...] The new study shows that "sperm whale communication isn't just about patterns of clicks -- it involves multiple interacting layers of structure," said Mauricio Cantor, a behavioral ecologist at the Marine Mammal Institute who was not involved in the research. "With this study, we're starting to see that these signals are organized in ways we didn't fully appreciate before." The latest discovery around sperm whale speech has inched forward the possibility of someday fully understanding the creatures and even communicating with them. Project CETI has set a goal of being able to comprehend 20 different vocalized expressions, relating to actions such as diving and sleeping, within the next five years. A future where we're able to fully understand what the whales are saying and be able to have a conversation with them is "totally within our grasp," said David Gruber, founder and president of Project CETI. "We've already got a lot further than I thought we could. But it will take time, and funding. At the moment we are like a two-year-old, just saying a few words. In a few years' time, maybe we will be more like a five-year-old."
  
  
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• 'TotalRecall Reloaded' Tool Finds a Side Entrance To Windows 11 Recall Database
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Two years ago, Microsoft launched its first wave of "Copilot+" Windows PCs with a handful of exclusive features that could take advantage of the neural processing unit (NPU) hardware being built into newer laptop processors. These NPUs could enable AI and machine learning features that could run locally rather than in someone's cloud, theoretically enhancing security and privacy. One of the first Copilot+ features was Recall, a feature that promised to track all your PC usage via screenshot to help you remember your past activity. But as originally implemented, Recall was neither private nor secure; the feature stored its screenshots plus a giant database of all user activity in totally unencrypted files on the user's disk, making it trivial for anyone with remote or local access to grab days, weeks, or even months of sensitive data, depending on the age of the user's Recall database. After journalists and security researchers discovered and detailed these flaws, Microsoft delayed the Recall rollout by almost a year and substantially overhauled its security. All locally stored data would now be encrypted and viewable only with Windows Hello authentication; the feature now did a better job detecting and excluding sensitive information, including financial information, from its database; and Recall would be turned off by default, rather than enabled on every PC that supported it. The reconstituted Recall was a big improvement, but having a feature that records the vast majority of your PC usage is still a security and privacy risk. Security researcher Alexander Hagenah was the author of the original "TotalRecall" tool that made it trivially simple to grab the Recall information on any Windows PC, and an updated "TotalRecall Reloaded" version exposes what Hagenah believes are additional vulnerabilities. The problem, as detailed by Hagenah on the TotalRecall GitHub page, isn't with the security around the Recall database, which he calls "rock solid." The problem is that, once the user has authenticated, the system passes Recall data to another system process called AIXHost.exe, and that process doesn't benefit from the same security protections as the rest of Recall. "The vault is solid," Hagenah writes. "The delivery truck is not." The TotalRecall Reloaded tool uses an executable file to inject a DLL file into AIXHost.exe, something that can be done without administrator privileges. It then waits in the background for the user to open Recall and authenticate using Windows Hello. Once this is done, the tool can intercept screenshots, OCR'd text, and other metadata that Recall sends to the AIXHost.exe process, which can continue even after the user closes their Recall session. "The VBS enclave won't decrypt anything without Windows Hello," Hagenah writes. "The tool doesn't bypass that. It makes the user do it, silently rides along when the user does it, or waits for the user to do it." A handful of tasks, including grabbing the most recent Recall screenshot, capturing select metadata about the Recall database, and deleting the user's entire Recall database, can be done with no Windows Hello authentication. Once authenticated, Hagenah says the TotalRecall Reloaded tool can access both new information recorded to the Recall database as well as data Recall has previously recorded. "We appreciate Alexander Hagenah for identifying and responsibly reporting this issue. After careful investigation, we determined that the access patterns demonstrated are consistent with intended protections and existing controls, and do not represent a bypass of a security boundary or unauthorized access to data," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "The authorization period has a timeout and anti-hammering protection that limit the impact of malicious queries."
  
  
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• OpenAI's Big Codex Update Is a Direct Shot At Claude Code
  OpenAI is updating Codex with more agent-like capabilities, positioning it as a more direct rival to Anthropic's Claude Code. Some of the new features include the ability to operate macOS desktop apps, browse the web inside the app, generate images, use new workplace plug-ins, and remember useful context from past tasks. The Verge reports: Codex will now be able to operate desktop apps on your computer, OpenAI says in a blog post announcing the update. It can work in the background, meaning it won't interfere with your own work in other apps, and multiple agents can work in parallel. For developers, OpenAI says "this is helpful for testing and iterating on frontend changes, testing apps, or working in apps that don't expose an API." The feature will start rolling out to Codex desktop app users signed in with ChatGPT today and will initially be limited to macOS. OpenAI did not indicate a timeline for when use will expand to other operating systems. EU users will also have to wait, it said, adding that the update will roll out to users there "soon." Codex is also getting the ability to generate and iterate on images with gpt-image-1.5, new plug-ins for tools like GitLab, Atlassian Rovo, and Microsoft Suite, and native web browsing through an in-app browser, "where you can comment directly on pages to provide precise instructions to the agent." OpenAI also said it will also be easier to automate tasks, with users able to re-use existing conversation threads and Codex now able to schedule future work for itself and wake up automatically to continue on a long-term task. Codex will also be getting a memory feature allowing it to remember useful context from past experience, such as personal preferences, corrections, and information that took time to gather. OpenAI said it hopes the opt-in feature, which will be released as a preview, will help future tasks complete faster and to a quality that previously required detailed custom instructions. The personalization features will roll out to Enterprise, Edu, and EU users "soon."
  
  
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• Is Linux Mint In Trouble?
  BrianFagioli writes: The developers behind Linux Mint say the project is rethinking its release strategy and moving toward a longer development cycle, with the next version now expected around Christmas 2026. In a monthly update, project lead Clement Lefebvre said the team reached a "crossroads" and needs more flexibility to fix bugs, improve the desktop, and adapt to rapid changes across the Linux ecosystem. The upcoming development build, temporarily called Mint 23 "Alfa," is currently based on Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and includes Linux kernel 7.0, an unstable build of Cinnamon 6.7, and early Wayland related work. Mint is also replacing the long used Ubiquity installer with "live-installer," the same tool used by Linux Mint Debian Edition, allowing the project to unify installation infrastructure across its Ubuntu based and Debian based variants. While the team frames the changes as an opportunity to improve quality and reduce maintenance overhead, the shift has raised questions about the project's long term direction and whether Linux Mint may eventually lean more heavily on its Debian roots rather than its traditional Ubuntu base.
  
  
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• Europe Has 'Maybe 6 Weeks of Jet Fuel Left'
  The head of the International Energy Agency warned that Europe may have only "six weeks or so" of jet fuel left if oil supplies remain blocked by the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz stays disrupted. The Associated Press reports: IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol painted a sobering picture of the global repercussions of what he called "the largest energy crisis we have ever faced," stemming from the pinch-off of oil, gas and other vital supplies through the Strait of Hormuz. "In the past there was a group called 'Dire Straits.' It's a dire strait now, and it is going to have major implications for the global economy. And the longer it goes, the worse it will be for the economic growth and inflation around the world," he told The Associated Press. The impact will be "higher petrol (gasoline) prices, higher gas prices, high electricity prices," said Birol, speaking in his Paris office looking out over the Eiffel Tower. Economic pain will be felt unevenly and "the countries who will suffer the most will not be those whose voice are heard a lot. It will be mainly the developing countries. Poorer countries in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America," said the Turkish economist and energy expert who has led the IEA since 2015. But without a settlement of the Iran war that permanently reopens the Strait of Hormuz, "Everybody is going to suffer," he added. "Some countries may be richer than the others. Some countries may have more energy than the others, but no country, no country is immune to this crisis," he said.
  
  
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• Google, Pentagon Discuss Classified AI Deal
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Alphabet's Google is negotiating an agreement with the Department of Defense that would allow the Pentagon to deploy its Gemini AI models in classified settings, the Information reported on Thursday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the discussions. The two parties are discussing an agreement that would allow the Pentagon to use Google's AI for all lawful uses, according to the report. During the negotiations, Google has proposed additional language in its contract with the department to prevent its AI from being used for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous weapons without appropriate human control, the Information reported. The Pentagon will continue to deploy frontier AI capabilities through strong industry partnerships across all classification levels, a Pentagon official said, without confirming any talks with Google.
  
  
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• IPv6 Usage Reaches Historic 50% Across Google Services
  IPv6 usage briefly reached 50% across Google services for the first time, marking a major milestone for a protocol created in 1998 to solve IPv4's address shortage. Tom's Hardware reports: [...] IPv6 was dismissed early on as a headache-inducing, hard-to-implement complication that would hardly ever gain any traction -- despite offering 2^128 possible numbers, solving all network number assignments in one fell swoop. That changed over time by force of necessity, and Google's tracking graph shows that for a brief moment in time on March 28, 50% of worldwide users accessed the service over an IPv6 connection, marking a historic first. APNIC's stats show that the protocol is in use by 43% of the world, with Asia and the Americas inching ever close to those 50%. Cloudflare, meanwhile, shows that 40% of traffic is done in IPv6, an actually impressive figure if you consider it's measuring actual transferred packets rather than just counting addresses. The tried-and-true IPv4 and its well-known 123.456.789.123 format from 1980 offers ~4.3 billion addresses in theory, and around 3.7 billion in practice. That always sounded like a lot, but nobody could have predicted just how rapid the explosion of the Internet would be. IANA, the entity controlling the North-American IPv4 space, ran out of IPv4 addresses around 2011, while its European equivalent RIPE NCC could spare no more four-octet addresses nearly seven years ago in 2019. Asian, African, and Latin-American IP registries equally ran out during that timeframe.
  
  
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• Anthropic Rolls Out Claude Opus 4.7, an AI Model That Is Less Risky Than Mythos
  Anthropic released Claude Opus 4.7, calling it its strongest generally available model and an improvement over Opus 4.6 in areas like software engineering, instruction-following, tool use, and agentic coding. But the company says it is "less broadly capable" than the restricted Claude Mythos Preview, "which Anthropic rolled out to a select group of companies as part of a new cybersecurity initiative called Project Glasswing earlier this month," reports CNBC. From the report: The launch of Claude Opus 4.7 on Thursday comes after Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.6 in February. Anthropic said the new model outperforms Claude Opus 4.6 across many use cases, including industry benchmarks for agentic coding, multidisciplinary reasoning, scaled tool use and agentic computer use, according to a release. Anthropic said it experimented with efforts to "differentially reduce" Claude Opus 4.7's cyber capabilities during training. The company encouraged security professionals who are interested in using the model for "legitimate cybersecurity purposes" to apply through a formal verification program. Claude Opus 4.7 is available across all of Anthropic's Claude products, its application programming interface and through cloud providers Microsoft, Google and Amazon. The new model is the same price as Claude Opus 4.6, Anthropic said.
  
  
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• EU Age Verification App Announced To Protect Children Online
  The EU says a new age-verification app is technically ready and could let users prove they are old enough to access restricted online content without revealing their identity or personal data. Deutsche Welle reports: Once released, users will be able to download the app from an app store and set it up using proof of identity, such as a passport or national ID card. They can then use it to confirm they are above a certain age when accessing restricted content, without revealing their identity. According to the Commission, the system is similar to the digital certificates used during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed people to prove their vaccination status. The app is expected to support enforcement of the bloc's Digital Services Act, which aims to better regulate online platforms. This includes restricting access to content such as pornography, gambling and alcohol-related services. Officials say the app will be "completely anonymous" and built on open-source technology, meaning it could also be adopted outside the EU. [...] While there is no binding EU-wide law yet, the European Parliament has called for a minimum age of 16 for social media access. For now, enforcement would largely fall to individual member states, but the new app is intended to help platforms comply with future national and EU rules.
  
  
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• Researchers Induce Smells With Ultrasound, No Chemical Cartridges Required
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from UploadVR: A group of independent researchers built a device that can artificially induce smell using ultrasound, with no consumable cartridges required. [...] The team of four are Lev Chizhov, Albert Yan-Huang, Thomas Ribeiro, Aayush Gupta. Chizhov is a neurotech entrepreneur with a background in math and physics, Yan-Huang is a researcher at Caltech with a background in computation and neural systems, and Ribeiro and Gupta are co-researchers on the project with software engineering and AI expertise. Instead of targeting your nose at all, the device directly targets the olfactory bulb in your brain with "focused ultrasound through the skull." The researchers say that as far as they're aware, no one has ever done this before, even in animals. A challenge in targeting the olfactory bulb is that it's buried behind the top of your nose, and your nose doesn't provide a flat surface for an emitter. Ultrasound also doesn't travel well through air. The solution the researchers came up with was to place the emitter on your forehead instead, with a "solid, jello-like pad for stability and general comfort," and the ultrasound directed downward towards the olfactory bulb. To determine the best placement, they say they used an MRI of one of their skulls to "roughly determine where the transducer would point and how the focal region (where ultrasound waves actually concentrate) aligned with the olfactory bulb (the target for stimulation)". [...] According to the researchers, they were able to induce the sensation of fresh air "with a lot of oxygen", the smell of garbage "like few-day-old fruit peels," an ozone-like sensation "like you're next to an air ionizer," and a campfire smell of burning wood. While technically head-mounted, the current device does require being held up with two hands. But as with all such prototypes, it likely could be significantly miniaturized.
  
  
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• Bullet Train Upgrade Brings 5G Windows, Noise-Cancelling Cabins To Japan
  Some Japanese bullet trains will soon support premium private suites this October, featuring windows with embedded 5G antennas for steadier onboard Wi-Fi and NTT noise-cancelling cabin tech to reduce train noise. The 5G window antennas are designed to maintain line-of-sight connections as trains race past base stations at up to 285 km/h. The Register reports: Rail operator JR Central announced the new tech late last month and will initially deploy a couple of the suites on six trains. The carrier explained that the antennas come from a Japanese company called AGC that weaves microscopic wires through glass to form an antenna. JR Central will connect the windows to an on-train Wi-Fi router. AGC says rival tech relies on 5G signals reaching a train and then bouncing around inside before reaching the Wi-Fi unit. The company says antennas woven into train windows maintain line of sight to nearby 5G base stations. That matters because JR Central's Shinkansen can achieve speeds of up to 285 km/h, which means they speed past cellular network base stations so quickly that it's frequently necessary to reconnect to another radio. AGC says keeping a line of sight connection means its antennas allow increased 5G signal strength, so Wi-Fi service on board trains should be more stable and speedy. The sound-deadening kit JR Central will deploy is called Personalized Sound Zone (PSZ) and comes from Japan's tech giant NTT. The tech uses the same principles applied to noise-cancelling headphones -- determine the waveform of sound and project an inversion of that waveform that cancels out ambient noise.
  
  
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• UK Households To Be Urged To Use More Power This Summer As Renewables Soar
  Longtime Slashdot reader AmiMoJo shares a report from the Guardian: Households will be called on to boost their consumption of Great Britain's record renewable energy this summer to help balance the power grid and lower energy bills. Under the new plans, people could be encouraged to run dishwashers and washing machines or charge up their electric vehicles when there is more wind and solar power than the electricity grid needs. The plan will be delivered with the help of energy suppliers, which may choose to offer heavily discounted or free electricity to their customers during specific periods when the energy system operator predicts there will be a surplus of electricity. Many suppliers already offer more than 2 million households the opportunity to pay lower rates for electricity used during off-peak hours but this will be the first time that the system operator will use this tool to help balance the grid. The National Energy System Operator (Neso) hopes that by issuing a market notice to call on energy users to increase their consumption it can avoid making hefty payments to turn wind and solar farms off when demand for electricity is low, which are ultimately paid for through energy bills.
  
  
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• Nature Is Still Molding Human Genes, Study Finds
  An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Many scientists have contended that humans have evolved very little over the past 10,000 years. A few hundred generations was just a blink of the evolutionary eye, it seemed. Besides, our cultural evolution -- our technology, agriculture and the rest -- must have overwhelmed our biological evolution by now. A vast study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests the opposite. Examining DNA from 15,836 ancient human remains, scientists found 479 genetic variants that appeared to have been favored by natural selection in just the past 10,000 years. The researchers also concluded that thousands of additional genetic variants have probably experienced natural selection. Before the new study, scientists had identified only a few dozen variants. "There are so many of them that it's hard to wrap one's mind around them," said David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and an author of the new study. He and his colleagues found that a mutation that is a major risk factor for celiac disease, for example, appeared just 4,000 years ago, meaning the condition may be younger than the Egyptian pyramids. The mutation became ever more common. Today, an estimated 80 million people worldwide have celiac disease, in which the immune system attacks gluten and damages the intestines. The steady rise of the mutation came about through natural selection, the scientists argue. For some reason, people with the mutation had more descendants than people without it -- even though it put them at risk of an autoimmune disorder. Other findings are even more puzzling. The researchers found that genetic variants that raise the odds of a smoking habit have been getting steadily rarer in Europe for the past 10,000 years. Something is working against those variants -- but it can't be the harm from smoking. Europeans have been smoking tobacco for only about 460 years. The scientists can't see from their research so far what forces might be making these variants more or less common. "My short answer is, I don't know," said Ali Akbari, a senior staff scientist at Harvard and an author of the study. The researchers also found that some variants, like the one linked to Type B blood, became much more common in Europe around 6,000 years ago, while others changed direction over time. For example, a TYK2 immune gene variant that may have once been beneficial later became harmful because it increased tuberculosis risk. The study also found signs of natural selection in 44 out of 563 traits. Variants linked to Type 2 diabetes, wider waists, and higher body fat have become less common, possibly because farming and carbohydrate-heavy diets made once-useful fat-storing traits more harmful. Other findings, such as selection favoring genes linked to more years of schooling, are harder to interpret.
  
  
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• Boston Dynamics' Robot Dog Can Now Read Gauges, Spot Spills, and Reason
  Boston Dynamics has integrated Google DeepMind into its robotic dog Spot, giving it more autonomous reasoning for industrial inspections like spotting spills and reading gauges. Spot can also now recognize when to call on other AI tools. IEEE Spectrum reports: Boston Dynamics is one of the few companies to commercially deploy legged robots at any appreciable scale; there are now several thousand hard at work. Today the company is announcing that its quadruped robot Spot is now equipped with Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6, a high-level embodied reasoning model that brings usability and intelligence to complex tasks. [T]he focus of this partnership is on one of the very few applications where legged robots have proven themselves to be commercially viable: inspection. That is, wandering around industrial facilities, checking to make sure that nothing is imminently exploding. With the new AI onboard, Spot is now able to autonomously look for dangerous debris or spills, read complex gauges and sight glasses, and call on tools like vision-language-action models when it needs help understanding what's going on in the environment around it. "Advances like Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6 mark an important step toward robots that can better understand and operate in the physical world," Marco da Silva, vice president and general manager of Spot at Boston Dynamics, says in a press release. "Capabilities like instrument reading and more reliable task reasoning will enable Spot to see, understand, and react to real-world challenges completely autonomously." You can watch a demo of Spot's new capabilities on YouTube.
  
