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How bad are childhood literacy rates?

is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater. Every month or so, for the past few years, a new dire story has warned of how American children, from elementary school to college age, can no longer read. And every time I read one of these stories, I find myself conflicted. On the one hand, I am aware that every generation complains that the kids who come next are doing everything wrong and have

Voxtral – Frontier open source speech understanding models

Voice: the original UI. Voice was humanity’s first interface—long before writing or typing, it let us share ideas, coordinate work, and build relationships. As digital systems become more capable, voice is returning as our most natural form of human-computer interaction. Yet today’s systems remain limited—unreliable, proprietary, and too brittle for real-world use. Closing this gap demands tools with exceptional transcription, deep understanding, multilingual fluency, and open, flexible deploy

Bitcoin falls below $117,000 after Trump crypto bills are blocked before vote

The price of bitcoin was last down 2.8% at $116,516.00, according to Coin Metrics. That marks a pullback from the day's high of $120,481.86. Bitcoin fell below the $117,000 level on Tuesday after cryptocurrency-related bills were blocked in the House of Representatives. The drop comes on the heels of multiple crypto-related bills failing to overcome a procedural hurdle in the House, with 13 Republicans voting with Democrats to block the motion in a 196-223 vote. In recent days, bitcoin has be

The base model Kindle is the e-reader most people should buy. Here's why

ZDNET's key takeaways Amazon's base model Kindle promises quicker page-turning, a brighter display, and a fun matcha green colorway (alongside the classic black) The e-reader is more reactive and vivid, and reading anything on the lightweight, portable device is convenient. This model has the shortest battery life out of the entire lineup, but it's still six weeks long. $109.99 at Amazon $109.99 at Best Buy more buying choices Unlike an iPad or tablet competitor, a Kindle's sole purpose is to

This laptop accessory has replaced standing desks for me, plus it's easy to travel with

ZDNET's key takeaways Moft's Sit-stand Laptop Desk is a 5-in-1 foldable laptop stand that retails for $70. The standing option is a game-changer for those traveling for work, hot-desking, or with compact home office spaces. However, for $70, the stand would be more complete if it had a companion keyboard stand. $59.99 at Amazon We all know the feeling of sitting in a desk chair for too long: fatigue, back pain, and a sore neck, among other things. If you sit at a desk for work, it's important

See How ‘M3GAN 2.0’ Built Itself a Bigger, Better M3GAN

For better or worse, M3GAN’s sophomore outing in M3GAN 2.0 brought with it much more action-packed mania than the killer-doll horrors of the original. That, and of course the awkward inconvenience of M3GAN’s body being destroyed in the climax of the first film, meant her return for round two needed a mechanical do-over… including a few upgrades for good measure. Now that M3GAN 2.0 is heading home digitally today, you can see just how the team behind the movie made those upgrades to make the all

This handy AI voice recorder has changed the way I work (and it's easy to use)

ZDNET's key takeaways Plaud Note is available now on Amazon.com for $159 This device and app combo lifts your note-taking to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness The Plaud Note device does require a paid subscription for the AI features. $159 at Amazon In the world of voice recording apps and devices, it's mostly the same old thing: Click or tap Record, start speaking, stop speaking, and click Save. Some voice recording apps will do basic transcripts (the Pixel Recording app does an im

‘Andor’ Gets 14 Emmy Nominations in a Genre-Heavy Year

Television, it turns out, is geeky as hell. That seemed to be the major takeaway as the 77th annual Emmy Award nominations were announced Tuesday, with Severance leading all nominees with 27 total, HBO’s The Penguin coming in second with 24, The Last of Us in fifth with 16, and Andor coming in sixth with 14, including Outstanding Drama Series. Other genre shows, such as The Acolyte, Agatha All Along, Black Mirror, The Boys, Cobra Kai, Dune: Prophecy, House of the Dragon, Invincible, Paradise, P

One of our favorite Ninja air fryers is 36 percent off right now

Engadget has been testing and reviewing consumer tech since 2004. Our stories may include affiliate links; if you buy something through a link, we may earn a commission. Read more about how we evaluate products . Prime Day might have ended last week, but that doesn't mean the sales are over. Amazon still has discounts on some of our favorite items, including our pick for best dual-zone air fryer. Right now, you can get the Ninja DZ401 Foodi Air Fryer for $160, down from $250. The 36 percent di

Nearly Half of Americans Budget Based on Vibes. Should You?

