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Best Internet Providers in Alexandria, Virginia

What is the best internet provider in Alexandria? CNET recommends Verizon Fios as the best internet service provider in Alexandria. It offers fast fiber coverage, blistering-fast speeds and reasonable prices. You get unlimited data, free equipment rental and lengthy price guarantees. Verizon Fios is one of CNET's top-rated internet service providers countrywide, so it makes sense it would be good in Alexandria, too. Ting Fiber's flat rate and fast speeds make it a solid fiber internet alternat

Species at 30 makes for a great guilty pleasure

Earlier this month, Hollywood mourned the passing of Michael Madsen, a gifted actor best known for his critically acclaimed roles in Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill, and Donnie Brasco, among others. Few obituaries have mentioned one of his lesser-known roles: a black ops mercenary hired to help hunt down an escaped human/alien hybrid in 1995's Species. The sci-fi thriller turns 30 this year and while it garnered decidedly mixed reviews upon release, the film holds up quite well as a not-quite-campy B

Gasp! Researchers Say There’s an Inaccuracy in Popular Teen Movies

Image by Peacock / NBC Studies According to a new study, teen films have a dirty little secret — and it's harming the real-life adolescents who watch them. After analyzing dozens of teen films, communications researchers at the University of Ohio found, per a new study published in the Journal of Children and Media, that the experiences depicted in them was so different from the lives and experiences of actual teens that they may as well have been speculative fiction. Looking at 53 teen films

Here's How to Turn Off Some Annoying iPhone Texting Features

Texting is one of the easiest ways to stay in touch with friends and family, and if you can't find the right words to use in a text, you can always use an emoji. But you might find some texting features on iPhone to be downright annoying. Some of the biggest culprits include autocorrect and predictive texting. Autocorrect can cut down on the number of typos when you're typing, and predictive texting can make it easy to write a full message in a few quick taps. But when I use these features, mor

Elon Musk’s SpaceX might invest $2 billion in Musk’s xAI

In Brief One Elon Musk business might be making a big investment in another. According to a Wall Street Journal report that cites investors close to SpaceX, the company has agreed to invest $2 billion in Musk’s AI startup xAI. The investment would reportedly be part of the $5 billion equity raise (along with another $5 billion in debt) that Morgan Stanley announced at the end of June. This would be SpaceX’s first investment in xAI, and one of its biggest investments in another company. The WS

This $500 Chromebook Plus has better performance than some PCs I've tested

ZDNET's key takeaways The Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is on sale for $499. It excels as an inexpensive work laptop thanks to its comfortable keyboard and useful features in ChromeOS. Its lower-end touchscreen will limit usability for some. $499.99 at Amazon $499 at Lenovo $379 at Best Buy more buying choices I've been really curious to see how things have changed since my last Chromebook review, which was the Acer Chromebook Plus Enterprise 515 last year. I recently had that opportunity wi

I Will Text You the Best Daily Deals for Free Every Day. Here's How to Join

Good news, fans of deals and discounts: I've spent the last decade crawling the internet for the best deals pretty much every day, and in that time I've learned a thing or 12 about finding deals that really save you money, including which discounts mean genuine savings and which reductions are just a lot of buzz without meaningful cost-cutting. That's why every day my team and I handpick daily deals for CNET's Deals texts to subscribers, delivering irresistible sales straight to your phone and h

Topics: cnet day deals ll text

Context Engineering Guide

What is Context Engineering? A few years ago, many, even top AI researchers, claimed that prompt engineering would be dead by now. Obviously, they were very wrong, and in fact, prompt engineering is now even more important than ever. It is so important that it is now being rebranded as context engineering. Yes, another fancy term to describe the important process of tuning the instructions and relevant context that an LLM needs to perform its tasks effectively. Much has been written already

Gboard could make it much easier to type and edit even without touching your phone (APK teardown)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google reveals more clues about its improved voice typing feature in Gboard. While Gboard already allows using basic voice commands for editing text, the improved feature could use AI for smarter edits. This feature could be powered by Gemini Nano, allowing for quick, on-device editing with voice. As Google readies the upcoming Pixel 10 series of phones, we’re witnessing increasingly more signs hinting at contextual uses of AI across many of its apps

Galaxy Z Flip 7’s Exynos 2500 benchmarked: Flagship power or foldable flop?