  
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• Open Source Powers the Planet — Get 35% Off Sitewide
  For a limited time, get 35% off sitewide with code EARTH26. Build in-demand skills, earn certifications, and grow your impact with training designed for real-world success. SAVE NOW
  
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• Implementing Secure Zero-Touch Provisioning in AI and Edge Infrastructure
  By Juha Holkkola, FusionLayer Group How DHCP Changed Connectivity In the late 1990s, the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) quietly catalyzed a revolution in digital connectivity. Before DHCP was introduced, connecting devices to a network involved manual entry of IP addresses, DNS servers, subnet masks, and gateways. Networks were fragile, prone to errors, and severely [0]
  
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• From DHCP to SZTP – The Trust Revolution
  By Juha Holkkola, FusionLayer Group The Dawn of Effortless Connectivity In the transformative years of the late 1990s, a quiet revolution took place, fundamentally altering how we connect to networks. The introduction of DHCP answered a crucial question, Where are you on the network?!, by automating IP address assignment. This innovation eradicated the manual configuration [0]
  
  The post From DHCP to SZTP – The Trust Revolution appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• Celebrating the Second Year of Linux Man-Pages Maintenance Sponsorship
  Sustaining a Core Part of the Linux Ecosystem The Linux Foundation has announced a second year of sponsorship for the ongoing maintenance of the Linux manual pages (man-pages) project, led by Alejandro (Alex) Colomar. This critical initiative is made possible through the continued support of Google, Hudson River Trading, and Meta, who have renewed their [0]
  
  The post Celebrating the Second Year of Linux Man-Pages Maintenance Sponsorship appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• Disaggregated Routing with SONiC and VPP: Lab Demo and Performance Insights  Part Two
  In Part One of this series, we examined how the SONiC control plane and the VPP data plane form a cohesive, software-defined routing stack through the Switch Abstraction Interface.` We outlined how SONiC’s Redis-based orchestration and VPP’s user-space packet engine come together to create a high-performance, open router architecture. In this second part, we’ll turn [0]
  
  The post Disaggregated Routing with SONiC and VPP: Lab Demo and Performance Insights  Part Two appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• Disaggregated Routing with SONiC and VPP: Architecture and Integration  Part One
  The networking industry is undergoing a fundamental architectural transformation, driven by the relentless demands of cloud-scale data centers and the rise of software-defined infrastructure. At the heart of this evolution is the principle of disaggregation: the systematic unbundling of components that were once tightly integrated within proprietary, monolithic systems.` This movement began with the separation [0]
  
  The post Disaggregated Routing with SONiC and VPP: Architecture and Integration  Part One appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• Kubernetes on Bare Metal for Maximum Performance
  When teams consider deploying Kubernetes, one of the first questions that arises is: where should it run? The default answer is often the public cloud, thanks to its flexibility and ease of use. However, a growing number of organizations are revisiting the advantages of running Kubernetes directly on bare metal servers. For workloads that demand [0]
  
  The post Kubernetes on Bare Metal for Maximum Performance appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• How to Deploy Lightweight Language Models on Embedded Linux with LiteLLM
  This article was contributed by Vedrana Vidulin, Head of Responsible AI Unit at Intellias (LinkedIn). As AI becomes central to smart devices, embedded systems, and edge computing, the ability to run language models locally — without relying on the cloud — is essential. Whether its for reducing latency, improving data privacy, or enabling offline functionality, local AI [0]
  
  The post How to Deploy Lightweight Language Models on Embedded Linux with LiteLLM appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• Automating Compliance Management with UTMStacks Open Source SIEM 8 XDR
  Achieving and maintaining compliance with regulatory frameworks can be challenging for many organizations. Managing security controls manually often leads to excessive use of time and resources, leaving less available for strategic initiatives and business growth. Standards such as CMMC, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOC2 and GDPR demand ongoing monitoring, detailed documentation, and rigorous evidence collection. Solutions [0]
  
  The post Automating Compliance Management with UTMStacks Open Source SIEM & XDR appeared first on Linux.com.
  

• A Simple Way to Install Talos Linux on Any Machine, with Any Provider
  Talos Linux is a specialized operating system designed for running Kubernetes. First and foremost it handles full lifecycle management for Kubernetes control-plane components. On the other hand, Talos Linux focuses on security, minimizing the user’s ability to influence the system. A distinctive feature of this OS is the near-complete absence of executables, including the absence [0]
  
  The post A Simple Way to Install Talos Linux on Any Machine, with Any Provider appeared first on Linux.com.
  

Engadget"Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics"

• PSA: Stop using your Casely Power Pods wireless charger immediately
  Casely has reannounced a recall of its Power Pods 5,000mAh MagSafe E33A charger after dozens of people were injured and one even killed by the defective devices, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC) announced. It's recommended that you stop using the devices immediately, dispose of them safely and seek a replacement from the manufacturer. 
  
  A year ago, Casely and the USPSC published a recall of 429,000 units of the power bank with the model number E33A. That followed 51 incidents of the devices "overheating, expanding or catching fire" and burning users in multiple cases. 
  
  However, many of the devices have remained in use and are even more dangerous than initially thought. "In August 2024, a 75-year-old woman from New Jersey, was charging her cell phone with the power bank on her lap when it caught on fire and exploded," the USCPSC reported. "The victim suffered second and third degree burns and later passed away from complications from her injuries." In another incident this year, a 47-year-old woman was charging her phone on a plane when it caught on fire and exploded, giving her first degree burns.
  
  As a result, the recall has been reissued due to "a risk of serious injury or death from fire and burn hazards to consumers," according to the Commission. 
  
  The defective Casely Power Pods 5,000mAh charger is identifiable by the Casely embossed logo on the front and model number E33A on the back. It was sold at various online retailers including getcasely.com and Amazon between 2022 and 2024.
  
  Casely is offering free replacement units as a remedy (it's not clear if you can get a full refund). Those seeking one should write "recalled" on the battery pack in permanent marker and submit a photo, along with a second photo showing the E33A model number as pictured above. Owners are instructed to dispose of them by contacting a facility that handles lithium-ion batteries. Do NOT throw them away with regular household waste, recycling, or standard battery disposal bins due to the risk of fire and explosion.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/general/psa-stop-using-your-casely-power-pods-wireless-charger-immediately-062120825.html?src=rss

• Bluesky blames DDoS attack for server outages
  Bluesky is once again having a wobble. The platform said some of its systems are down and that it’s “investigating an incident with service in one of our reginos” (that’s Bluesky’s typo, not mine). The issue appears to have started at 1:42AM ET and was still persisting as of 11AM when this story was originally published. Since then, the site has been experiencing intermitent interuptions, including at times to its status page where users should be able to monitor outages.
  
  At 7:47PM ET, the platform explained that it’s been attempting to mitigate “a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.” It said the attack had caused interruptions to users’ feeds, notifications, threads and search, all of which the Engadget team experienced first-hand at various points through the day. While DDoS attacks are frequently used as virtual smokescreens for hacks, Bluesky says it has “not seen any evidence of unauthorized access to private user data.” The social media service had another brief outage earlier this month.
  
  The outage is ongoing, but due to its intermittent nature it’s more of a rolling blackout than a power outage. Bluesky says it will provide another update on the situation by 1PM ET on April 17.
  
  Update, April 16, 8PM ET: This story was updated after publish with an of the outage from Bluesky.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/bluesky-blames-ddos-attack-for-server-outages-150515882.html?src=rss

• Reed Hastings is leaving Netflix after 29 years
  Netflix co-founder and current chairman Reed Hastings is leaving the streaming company’s board in June to focus on "his philanthropy and other pursuits," according to a shareholder letter released alongside Netflix9s Q1 earnings. Hastings has served as chairman of Netflix9s board since 2023, a role he assumed after stepping down as co-CEO and promoting Greg Peters in his place.
  
  "Netflix changed my life in so many ways, and my all‑time favorite memory was January 2016, when we enabled nearly the entire planet to enjoy our service," Hastings said in a statement. "My real contribution at Netflix wasn’t a single decision; it was a focus on member joy, building a culture that others could inherit and improve, and building a company that could be both beloved by members and wildly successful for generations to come. A special thanks to Greg and Ted, whose commitment to Netflix’s greatness is so strong that I can now focus on new things."
  
  Hastings founded Netflix in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail rental service with his co-founder and the company9s first CEO Marc Randolph. In 1999, Hastings became CEO, and eventually led the company through its transformation into a streaming service in 2007. Netflix started producing its own television series and movies in 2013, and in 2020, the company9s board named Ted Sarandos as Hasting9s co-CEO, in part to oversee its growing production business. Hastings stepped down as co-CEO in 2023 to become Netflix’s executive chairman, as then COO Greg Peters was promoted to co-CEO. Among his other contributions, Hasting is also the architect of Netflix9s infamous "culture memo," which codified the company9s high-performance culture.
  
  While he9ll no longer be on Netflix9s board, Hastings still has a seat on the board of AI startup Anthropic and media and financial software company Bloomberg. Netflix, for its part, is continuing to expand outside of the television and film business Hastings helped build, by offering a selection of curated party games, a growing library of video podcasts and live sports.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/reed-hastings-is-leaving-netflix-after-29-years-213136444.html?src=rss

• Perplexity brings its Personal Computer AI assistant to Mac
  Perplexity has just released Personal Computer. The software, which is available starting today for Mac, builds on the multi-model orchestration capabilities the company debuted with Perplexity Computer at the end of February. Like Claude Cowork (and, as of today, OpenAI Codex too), it9s a suite of computer use agents that can work with your files, apps, connectors and the web to complete complex and "even continuous workflows." 
  
  Perplexity suggests a few different use cases for Personal Computer, starting with the obvious. “You can ask Personal Computer to read your to-do list,” the company states. “In fact, you can ask it to DO your to-do list." It explains you can open the Notes app on your Mac, ask Personal Computer for help and the system will reason how to best assist you. In the process of tackling that task, it can work across all your files, as well as apps like Apple Messages. When needed, it will also employ multiple agents to complete a request. Like Anthropic did with Claude Cowork, Perplexity says you can also use its software to organize messy folders so files feature sensible names and there9s an easy-to-understand structure to everything.
  
  You can prompt Personal Computer with your voice, and you can even initiate and manage tasks from your phone. Perplexity says the app creates files in a secure sandbox, and any actions it takes are auditable and reversible. "A system that acts on your behalf needs to be useful and legible. It should feel like a team you manage, not a rogue employee with keys to your most important data," the company said.   
  
  Personal Computer for Mac is available starting today, beginning with Max subscribers. Perplexity said it would bring the app to its other users soon, prioritizing those who joined the waitlist for the experience. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/perplexity-brings-its-personal-computer-ai-assistant-to-mac-202045969.html?src=rss

• Call of Duty movie arrives on June 30, 2028
  A Call of Duty movie is still happening, but don9t hold your breath for it to hit screens any time soon. Today, the popular FPS9 social media revealed that the movie9s theatrical release date will be June 30, 2028. 
  
  A film adaptation of the game franchise was first revealed last year, and shortly after, we learned that Taylor Sheridan and Peter Berg would be serving as the producers. The duo, whose past credits include Friday Night Lights and Yellowstone, will also be co-writing the project under Berg9s direction. We still haven9t heard anything about the cast, or even what era of the long-running series will be depicted, so it seems like a safe bet that there9s still a ways to go before this wraps. But CoD is nothing if not a money-maker, so reimagining it as a summer blockbuster seems pretty expected.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/call-of-duty-movie-arrives-on-june-30-2028-200033481.html?src=rss

• Blackmagic Camera for iOS now has a companion Watch app
  Blackmagic Camera is one of the more powerful third-party smartphone camera apps available and it9s now even more useful for solo creators. Blackmagic Design just announced that the latest iOS version 3.3 now supports Apple Watch, letting you control the app and monitor video remotely from your wrist. It also includes ATEM camera control so you can use your iPhone as a live studio camera. 
  
  With the new Camera Apple Watch companion app, you can remotely control and monitor your iPhone from anywhere within Wi-Fi range. It lets you start and stop recording, control zoom and adjust settings like frame rate, shutter speed (angle), white balance and ISO with a tap. You can also see a view of your video for framing control, though a Watch screen is probably a bit too small to accurately check focus. 
  
  The Watch app will benefit solo creators who want to mount their iPhone on a tripod to record standup or vlogging activities. To set it up, you install the Watch app through your iPhone and it will automatically connect and sync to your device. 
  Use your iPhone as a broadcast camera? Sure, why notBlackmagic Design
  The other key feature is iPhone control from Blackmagic9s ATEM Mini switcher used by streamers and broadcasters. To use it, you need the $420 Blackmagic Camera ProDock that gives your iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 17 Pro Max an HDMI output, timecode, USB-C and other ports. Blackmagic Camera now lets you connect a single HDMI cable from the ProDock to an ATEM Mini switcher, then adjust settings, trigger recording, focus and zoom. It also offers a DaVinci primary color corrector so you can match and create digital film looks during live production. 
  
  Finally, Camera now supports Blackmagic9s "Focus and Zoom Demand" controls (a knob and handle) designed for broadcast cameras. When those controls and an iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max are connected via USB-C to a ProDock as shown above, you can zoom and focus Camera app video without taking your hands off the tripod handles. Together with the ATEM feature, it lets you use an iPhone as a full broadcast camera, which looks slightly weird but is pretty cool.
  
  On top of those features, Blackmagic Design also added ProRes RAW stabilization and general bug fixes and improvements. Blackmagic Camera for iOS 3.3 is available now as a free download from the Apple App Store.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/blackmagic-camera-for-ios-now-has-a-companion-watch-app-194529980.html?src=rss

• Meta is giving Threads on web a redesign that finally adds direct messages
  Meta is starting to test a long-overdue facelift for Threads on web. The company9s head of Threads Connor Hayes showed off a new look for the web version of Threads that finally adds direct messaging and makes it easier to navigate between multiple feeds.
  
  The new layout adds a bunch of new shortcuts to the site9s left rail, including saved posts, insights, activity, and the ability to move between different feeds. Those features have all been accessible on web before, but many were hard to find. For example, the only way to currently get to "insights" is to navigate to your own profile or save it as a "pinned" column. Most importantly, though, the update finally adds the Threads inbox, which has not been available to web users even though the feature was added to the app last June.
  
  It9s not clear when the new look will roll out, but Hayes said Meta has already started to test it and that the company will "be investing more here going forward." The last time the Threads website got a major update was last April, which added some basic functionality. But since then, Meta has focused much of its efforts on the Threads app, rather than the website. Some newer features, like disappearing "ghost posts," are able to be viewed on the web but can only be created in the app.
  
  Speaking of the Threads app, the web updates come one day after Hayes previewed some tweaks to how replies look on mobile. With the change, replies under a post will be indented slightly to make it easier to follow conversations. That change is rolling out now on iOS and currently "testing" on Android. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-giving-threads-on-web-a-redesign-that-finally-adds-direct-messages-192903284.html?src=rss

• The European Commission wants Google to share search engine data with competitors
  The European Commission has proposed new measures for Google aimed at bringing the tech giant9s search business into compliance with the Digital Markets Act. In order to allow third-party online search engines to be competitive with Google, the EC has recommended that Google permit those services to access its treasure trove of search engine data. As it stands, the proposal would require Google to let rivals see data points "such as ranking, query, click and view data, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms."
  
  "Data is a key input for online search and for developing new services, including AI," said Teresa Ribera, the Commission9s executive vice-president for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition. "Access to this data should not be restricted in ways that could harm competition. In fast-moving markets, small changes can quickly have a big impact. We will not allow practices that risk closing markets or limiting choice."
  
  European regulators have been using the Digital Markets Act to hammer at Google9s dominant market position for several years. Beginning in March 2024, Google was required to be in compliance with the DMA and it did plan some changes in accordance with the legislation. A year later, though, the Commission levied preliminary charges against Google arguing that Google Search and the Play Store had not met their obligations for market competition. Google offered some possible adjustments to how search results are displayed in response, but it seems the regulator is going to keep fighting for more robust changes to Google9s search business.
  
  If you think all that sounds like something Google is unwilling and unlikely to do, you9d be correct. For starters, the actual requirements for Google could change in the coming months. The EC is accepting comments on the proposed measures through May 1, and Google9s legal team is certain to have a lot of opinions to share. We9ve reached out to the company for a comment on these preliminary measures. A final, binding decision on Google9s next steps is due by July 27, so we9re expecting a lot of back-and-forth between the parties until that date.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-european-commission-wants-google-to-share-search-engine-data-with-competitors-192709530.html?src=rss

• Blizzard just made Overwatch’s best mode much worse
  While I dabble in other say they modified Mystery Heroes "to help keep the mode9s casual pace intact while mitigating some of the more extreme pain points it9s had in the past." That might have something to do with how the mode handled perks. In other modes, players earn perks (upgrades to their existing tools or entirely new abilities) throughout a match. In Mystery Heroes, they load into a round with random perks already equipped. That9s fun! I love the chaos of Mystery Heroes and trying to make things work with whatever hero and perks I have. 
  
  Now, perks are gone from Mystery Heroes. I kind of get it. Nixing them helps players clock what9s going on a bit faster — they won9t feel the need to quickly check which perks they have when they9re racing back to the action when the time is running out. Perks were only added to Overwatch a little over a year ago and they9ve helped make the game more enjoyable. Removing them from Mystery Heroes diminishes it compared with other modes, especially given that some heroes are now more oriented around their perks.
  OverwatchBlizzard Entertainment
  The other major change in Mystery Heroes is a switch from teams of five players to 6v6. I9m fine with 6v6 in other game types, but it makes Mystery Heroes much worse. 
  
  In other 6v6 formats, you typically have two tanks, two supports and two damage heroes. In Mystery Heroes, the defense might load in with four tanks and two supports (teams are limited to three heroes from any class after respawns). While tanks generally have lower health pools in 6v6 modes, that9s still an oppressive composition to run into. Attackers lack the agency to switch to other characters that can counter such a setup. For instance, if the attackers don9t spawn in as heroes that can get behind a chokepoint and take out those supports, they might never break through. That doesn9t make for a fun round. Trying to keep five other players alive as a solo support isn9t exactly a blast either.
  
  I’m not the only one who’s disappointed with these changes. In every single Mystery Heroes game I’ve played since the update, other players have lamented the loss of perks (the reaction to the 6v6 switch is more mixed). They9re protesting on Reddit and the added the big Stadium mode in 2025 and the game recently had a soft, successful relaunch. Even in this season, there are lots of positive tweaks, including some welcome hero updates (and some that are less welcome) and the return of post-match awards. New damage hero Sierra is rad too. 
  
  The Mystery Heroes changes, though, are a step in the wrong direction. I dearly hope Blizzard reverses course on those soon. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/blizzard-just-made-overwatchs-best-mode-much-worse-185114683.html?src=rss

• Playdate Season 3 is coming later this year
  Playdate is getting a third season of curated, surprise games, Panic announced today. We don't know much beyond the fact that Season Three is officially happening, but Panic's Head of Playdate Greg Maletic said in an announcement video that it will be here "in time for the holidays" this year. Considering we had to wait a whole three years for Season Two to come out following Season One's release with the console in 2022, that doesn't sound so bad.
  