Your feelings about the economy can help you set a smarter money strategy. Massonstock/Getty Images Potential romantic partners. Your next vacation spot. Whether you should leave a party early. A vibe check can help you evaluate lots of things, including your money strategy. A June study by Intuit Credit Karma found that 44% of Americans surveyed have done "vibe-based budgeting." Gen Zers and millennials, in particular, are adjusting their spending and savings habits according to how they feel

This Guy Attached 21 Chef’s Knives to a Slicing Robot Arm to Determine Which One Is Best

After the fifth tomato, I had to know how my knife did. Without judgment, Heimendinger announced that it placed "second to last in the cohort." I felt responsibility for this knife, and a little embarrassment, until I remembered his knives came straight out of the box and into the testing process with an unblemished factory edge. My knife, on the other hand, had been in regular use in my test kitchen for more than six months receiving only the occasional honing. Plus, I noted protectively that t

Rainmaker partners with Atmo to squeeze more rain from clouds

Cloud seeding startup Rainmaker is partnering with Atmo, an AI-powered meteorology startup, the companies exclusively told TechCrunch. The two operate on complementary ends of the weather system: Atmo studies atmospheric patterns to forecast weather events, while Rainmaker digests such data in an attempt to squeeze more precipitation out of weather systems. Under the partnership, Atmo will use its deep learning models to help Rainmaker identify clouds that have potential for seeding. The forec

Binding Application in Idris

I’ve recently implemented binding application as a language feature in Idris. This feature allows writing types such as Dependent pairs in a more ergonomic way without relying on special compiler magic. Or rather, the compiler magic is made available to everyone. This post is a collection of uses for this feature. This feature is not publicly available yet, but I intend to make it available in the near future. What is it? Binding syntax and binding-application is an idea I had a couple of yea

YouTube’s Latest Update Shows That Online Monoculture Is Dead

Remember “Baby Shark Dance?” How about “Gangnam Style?” Those videos were among the most inescapable offerings of the YouTube canon, pumped into our lives by the last vestige of the internet monoculture: the Trending page. Now, a full decade since it was first introduced, YouTube announced it is ending its effort to inject top videos into everyone’s feeds, opting instead to highlight popular content in specific niches. In a blog post, the company admits that the internet ecosystem has changed c

Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in $2.4 billion AI talent deal

Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf. As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its techn

Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf. As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its techn

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

DJI Mic 2 plummets to new record-low price, saving you $100!

Are you a content creator, or are you looking to become one? Finding the right equipment can be daunting. If you want a microphone that offers good quality, excellent portability, and ease of use, the DJI Mic 2 is among our favorites. Deals on this product are very uncommon, so we can’t ignore today’s sale. Buy the DJI Mic 2 for just $249 ($100 off) This offer is available from Woot, an Amazon-owned deals-focused website. It’s in new condition and comes with a 90-day Woot warranty. That said, t

Windsurf’s CEO goes to Google; OpenAI’s acquisition falls apart

OpenAI’s deal to acquire the viral AI coding startup Windsurf for $3 billion fell apart on Friday, according to The Verge. In a shocking twist, Google DeepMind is now hiring Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, co-founder Douglas Chen, and some of the startup’s top researchers. A Google spokesperson confirmed the hiring of Windsurf’s leaders in a statement to TechCrunch. “We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” sai

AI coding tools may not speed up every developer, study shows

Software engineer workflows have been transformed in recent years by an influx of AI coding tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot, which promise to enhance productivity by automatically writing lines of code, fixing bugs, and testing changes. The tools are powered by AI models from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and xAI that have rapidly increased their performance on a range of software engineering tests in recent years. However, a new study published Thursday by the non-profit AI research