In a first for Samsung’s foldables, the new Galaxy Z Flip 7 sports a Samsung Exynos processor instead of its usual Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. I’m reasonably convinced the Exynos 2500 looks more than good enough on paper, even if it won’t quite match the Snapdragon 8 Elite inside the Galaxy S25 series and Z Fold 7. But the real proof is in the testing, so I’ve run the Galaxy Z Flip 7 through our usual suite of benchmarks to see just how far off the top spot it really is. For comparison, we’ve gra

Stone–Wales Transformations

Buckminsterfullerene is a molecule shaped like a soccer ball, made of 60 carbon atoms. If one of the bonds between two hexagons rotates, we get a weird mutant version of this molecule: This is an example of a Stone-Wales transformation: a 90° rotation in a so-called ‘π bond’ between carbon atoms. Here’s how it works in graphene: Graphene is a sheet of carbon molecules arranged in hexagons. When they undergo a Stone–Wales transformation, we get a Stone–Wales defect with two pentagons and two he

24 hours with Alexa Plus: we cooked, we chatted, and it kinda lied to me

I’ve waited two years to try out the new Alexa, which was first announced way back in 2023, and this week I finally got access to Alexa Plus. I’ve now spent 24 hours with Amazon’s generative AI-powered voice assistant, and it’s not just an improvement on the original; it’s an entirely new assistant. Alexa Plus knows more, can do more, and is easier to interact with because it understands more. I can ramble, pause, sigh, cough, change my request mid-sentence, and it can adapt and respond appropr

An electrician's plea: Don't plug these 7 appliances (including AC units) into extension cords

Maria Diaz/ZDNET Extension cords are generally a safe solution for running power to electronics that are too far from the nearest wall outlet. But the operative word here is "electronics," which is not as all-encompassing as some people might think. Appliances (like refrigerators and toaster ovens) are obviously electronic devices, but they're in a different class from most electronics because of the amperage demands they need to function. Why you shouldn't plug everything into an extension c

The best Plex alternative in 2025 is Jellyfin, and you really should try it

Robert Triggs / Android Authority Self-hosting is an increasingly popular alternative for those looking to escape the convoluted (and expensive) content-streaming landscape and return to a more traditional personal ownership approach to their media collection. Once you’ve bought your fancy new Network Attached Storage (NAS) and filled it with your favorite movies, the next step is to figure out what software to run on it. There are at least two solid options for serving up your media collectio

OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off, and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

is The Verge’s senior AI reporter. An AI beat reporter for more than five years, her work has also appeared in CNBC, MIT Technology Review, Wired UK, and other outlets. OpenAI’s deal to buy Windsurf is off, and Google will instead hire Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, cofounder Douglas Chen, and some of Windsurf’s R&D employees and bring them onto the Google DeepMind team, Google and Windsurf announced Friday. Mohan and the Windsurf employees will focus on agentic coding efforts at Google DeepMind an

I tried Perplexity's Comet AI browser - here's what you need to know

Nazarii Neshcherenskyi/Getty Perplexity Comet isn't the first AI-powered web browser to arrive. That honor goes to Dia, but thanks to the popularity of Perplexity as an AI-enabled search engine and chatbot, it's getting a lot of attention. It deserves it. An agentic browser, Comet isn't just a web browser with AI glued to it, as are Chrome with Gemini and Edge with Copilot. It's designed from the ground up to use AI to automate tasks and improve your workflow. Also: Perplexity's Comet AI brow

OpenAI’s Windsurf deal is off — and Windsurf’s CEO is going to Google

is The Verge’s senior AI reporter. An AI beat reporter for more than five years, her work has also appeared in CNBC, MIT Technology Review, Wired UK, and other outlets. OpenAI’s deal to buy Windsurf is off, and Google will instead hire Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, cofounder Douglas Chen, and some of Windsurf’s R&D employees and bring them onto the Google DeepMind team, Google and Windsurf announced Friday. Mohan and the Windsurf employees will focus on agentic coding efforts at Google DeepMind an

Deal alert: We’ve never seen the Kindle Paperwhite this cheap!

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority Attention, bookworms! There’s a last chance to grab the Kindle Paperwhite at a fantastic discount this Amazon Prime Day. Usually priced at $159.99, it’s now available for just $124.99, a significant 22% markdown from retail and the lowest price we’ve ever tracked on the device. Kindle Paperwhite for $124.99 (22% off) This is the newest model of the Kindle Paperwhite, which scored a perfect 10 in our review. It offers a clear 7-inch E Ink display with improved

Amazon deal slashes Amazfit T-Rex 3 to its lowest price ever of $189.99

If you’re an adventurer in need of a durable smartwatch, there’s a great deal on the Amazfit T-Rex 3. You can grab it for $189.99, which is quite the bargain compared to its usual price of $279.99. That’s a 29% savings and it’s the lowest price ever. Amazfit T-Rex 3 for $189.99 (29% off) The Amazfit T-Rex 3 is geared towards outdoor enthusiasts and offers a host of features to enhance your adventures. It sports a 1.5-inch AMOLED display that kicks out 2,000 nits of brightness, keeping the scree