  Panic hasn't yet said how many games Season Three will include, or how much it will cost. While Season One had a total of 24 games — with a release schedule of two games per week for 12 weeks — last year’s Season Two had half the amount (plus Blippo+), and cost $39. But that drop in quantity thankfully didn't mean a drop in quality. Season Two was great, with a collection of games that felt stronger overall than the first. I, for one, can't wait to see what Season Three brings. In other exciting news, Panic also announced today that the much, much-awaited game Office Chair Curling is finally available for purchase on Playdate and Steam, with the option for online cross-play.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playdate-season-3-is-coming-later-this-year-181340117.html?src=rss

• A first look at Metro 2039 shows how its Ukrainian developer turned the darkness up to 11
  If the real world isn’t grim enough for you, Ukranian developer 4A Games has your back: Metro 2039 has been announced and is scheduled to arrive this winter. And based on the developer’s first look at the title, Metro 2039 looks to be an even darker affair than previous titles in the series. A tall order, but the real-world turmoil that has enveloped 4A Games since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sounds like it has turned into a painful inspiration for the developer.
  
  The lengthy cinematic reveal, which also contains a brief bit of gameplay at the end, doesn’t give much of the story away. But it does serve to place you right in the ruined, terrifying world of the Metro series. Metro 2039 arrives about 25 years after a nuclear apocalypse wiped out most life on the planet. The series focuses on survivors who live in Moscow’s ruined metro system. 4A says that this time out, the different underground factions have been united by a group known as “the Novoreich,” complete with a new ruler, the Spartan known as Hunter.
  
  Despite Hunter promising “salvation and a new life” for the survivors left on the surface, things aren’t exactly rosy underground. As you might expect, this supposedly “united” society is still a complete disaster, with propaganda, authoritarian rule and violence the hallmark of the regime.
  Screenshot from Metro 2039.4A Games
  The Metro series is based on novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky, a Russian author who has been in exile due to his public denouncement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 4A Studios says that while this new game isn’t based specifically on one of his works, they worked in collaboration with Glukhovsky on the story for Metro 2039 “shaped by shared values of freedom and truth, and informed by the harsh realities of the world today.”
  
  In statements from the studio, 4A directly acknowledges the conditions that Metro 2039 was created under. “Many developers continue to work from multiple locations, facing daily challenges never anticipated,” the studio says. “Through power outages, reliance on generators, and disruptions from missile and drone attacks, development has continued – driven by resilience, shared support, and a commitment to the work.”
  
  It goes on to state that: “The war has directly shaped the development of Metro 2039, with its story focused acutely on choices, actions, consequences, and the cost of securing a future. While told from a distinctly Ukrainian perspective, Metro 2039 remains an authentic Metro story.” While the Metro series has been unfailingly bleak, it’s not hard to imagine how Russia’s invasion could have influenced the storytelling coming out of a Ukranian studio with an exiled Russian being part of the story team. But the limited bit of the game we’ve seen so far doesn’t make anything too explicit.
  Screenshot from Metro 20399s reveal trailer.4A Games
  The trailer shows off the new player-character known as The Stranger, the first voiced protagonist in the series (though we don’t hear him do anything but scream in the preview). The Stranger has apparently been surviving in the above-ground wasteland but is forced to return to the metro. The little bit of gameplay we saw was the standard first-person shooter view of The Stranger heading underground to be immediately ambushed by a pretty horrific monster that he barely escapes from — he’s then dragged to “safety” by a group of survivors who just get the doors to their shelter shut before being overrun by a larger horde. Creepy stuff.
  
  The rest of the preview largely feels like a dream (or nightmare) sequence — but while it’s hard to put together what is going on, there’s no doubt that the detail in the environments and characters is top-notch. Given that the last metro game, Metro Exodus, was released way back in 2019, it’s fair to say that we’re getting a more graphically impressive rendering of ruined Moscow and the tunnels beneath it.
  
  There’s no exact release date yet, but 4A Games says Metro 2039 will arrive this winter for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/a-first-look-at-metro-2039-shows-how-its-ukrainian-developer-turned-the-darkness-up-to-11-171500713.html?src=rss

• OpenAI's latest Codex update builds the groundwork for its upcoming super app
  Last month, following reporting from The Wall Street Journal, OpenAI confirmed it was working on a desktop super app that would combine ChatGPT, its Codex coding agent and Atlas web browser into one cohesive experience. OpenAI is not releasing that application today. Instead, it9s pushing out a major update to Codex that significantly expands what that software can do. However, the new release offers a glimpse of what OpenAI hopes to build with its latest effort.  
  
  "We9re building the super app out in the open," said Thibault Sottiaux, the head of Codex, during a press briefing held by OpenAI. "This release is about developers. In the future, we will broaden it up to a wider audience." Until then, the latest version of Codex offers developers multi-purpose AI agents that can work across a "larger surface area," while being more proactive. In practice, that translates to a host of new capabilities, starting with computer use. 
  
  The agents inside of Codex can interact with other apps on your PC. When prompting one of OpenAI9s models, you can name a specific program or let it determine the best application for the job. Computer use is available in competing apps like Claude Cowork, but where OpenAI believes Codex offers an edge in that department is in the "secret sauce" it built to allow an agent to run an app without bogging down your entire system, so the two of you can work in tandem. At the same time, OpenAI is releasing 111 new plugins for Codex that combine skills, app integrations and model context protocol server connections to give Codex more ways to gather context and use the tools developers depend on for their work.
  
  The company has also added a built-in browser, with a commenting system that allows you to prompt Codex to make tweaks to specific parts of a webpage or web app you9re building. In the demo OpenAI showed, one member of the Codex team used this tool to instruct Codex to change the margins on a graph so that the y axis wasn9t cut off. Complementing this is built-in image generation. Codex can use gpt-image-1.5 to create product concepts, mockups, frontend designs and even assets for simple games. It also allows Codex to use screenshots to verify it9s on the right track with a user request.   
  
  With today9s update, OpenAI is also previewing a pair of memory features. The first allows Codex to recall context from previous tasks to inform how it goes about future prompts. According to OpenAI, with time, this will allow Codex to complete requests faster and to a higher standard. The app will also use the context it9s gathered to suggest proactive actions. For example, at the start of your day, it might suggest you respond to a comment a coworker left on a Google Doc draft you wrote. 
  
  If you want to try the updated Codex for yourself, OpenAI is starting to roll out the new version to desktop app users who are logged in with their ChatGPT account. Computer use is available to macOS users first, with availability for people in the EU and UK to follow soon. Similarly, Brits and Europeans will need to wait to try the memory features OpenAI has built into Codex.  
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-latest-codex-update-builds-the-groundwork-for-its-upcoming-super-app-170000019.html?src=rss

• Google Chrome makes it easier to wrangle different tabs in AI Mode
  Love 9em or hate 9em, no modern browser is complete without robust tab support, and so too would it seem Google9s AI Mode. Starting today, the company is rolling out an update to users in the US that makes the tool better at interacting and understanding tabs. 
  
  To start, the next time you use AI Mode on Chrome for desktop and click on a link, the chatbot will open a new side-by-side interface that allows you to both browse the new webpage and ask questions of AI Mode. The connection allows the chatbot to maintain the context of the search that brought you to that website in the first place. 
  
  For instance, say you9re looking for a new coffee maker to buy for your apartment. After AI Mode finds a handful of different models for you to compare, you can click on one to go to the manufacturer9s website and ask additional questions of the chatbot like "how easy is this to clean?" Thanks to the expanded context window, you don9t need to refer to the specific name of the model.   
  
  Meanwhile, if you have an existing tab or group of tabs that you9d like AI Mode to factor into a new search, you can do that now too. From the redesigned Plus menu, just click the new option that9s there. While you9re in the Plus menu, you can also prompt AI Mode to consider other materials, including images and PDFs, alongside any relevant tabs.   
  
  In testing, Google says users found the integration translated to less tab switching, and made it easier to focus. Mike Torres, vice-president of product for Chrome, said the new features represent a broader effort by Google to bring practical AI capabilities to its web browser. Torres added the company would soon bring today9s updates to more places around the world.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-chrome-makes-it-easier-to-wrangle-different-tabs-in-ai-mode-170000914.html?src=rss

• Intel launches new Core Series 3 chips for mainstream laptops
  Intel has unveiled its new Core Series 3 chips, the official title for its Wildcat Lake-codenamed series intended for mainstream and value-oriented laptops. Built using the same Intel 18A process as its Core Ultra Series 3 chips, they’re significantly more powerful than the previous generation and promise "exceptional battery life" and "boosted AI-ready performance."
  
  Intel says the Core Series 3 offers up to 47 percent better single-thread performance and 41 percent better multi-thread performance, as well as 2.8x better GPU AI performance compared to a five-year-old PC. Stacked up against its last-gen Intel Core 7 150U processors, the new mobile chip uses up to 64 percent lower processor power and is capable of 2.7x AI GPU performance. In other words, expect more grunt and improved efficiency.
  
  At the top end of the lineup sits the six-core Intel Core 7 360, which has a P-core Max Turbo frequency of 4.8GHz and NPU TOPS performance of 17. This scales down as you move through the other six-core options, and there’s also a five-core Core 3 processor at the entry level with a more modest GPU.
  
  Intel promises all-day battery life, rated at 12.5 hours in the office and 18.5 hours for streaming from Netflix. As for connectivity, there’s support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The Core Series 3 chips will be making their way into a variety of laptops throughout 2026, including Acer’s Aspire Go 14, 15 and 16, the ASUS Vivobook 14/15/17 and ExpertBook B5 Flip, B3 G2 and P3 G2. The likes of Dell, Samsung and Lenovo will announce their own Core Series 3 devices in the near future.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/intel-launches-new-core-series-3-chips-for-mainstream-laptops-164821846.html?src=rss

• Gemini can now draw on your Google data to personalize the images it generates
  Your Google Photos library could soon influence the kind of images you can generate with Gemini. After letting users personalize the AI assistant9s responses with data from Gmail, Search and YouTube, Google says it9s bringing that same "Personal Intelligence" to Nano Banana 2 to make it easier for users to create personalized images with the AI model.
  
  The goal is to have the data affiliated with your Google account — your YouTube history, emails, Google Photos, etc. — provide context to Nano Banana 2 so you don9t have to. Rather than prompting Gemini9s image generation model with information about you or photos of your belongings, a direction to "create a picture of my desert island essentials" should produce an image that includes the things you care about without any extra context. Similarly, if you use labels in Google Photos to identify people or pets, you can tell Gemini to "create a hand-drawn illustration of mom," and it should be able to use Google Photo9s labels to find the right reference photo and create an image of the right person.
  Google
  If Gemini creates images that don9t look right, you can still send a follow-up prompt to refine the result, or select a new source image from Google Photos with the "+" button. Google says you can also click the "Sources" button to view what images the AI referenced in the first place, or ask it directly for the attribution and sources used for a specific image.
  
  Personalized user data is one of the unique advantages Google has over companies offering competing AI assistants, so expanding Personal Intelligence to an already popular feature like image generation is a natural way to build on that lead. For now, this more personalized version of Nano Banana 2 is available in the Gemini app for eligible AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. Google says the feature will come to Gemini in Chrome and other users "soon."
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-can-now-draw-on-your-google-data-to-personalize-the-images-it-generates-160000269.html?src=rss

• The first real trailer for the Street Fighter movie is filled with crowd-pleasing moments
  We finally have a real-deal trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter movie, after a short teaser dropped at The Game Awards last year. This is nearly three minutes of fighting, silly dialogue and, of course, Easter eggs from the games.
  
  To the latter point, there9s a scene of Ken beating up a car like in the bonus stages from Street Fighter II and footage of Ryu powering up one of his famous Hadoken fireballs. There9s even a cheeky reference to Chun-Li9s notoriously-large and powerful thighs. This is all helped along by the fact that the actors all look very silly and mostly accurate to the games.
  
  The plot looks to be fairly standard for this type of adaptation. There9s a big, important fighting tournament and Chun-Li is recruiting people from around the globe, acting like the franchise9s Nick Fury or something. Ken and Ryu are beefing, M. Bison is involved in a criminal conspiracy (big surprise) and everyone else is punching and/or making snarky asides. It looks campy as hell, which is a good thing.
  
  Street Fighter is directed by Kitao Sakurai, who made the film Bad Trip and was heavily involved with The Eric Andre Show. It hits theaters on October 16.
  
  The cast is actually stacked. Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji lead the film as Ken and Ryu, but Jason Momoa is playing Blanka and Curtis 950 Cent9 Jackson is portraying Balrog. Other actors involved include David Dastmalchian, Callina Liang, Cody Rhodes and Orville Peck.
  
  This is the third attempt at a live-action Street Fighter adaptation. The 1994 film is famous for Raul Julia9s iconic performance as M. Bison and 20099s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is famous for being very bad.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/the-first-real-trailer-for-the-street-fighter-movie-is-filled-with-crowd-pleasing-moments-153145868.html?src=rss

• Meta isn't setting its Oversight Board free just yet
  The Oversight Board — the policy body Meta created to weigh its most impactful moderation rulings — has seen its role within Mark Zuckerberg's empire come into question due to shifting content policy priorities and dwindling investment. The Oversight Board has taken steps to formalize its long-contemplated desire to work with other companies, but Engadget has learned Meta has thus far declined to move forward with that process. 
  
  Over the last year, board members have become increasingly interested in artificial intelligence policy and how their experience shaping Meta's content rules could translate into advising companies in the generative AI space. That interest has intensified as some AI companies have privately signaled they would be open to working with the board, according to a source familiar with the organization who was not permitted to speak publicly. The board began talks with Meta last fall about the possibility, which would require the company to sign off on changes to the legal documents that govern the board's operations. But Meta officials have not indicated whether the company is willing to make those changes, which would likely require approval from top executives. 
  
  Platformer, which first reported on Meta's budget negotiations with the Oversight Board, noted that the company "has long encouraged the board to seek additional funding sources." So far, no other company has publicly shown interest in working with the group, though the board has had conversations with other firms behind the scenes. 
  
  Oversight Board co-chair Paolo Carozza told Engadget in December that there had been "really preliminary" discussions between the board and AI companies, though he declined to name which ones in particular. "It feels like quite a different moment now, largely because of generative AI, LLMs, chatbots [and] the way that a variety of retail-level users of these technologies are facing a whole new set of challenges and harms that's attracting a lot of scrutiny," he said at the time. 
  
  Meta has readily agreed to amend the board's governing documents in the past — like when the trust that controls the Oversight Board's budget funded a new organization to mediate content moderation disputes in Europe. While Meta executives once promoted the idea of its ostensibly independent Oversight Board working with other social media platforms, the prospect of the group working with a competitor as it pursues AI superintelligence is apparently more complicated. 
  
  Over the last five years, board members have received briefings from officials at Meta about the inner workings of its moderation systems and other non-public details as part of their work with the company. That raises practical questions about how the board would safeguard Meta's proprietary information, as well as larger strategic questions about whether Meta would want its Oversight Board to work with some of the companies it's now fiercely competing with, the source said. It's not clear how invested Meta's current leadership is in ensuring a future for the board. Former president of global affairs Nick Clegg, who was one of the most vocal champions of the board's work, left the company last year.
  
  Meanwhile, other board members have publicly made the case that the group, which consists of free speech and human rights experts from around the world, is well-positioned to guide AI companies grappling with an increasing number of real-world harms. When Anthropic published a "Claude Constitution" earlier this year, the board published a lengthy analysis from member Suzanne Nossel arguing that Claude also needed the kind of "oversight" the board has provided for Meta. She made a similar argument for the wider AI industry in an op-ed in The Guardian last month.
  
  While Nossel denied that she was directly pitching the Oversight Board to Anthropic, she said that AI companies face many of the "same dilemmas" as social media platforms. "When the board was first created, there was the notion that we might work across the industry," she told Engadget. "Now, as the world shifts toward an AI-centric paradigm, we're very interested in what our experience can bring to that conversation." 
  
  Oversight Board members, who naturally have a vested interest in expanding their purview, aren't the only members of the industry who have warned that generative AI platforms are essentially speed-running social media companies' playbook. A former OpenAI researcher recently wrote that "OpenAI Is Making the Mistakes Facebook Made," citing the AI company's moves toward optimizing for engagement and its plans for in-app advertising. The researcher cited Meta's Oversight Board as an example of the kind of independent governance that's needed in the AI industry.
  
  The question of working with other companies has taken on new urgency as the Oversight Board faces the possibility that it will lose its backing from Meta. In a statement, a Meta spokesperson pointed to previous reports that Meta has committed to funding the board through 2028 and said that "nothing has changed." But a source familiar with the board tells Engadget that Meta has so far only handed over half of the smaller tranche of 2028 funds to the board amid ongoing discussions about its future, including whether it will expand its purview beyond Meta. 
  
  There are also very real questions about how the Oversight Board fits into Meta's current strategy around content moderation. Zuckerberg announced last year that Meta was shifting away from most proactive moderation, ending fact-checking in the United States and rolling back hate speech rules. Zuckerberg himself reportedly led the push for these changes following a meeting with then President-elect Donald Trump. The Oversight Board, which Meta has sometimes asked to advise on major policy changes, was not consulted. The company recently said it plans to reduce the number of human moderators in favor of AI-based systems.
  
  "The Oversight Board is currently engaged in meaningful discussions with Meta regarding its future and the evolution of its model to ensure the organization can address the most urgent emerging challenges in AI governance, standards, and accountability," an Oversight Board spokesperson said in a statement. "At this time, no decisions have been made about the Board’s future, and the organization’s day-to-day work and mandate remain unchanged.”
  
  Critics have long said that the board, which has received more than $280 million from Meta, moves far too slowly. In a little more than five years of operation, the board has published more than 200 decisions about specific moderation issues, which Meta is required to uphold. Those decisions — a tiny fraction of the millions of requests it receives — can take months, though the board can opt to move more quickly. The board has also made hundreds of policy recommendations, which Meta has to respond to but isn't required to implement. The company has agreed to at least some changes in response to 75 percent of recommendations, according to the board. 
  
  For the Oversight Board, working with a company besides Meta would begin to address some of the challenges it now faces. It would boost the group's credibility at a time when Meta seems to be re-evaluating its relationship with the board, and it would open up the possibility of new sources of funding. But the situation underscores another long-simmering tension when it comes to the role of the "independent" oversight organization. Meta has always been in control of how much influence the group can actually have. And it's not clear that the company is ready to let the board, which has spent the last five years learning the minutiae of Meta's content moderation and policy processes, advise the companies it's now competing with.
  
  During its work with Meta, the Oversight Board has weighed in on its rules for AI several times. The board has criticized the company's "manipulated media" policy that governs deepfakes and other content, which led to Meta adopting new rules around AI labeling. In its most recent decision dealing with AI, the board urged Meta to invest in better AI detection tools and to collaborate more closely with other platforms. The company has not yet formally responded to those recommendations. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-isnt-setting-its-oversight-board-free-just-yet-153000172.html?src=rss

• Meta Quest headset prices are going up on April 19
  The RAM crisis has prompted another company to jack up hardware prices. Meta says it will be increasing the price of Quest headsets on April 19. The Meta Quest 3 will get a $100 hike to $599, while the Quest 3S will be $50 more expensive at $350 (for a version with 128GB of storage) and $450 (256GB).
  