Tesla reportedly close to starting sales in India

In Brief Tesla is nearly ready to start selling its electric vehicles in India, according to Bloomberg News, after years of flirting with the idea. The company is about to open its first showroom in Mumbai and could start deliveries as early as August, according to the report. A few hours after Bloomberg published its report, Tesla created an account specifically for its Indian operation on CEO Elon Musk’s social media platform X. The account has one post so far: an illustration of the Mumbai

A cloud-seeding startup did not cause the Texas floods

In the wake of a disaster, it’s not uncommon for people to look for answers anywhere they can find them. The devastating floods in Texas are no exception. There are many potential reasons why so many people were killed by the swiftly rising waters, but one that some people have settled on is a practice known as cloud seeding. They claim that a cloud-seeding startup known as Rainmaker caused the storm to drop more rain than it otherwise would have. However, the data does not back up their concer

Apple TV+ docuseries scores 6 Daytime Emmy Awards nominations

Apple has picked up six Daytime Emmy nominations for one of its most interesting nature docuseries, produced in partnership with the BBC Studios Natural History Unit. See the categories and watch the trailer below. Winners will be announced this October Today, the Television Academy announced the nominees for the 52nd Daytime Emmy Awards. The winners will be revealed on October 17, a little more than a month after the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards, which will take place on September 14. Among th

A cloud seeding startup did not cause the Texas floods

In the wake of a disaster, it’s not uncommon for people to look for answers anywhere they can find them. The devastating floods in Texas are no exception. There are many potential reasons why so many people were killed by the swiftly rising waters, but one that some people have settled on is a practice known as cloud seeding. They claim that a cloud seeding startup known as Rainmaker caused the storm to drop more rain than it otherwise would have. However, the data does not back up their concer

Goldman Sachs is testing viral AI agent Devin as a ‘new employee’

In Brief Cognition’s AI coding agent Devin has scored a major customer: Goldman Sachs, the bank’s CIO, Marco Argenti, told CNBC. “We’re going to start augmenting our workforce with Devin, which is going to be like our new employee,” Argenti told the outlet, adding that it plans to roll out hundreds of instances of Devin, potentially growing to thousands. The bank currently employs around 12,000 human developers, it says. Despite the financial industry’s reputation for being slow and stodgy, G

Show HN: Vibe Kanban – Kanban board to manage your AI coding agents

Get 10X more out of Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Codex, Amp and other coding agents... Overview AI coding agents are increasingly writing the world's code and human engineers now spend the majority of their time planning, reviewing, and orchestrating tasks. Vibe Kanban streamlines this process, enabling you to: Easily switch between different coding agents Orchestrate the execution of multiple coding agents in parallel or in sequence Quickly review work and start dev servers Track the status o

YouTube is killing its Trending page a decade after its debut

Damien Wilde / Android Authority TL;DR YouTube is sunsetting its Trending page a decade after its launch. The company has urged users to rely on personalized recommendations and YouTube Charts to discover trending content. The Trending page and Trending Now list will be removed across all platforms on July 21. YouTube is pulling the plug on its Trending page, about a decade after its debut. The page and the Trending Now list will be removed across all platforms later this month, and the comp

Conspiracy theorists are blaming flash floods on cloud seeding — it has to stop

is a senior science reporter covering energy and the environment with more than a decade of experience. She is also the host of Hell or High Water: When Disaster Hits Home , a podcast from Vox Media and Audible Originals. As The Verge’s resident disaster writer, I’m tired of this nonsense. So let’s just get into it. What is cloud seeding? Cloud seeding is basically an attempt to make precipitation fall from clouds. It targets clouds that have water droplets that are essentially too light to f

5 days until TechCrunch All Stage — save up to $475 before prices rise

In just five days, startup leaders from across the country will descend on Boston’s SoWa Power Station for TechCrunch All Stage 2025 — and your chance to lock in the lowest ticket prices will be gone. Whether you’re preparing for your next raise, looking to fine-tune your go-to-market strategy, or building your founding team, TC All Stage is where real startup momentum happens. This is a full-day event packed with actionable sessions, tactical advice, and conversations that push your company fo