The zero-day that could've compromised every Cursor and Windsurf user

A security researcher from Koi Security stumbled upon a critical zero-day buried deep in the infrastructure powering today’s AI coding tools. Had it been exploited, a non-sophisticated attacker could’ve hijacked over 10 million machines with a single stroke. AI coding assistants like Cursor and Windsurf have exploded in popularity, promising supercharged productivity for developers around the world. Behind their sleek interfaces lies a shared foundation: community-built VS Code forks and an ope

I take this solar GPS tracker on all my off-grid adventures - and it's on sale

ZDNET's key takeaways The Garmin eTrex Solar is available now for $228, while the eTrex SE without solar sells for $149. It has the potential for unlimited battery life, extensive GNSS support, features a rugged build, and is very accurate. However, it has a small monochrome display, and no turn-by-turn directions of TopoActive maps. $227.96 at Amazon Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I gained a deep affection for the outdoors. The forest is my happy place. I have a good sense of direction

CISA tags Citrix Bleed 2 as exploited, gives agencies a day to patch

The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency has confirmed active exploitation of the CitrixBleed 2 vulnerability (CVE-2025-5777) in Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway and is giving federal agencies one day to apply fixes. Such a short deadline for installing the patches is unprecedented since CISA released the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, showing the severity of the attacks exploiting the security issue. The agency added the flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabiliti

At Amazon's biggest data center, everything is supersized for AI

A year ago, a 1,200-acre stretch of farmland outside New Carlisle, Ind., was an empty cornfield. Now, seven Amazon data centers rise up from the rich soil, each larger than a football stadium. Over the next several years, Amazon plans to build around 30 data centers at the site, packed with hundreds of thousands of specialized computer chips. With hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber connecting every chip and computer together, the entire complex will form one giant machine intended just for

Exclusive: New Snapdragon wearables chip in the works, could supercharge Wear OS watch performance

C. Scott Brown / Android Authority TL;DR Qualcomm is working on a new wearable chip, the “SW6100”, also called “aspena” The processor is not based on any previous Qualcomm product, unlike its previous wearable chips The specs include 1x Arm Cortex-A78 + 4x Arm Cortex-A55, an LPDDR5X RAM controller, all built on a TSMC process node Wear OS smartwatches have been in a bit of a standstill lately. After releasing Snapdragon W5/+ Gen 1 in 2022, Qualcomm hasn’t given the platform any attention, wi

At Amazon's Biggest Data Center, Everything Is Supersized for A.I

A year ago, a 1,200-acre stretch of farmland outside New Carlisle, Ind., was an empty cornfield. Now, seven Amazon data centers rise up from the rich soil, each larger than a football stadium. Over the next several years, Amazon plans to build around 30 data centers at the site, packed with hundreds of thousands of specialized computer chips. With hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber connecting every chip and computer together, the entire complex will form one giant machine intended just for

“It’s a heist”: Senator calls out Texas for trying to steal shuttle from Smithsonian

A political effort to remove space shuttle Discovery from the Smithsonian and place it on display in Texas encountered some pushback on Thursday, as a US senator questioned the expense of carrying out what he described as a theft. "This is not a transfer. It's a heist," said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) during a budget markup hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee. "A heist by Texas because they lost a competition 12 years ago." In April, Republican Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, bot

Apple planning new Mac external display, MacBooks, iPads, and more for early 2026

Apple is planning for a busy start to 2026. A new report from Bloomberg details that Apple is working on updates for various iPhone, iPad, and Mac models destined for the first half of 2026. Perhaps most exciting for many people, however, is that Apple is also planning to release a new external display for the Mac next year. Here is what Bloomberg says is in the works for the first half of 2026: New MacBook Pro powered by the M5 chip, “the last with the current design” New iPad Air powered b

ExTiX's new release is an even better Windows 11-like Linux desktop

Jack Wallen/ZDNET Back in 2022, I reviewed ExTiX with the idea of using it to get the Deepin desktop experience, without the possible security/privacy issues associated with Deepin Linux. Now ExTiX has a new release, based on Deepin 25 Stable. This new release vastly improves on the experience to deliver a desktop with a layout that would make any Windows 11 user feel right at home, only there are no intrusive ads, unexpected reboots, or concerns that something will come crashing down. When yo