  Meta is blaming the increases on the rising costs of RAM, which has skyrocketed in price due to a shortage of chips as AI companies gobble up as much memory as they can for their data centers. Sony recently bumped up the prices of PS5 consoles and the PlayStation Portal handheld for similar reasons. Microsoft made its Surface PCs more expensive this week too.
  
  Meta Quest accessories are staying at the same prices, but refurbished Quest units are somehow getting more expensive as well. Refurbished Quest 3S units will be also be $50 more at $320 (128GB) and $410 (256GB). Meta is increasing the price of a refurbished Quest 3 by $100 to $550. I’m not exactly sure how the company can pin those changes on increased manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, Meta told The Verge that it doesn’t expect to increase the prices of its smart glasses anytime soon.
  
  Correction April 16, 2026, 11:28AM ET: This story initially stated that the price of a refurbished Quest 3 is increasing by $170. It’s going up by $100. We regret the error.
  
  
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-quest-headset-prices-are-going-up-on-april-19-143259031.html?src=rss

• Anna's Archive told to pay Spotify and record labels $322 million over unprecedented music scraping
  The open-source library and search engine Anna’s Archive has been ordered to pay Spotify and the three of the world’s largest music labels $322 million in damages after it claimed to have scraped the entirety of the streaming platform’s library of music.
  
  Spotify, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sued Anna’s Archive in January for a slightly comical $13 trillion. They alleged Anna9s Archive had illegally scraped 86 million songs — a significant chunk of all the music on the planet — and intended to make them available for download via BitTorrent. At the time, Spotify called the scraping a "brazen theft of millions of files containing nearly all of the world’s commercial sound recordings."
  
  In a since-deleted blog post, Anna9s Archive stated the scraping was an act of preservation. Still, a New York federal judge sided with the plaintiffs after the archive9s anonymous operator failed to respond to the lawsuit.
  
  The court order finding Anna9s Archive guilty of direct copyright infringement, breach of contract and violation of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) was filed on April 14. A further claim of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was dismissed by the judge.
  
  The total breakdown of damages includes $7.5 million to each of Sony and Universal Music and $7.2 million to Warner Music, with the remaining $300 million going to Spotify. The latter figure amounts to $2,500 for each of the 120,000 scraped music files already made available by Anna’s Archive. The remainder of the 86 million files were due to be released to the public at a later date.
  
  The court also ordered Anna’s Archive to "immediately destroy all copies and phonorecords of any work ‘scraped,’ downloaded, copied or otherwise extracted from Spotify," but whether it actually does this, or indeed hands over a penny of the damages, remains to be seen. The bizarre reality of this case is that the person (or people) behind Anna’s Archive remains a mystery.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/annas-archive-told-to-pay-spotify-and-record-labels-322-million-over-unprecedented-music-scraping-151034032.html?src=rss

• Spotify debuts a new UI just for tablets
  Spotify has a new look today for listeners on tablets. The streaming service’s updated tablet UI now provides adaptive orientation, switching between portrait and landscape layouts rather than simply resizing the interface when changing how the device is held.
  
  Spotify9s tablet app now sports a collapsible sidebar so listeners can take advantage of their larger screen space when watching a music video or podcast. Parallel browsing lets you continue to scroll through the app while a video or lyrics are in the sidebar, and the "switch to video" toggle has been made more prominent.
  
  The new design had appeared for some users earlier this year during tests. The final version is rolling out today for both iPad and Android devices.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-debuts-a-new-ui-just-for-tablets-130000533.html?src=rss

• Canva starts previewing a more powerful version of its AI assistant
  Adobe isn't the only company releasing a new AI assistant this week. Ahead of its Create event in Los Angeles today, Canva announced Canva AI 2.0. Building on its existing AI assistant, the company is billing the release as its most significant update since the platform first launched in 2013, and the culmination of years of investment to build its own foundational design models. 
  
  As you might imagine, it all starts with a conversational interface that allows you to describe an idea or goal and the system will start generating a design to match. Under the hood, there's a new orchestration layer that allows the model to use all of Canva's disparate tools to accomplish complex, multi-step tasks. For instance, the company suggests you could use Canva AI to create a multi-channel advertising campaign, and the software will generate everything you need to get that off the ground. 
  For brands, Canva AI 2.0 can adapt to their design needs. Canva
  If edits are required, the company says Canva AI avoids one of the pitfalls of many other image generation models. It's possible to edit every visual element the system generates, just like if they were created with a traditional image editor. As a result, you can do things like swap out images and tweak fonts without affecting any other part of a design. To bring everything together, Canva has built persistent memory into the tool. The more you use Canva AI, the better the system will get at applying your personal taste and style to future generations. According to the company, it also has a context window that is long enough to maintain coherence until you arrive at a final design.    
  
  Alongside those enhancements, Canva is adding support for new workflows that expand what you can do with its software, starting with connections that allow its models to pull data from other apps, including Notion, Slack, Zoom, Gmail, Google Calendar and more. Users can also schedule tasks for Canva AI to complete in the background, and the company has even baked in deep research capabilities into the tool.
  
  The coding function Canva previously offered has been upgraded to include support for HTML imports, allowing users to bring any HTML file or AI-generated experience into Canva's visual editor to tweak the design of it without breaking things. For brands, the company is also offering a tool that can process their visual identity and apply it to new and existing designs.   
  Canva's updated coding agent now support HTML imports. Canva
  As a casual observer, it might seem like Canva is trend chasing, but Danny Wu, the company's head of AI, argues the new AI tools represent a natural evolution for Canva. "This is something we've been dreaming of and working towards for quite a while," he tells Engadget. "Even before ChatGPT was a thing, we were thinking, 'what if we don't have a template that matches your needs?' … So I wouldn't describe this as a pivot or shift, we've been wanting to offer these kinds of capabilities all along as part of our mission to make design simple."
  
  If you want to give Canva's new tools a try for yourself, Canva AI 2.0 is available as a research preview starting today. The first 1 million people who visit the Canva website will get first access, with availability gradually expanding to more users over the coming weeks. As before, access to Canva’s AI features remains included in the company’s free offering, though it’s also introducing a new AI Pass add-on that significantly increases rate limits for users.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/canva-starts-previewing-a-more-powerful-version-of-its-ai-assistant-130000966.html?src=rss

• DJI Osmo Pocket 4 review: The only vlogging camera you'll ever need
  DJI’s Osmo Pocket 3 gimbal-camera was a category-defining camera. Two years sinceits launch, everyone from vloggers to pro film makers continue to upload how-to guides and gushing reviews to YouTube. When the Osmo Pocket 4 landed at the FCC at the end of 2025 (followed by a credible leak), creator forums and Reddit threads started to chatter with excitement. Over the following months the Pocket 4 leaked again and again, to the point where there’s very little that someone with a passing interest and an internet connection doesn’t already know about the camera. But DJI chose today to give us the official reveal, so we’re here with the full review which, remarkably, does contain some surprises. 
  
  
  What’s new
  For those who were waiting for official, confirmed specs and information, here’s a rundown of the headline new features of the Osmo Pocket 4. The camera is still 4K, but comes with an updated 1-inch CMOS sensor that DJI says is good for another two stops of low light performance (for a total of 14). The camera retains the 20mm equivalent, f/2.0 lens but squeezes in an improved max framerate of 240 fps (up from 120 fps) for up to 10x slow-mo. The Pocket 4 can also shoot in full, high dynamic range 10-Bit D-Log, upgraded from the more lightweight D-Log-M available on the Pocket 3. Shutter speeds are now expanded and go right down to 1/4 for extreme light effects. 
  
  Hardware changes are few, but do include two new buttons below the 2-inch display. One is a dedicated zoom button and the other you can assign a function from a selection of common tasks — rotating the gimbal, toggling recording presets and so on. You can assign up to three different controls to this button via single, double and triple clicks. There’s also 107GB of internal storage. You can still use SD cards, but you don’t need to if you don’t want to.
  
  That zoom, DJI states, is good for 2x “lossless” zoom while shooting in 4K and 4x in 1080p. The Pocket 3’s 2x Mid-Tele zoom had to be activated first, but now you can use lossless zoom any time and/or while using ActiveTrack face-tracking. It’s available in Portrait mode, too, but if you’ll need to have the screen in the horizontal position to access the buttons, which means your viewfinder/preview will be teeny-tiny as it’s rescaled for 16:9.
  DJI Osmo Pocket 4James Trew for Engadget
  DJI has added on-camera “Film Tones” which are similar, functionally, to film simulations seen on Fujifilm cameras. There are six to choose from at launch and include subtle and not-so-subtle stylized color tones that apply different “moods” to your videos without having to manually color grade or use a LUT after the fact. As for still images, there’s an on-screen button for “Live” photos similar to what you might find on an iPhone. Live photos were sorta-kinda possible on the Pocket 3, but they are a little bit easier this time around.
  
  A lot of DJI drones include Gesture Control, which lets you start/stop recording and engage ActiveTrack from a distance, and that’s new on the Pocket 4 too. 
  
  On the audio side of things, the Pocket 4 now has “audio zoom,” so if you have two people in a scene and do a close up on one of them, the volume of their voices will be boosted. It’s a little crude, but it could be handy in certain situations. The Pocket 4 can also record spatial audio via the three onboard microphones, good for live music and other situations where sound placement might matter. 
  
  Lastly, the Pocket 4 has a modular component. At launch, there’s a magnetic fill light that clips onto the gimbal and can be configured via the camera menus. It’s included in the creator combo and opens the door for other modular accessories, though it’s limited to things that can sit on the gimbal without causing problems. A shotgun-style microphone, for example, could be possible.
  The display and controls on the Osmo Pocket 4James Trew for Engadget
  Battery life also gets a slight boost over the Pocket 3 with a 1,545mAh cell — which is almost a 20 percent increase. That translates to an extra 30 minutes or so of recording time for an average of two and a half hours at 4K, more if you shoot in lower resolutions or are using the camera for photos.
  
  What we don’t see here, an item that you might have been hoping for, is any type of optical zoom. What’s more, the max resolution in vertical mode remains capped at 3K. You still have to rotate the camera if you want full-sensor, 4K video in portrait.
  Video quality
  The popularity of the Pocket series is thanks to its combination of high-quality video and a portable form factor. The Pocket 4 builds on this winning formula with exceptional quality for the camera’s size. The new 1-inch sensor is noticeably more detailed than the Pocket 3 and DJI’s claim of improved low light performance is backed up by stellar results. I took the Pocket 4 out at night and it bested its predecessor with far more dynamic range and better exposure in shadowed areas that come out dark or fuzzy on the Pocket 3. 
  
  Image performance in general is impressive and a definite strong point for a camera of this size. Colors now look more natural than ever without looking over-saturated. Similar shots on the Pocket 3 look a little flatter when viewed side by side. I like that the f2.0 aperture still provides some light bokeh, and when combined with the new D-Log mode, there’s plenty of scope for cinematic shots. These would be harder to achieve with a phone and don’t require the setup and planning of a mirrorless camera. 
  
  With the extended shutter speeds you can get some interesting effects — dramatic light trails in traffic for example — but it’s going to over expose any other light source in your shot. So, proceed with caution. The Pocket 3 bottomed-out at 1/25, but the Pocket 4 goes right down to a dramatic 1/4. 
  
  The 2x lossless zoom surprised me. At first, I was sceptical about DJI’s claims of it being lossless, but it does seem to maintain visual quality without noticeable loss of detail. Though if you want to use that 4x zoom in 4K, expect to see some digital artifacts. The Pocket 4’s 20mm lens is particularly suited to wider, vlog-style shots, so a usable zoom is a welcome addition. It’s worth noting that it’s better used for static and tripod shots as any gimbal movements and keeping a subject in frame can feel like steering a ship.
  Film tones
  Until now, if you were aiming for a more cinematic style, you had to get comfortable shooting in D-Log-M and boning up on color-grading. DJI provided some filters in the Mimo app for a quick and dirty way to add a mood or vibe to your videos, but that still caused some friction in the workflow. The new film modes are on camera, so achieving something more stylized is now just a menu tap away. I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of the selection available right now as they’re either too hot or too cold. Of the six, Warm and Movie seem the most usable for cozy-style landscapes or B-roll cityscapes. 
  
  DJI hasn’t shared much about whether these are just on-camera filters or true film simulations. Movie and Retro, at least, were already available as filters in the app. If the full effect is too strong, you can dial down the intensity, but that’s the extent of the control. Their addition here expands what you can get out of the camera without using the app or having to drag things over to your editing software. It’s unclear if we’ll see more options in the future, but they’re there if you need them.  
  New buttons
  One of my main complaints with the Pocket cameras was the zoom. More specifically, controlling it with the joystick. It always looks slow, inconsistent and a bit amateur when zooming in manually. The new button provides an instant punch-in that can be used for an intentional, attention-drawing effect. I can’t count the number of times I’ve ruined a shot because I thought I had the joystick set to zoom, but it was still assigned to panning (you had to toggle its use via an on-screen button). With the physical button, I can close in on a target instantly and never worry about accidental pans.
  The button layout on the Osmo Pocket 4James Trew for Engadget
  The second, customizable button is also a real usability upgrade. If, like me, you’re constantly recentering the gimbal, you’ll know that the usual double-click on the joystick is often unreliable. Now you can assign that action to the button plus two more controls from a selection of common actions. I have it set so double-click switches to one of my manual recording presets and triple-click locks the gimbal so I no longer have to jump into the main menu to switch gimbal modes. It even works while recording if I spontaneously decide I want to keep my horizon level.
  
  Changing what this button does is simple: Long-press it and it’ll jump into the settings where you can choose its functionality. There’s still scope for some refinement, as although a double click can instantly start recording with my preferred settings, clicking again doesn’t stop it. You have to use the record button. This makes some sense, but I’m used to using the same button to stop/start recording, so intuitively I thought that might be the case here. Sadly not.
  Audio upgrades
  Something a little unexpected in the Pocket 4 is the addition of spatial audio. Using the three built-in microphones, the theory is you should be able to hear where sounds are coming from — though you’ll need headphones on for the effect to work. In practice, it does create a different audio ambience, one where sounds feel more relative to their location, but it comes at a price. If you speak to the camera, even if you’re nearby, your voice will sound distant and muddled so spatial audio is something you’ll want to use intentionally and certainly not as a default setting.
  
  The same is true for that audio “zoom.” To be fair to DJI, I’ve never found an audio zoom I truly liked. You can’t capture better audio than what the microphone is receiving, so amplifying it in any way isn’t going to improve it beyond what you can do with editing software. In a pinch, this might help with interviews when you have multiple speakers, no external microphone and need to publish quickly, but I’m reluctant to recommend it for anything else.
  You can get an Osmo Pocket 4 bundle with a DJI lapel micJames Trew for Engadget
  The new “Vocal Boost” is a more useful option under the Pro settings menu. When activated, it enhances voices by lowering background noise and other sounds. Again, it’s not a fix for getting good source audio, but in noisy run-and-gun vlogging environments, it can improve your chances of capturing something useful with just the internal microphones.
  
  Fortunately, DJI has a much better solution that was already a feature of Pocket cameras — native connectivity with its wireless microphones. The Creator Combo now includes a single DJI Mic 3 transmitter and charging cable, and it’s the absolute best way to get YouTube-ready audio from the camera. One nice tweak with the Pocket 4 is that you can now export videos with both the built-in and external mic audio as one 4-channel file. Open this in your video editor and you can mix and cut between mic and ambient audio without having to deal with separate files as before. 
  The competition
  The fact that there’s no real direct competition for the Pocket series is surprising. For true, like-for-like gimbal cameras, expect to find alternatives from brands you’re less familiar with — such as Agfaphoto or Feiyu. Most of the nearest competition will be action cameras like the GoPro Mission 1 or Insta360 Ace Pro 2. Both of these are great portable cameras with solid stabilisation, but they unsurprisingly favor that wide, bright and sharp action-style footage. The Pocket 4’s nearest rival for stabilized vlog-friendly filming is still the Pocket 3.
  
  This raises the question of whether the Pocket 4 (£445) is worth it over the more affordable Pocket 3 (£389) at launch. (DJI can’t directly sell the Pocket 4 in the US, so official prices are in British Pounds or Euros.) Both are great, all-purpose, vlogging cameras versatile enough for recording in a variety of situations — though less suited to rugged/action filming thanks to the delicate mechanical gimbal. It’s likely that the price difference between the two will expand after the launch window. 
  The Osmo Pocket 4 flipped down and powered offJames Trew for EngadgetWrap-up
  The Pocket 4 might not bring defining new features like optical zoom or higher resolution, but it’s a better camera in every way that matters. There are also several quality of life improvements that make it incredibly compelling. For the extra money, you’re getting better image quality that will pay you back over time. The new buttons make the camera even more convenient and that onboard storage alone effectively closes the price gap — not to mention the huge convenience that feature alone brings with it.
  
  Hardcore fans might have been hoping for more “dazzle” with the Pocket 4. In reality, DJI delivered a camera that builds on an already winning formula in ways that actually matter: higher quality video, improved usability, modular capabilities and longer battery life. It’s hard to argue with that.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cameras/dji-osmo-pocket-4-review-the-only-vlogging-camera-youll-ever-need-120000374.html?src=rss

• Anthropic will ask Claude users to verify their identities 'for a few use cases'
  Anthropic has started rolling out identity verification on Claude “for a few use cases.” The company didn’t list out those use cases in its announcement, but we’ve asked it for details and will update this post when we hear back. Anthropic says you might see a verification prompt upon “accessing certain capabilities,” asking you to verify your identity. You would have to show a valid and physical government-issued photo ID. You’d also have take a selfie with your phone or computer camera that the system will compare against the ID you present. 
  
  The news, as you’d expect, wasn’t well-received. Many users are questioning the necessity of identity verification to be able to use an AI chatbot, especially if Anthropic already has their credit cards on file as paying subscribers. People are also criticizing Anthropic’s decision to use Persona Identities, which also provides age verification services for OpenAI and Roblox. One of Persona’s major investors is venture firm Founders Fund, which was co-founded by Peter Thiel, who’s also the co-founder and chairman of surveillance company Palantir. 
  
  Palantir’s customers are mostly federal agencies and government offices, including the FBI, the CIA and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Most criticisms against the company center around the services it provides those customers, as they’re mainly used to expand government surveillance using its facial recognition and AI technologies. 
  
  In its announcement, Anthropic said that Persona will be the one handling your IDs and selfies. It will not copy and store those images. It also said that Persona is “contractually limited” in how it can use your data and that all data passing through its process is “encrypted in transit and at rest.” Anthropic emphasized that it will not use your identity data to train its models and that it will not share your data with anyone else. 
  
  Update April 16, 2026, 11:35AM ET: Reached for comment, an Anthropic spokesperson told Engadget that "this applies to a small number of cases where we see activity that indicates potentially fraudulent or abusive behavior, which violates our usage policy."
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropic-will-ask-claude-users-to-verify-their-identities-for-a-few-use-cases-115754092.html?src=rss

• Amazon MGM's 2026 theatrical slate includes 'Highlander' and 'Spaceballs: The New One'
  Fresh off the box office success of up to 14 films in theaters over the next year and leave them to run for as long as 45 days — a far cry from its previous policy of releasing just a few films for several weeks at most. That strategy is paying off so far. "Four months. Four films. Over $670 million at the box office. And we have nine more on the way,” said Amazon MGM9s head of domestic theatrical distribution, Kevin Wilson. 
  
  The company said that it9s not about volume, but impact. "We are building films that give audiences a reason to leave the house. Films with scale. Ambition," Wilson said. Looking at the slate, though, some of those films are likely to be hits and some not so much. 
  
  First up is The Sheep Detectives set to arrive on May 8th. You may scoff at the title, but the trailer has racked up 20 million views and mainly positive comments. It looks like fun, family-friendly fare and stars a popular actor, so one could easily see this being a hit for Amazon MGM.
  
  Masters of the Universe is next up on June 5, 2026. "Director Travis Knight brings the world of Eternia to life on a massive scale with stars Nicholas Galitzine, Camila Mendes, and Idris Elba," Amazon explains. The film is based on the Mattel toy franchise and animated series so again, it could be another magnet for kids and their nostalgic parents. 
  
  How to Rob a Bank is a heist comedy with a solid cast including Nicholas Hoult, Zoë Kravitz, Anna Sawai, Pete Davidson, and John C. Reilly, set to arrive on September 4. That9s followed by Verity (October 2, 2026) based on the Colleen Hoover novel and Peter Farrelly9s I Play Rocky Sylvester Stallone biopic about the production of the 1976 film Rocky. 
  
  2027 starts with the The Beekeeper 2 (January 15) starting Jason Statham, followed by The Thomas Crown Affair (March 5, 2027) directed by and starring Michael B. Jordan. Spaceballs: The New One, a sequel to the classic Mel Brooks movie arrives on April 23, 2027 with Rick Moranis, Josh Gad, Keke Palmer, Lewis Pullman, Daphne Zuniga, Bill Pullman, and Mel Brooks. 
  
  Other films expected but without release dates yet include The Chosen: Crucifixion, A Colt is My Passport, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and Highlander starring Henry Cavill based on the 1986 cult classic.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/amazon-mgms-2026-theatrical-slate-includes-highlander-and-spaceballs-the-new-one-094505690.html?src=rss

• YouTube now lets you hide Shorts
  You now have the power to remove short-form videos from your YouTube feed if you don’t want to see them. YouTube has rolled out the capability to set your Shorts feed limit to zero minutes, which could help you stop doomscrolling, at least on mobile. The video-sharing platform originally launched a Shorts feed limit back in October last year, but the lowest option you could choose was 15 minutes. Once 15 minutes are up, you’ll get a pop-up reminding you to take a break.
  
  Earlier this year, it integrated the feature with parental controls, allowing guardians to set time limits for younger users. YouTube said back then that parents will soon see the option to set the timer to zero. Now, the Shorts timer is live not just for parents, but for all users. We can confirm that we’re now seeing the zero minutes option in our (adult) account and were able to activate it for ourselves. When you select it, you may see a notice that says “Scrolling is paused but you may still see individual Shorts.” You may also have to refresh your app before short-form videos disappear from your feed.
  
  To be able to block stop Shorts from showing up for you, go to your Setting page in the YouTube app for mobile. Look for “Time management” and scroll down to “Daily limits,” where you can find the “Shorts feed limit” section. If you don’t want to get rid of Shorts altogether, you can choose from any of the other options, with two hours being the maximum time available.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/youtube-now-lets-you-hide-shorts-085538825.html?src=rss

• Opera adds Browser Connector for integrating AI chatbots
  Opera is offering a new choice for looping in an AI assistant during browsing. Today, the company introduced Browser Connector, which allows Opera One and Opera GX users to integrate either ChatGPT or Claude into the platform. The chatbots will be able to access page content while a person is browsing and will draw context for queries from the information in your open tabs. The free new feature can be enabled through the AI Services section of the Settings menu. 
  
  Opera is one of the many browser companies that has been experimenting with an AI-focused service. It began rolling out the $20-a-month Opera Neon agentic AI browser last year. The benefit of something like Browser Connector means you aren9t limited to a single brand9s product offerings and can switch things up at will.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/opera-adds-browser-connector-for-integrating-ai-chatbots-080000153.html?src=rss

• Apple and Google are reportedly pointing users to 'nudify' apps
  Earlier this year it was revealed that Apple and Google were offering "nudify" apps on their stores despite having clear policies barring such content. Nearly three months later, such apps are not only still available, but being actively promoted on the iOS App Store and Google Play, according to a new report from the called for a ban on AI deepfake apps that create nude or sexual images of children. The US and other countries have proposed or created laws banning explicit deepfakes, and the California Attorney General recently sent Elon Musk9s X a cease and desist order over Grok9s explicit deepfakes. 
  
  Update April 16 at 3:42 AM ET: Google gave Engadget the following comment: 
  
  "Google Play does not allow apps that contain sexual content.
  
  When violations of our policies are reported to us, we investigate and take appropriate action.
  
  Many of the apps referenced in this report have been suspended from Google Play for violations of our policies.
  
  Our investigation and enforcement process is ongoing."
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/apple-and-google-are-reportedly-pointing-users-to-nudify-apps-065144277.html?src=rss

• Microsoft's new college deal is a half-hearted answer to the $500 MacBook Neo
  Apple9s MacBook Neo is a $600 (or $500 for students) shot across the bow at affordable Windows laptops, and it seems like Microsoft has ready its first response. The newly announced "Microsoft College Offer" is a bundle of Microsoft 365 Premium, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, custom Xbox controller and discounted laptop that the company thinks could woo students away from Apple9s new deal. 
  
  With the purchase of a discounted machine directly from Microsoft, retailers like Amazon and Best Buy or PC makers like HP, ASUS and Acer, you can get what the company says is an extra $500 of value from its bundle. The laptop deals include a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x with a Snapdragon X chip, 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $500 from Best Buy, around $250 off the laptop9s usual $750 price. Or if you wanted something even cheaper, Walmart is selling an HP Omnibook 3 for $429, a discount of $270 off its usual $699 price. Microsoft is less generous with the deals on its own laptops and tablets, but you can even get a discount on a Surface Laptop as part of the offer.
  
  A discounted laptop is great, but where the value of the Microsoft College Offer gets harder to define is with the services the company is packing in. Getting what would normally be a $200 year-long subscription to Microsoft 365 Premium for free is a meaningful deal, but many colleges give their students access to Microsoft9s apps (and other software) with the cost of their tuition. A year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which costs $30 per month as of October 2025, sounds like significant savings, but the offer is only valid for new subscribers. That leaves the free custom Xbox controller as the simplest bonus of the bunch, a value of around $76.
  
  Windows PC makers are expected to make more serious attempts to compete with the Neo over the next year. For now, though, the Microsoft College Offer isn9t exactly a bad deal, but it9s certainly not as straightforwardly appealing as an Apple-quality laptop for $500 with a college discount.
  
  The Microsoft College Offer is available to students starting April 15 and runs through June 30, 2026. Microsoft says redemption of the full bundle of services and accessories it’s offering needs to happen by July 31, 2026.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/microsofts-new-college-deal-is-a-half-hearted-answer-to-the-500-macbook-neo-215336362.html?src=rss

• Federal jury finds concert business Live Nation is a monopoly
  Live Nation, which operates the Ticketmaster platform, has been determined to be a monopoly. A federal jury handed down its decision today that the company violated federal and state antitrust rules. This finding won't surprise anyone who has used Ticketmaster and been sticker-shocked by their final bill. However, it's unclear what the jury’s decision will mean in practice. 
  
  For starters, the judge overseeing the case hasn't determined what remedies will be applied. The actions could go as far as requiring Live Nation to sell off Ticketmaster. There are also monetary damages to be awarded, which haven't been set yet. And whatever the judge decides, it's likely that Live Nation will appeal the decision. In a statement released by Live Nation today, the company noted that there are other motions still pending that could also impact the jury's ruling. "Of course, Live Nation can and will appeal any unfavorable rulings on these motions," it said.
  
  The Department of Justice and a group of state and district attorneys general sued Live Nation on monopoly claims in 2024. The government agency reached a settlement with Live Nation last month, but the other parties continued their action. There's also a separate case being waged by the Federal Trade Commission questioning whether Live Nation colluded with ticket resellers.
  
  Update, April 15, 2025, 6:31PM ET: Added statement from Live Nation.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/federal-jury-finds-concert-business-live-nation-is-a-monopoly-203924011.html?src=rss

• PlayStation Plus April catalog adds include Horizon Remastered, Squirrel with a Gun and Frank Stone
  For PlayStation Plus subscribers, April is going to be a little bit spooky, a tad sporty and extra squirrelly. PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium players will get access to The Crew Motorfest, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Football Manager 26 Console, Warriors: Abyss, Squirrel with a Gun, The Casting of Frank Stone and Monster Train. Additionally,Wild Arms 4 will be exclusive to Premium libraries. Expect the full lineup to go live on April 21.
  
  The Crew Motorfest, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, Warriors: Abyss and Wild Arms 4 will hit PS4 and PS5 consoles, while the rest of the month9s additions are PS5 only. In the case of Horizon, PS4 players will receive Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition, rather than the PS5 remaster. 
  
  Horizon, The Crew and Football Manager are self-explanatory at this point in gaming history, but here9s a quick rundown of the more underground titles on April9s list: Warriors: Abyss is a hectic hack-and-slash roguelite from Koei Tecmo; Squirrel with a Gun is a silly yet competent third-person shooter from a two-man indie team; Monster Train is a much-loved demonic deckbuilder from Shiny Shoe and Good Shepherd Entertainment; and Wild Arms 4 is a PS2-era RPG from Japanese studio Media.Vision.
  
  The Casting of Frank Stone is what PlayStation Plus was made for, in my estimation. It comes from Supermassive, a campy-horror studio that I9m quite fond of, but it9s a crossover with Dead by Daylight, a game I9ve never played, despite a latent interest in its vibe. For whatever reason, Frank Stone never eclipsed other titles in my to-play pile and in the harsh light of 2026, I was on the verge of forgetting all about it. Now that it9s being shoved in my digital face (complimentary), I9m ready to give it a go. And who knows, maybe it9ll be a gateway into the rich world of Dead by Daylight. 
  
  Most of the games on this month9s list can fit this description to some degree — minus the Dead by Daylight hook, unless you really squint at Monster Train — so it feels like a quality batch.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/playstation-plus-april-catalog-adds-include-horizon-remastered-squirrel-with-a-gun-and-frank-stone-194534366.html?src=rss

• There's yet another study about how bad AI is for our brains
  A group of researchers from across the US and the UK https://t.co/IBbLLqrNdG
  — Science News (@ScienceNews) April 15, 2026
  There are two caveats here. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed. Also, researchers found one tiny bright spot regarding the use of AI. People who used AI tools for hints and clarification had a much easier time once the chatbot was removed when compared to those who used the bot to essentially prompt the answers.
  
  This is just the latest study trying to get to the bottom of what AI is doing to our collective noggins. It has been found to increase fatigue among full-time workers who rely on the tools, which led to the term "AI brain fry." To that end, researchers discovered that employees who use AI actually end up working harder and longer than those old-fashioned luddites.
  
  The results are even starker in the world of education. Studies have found that AI use in school leads to poor social and intellectual development and that kids who rely on chatbots tend to do worse on tests.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/theres-yet-another-study-about-how-bad-ai-is-for-our-brains-183418494.html?src=rss

• Google unleashes a native Gemini app for the Mac
  Not content with stuffing Gemini into all of its own apps and services, Google wants you to adopt its AI assistant on desktops and laptops too. The company released a Gemini Windows app on Tuesday and it9s following that up a day later with one for Macs.
  
  Google says the macOS Gemini app is a "native desktop experience" that you can access with a keyboard shortcut. By default, pressing option and space will open a mini chat, while a combo of option, shift and space will open the full Gemini chat experience. You9ll be able to adjust these bindings in the app settings.
  
  Users will be able to share anything that9s on their screen, including files they have saved on your system, with the chatbot and ask it questions about whatever they’re seeing. This can include anything from images to documents, and data to code.
  
  There9s an option to share full web pages with Gemini, not just what9s on your display. The Gemini app also supports image and video generation with Nano Banana and Veo, respectively. The app is available on Macs that are running macOS 15 (i.e. macOS Sequoia) or later in all countries and languages in which Gemini is supported. 
  
  "We9re building the foundation for a truly personal, proactive and powerful desktop assistant, with more news to share in the coming months," Michael Friedman, group product manager for the Gemini app, wrote in a blog post. That9s intriguing, given that Apple9s long-delayed, generative AI revamp of Siri may finally debut at WWDC in June. Apple9s retooled chatbot, which is slated to have deep integration with macOS apps, is powered by Gemini models.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-unleashes-a-native-gemini-app-for-the-mac-170500185.html?src=rss

• Recteq X-Fire Pro 825 review: A smart grill that pulls double duty
  Occasionally, you really can have it both ways. For the most part, pellet grills are great for smoking and mid-temperature cooking, but you’ll typically need other grills for high-heat searing and 1,000-degree temperatures(with a few exceptions). Sure, some pellet grills allow you to move the heat deflector for direct access to the fire pot for searing, but that’s still not a cooking experience that will be familiar to gas grill users. 
  
  With the X-Fire Pro 825 ($1,550), Recteq is putting its pellet grill expertise to work in a dual-mode design that’s meant to bridge the gap between gas and wood fire. Of course, this is a smart grill thanks to its Wi-Fi connectivity, and the backbone of this beast is undoubtedly a pellet grill. Plus, the company offers totally separate controls to avoid confusion between Smoke and Grill modes, all combined in a durable, all-stainless steel design. It’s the rare device that really is the 2-in-1 the company claims. 
  
  
  Design
  All Recteq grills are made of stainless steel, but unlike the Deck Boss, Patio Legend and other models in the company’s lineup, the X-Fire Pro doesn’t have a powder coated lid. This isn’t a problem per se, but it does require extra care with cleaning and maintenance to avoid rust. Apart from the cast iron grill grates, the interior components are also stainless steel, so most of this grill is clearly built to last. When you combine that with the robust cart and premium casters that the X-Fire Pro sits on, this grill is one of the most well-designed I’ve reviewed. 
  
  Like most pellet grills, the X-Fire Pro has a digital controller mounted on the side. In this case, it’s situated on the front edge of a shelf on the left of the grill. Single-knob navigation allows you to set cooking temperature and food probe alerts, which can also be done via the Recteq app thanks to the grill’s Wi-Fi connectivity. The X-Fire Pro allows you to use two wired food probes simultaneously, but there’s no option for wireless probes. Recteq does sell wireless probes though, but they connect directly to the company’s app, not to the grill itself.
  The X-Fire Pro has two separate sets of controls for its two modes Billy Steele for Engadget
  Rather than a traditional on/off switch, the X-Fire Pro is turned on with the far left knob on the front. To do so, you choose between the grill’s two modes, Smoke or Grill. If you select Smoke mode, the controller on the left will light up and you set your desired temperature between 225 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Personally, I prefer a slightly lower minimum temperature, around 180 degrees, to enable things like cold smoking or even mimic the Keep Warm feature that competitors like Traeger offer. In Grill mode, you can expect temperatures from 225-400 degrees on low, 350-650 on medium, 500-850 on high and 800-1,200 on max. 
  
  There are two fire pots inside the X-Fire Pro. The one on the left is used exclusively for Smoke mode while both can be used in Grill mode. I typically set the right side to a higher grilling temperature, since there’s an Adaptive Sear Control for direct access to the flame (there’s a dedicated knob on the front to control this). I would then leave the left side on low, which would give me a hot/cold setup like I would normally use on a gas grill. Of course, you can set both fire pots to the same heat level and use the entire cooking surface at the same temperature. You could also leave one of the fire pots completely off if you needed to do so.     
  Dual-mode cooking
  Recteq promises that the X-Fire Pro is a pellet grill that will offer the best aspects of gas grilling with familiar knob-based controls. I agree that the large knobs are similar to what you’ll find on a gas grill, although you can’t fine-tune the heat like you can with gas burnersI didn’t find this problematic, though. Where Recteq surpasses propane or natural gas options is the fact that the X-Fire Pro entirely runs on wood pellets, so your food tastes much better. Just keep in mind that it’s a different flavor than charcoal. 
  
  During my testing, I unexpectedly spent most of my time using the X-Fire Pro in Grill mode. I cooked steaks, chicken, burgers, sausages and more, all of which tasted a lot better than they would have on a gas grill. Even at high temperatures, you still get some wood flavor, which helped elevate my sous vide New York Strips beyond a simple high-heat sear. Of course, I also had the option to open the Adaptive Sear Control for direct-flame finishing, which was absolutely the right move for steaks and burgers. 
  
  One important caveat about Grill mode is that the digital controller for Smoke mode completely turns off. You operate this mode entirely with the front-mounted knobs — just like you would a gas grill. As such, you don’t have access to the food probes or any Wi-Fi features that Smoke mode employs. I can understand why Recteq would want to keep the two modes separate, but I do wish there was a way to use the food probes to track internal temperature of things like steak and chicken, or any items where exact doneness is essential. 
  A pork shoulder (Boston Butt) cooked on the X-Fire Pro Billy Steele for Engadget
  When it comes to smoking, the X-Fire Pro works just as well as any other pellet grills I’ve reviewed from Traeger, Weber and others. It’s very much a set-it-and-forget-it device, if you want it to be, which means you can put on a pork shoulder or a brisket early in the morning and it will be ready by dinner. But since the X-Fire Pro has two fire pots and therefore two smaller pellet hoppers instead of one larger one, each hopper’s capacity is limited to just10 pounds. While I had no trouble getting through an 8-hour smoke session with a full hopper (at 275 degrees), I wouldn’t feel comfortable with overnight cooks due to the reduced pellet supply. In Grill mode, though, a single full hopper on the right was always enough to get through a cook.  
  
  Recteq says the digital controller can maintain the set temperature in Smoke mode within five degrees. I found this to be true during all of my low-and-slow cooking, and the graph in the app confirms it. The only dips it showed corresponded to the times I opened the lid. This performance was consistent across multiple uses of the X-Fire Pro, although on one particularly cold and very windy day, I did see some greater fluctuations (there’s a warning about this in the user manual). Under normal weather conditions though, this grill is reliable at maintaining the desired cooking temperature in Smoke mode.
  Other features on the X-Fire Pro
  The main cooking surface of the X-Fire Pro consists of four removable cast iron grates. These are reversible with one side for general use and the other with wider bars for more apparent sear marks. There’s also a shallow top grate above the primary cooking area, perfect for resting foods when they’re done or warming buns in Grill mode. In Smoke mode, you could also put another rack or two of ribs up there, but it’s not big enough for larger cuts of meat. 
  
  Most pellet grills direct ash and grease to a catch pan of some sort. Since the X-Fire Pro has two fire pots, it has two ash removal trays on either side with levers to help with the debris. Like every other pellet grill, you’ll need to clean out some ash from the cooking chamber every few uses, and the best way to do that is with a shop vacuum. Recteq cautions against allowing grease buildup with Smoke mode, but I never found this to be a problem. That’s likely due to the fact that I used Grill mode between low-and-slow cooking sessions, so I probably burned off any excess residue. What’s more, I like to use aluminum pans for pork shoulders for easier cleanup, rather than placing them directly on the grates. 
  The X-Fire Pro's adjustable sear control Billy Steele for Engadget
  Like every other Wi-Fi-enabled pellet grill I’ve tested, the X-Fire Pro works with an app that allows you to control and monitor it from afar. You can keep tabs on both grill and food probe temperatures as well as turn the whole thing off. Recteq’s app also has more advanced features like temperature graphs, a 30-day cooking history and over 60 step-by-step guided recipes. Plus, you can save cooking sessions with notes for future reference and the app’s complete recipe book houses over 450 dishes. The company prides itself on the quality of its app, and I can confirm it’s the most reliable mobile software I’ve used during a smart grill review.
  
  Now let’s discuss a few things you won’t find on the X-Fire Pro. First, there’s no option for a folding front shelf since the pellet hopper is front-mounted. The hopper lid gives you a slight ledge to rest the corner of a pan or tray, but it’s not enough to do any kind of wrapping or setting anything down completely. There’s also no interior lighting, which was probably the thing I missed most from other pellet grills. Sure, we can debate the utility of how some companies arrange these lights, but something is better than nothing, especially when you’re loading a grill before dawn or finishing a cook after dark. 
  The competition
  While there are other pellet grills with direct-searing capabilities, none of those offer the dual-mode functionality of the X-Fire Pro. For example, several Pit Boss models have levers for open access to the fire box — or, as the company calls, it the Flame Broiler. Some companies offer open-lid modes, like Weber does on the Searwood, but not all of those designs allow you to get direct access to the fire. These grills also let you set a high searing temperature on the regular controls rather than giving you completely a separate operating method like Recteq does. Again, the appeal with the X-Fire Pro is something familiar to both pellet and gas grillers with controls best-suited for each style of cooking. And yes, the $1,550 price puts this firmly in the premium category, but when you consider it’s two grills in one, that amount doesn’t seem excessive. 
  The X-Fire Pro features an all-stainles-steel design Billy Steele for Engadget Wrap-up
  Rarely does a device live up to its billing as a double-duty workhorse. With the X-Fire Pro, Recteq has successfully combined the best aspects of pellet grills with a dedicated high-heat mode and separate controls that will be familiar to gas grillers. This model offers robust build quality, reliable performance and Wi-Fi connectivity for extended smoking sessions. The smaller pellet hoppers require slightly more vigilance, and there are a few features I’d love to see in the future, but Recteq has certainly bolstered its reputation for well-built smart grills with this dual-mode machine. I’d much rather keep tabs on my pellet supply than guess if my propane tank is empty.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/recteq-x-fire-pro-825-review-a-smart-grill-that-pulls-double-duty-170000586.html?src=rss

• Snap is laying off 16 percent of its workforce, blames AI
  Snap is laying off around 1,000 staff, amounting to 16 percent of its workforce, which it will seemingly replace with AI. The cuts were announced in a company-wide memo from CEO Evan Spiegel, who added that more than 300 open roles are also being closed.
  
  Spiegel said the "incredibly difficult" decision would likely save Snap more than $500 million by the second half of 2026, in turn helping it to "establish a clearer path to net-income profitability." Impacted staff were notified by email and the company’s North America-based team were instructed to work from home. Snap said it would provide four-month severance packages to those affected by the layoffs, as well as healthcare and other entitlements.
  
  "While these changes are necessary to realize Snap’s long-term potential, we believe that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence enable our teams to reduce repetitive work, increase velocity, and better support our community, partners, and advertisers," Spiegel wrote. "We have already witnessed small squads leveraging AI tools to drive meaningful progress across several important initiatives, including Snapchat+, enhanced ad platform performance, and efficiency improvements in our Snap Lite infrastructure."
  
  Snap laid off around 20 percent of its employees in span off the brand into its own business.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/snap-is-laying-off-16-percent-of-its-workforce-blames-ai-162456069.html?src=rss

• Shoe company Allbirds pivots to AI compute in sign of a totally normal and healthy economy
  The shoe company Allbirds, famous for its wool trainers, is pivoting to AI. You read that right. The San Francisco company has plans "to pivot its business to AI compute infrastructure, with a long-term vision to become a fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service and AI-native cloud solutions provider." It's also changing its name to NewBird AI.
  
  This is subject to shareholder approval, with a vote scheduled for May 18. Once approved, the company will raise $50 million from an unnamed investor to assist with this enterprise. This money will be used for the "acquisition and monetization of graphics processing units, related high-performance computing infrastructure capable to support high workloads and other related assets." In other words, all of the things one would need to start an AI compute company.
  Allbirds, the shoe brand, now says it's an AI compute company. pic.twitter.com/MRAG2LXyY9
  — Tracy Alloway (@tracyalloway) April 15, 2026
  Allbirds has always been known as an eco-friendly shoe company and, well, there's no real way to do AI while protecting the environment. The company plans on getting rid of any eco-friendly branding, with stockholders being asked to approve a charter amendment proposal to "remove references to the company being operated for the environmental conservation public benefit."
  
  Investors absolutely love AI, despite rising public sentiment against the technology. To that end, the announcement that Allbirds was transitioning from shoes, a product category it has a decade of experience in, to AI compute, a product category it has no experience in, shot the stock up by over 400 percent. Financial Times has suggested this uptick will be short-lived and that retail investors should stay away.
  Allbirds was once valued at $4 billion. It just struck a deal to sell most of itself for $39 million. https://t.co/DsX89JdtEM
  — The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) March 31, 2026
  This pivot to AI cloud compute is surprising and, frankly, bizarre, but something drastic was bound to happen to Allbirds at some point. The shoe company was once riding high, with a valuation of around $4 billion as recently as 2021. It sold its shoe business and branding to an investment firm earlier this month for just $39 million.
  
  Allbirds isn't the only company pivoting to compute in an effort to feed the hungry goblin called AI. Boom Supersonic is a startup trying to build the world's fastest airliner but has begun selling gas turbines to AI companies to power data centers. Many Bitcoin mining centers have pivoted to AI and it's worth remembering that NVIDIA's GPUs were once used primarily for PC gaming.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/shoe-company-pivots-to-ai-compute-in-sign-of-a-totally-normal-and-healthy-economy-161449196.html?src=rss

• Traeger debuts Westwood smart pellet grills that start at $700
  Traeger gave backyard pit masters something more affordable last year with the Woodridge, but now the company is back with an even more budget-friendly option. With the Westwood series, the company offers very basic pellet grill functionality with a simplified controller and a no-frills design. You’ll still get Wi-Fi connectivity that works with the company’s app, and the Westwood grills are compatible with Traeger’s rail-based accessories. As you might expect at the $700 and $800 prices, there are a number of caveats compared to the company’s more expensive options.
  
  The new Westwood grills have an even more streamlined controller than the Woodridge models. A button-based interface replaces the knob, with buttons for increasing and decreasing temperatures, both wired and wireless food probes, Wi-Fi and ignition. The side-mounted hopper has an 18-pound pellet capacity and there are shelves on the left side and underneath the cooking chamber. Inside, a two-tier setup offers either 653 or 823 square inches of cooking space, depending on which Westwood model you opt for.
  
  The Westwood remains a set-it-and-forget-it device. The Wi-Fi connectivity allows you to keep tabs on cooking sessions from anywhere with the Traeger app. You can do everything from low-and-slow smoking to roasting and grilling with the 180-450 degrees Fahrenheit temperature range. There’s also a front rail for the company’s Pop and Lock accessories, which include a folding front shelf.
  The Westwood grills have a simplified design with two-tier grates insideTraeger
  Of course, with the lower price comes a number of sacrifices. There’s no mention of Super Smoke or Keep Warm modes that Traeger offers on some of its more expensive grills. The Westwood only supports one wired food probe, so you’ll have to plan accordingly there. If you’re willing to spend an extra $80, these new grills do connect with Traeger’s wireless meat probe, so you at least have an option for additional food monitoring. Lastly, there’s no mention of a pellet sensor inside the hopper, which is a handy component for keeping track of your fuel supply.
  
  While Traeger has consistently focused on midrange and premium pellet grills in recent years, the Westwood and Westwood XL are now the company’s most affordable options. These new grills will replace the popular Pro series in Traeger’s lineup. What’s more, new affordable options come at time when the company faces financial troubles and is currently in the midst of an ongoing restructuring.
  
  The Westwood and Westwood XL are now available from grill retailers including Ace Hardware.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/traeger-debuts-westwood-smart-pellet-grills-that-start-at-700-160448450.html?src=rss

• The Vivo X300 Ultra is a powerful camera phone aimed at videographers
  Chinese phonemaker Vivo has been pushing the limits of smartphone photography in the last few years. However, the availability of its phones — like last year’s X200 Ultra, with its beefy add-on telephoto — has been intermittent in the West.
  
  The company says the X300 Ultra its first global flagship launch, although there’s still no word on a US launch or pricing at the time of writing. Like the latest phones from Xiaomi and Oppo, Vivo is also obsessing over larger camera sensors, peripherals and a dizzying array of technical photography specs, with a particular focus on cinematic video recording.
  
  Collaborating with Zeiss again, the X300 Ultra features a “triple prime lens” camera system with 85, 35 and 14mm equivalent focal lengths. This can be punched up to 400mm equivalent with a new telephoto extender, the messily-named Zeiss Telephoto Extender Gen 2 Ultra, whose price is also unknown for now.
  
  Even without that add-on, Vivo has built its 85mm equivalent 200-megapixel telephoto camera to handle most of your zoom-heavy shooting moments. A “gimbal-grade��� APO (apochromatic) camera is designed to correct color fringing and stabilize your shots. These are both typical issues when using higher zoom levels. In a dedicated “snapshot” mode, Autofocus tracking will even work at 60 fps, which I’m excited to test, as the phone can also shoot at up to 12 fps. Vivo says its optical image stabilization can correct up to three degrees of movement.
  
  Other cameras are similarly powerful, spec-wise. The 35mm equivalent Zeiss “Documentary” camera uses a 1/1.12-inch 200MP Sony sensor and is apparently engineered for strong low-light performance and portrait shooting, with an f/1.8 aperture. Finally, there’s a 50MP ultrawide rounding out the camera lineup.
  
  All three rear cameras support up to 4K 120fps 10-bit log video and the same in Dolby Vision. Vivo says the X300 Ultra will capture “film-like” color performance without the need for editing. If you want to dig into editing, however, it supports 10-bit log video for more dynamic range and color depth.
  
  Vivo is going hard on video capture. The X300 Ultra9s new “pro video mode" has an upgraded monitoring feature that supports users’ custom LUTs, showing a real-time preview of how it will look while recording in log. Vivo’s log format is also compatible with ACES workflow, making it easier to integrate the X300 Ultra alongside other cinema cameras.
  Vivo
  To make it easier to use for hypothetical professional shoots, Vivo has collaborated with camera-peripheral maker SmallRig on a video-rig kit. This includes an expandable camera cage with quick-release ports (alongside multiple cold shoe mounts), dual handgrips and even a physical shutter control and zoom buttons. There’s also a cooling fan to keep the X300 Ultra recording at high resolution for extended periods.
  
  It’s otherwise a flagship phone everywhere else, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen5 processor and a 6.82-inch display at 3,168 x 1,440 resolution, topping out at an industry-leading 144Hz refresh rate. The X300 Ultra also supports up to 100W FlashCharge and 40W wireless charging (with compatible Vivo chargers) and a huge 6,600mAh battery.
  
  We’re planning to test the X300 Ultra in the very near future. At the time of writing, the company is keeping pricing and launch dates to itself. We’ll update this story once we hear those crucial details. It’s also likely to face immediate competition from sibling brand Oppo, which has also been teasing an ultra iteration of its latest flagship phone, the Find X9 Ultra.
  
  For now, Vivo says the X300 Ultra will launch across Asia, as well as parts of Europe (Austria, Spain, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy and Russia) and several other countries, including Brazil. And yep, no US, Canada or the UK on that list.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/vivo-x300-ultra-launch-powerful-camera-phone-availability-160008605.html?src=rss

• Spotify is selling books now
  A collaboration between Spotify and Bookshop.org that allows readers to purchase physical books in the Spotify app is now live in the US and UK.
  
  Rather than positioning audiobooks as the hard copy-killer, Spotify is encouraging you to see them as complimentary to one another. First announced back in February, the new partnership with Bookshop.org appears to be an acknowledgement from Spotify that physical still reigns supreme in the book world. Bookshop is a digital marketplace that enables indie booksellers to take their businesses online, and Spotify says any purchase made through its app will "directly support those bookshops and the authors who brought the story to life."
  
  When viewing an audiobook on Spotify, where available you should now see a "Get a copy for your bookshelf" link that redirects you to the Bookshop.org website, which takes over the rest of the purchase and shipping process, reports Page Match feature that Spotify launched in February, which allows readers to sync their progress between audiobooks and physical or ebooks so they can jump between formats seamlessly. When reading a paperback, you can use your phone camera to scan the page you reach and continue from that point in the audiobook. It also allows you to scan ereader pages so you can pick up when you left off in the audiobook, and vice versa.
  
  Spotify has today expanded Page Match to support more than 30 new languages, including French, German and Swedish, while Audiobook Recaps are now available on Android. Introduced last year, initially for iOS users, these AI-powered audio summaries refresh you on your progress before you start reading, becoming available once you pass the 10-minute threshold in a book.
  
  Spotify launched audiobooks in 2022 and now offers 15 hours of free listening time a month to Premium subscribers.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/spotify-is-selling-books-now-144340074.html?src=rss

• Most US teens say TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat aren't hurting (or helping) their mental health
  Most teens in the United States say that Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat aren9t harming their mental health, though a slightly higher proportion report negative effects on their sleep and productivity, according to a new report from Pew Research. The report offers fresh insights into how teens perceive the effects of social media at a time when there are increasing calls to ban younger teens from social platforms altogether. 
  
  The report is based on a survey of 1,458 teens between the ages of 13 and 17. Teens were asked about their use of Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok and how those apps affect them. Pew also asked the teens9 parents to weigh in. 
  
  Relatively few teens reported negative mental health effects, with 9 percent of Snapchat and TikTok users and 11 percent of Instagram users saying they thought the services had hurt their mental health. More teens reported negative effects on sleep and productivity, however, especially when it comes to use of TikTok. Thirty-seven percent of teens said their use of the app had hurt their sleep and 29 percent reported that it had affected their productivity. Even so, the majority of teens responded that the apps had "neither helped nor hurt" their mental health, sleep or productivity.
  Teens and their parents differed on the effects of social media platforms.Pew Research
  A significant number of teens did say that social media apps had helped their friendships, particularly Snapchat. At the same time, the app had a "somewhat higher rate" of bullying and harassment compared with the other services.
  
  While the self-reported data is hardly a definitive answer to whether social media is harming teens, the numbers do offer a somewhat different narrative than the one that lawmakers, regulators and other critics have used to pursue social media bans and civil litigation against major companies. Meta, Snap and TikTok are all facing lawsuits that claim the platforms have purposefully created addicting features and enabled other harms to teen users, 
  
  Perhaps unsurprisingly, when researchers surveyed those same teens9 parents, they had a more negative view of the apps9 impact on their children. About four in ten parents said that social media hurts their kids9 sleep and productivity and about a quarter thought it hurt their mental health. Forty-four percent of parents whose teens use TikTok said they thought their child was spending "too much" time in the app. 
  
  "The share of parents who say the same of Snapchat and Instagram is lower," the researchers note. "But the same pattern continues for both, with parents being more likely than teens to describe their teens’ use of these sites as excessive."
  
  The report isn9t the first time Pew has polled teens on their relationship with social media. Last year, a separate report found that teens were becoming more worried about social media, though they were less likely to say they had been negatively impacted on a personal level. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/most-us-teens-say-tiktok-instagram-and-snapchat-arent-hurting-or-helping-their-mental-health-140000912.html?src=rss

• Adobe's Firefly AI Assistant works across Photoshop, Premiere and other apps
  Few creative software companies have embraced AI like Adobe, with the company embedding image, video, audio and vector generation tools into nearly all its apps. Now, Adobe is taking on AI apps like Gemini9s Nano Banana with its new prompt-based Firefly AI Assistant. You simply describe the outcome you want and it will execute "complex multi-step workflows" across Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, Illustrator and other apps to achieve that result, Adobe says. 
  
  The complexity of apps like Photoshop creates a "barrier to entry" for users who may have a vision but lack skill, according to Adobe. That9s where the FireFly AI Assistant comes in. It works much like ChatGPT and other prompt-based AI assistants, but it has Adobe9s suite of powerful apps behind it to execute the required steps. "You no longer have to map the process. You can start from the outcome," the company says. 
  
  Adobe emphasizes that while the Firefly AI Assistant is doing the grunt work, you remain in control. "You stay in the loop as the assistant executes, stepping in at any point to guide direction, adjust outputs and create something that9s distinctly yours." It also maintains Adobe9s native file formats, so the final output remains fully editable. 
  Adobe
  You9ll be able to launch complex workflows with Creative Skills that let you run multi-step workflows from a single prompt, then customize them to your working style. For instance, you can start with the "social media assets" skill then direct the assistant to crop or use Generative Extend to make it fit the format of Instagram, Facebook and other platforms. 
  
  It can also handle context-aware creative decisions. In one example, Adobe describes a product photo set in a forest. "The assistant might give you a simple slider to increase or reduce the surrounding trees and foliage — making it easy to adjust the scene without complex edits," the company explains. Finally, to gather and act on feedback, the Assistant can organize and share work among team members via Adobe9s Frame.io. 
  
  Adobe emphasizes that Firefly AI Assistant is grounded in the company9s pro-grade creative tools to deliver "precise, context aware results" in a way that other AI agents can9t and will learn your style over time. That9s an argument the company no doubt hopes will counter a narrative that generative AI apps like Nano Banana are "eating software" like Adobe Photoshop. Adobe9s Firefly AI Assistant will arrive in public beta in the coming weeks. 
  
  Should you wish to use other AI image generator within Adobe apps, the company has added Kling 3.0 and Kling 3.0 Omni, "all-purpose video models optimized for fast, high-quality production with smart storyboarding and audio-visual sync." That9s on top of other models already offered, including Google9s Nano Banana 2 and Veo 3.1, Runway Gen-4.5, Luma AI’s Ray 3.14, ElevenLabs’ Multilingual v2, Topaz Lab’s Topaz Astra and others. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/adobes-firefly-ai-assistant-works-across-photoshop-premiere-and-other-apps-130055883.html?src=rss

• Amazon's new Fire TV Stick HD is slimmer than ever and has no power adapter
  After unveiling a 4K version of its Fire TV Stick Select at its hardware event last September, Amazon is launching the latest version of its HD dongle today. The Fire TV Stick HD costs $35, comes with Alexa+ built in and offers the redesigned experience that the company previewed at CES in January. It might be confusing, considering Amazon makes at least five different configurations of its streaming stick, but the model announced today comes in at the entry-level and brings some meaningful upgrades.
  
  First, it’s about 30 percent narrower, according to the company, which makes it easier to fit into tight spaces (or to wedge between your TV and wall, perhaps). It comes with a short USB-C cable with a USB-A head that plugs into one of the USB ports on your TV, allowing it to draw power without the typically longer cables that would connect to wall adapters. To quote the company, the new Fire TV Stick HD is “optimized for Direct Power through a TV’s USB port, so it fits more neatly behind a TV without requiring a separate power adapter.”
  
  But if your TV doesn’t have a USB port for that, you can still use a USB-C cable with a traditional wall adapter to power the new Fire TV Stick HD. Given how little power the USB ports on a TV provide, it9s likely any old charger will do.
  A picture with a diagram showing where the Fire TV Stick HD would slip behind a TV in a bedroom.Amazon
  The new dongle also comes with other improvements like support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, and Amazon says it’s “more than 30 percent faster on average” compared to its predecessor, “which means it turns on and opens apps more quickly.” That, together with the redesigned layout, should make it easier to find what you want to watch.
  
  And if you’re a Prime Member or subscribed to Alexa+, you can also ask the assistant for show recommendations, dim your lights or pick up where you left off on a Prime video in a different room, if you have a compatible TV set in there.
  
  Amazon also said that “in the coming months,” it will add a “new Adaptive Display setting to the Fire TV Stick HD.” This is supposed to be an accessibility feature that makes onscreen elements like words, menus and images easier to see. The company said that it would proportionally scale content artwork while enlarging text and menus, so the overall experience is “more balanced.” Multiple size options will be available.
  A screenshot showing how the Fire TV interface handles larger text for better readability.Amazon
  Like its predecessors, the Fire TV Stick HD is a pretty straightforward device that brings modern features to older TVs. At $35, it’s a relatively budget-friendly price, though we recommend springing for the 4K Max model if you have a bit more to spare. If not, the new Fire TV Stick HD will start shipping on April 29 to those in the US, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, with more regions coming later.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/amazons-new-fire-tv-stick-hd-is-slimmer-than-ever-and-has-no-power-adapter-130000885.html?src=rss

• Amazon's budget-friendly answer to the Frame TV will start shipping on April 22
  When Amazon introduced the Ember Artline TVs in January, it didn’t have a specific date of availability to share. Now, the company is ready to supply the details: Pre-orders open today, and units ship on April 22 in the US and Canada, “with the UK and Germany to follow.” The company also announced a new version of its Fire TV Stick HD this morning, as well as some new features for its Fire TV software.
  
  For those who don’t remember offhand, the Ember Artline is basically Amazon’s answer to Samsung’s Frame TV. It’s a matte, 4K QLED panel that can double as artwork when you’re not watching TV, and to that end, Amazon is including more than 2,000 pieces of art for free. That’s also part of the Fire TV package that comes on the new Fire TV Stick HD, so you don’t necessarily need an Ember Artline to access them.
  
  In its press release, Amazon said “Our collection spans artistic movements and includes Impressionist classics by Monet, Degas, and Renoir, alongside contemporary works of street art, murals, mixed media, and photography. Customers also have access to 60 exclusive motion video pieces commissioned by documentary filmmaker Sam Nuttmann, who traveled the world capturing landscape and wildlife scenes.”
  
  To make it easier to match the Ember Artline to your room’s decor, there are 10 frame color options to choose from, and the varieties I saw (a faux wood grain and a muted teal metallic finish) looked quite pleasant. If you really want some help finding artwork that will fit your space, Amazon’s “Match the room” feature might come in handy.
  A person holding up a phone taking photos of a room with an Ember Artline TV on the wall.Amazon
  At a recent demo, I watched as the company’s representatives scanned a QR code from the TV to pull up the tool on their phone. There, they took three photos of the environment (surrounding walls and furniture, for example) and the system generated suggested pieces of art from the gallery. Using the TV remote, they were then able to choose from the recommendations on the big screen.
  
  In my brief experience, the suggestions were typically quite good at matching the vibe, while offering a variety of styles (geometric, landscapes, modern etc) each time. According to the press release, “the AI tool will suggest artwork from our collection based on the room9s colors, overall style, and any recurring themes in their existing artwork, including nature or travel photography.”
  
  If you’d like a more personal touch, you can showcase your own photos instead by connecting your Amazon Photos account. You can also ask Alexa+ to
  “play a slideshow of us biking in the mountains,” for example, to pull up memories ad hoc.
  An animated GIF showing the Ember Artline TV in various rooms and settings with varying decor.Amazon
  That’s not the only new feature coming to the Fire TV ecosystem, by the way. In addition to adding Alexa+ support and the new Fire TV UI it showed off in January, Amazon said that this month, it’s “adding another tool for US customers to seamlessly transfer a show or sports game by asking Alexa to move the content to another enabled Fire TV device in your home.”
  
  So say you started watching a show in your bedroom and wanted to continue on the bigger screen in your living area. You could say “Alexa, move this to the living room.” The demo I saw took place on two Ember Artline TVs on adjacent walls, so the speediness was quite noticeable.
  
  After the VP for Fire TV Aidan Marcuss asked the assistant to move the content over, the second TV picked up where the first left off in just about a second or two. Maybe real-world performance may vary but I can9t imagine dashing from my bed to my couch in under three seconds just to avoid missing precious moments of The Boys drama.
  
  For now, the feature is limited to Prime Video content, and Amazon said it plans “to roll it out to more services over time.”
  
  The Ember Artline comes in 55-inch and 65-inch sizes and starts at $900. For context, Samsung’s The Frame (not the Pro versions) is available as a 32-inch model that costs $600, while the 65-inch configuration starts at $1,100 at the moment.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/amazons-budget-friendly-answer-to-the-frame-tv-will-start-shipping-on-april-22-130000337.html?src=rss

• Godzilla goes to New York in 'Minus Zero' teaser trailer
  Japanese entertainment company Toho has released a teaser video for Godzilla Minus Zero, the upcoming sequel to the award-winning film Godzilla Minus One. The teaser shows the famous monster next to the Statue of Liberty as it rampages across New York. Godzilla Minus Zero is set in 1949, two years after the events of the first film, and will be a direct sequel. You’ll see familiar faces from Minus One in the short trailer, as well, namely Koichi Shikishima and Noriko Oishi, two of the first movie’s main characters.
  
  The kaiju flick was filmed specifically for IMAX with high-definition digital cameras. Even its audio was optimized for the massive screen’s immersive cinema experience. Minus One won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects, so expectations are high for this sequel. The good news is that this movie is also helmed by Takashi Yamazaki, who wrote, directed and oversaw the visual effects for Minus One. Godzilla Minus Zero is heading to cinemas in Japan on November 3 and in the United States on November 6 this year.
  
  
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/godzilla-goes-to-new-york-in-minus-zero-teaser-trailer-015029346.html?src=rss

• Sony is nerfing its Bravia TVs' program guide
  Sony is removing some features from its TV guide and program guide displays for channels received by an over the air TV antenna on select models of Bravia televisions from 2023-2025. Cord Cutters News reported on the changes, which will take effect in late May.
  
  Channel logos and thumbnail images in program descriptions are going away from the built-in TV Guide for antenna TV channels. Only programs from recently watched channels will be shown in the guide, and depending on the channel, program information may not be displayed. Change is also coming for set top box users, with the dedicated Set Top Box TV menu being removed and replaced by a Control menu. This setup will also not show program thumbnail images any longer. 
  
  This is an admittedly narrow use case in the age of both streaming and cable TV, but Sony didn9t provide any reason for making the change. And for those people who are impacted, this could be an unpleasant surprise next month that makes the TV guide and program guide much less helpful.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/home-theater/sony-is-nerfing-its-bravia-tvs-program-guide-225640797.html?src=rss

• FCC just handed Netgear a de facto router monopoly in the US
  The Federal Communications Commission has announced that Netgear has been given conditional approval that effectively exempts it from a previous ban on foreign-made networking routers. The conditional approval gives the company a de facto — though potentially temporary — monopoly on the selling and servicing of new consumer routers in the US.
  
  "We're pleased to share that Netgear is the first retail consumer router company to receive conditional approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as a trusted consumer router company," Netgear CEO CJ Prober said in a statement. "As a US founded and headquartered company, Netgear is aligned with the vision for a more secure digital future for our customers. For the last thirty years, we have been, and continue to be, committed to leading the consumer router category for the United States and setting the bar for quality, performance, innovation and security."
  
  Both Netgear's lines of Nighthawk and Orbi mesh routers are covered by the approval until October 1, 2027, which appears to mean that the company can continue to offer software updates to both lines and presumably release and sell new models in the future.
  
  The FCC dramatically expanded the Covered List, a collection of communications equipment seen as posing a risk to national security, to cover all foreign-made routers in March 2026. The decision prevents companies who make routers outside of the US from introducing new foreign-made models, and pushing certain software updates to existing models after March 1, 2027. Confusingly, though, it doesn't require anyone to replace their existing router or prevent those companies from selling routers they've already made. Receiving conditional approval is the definitive way companies can get off the list, but part of the FCC's requirements for approval is the company offering a plan to bring some or all of its manufacturing to the US — a theoretically costly decision.
  
  Engadget has contacted Netgear for information about the US manufacturing plan it included in its application for conditional approval. We'll update this article if we hear back.
  
  The vast majority of router companies, even ones that are headquartered in the US like Netgear, build their routers in Asia. It's not clear what makes Netgear's currently foreign-made routers safer than, say, an Amazon Eero 7 or a Google Nest WiFi Pro. Until other companies are given conditional approval, though, Netgear is in a unique position.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/fcc-just-handed-netgear-a-de-facto-router-monopoly-in-the-us-223712324.html?src=rss

• Google's new Windows app is yet another way to access Gemini
  Google has introduced a new app for Windows desktops and, unsurprisingly, it puts AI front at center. If you aren9t a big fan of Google9s Gemini chatbot, then skip on past this download. For those of you who are heavy Gemini users, though, this could mean a simpler and more integrated experience on Windows machines. 
  
  Once installed, you can pull up the app9s search bar with the Alt + Space shortcut. Queries typed into this open-ended search box can hunt down information from the web like typical Google search, where AI Mode will be enabled for an extra layer of artificial intelligence for follow-up questions or a deeper dive down a rabbit hole. But the app isn9t limited to web search. It can delve into your computer9s files, other installed apps or Google Drive files to retrieve information. Screen sharing is also built into the app, which enables using Google Lens to conduct AI-powered searches on content displayed on your monitor. 
  
  The app is rolling out globally today in English. Interestingly, this hasn9t been gated to the most recent Windows 11, but it does require a machine running at least Windows 10.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/googles-new-windows-app-is-yet-another-way-to-access-gemini-214000564.html?src=rss

• NAACP sues xAI over data center pollution
  The NAACP is suing xAI and a subsidiary called MZX Tech for allegedly operating unpermitted methane gas turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center in South Memphis. The association is asking the federal district court of the Northern District of Mississippi to declare that the company has violated the Clean Air Act, force it to stop using its unpermitted turbines and assess financial penalties against xAI for violating federal law, among other requests.
  
  The lawsuit claims that xAI — the Elon Musk-founded AI startup now owned by SpaceX — is operating 27 gas turbines without an air permit to power Colossus 2, one of a growing number of data centers xAI has set up to train Grok, its AI assistant. Gas turbines expel pollution, hazardous chemicals and fine particulate matter that are linked to things like heart problems, respiratory diseases and even certain cancers, issues that are particularly concerning given Colossus 29s close proximity to people9s homes. Operating these turbines without an air permit also violates the Clean Air Act, which requires sources of pollution to be permitted before being operated or constructed.
  
  The NAACP is represented in the lawsuit by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Earthjustice. Before filing today9s lawsuit, the NAACP sent xAI a 60-day notice of intent to sue in compliance with the Clean Air Act. xAI9s failure to respond to the notice is why the lawsuit is moving forward today.
  
  "xAI9s continued operation of these turbines without a permit and without adequate pollution controls is not only illegal, it9s an insult to families living nearby who for months have expressed serious concerns about how air pollution from the company9s personal power plant could impact their health and well-being," Ben Grillot, a Senior Attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, said. "xAI must be held accountable for its reckless, unlawful actions — and that9s exactly what this lawsuit aims to do."
  
  Besides the high cost of sourcing the components that train and run AI models, AI companies often have to generate power to run the data centers where all those components are being installed. Oracle is reportedly turning to gas generators like xAI. Google, Meta and Amazon, meanwhile, have all invested in or signed deals with nuclear energy providers to power their data center efforts. Building new energy sources for data centers is one of several price-lowering methods proposed by the Ratepayer Protection Pledge, an agreement several tech companies signed to try and prevent data centers from raising the cost of the average person9s energy bill.
  
  Quickly building out new energy sources might help ease costs, but it doesn9t account for the negative environmental impacts of having a new power plant in your neighborhood, something the Trump administration doesn9t appear all too interested in addressing. In his latest AI framework proposal, President Donald Trump largely ignored the environmental impact of AI in favor of calling for the permitting process for things like on-site energy generators to be streamlined.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/naacp-sues-xai-over-data-center-pollution-213511352.html?src=rss

• What to expect from Google I/O 2026
  We9re sliding into developer conference season and one of the biggest events on the upcoming calendar is Google I/O. This year9s edition is taking place on May 19 and 20. As usual, the in-person element will happen in Mountain View, California, though many of the keynotes and sessions will be livestreamed. Google will surely make its biggest announcements during the opening keynote, which will start at 1PM ET on May 19. A developer keynote will take place later the same day.
  
  As ever, the rumor mill will pick up speed in the leadup to Google I/O. We do have some ideas about what Google will discuss at the event. So let9s take a look at what to expect at Google I/O 2026 (we9ll update this story as we hear more credible rumors).
  What9s officially on deckGoogle I/O logoGoogle
  When it confirmed the dates for this year9s I/O, Google revealed a little bit about what it has in store for us. As you might imagine, AI will be a major focus of the event. Google plans to share its "AI breakthroughs and updates in products across the company, from Gemini to Android, Chrome, Cloud and more," it wrote in a blog post in February. 
  
  There will be news on Gemini model updates as well as agentic coding. Google will have some product demos too.
  
  The company has released its initial schedule of keynotes and sessions, but it doesn9t provide us with a lot of specifics as yet. It has lined up discussions on what9s new in the likes of Google Play, Firebase (a mobile and web app development platform), the Gemma open model family and the open-source app development framework Flutter. Interestingly, there isn9t a dedicated session for Android XR on the schedule just yet.
  What to expectLeaked image of Google9s Aluminium OS9to5Google
  There haven9t been many credible leaks ahead of Google I/O as yet, but we can make some educated guesses about what to expect from the event. It9s all but certain that we9ll get more details about Android 17 at I/O. Developers need time to tweak their apps ahead of the next major version of the operating system rolling out to everyone if they want to take advantage of new features as soon as possible, and they invariably get a heads up about those at I/O every year. (That said, Google has been moving away from a big annual release approach in favor of juicier Pixel Drops/Android updates, so we may not see some of the new features it unveils at I/O for some time.)
  
  As for other operating systems, Google is planning to meld ChromeOS and Android into a unified platform. This seems to be the project that9s being referred to as Aluminium OS, which we got a first glimpse of earlier this year thanks to some leaks. I/O seems like the perfect venue for Google to start showing that off to the public.
  
  On the AI front, a reveal of Gemini 4 could be on the docket, along with details of the latest Veo text-to-video model. Maybe we’ll hear more about Project Astra, Google’s pitch for a universal AI assistant.
  
  If Google has some consumer hardware to show off at this year9s event, I suspect it9ll be an Android XR device or devices, rather than a Pixel phone or watch. There is a chance that we9ll get a tease of the Google Pixel 11 lineup. But don9t be surprised if we don9t see that or the Pixel Watch 5 until Google9s dedicated hardware event, which has taken place in August or October in recent years (Google will want to stay well away from Apple9s iPhone event, which will likely take place in September as usual). 
  Here’s hoping for a big surprise or twoGoogle
  Sure, Android updates are all well and good. If Google insists on cramming Gemini and other AI tools into all of its tools and services, we’ll at least listen to what they have to say about all that.
  
  But I have my fingers crossed for some cool surprises. Give us something new from Google X (Alphabet’s moonshot factory, not the thing that was once Twitter), an idea that could be a net benefit for humanity and boost the company’s bottom line at the same time. These events are always more fun when there’s something for us to get genuinely excited about, even if it’s something relatively niche but out there, like the Google Beam 3D video conferencing tech.
  
  
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/what-to-expect-from-google-io-2026-200252914.html?src=rss

• League of Legends' new WASD control scheme will be enabled for ranked later this month
  Riot Games released a pile of updates for its long-running MOBA League of Legends. One of the more noteworthy changes coming to the game is the official launch of WASD controls. This alternate option, allowing players to traverse the rift by keyboard rather than by mouse, is rolling out to ranked matches in patch 26.9. 
  
  Riot first announced that it was pursuing support for WASD controls last August. The studio said it wanted to ensure that the alternate control scheme wasn9t more powerful than point-and-click movement; Riot said it was targeting a low win-loss rate difference between the options before releasing it to League players. "There9s still a small delta in the win-rates between the control schemes, with Point and Click having a minor advantage," according to today9s devlog dedicated to this new feature. "We expect that difference will decrease over time as players gain more mastery with WASD, but we will continue to monitor this stat in the future." 
  
  That blog post goes into more detail about how the team tested and gauged community responses to WASD, which is pretty neat stuff if you9re a game dev nerd. League will be receiving a few new accessibility improvements, such as custom inputs for moving the mouse cursor and some new flexibility for keybinds, along with the new control scheme. Although Riot was clear to say that it9s not adding official support for controllers or gamepads, players will be able to use WASD controls with a joystick.
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/league-of-legends-new-wasd-control-scheme-will-be-enabled-for-ranked-later-this-month-193858052.html?src=rss

• Microsoft raises prices on Surface PCs due to skyrocketing RAM costs
  The RAMpocalypse continues. Microsoft just revealed though the base hard drive did get a bit bigger.
  
  These price increases are, of course, being blamed on generative AI's penchant for https://t.co/00DzRHXK0f by @chaosromero
  — 9to5Google (@9to5Google) April 8, 2026
  These aren't the https://t.co/iDOZYMtQbB
  — Tom's Hardware (@tomshardware) April 10, 2026
  SSDs have also shot up in price, with old-school HDDs not far behind. It's getting thorny out there. 
  This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-raises-prices-on-surface-pcs-due-to-skyrocketing-ram-costs-181648588.html?src=rss

• EU OS: A Bold Step Toward Digital Sovereignty for Europe
  Image
  A new initiative, called "EU OS," has been launched to develop a Linux-based operating system tailored specifically for the public sector organizations of the European Union (EU). This community-driven project aims to address the EU's unique needs and challenges, focusing on fostering digital sovereignty, reducing dependency on external vendors, and building a secure, self-sufficient digital ecosystem.
  What Is EU OS?
  EU OS is not an entirely novel operating system. Instead, it builds upon a Linux foundation derived from Fedora, with the KDE Plasma desktop environment. It draws inspiration from previous efforts such as France's GendBuntu and Munich's LiMux, which aimed to provide Linux-based systems for public sector use. The goal remains the same: to create a standardized Linux distribution that can be adapted to different regional, national, and sector-specific needs within the EU.
  
  Rather than reinventing the wheel, EU OS focuses on standardization, offering a solid Linux foundation that can be customized according to the unique requirements of various organizations. This approach makes EU OS a practical choice for the public sector, ensuring broad compatibility and ease of implementation across diverse environments.
  The Vision Behind EU OS
  The guiding principle of EU OS is the concept of "public money – public code," ensuring that taxpayer money is used transparently and effectively. By adopting an open-source model, EU OS eliminates licensing fees, which not only lowers costs but also reduces the dependency on a select group of software vendors. This provides the EU’s public sector organizations with greater flexibility and control over their IT infrastructure, free from the constraints of vendor lock-in.
  
  Additionally, EU OS offers flexibility in terms of software migration and hardware upgrades. Organizations can adapt to new technologies and manage their IT evolution at a manageable cost, both in terms of finances and time.
  
  However, there are some concerns about the choice of Fedora as the base for EU OS. While Fedora is a solid and reliable distribution, it is backed by the United States-based Red Hat. Some argue that using European-backed projects such as openSUSE or KDE's upcoming distribution might have aligned better with the EU's goal of strengthening digital sovereignty.
  Conclusion
  EU OS marks a significant step towards Europe's digital independence by providing a robust, standardized Linux distribution for the public sector. By reducing reliance on proprietary software and vendors, it paves the way for a more flexible, cost-effective, and secure digital ecosystem. While the choice of Fedora as the base for the project has raised some questions, the overall vision of EU OS offers a promising future for Europe's public sector in the digital age.
  
  Source: It's FOSS
  European Union

• Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight
  
  Linus Torvalds Acknowledges Missed Release of Linux 6.14 Due to Oversight
  
  Linux kernel lead developer Linus Torvalds has admitted to forgetting to release version 6.14, attributing the oversight to his own lapse in memory. Torvalds is known for releasing new Linux kernel candidates and final versions on Sunday afternoons, typically accompanied by a post detailing the release. If he is unavailable due to travel or other commitments, he usually informs the community ahead of time, so users don’t worry if there’s a delay.
  
  In his post on March 16, Torvalds gave no indication that the release might be delayed, instead stating, “I expect to release the final 6.14 next weekend unless something very surprising happens.” However, Sunday, March 23rd passed without any announcement.
  
  On March 24th, Torvalds wrote in a follow-up message, “I’d love to have some good excuse for why I didn’t do the 6.14 release yesterday on my regular Sunday afternoon schedule,” adding, “But no. It’s just pure incompetence.” He further explained that while he had been clearing up unrelated tasks, he simply forgot to finalize the release. “D'oh,” he joked.
  
  Despite this minor delay, Torvalds’ track record of successfully managing the Linux kernel’s development process over the years remains strong. A single day’s delay is not critical, especially since most Linux users don't urgently need the very latest version.
  
  The new 6.14 release introduces several important features, including enhanced support for writing drivers in Rust—an ongoing topic of discussion among developers—support for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile chip, a fix for the GhostWrite vulnerability in certain RISC-V processors from Alibaba’s T-Head Semiconductor, and a completed NTSYNC driver update that improves the WINE emulator’s ability to run Windows applications, particularly games, on Linux.
  
  Although the 6.14 release went smoothly aside from the delay, Torvalds expressed that version 6.15 may present more challenges due to the volume of pending pull requests. “Judging by my pending pile of pull requests, 6.15 will be much busier,” he noted.
  
  You can download the latest kernel here.
  Linus Torvalds kernel

• AerynOS 2025.03 Alpha Released with GNOME 48, Mesa 25, and Linux Kernel 6.13.8
  Image
  AerynOS 2025.03 has officially been released, introducing a variety of exciting features for Linux users. The release includes the highly anticipated GNOME 48 desktop environment, which comes with significant improvements like HDR support, dynamic triple buffering, and a Wayland color management protocol. Other updates include a battery charge limiting feature and a Wellbeing option aimed at improving user experience.
  
  This release, while still in alpha, incorporates Linux kernel 6.13.8 and the updated Mesa 25.0.2 graphics stack, alongside tools like LLVM 19.1.7 and Vulkan SDK 1.4.309.0. Additionally, the Moss package manager now integrates os-info to generate more detailed OS metadata via a JSON file.
  
  Future plans for AerynOS include automated package updates, easier rollback management, improved disk handling with Rust, and fractional scaling enabled by default. The installer has also been revamped to support full disk wipes and dynamic partitioning.
  
  Although still considered an alpha release, AerynOS 2025.03 can be downloaded and tested right now from its official website.
  
  Source: 9to5Linux
  AerynOS

• Xojo 2025r1: Big Updates for Developers with Linux ARM Support, Web Drag and Drop, and Direct App Store Publishing
  Image
  Xojo has just rolled out its latest release, Xojo 2025 Release 1, and it’s packed with features that developers have been eagerly waiting for. This major update introduces support for running Xojo on Linux ARM, including Raspberry Pi, brings drag-and-drop functionality to the Web framework, and simplifies app deployment with the ability to directly submit apps to the macOS and iOS App Stores.
  
  Here’s a quick overview of what’s new in Xojo 2025r1:
  1. Linux ARM IDE Support
  Xojo 2025r1 now allows developers to run the Xojo IDE on Linux ARM devices, including popular platforms like Raspberry Pi. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for developers who want to create apps for ARM-based devices without the usual complexity. Whether you’re building for a Raspberry Pi or other ARM devices, this update makes it easier than ever to get started.
  2. Web Drag and Drop
  One of the standout features in this release is the addition of drag-and-drop support for web applications. Now, developers can easily drag and drop visual controls in their web projects, making it simpler to create interactive, user-friendly web applications. Plus, the WebListBox has been enhanced with support for editable cells, checkboxes, and row reordering via dragging. No JavaScript required!
  3. Direct App Store Publishing
  Xojo has also streamlined the process of publishing apps. With this update, developers can now directly submit macOS and iOS apps to App Store Connect right from the Xojo IDE. This eliminates the need for multiple steps and makes it much easier to get apps into the App Store, saving valuable time during the development process.
  4. New Desktop and Mobile Features
  This release isn’t just about web and Linux updates. Xojo 2025r1 brings some great improvements for desktop and mobile apps as well. On the desktop side, all projects now include a default window menu for macOS apps. On the mobile side, Xojo has introduced new features for Android and iOS, including support for ColorGroup and Dark Mode on Android, and a new MobileColorPicker for iOS to simplify color selection.
  5. Performance and IDE Enhancements
  Xojo’s IDE has also been improved in several key areas. There’s now an option to hide toolbar captions, and the toolbar has been made smaller on Windows. The IDE on Windows and Linux now features modern Bootstrap icons, and the Documentation window toolbar is more compact. In the code editor, developers can now quickly navigate to variable declarations with a simple Cmd/Ctrl + Double-click. Plus, performance for complex container layouts in the Layout Editor has been enhanced.
  What Does This Mean for Developers?
  Xojo 2025r1 brings significant improvements across all the platforms that Xojo supports, from desktop and mobile to web and Linux. The added Linux ARM support opens up new opportunities for Raspberry Pi and ARM-based device development, while the drag-and-drop functionality for web projects will make it easier to create modern, interactive web apps. The ability to publish directly to the App Store is a game-changer for macOS and iOS developers, reducing the friction of app distribution.
  How to Get Started
  Xojo is free for learning and development, as well as for building apps for Linux and Raspberry Pi. If you’re ready to dive into cross-platform development, paid licenses start at $99 for a single-platform desktop license, and $399 for cross-platform desktop, mobile, or web development. For professional developers who need additional resources and support, Xojo Pro and Pro Plus licenses start at $799. You can also find special pricing for educators and students.
  
  Download Xojo 2025r1 today at xojo.com.
  Final Thoughts
  With each new release, Xojo continues to make cross-platform development more accessible and efficient. The 2025r1 release is no exception, delivering key updates that simplify the development process and open up new possibilities for developers working on a variety of platforms. Whether you’re a Raspberry Pi enthusiast or a mobile app developer, Xojo 2025r1 has something for you.
  Xojo ARM

• New 'Mirrored' Network Mode Introduced in Windows Subsystem for Linux
  
  Microsoft's Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) continues to evolve with the release of WSL 2 version 0.0.2. This update introduces a set of opt-in preview features designed to enhance performance and compatibility.
  
  Key additions include "Automatic memory reclaim" which dynamically optimizes WSL's memory footprint, and "Sparse VHD" to shrink the size of the virtual hard disk file. These improvements aim to streamline resource usage.
  
  Additionally, a new "mirrored networking mode" brings expanded networking capabilities like IPv6 and multicast support. Microsoft claims this will improve VPN and LAN connectivity from both the Windows host and Linux guest. 
  
  Complementing this is a new "DNS Tunneling" feature that changes how DNS queries are resolved to avoid compatibility issues with certain network setups. According to Microsoft, this should reduce problems connecting to the internet or local network resources within WSL.
  
  Advanced firewall configuration options are also now available through Hyper-V integration. The new "autoProxy" feature ensures WSL seamlessly utilizes the Windows system proxy configuration.
  
  Microsoft states these features are currently rolling out to Windows Insiders running Windows 11 22H2 Build 22621.2359 or later. They remain opt-in previews to allow testing before final integration into WSL.
  
  By expanding WSL 2 with compelling new capabilities in areas like resource efficiency, networking, and security, Microsoft aims to make Linux on Windows more performant and compatible. This evolutionary approach based on user feedback highlights Microsoft's commitment to WSL as a key part of the Windows ecosystem.
  Windows

• Linux Threat Report: Earth Lusca Deploys Novel SprySOCKS Backdoor in Attacks on Government Entities
  
  The threat actor Earth Lusca, linked to Chinese state-sponsored hacking groups, has been observed utilizing a new Linux backdoor dubbed SprySOCKS to target government organizations globally. 
  
  As initially reported in January 2022 by Trend Micro, Earth Lusca has been active since at least 2021 conducting cyber espionage campaigns against public and private sector targets in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America. Their tactics include spear-phishing and watering hole attacks to gain initial access. Some of Earth Lusca's activities overlap with another Chinese threat cluster known as RedHotel.
  
  In new research, Trend Micro reveals Earth Lusca remains highly active, even expanding operations in the first half of 2023. Primary victims are government departments focused on foreign affairs, technology, and telecommunications. Attacks concentrate in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and the Balkans regions. 
  
  After breaching internet-facing systems by exploiting flaws in Fortinet, GitLab, Microsoft Exchange, Telerik UI, and Zimbra software, Earth Lusca uses web shells and Cobalt Strike to move laterally. Their goal is exfiltrating documents and credentials, while also installing additional backdoors like ShadowPad and Winnti for long-term spying.
  
  The Command and Control server delivering Cobalt Strike was also found hosting SprySOCKS - an advanced backdoor not previously publicly reported. With roots in the Windows malware Trochilus, SprySOCKS contains reconnaissance, remote shell, proxy, and file operation capabilities. It communicates over TCP mimicking patterns used by a Windows trojan called RedLeaves, itself built on Trochilus.
  
  At least two SprySOCKS versions have been identified, indicating ongoing development. This novel Linux backdoor deployed by Earth Lusca highlights the increasing sophistication of Chinese state-sponsored threats. Robust patching, access controls, monitoring for unusual activities, and other proactive defenses remain essential to counter this advanced malware.
  
  The Trend Micro researchers emphasize that organizations must minimize attack surfaces, regularly update systems, and ensure robust security hygiene to interrupt the tactics, techniques, and procedures of relentless threat groups like Earth Lusca.
  Security

• Linux Kernel Faces Reduction in Long-Term Support Due to Maintenance Challenges
  
  The Linux kernel is undergoing major changes that will shape its future development and adoption, according to Jonathan Corbet, Linux kernel developer and executive editor of Linux Weekly News. Speaking at the Open Source Summit Europe, Corbet provided an update on the latest Linux kernel developments and a glimpse of what's to come.
  
  A major change on the horizon is a reduction in long-term support (LTS) for kernel versions from six years to just two years. Corbet explained that maintaining old kernel branches indefinitely is unsustainable and most users have migrated to newer versions, so there's little point in continuing six years of support. While some may grumble about shortened support lifecycles, the reality is that constantly backporting fixes to ancient kernels strains maintainers.
  
  This maintainer burnout poses a serious threat, as Corbet highlighted. Maintaining Linux is largely a volunteer effort, with only about 200 of the 2,000+ developers paid for their contributions. The endless demands on maintainers' time from fuzz testing, fixing minor bugs, and reviewing contributions takes a toll. Prominent maintainers have warned they need help to avoid collapse. Companies relying on Linux must realize giving back financially is in their interest to sustain this vital ecosystem. 
  
  The Linux kernel is also wading into waters new with the introduction of Rust code. While Rust solves many problems, it also introduces new complexities around language integration, evolving standards, and maintainer expertise. Corbet believes Rust will pass the point of no return when core features depend on it, which may occur soon with additions like Apple M1 GPU drivers. Despite skepticism in some corners, Rust's benefits likely outweigh any transition costs.
  
  On the distro front, Red Hat's decision to restrict RHEL cloning sparked community backlash. While business considerations were at play, Corbet noted technical factors too. Using older kernels with backported fixes, as RHEL does, risks creating divergent, vendor-specific branches. The Android model of tracking mainline kernel dev more closely has shown security benefits. Ultimately, Linux works best when aligned with the broader community.
  
  In closing, Corbet recalled the saying "Linux is free like a puppy is free." Using open source seems easy at first, but sustaining it long-term requires significant care and feeding. As Linux is incorporated into more critical systems, that maintenance becomes ever more crucial. The kernel changes ahead are aimed at keeping Linux healthy and vibrant for the next generation of users, businesses, and developers.
  kernel

• Linux Celebrates 32 Years with the Release of 6.6-rc2 Version
  
  Today marks the 32nd anniversary of Linus Torvalds introducing the inaugural Linux 0.01 kernel version, and celebrating this milestone, Torvalds has launched the Linux 6.6-rc2. Among the noteworthy updates are the inclusion of a feature catering to the ASUS ROG Flow X16 tablet's mode handling and the renaming of the new GenPD subsystem to pmdomain.
  
  The Linux 6.6 edition is progressing well, brimming with exciting new features that promise to enhance user experience. Early benchmarks are indicating promising results, especially on high-core-count servers, pointing to a potentially robust and efficient update in the Linux series.
  
  Here is what Linus Torvalds had to say in today's announcement:
  Another week, another -rc.I think the most notable thing about 6.6-rc2 is simply that it'sexactly 32 years to the day since the 0.01 release. And that's a roundnumber if you are a computer person.Because other than the random date, I don't see anything that reallystands out here. We've got random fixes all over, and none of it looksparticularly strange. The genpd -> pmdomain rename shows up in thediffstat, but there's no actual code changes involved (make sure touse "git diff -M" to see them as zero-line renames).And other than that, things look very normal. Sure, the architecturefixes happen to be mostly parisc this week, which isn't exactly theusual pattern, but it's also not exactly a huge amount of changes.Most of the (small) changes here are in drivers, with some tracingfixes and just random things. The shortlog below is short enough toscroll through and get a taste of what's been going on. Linus Torvalds

• Introducing Bavarder: A User-Friendly Linux Desktop App for Quick ChatGPT Interaction
  
  Want to interact with ChatGPT from your Linux desktop without using a web browser?
  
  Bavarder, a new app, allows you to do just that.
  
  Developed with Python and GTK4/libadwaita, Bavarder offers a simple concept: pose a question to ChatGPT, receive a response, and promptly copy the answer (or your inquiry) to the clipboard for pasting elsewhere.
  
  With an incredibly user-friendly interface, you won't require AI expertise (or a novice blogger) to comprehend it. Type your question in the top box, click the blue send button, and wait for a generated response to appear at the bottom. You can edit or modify your message and repeat the process as needed.
  
  During our evaluation, Bavarder employed BAI Chat, a GPT-3.5/ChatGPT API-based chatbot that's free and doesn't require signups or API keys. Future app versions will incorporate support for alternative backends, such as ChatGPT 4 and Hugging Chat, and allow users to input an API key to utilize ChatGPT3.
  
  At present, there's no option to regenerate a response (though you can resend the same question for a potentially different answer). Due to the lack of a "conversation" view, tracking a dialogue or following up on answers can be challenging — but Bavarder excels for rapid-fire questions.
  
  As with any AI, standard disclaimers apply. Responses might seem plausible but could contain inaccurate or false information. Additionally, it's relatively easy to lead these models into irrational loops, like convincing them that 2 + 2 equals 106 — so stay alert!
  
  Overall, Bavarder is an attractive app with a well-defined purpose. If you enjoy ChatGPT and similar technologies, it's worth exploring.
  ChatGPT AI

• LibreOffice 7.5.3 Released: Third Maintenance Update Brings 119 Bug Fixes to Popular Open-Source Office Suite
  
  Today, The Document Foundation unveiled the release and widespread availability of LibreOffice 7.5.3, which serves as the third maintenance update to the current LibreOffice 7.5 open-source and complimentary office suite series.
  
  Approximately five weeks after the launch of LibreOffice 7.5.2, LibreOffice 7.5.3 arrives with a new set of bug fixes for those who have successfully updated their GNU/Linux system to the LibreOffice 7.5 series.
  
  LibreOffice 7.5.3 addresses a total of 119 bugs identified by users or uncovered by LibreOffice developers. For a more comprehensive understanding of these bug fixes, consult the RC1 and RC2 changelogs.
  
  You can download LibreOffice 7.5.3 directly from the LibreOffice website��or from SourceForge as binary installers for DEB or RPM-based GNU/Linux distributions. A source tarball is also accessible for individuals who prefer to compile the software from sources or for system integrators.
  
  All users operating the LibreOffice 7.5 office suite series should promptly update their installations to the new point release, which will soon appear in the stable software repositories of your GNU/Linux distributions.
  
  In early February 2023, LibreOffice 7.5 debuted as a substantial upgrade to the widely-used open-source office suite, introducing numerous features and improvements. These enhancements encompass major upgrades to dark mode support, new application and MIME-type icons, a refined Single Toolbar UI, enhanced PDF Export, and more.
  
  Seven maintenance updates will support LibreOffice 7.5 until November 30th, 2023. The next point release, LibreOffice 7.5.4, is scheduled for early June and will include additional bug fixes.
  
  The Document Foundation once again emphasizes that the LibreOffice office suite's "Community" edition is maintained by volunteers and members of the Open Source community. For enterprise implementations, they suggest using the LibreOffice Enterprise family of applications from ecosystem partners.
  LibreOffice