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This 3D-printed contraption is by Igor Daemen, an Eindhoven-based product designer. "I designed this businesscard embosser to be modular and 3D printable without using any support and without any hardware required to assemble," he writes. "The tolerances are tight," Daemen explains. "And some materials work better then others. I have had best results using Basic PLA." You can download the files for free here.
As a software engineer raised on a traditional diet of C, Java, and Lisp, I’ve found myself downright baffled by R. I’m no stranger to mastering new programming languages, but learning R was something else: it felt like studying Finnish after a lifetime of speaking Romance languages. I’m not alone in this experience. There are piles of discussions online revealing the difficulty of using R, with some users becoming so enraged as to claim that R is “not actually a programming language”. My strug
Supply chain attacks are malicious updates that sneak into open source code used by many apps. Here’s how we design Obsidian to ensure that the app is a secure and private environment for your thoughts. Less is safer It may sound obvious but the primary way we reduce the risk of supply chain attacks is to avoid depending on third-party code. Obsidian has a low number of dependencies compared to other apps in our category. See a list of open source libraries on our Credits page. Features like
Walt Disney Imagineering is in the early stages of prototyping a new augmented reality experience at its theme parks. This week, the team released a video showing Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses used as a personal virtual assistant inside Disneyland. Meta is just one of the companies Disney Imagineering R&D is working with on AR. The Ray-Ban smart glasses allow Disney guests to ask questions out loud and receive real-time responses with information about rides, attractions, merchandise, food and d
President Trump just made it a lot more expensive for companies to hire foreign workers through the H-1B program. The White House announced Friday that Trump signed a proclamation requiring employers to pay a hefty $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications, an enormous jump from the current $215 lottery registration fee. H-1B visas allow U.S. companies to hire foreign workers in fields that typically require technical expertise like IT, engineering, mathematics, or medicine. The program is ca
The long-promised deal to "save" TikTok remains elusive even as the US and China seem to be inching toward an agreement. On Friday, President Donald Trump did little to clarify where the deal currently stands following a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said both that the two had "made progress" on "approval of the TikTok Deal" and that he "appreciate[s] the TikTok approval." Trump also told reporters in the Oval Office that "he approved the TikTok deal,"
Supply chain attacks are malicious updates that sneak into open source code used by many apps. Here’s how we design Obsidian to ensure that the app is a secure and private environment for your thoughts. Less is safer It may sound obvious but the primary way we reduce the risk of supply chain attacks is to avoid depending on third-party code. Obsidian has a low number of dependencies compared to other apps in our category. See a list of open source libraries on our Credits page. Features like
On Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted to drop its recommendation that U.S. adults should generally receive the covid-19 vaccine, instead endorsing an individualized approach. In a unanimous decision, the ACIP members agreed that adults 65 and older should decide on their own or with their doctor whether to get vaccinated for covid-19. The ACIP also recommended that people between the ages of 6 months and 64 years make an individual decision about covid-19 vacc
Remember when Elon Musk hired a bunch of youngsters to gut the federal government? Well, now he's put one in charge of a key division at his company xAI. Business Insider reports that the data annotation team that helps train the company's AI chatbot Grok is now being led by Diego Pasini, a college student who graduated from high school in 2023 — and who's been at the company for less than a year. His promotion comes right off the back of a brutal round of layoffs at the team which saw more th
Maria Diaz/ZDNET If you're looking for a back-to-school tablet, our top-rated Amazon Fire HD 10 Tablet is now available for 36% off at Amazon as an early October Prime Day deal, meaning you can score the latest model of the Fire HD 10 for just $90. We found this tablet to be an excellent option for those looking to stream media, game, or read e-books, and it's particularly well-suited for kids. Also: The best kids' tablets you can buy Our expert Maria Diaz previously reviewed the Amazon Fire
Good day. One of the first things you learn about shaders is that color values range from 0.0 to 1.0. This is known as 8-bit “unorm” color, because each channel has 256 color values, is unsigned (meaning no negatives) and normalized to the 0.0 to 1.0 range. Most of the time, we don’t need to think about this because 8-bits is enough for outputting colors to the screen. Sometimes, blending 8-bit colors is just not enough though. Today I want to show demonstration when you should care and what to
Microsoft will increase the prices of its Xbox Series consoles once again in October. This latest increase comes just five months after it raised prices due to tariffs. An Xbox support page notes the upcoming price increase happening on Oct. 3, as first reported by Windows Central on Friday. Console costs will jump $20 to $70, depending on the version. The new prices are: Xbox Series S 512GB: $380 to $400 Xbox Series S 1TB: $430 to $450 Xbox Series X Digital: $550 to $600 Xbox Series X: $6
You can't ask for a better travel companion than the highly portable (and affordable) JBL Go 4 speaker. It's waterproof, sounds great for its (tiny) size, recharges via USB-C and comes in a variety of fun colors too. It's a great way to enjoy music in your hotel room, on a picnic and anywhere in between. And if you happen to get it wet, no problem -- it has an IP67 waterproof and dustproof rating. It also made our pick for best pocket-friendly wireless speaker. Plus, you can get the JBL Go 4 sp
This week's Meta Connect smart glasses event was, let's admit it, a little cringeworthy. Or at least I cringed when two of Meta's live demos epically failed. (A third live demo took some time but eventually worked.) During the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed it on the Wi-Fi connection. Now we know what actually happened. Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth addressed each of the live demos in an Instagram AMA (ask me anything) session on Thursday. Let's start with the first demo fai
Microsoft will increase the prices of its Xbox Series consoles once again in October. This latest increase comes just five months after it raised prices due to tariffs. An Xbox support page notes the upcoming price increase happening on Oct. 3, as first reported by Windows Central on Friday. Console costs will jump $20 to $70, depending on the version. The new prices are: Xbox Series S 512GB: $380 to $400 Xbox Series S 1TB: $430 to $450 Xbox Series X Digital: $550 to $600 Xbox Series X: $6
On the second day of a pivotal vaccine meeting that was at times heated, confusing, and chaotic, a group of federal advisers chosen by Health and Human Services secretary and longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted against requiring a prescription to receive a Covid-19 vaccination. The vote took place after hours of discussion, in which several advisers sowed doubts about the Covid-19 vaccines and went on tangents about their safety and efficacy—both of which have been well-e
This week on Equity, Anthony Ha, Kirsten Korosec, and Max Zeff unpack the biggest moves in AI, robotics, and regulation. Listen to the full episode to hear about: Equity is TechCrunch’s flagship podcast, produced by Theresa Loconsolo, and posts every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
California’s state senate recently gave final approval to a new AI safety bill, SB 53, sending it to Governor Gavin Newsom to either sign or veto. If this all sounds familiar, that’s because Newsom vetoed another AI safety bill, also written by state senator Scott Wiener, last year. But SB 53 is narrower than Wiener’s previous SB 1047, with a focus on big AI companies making more than $500 million in annual revenue. I got the chance to discuss SB 53 with my colleagues Max Zeff and Kirsten Koro
'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean? ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or
RMCP: R Model Context Protocol Server Version 0.3.7 - A comprehensive Model Context Protocol (MCP) server with 40 statistical analysis tools across 9 categories. RMCP enables AI assistants and applications to perform sophisticated statistical modeling, econometric analysis, machine learning, time series analysis, and data science tasks seamlessly through natural conversation. 🎉 Now with 40 statistical tools across 9 categories including natural language formula building and intelligent error r
Less than a month ago, we looked at how current game console prices were historically high due to price increases from all three major console makers. Today, that analysis is already a bit out of date, as Microsoft has announced its second set of Xbox price increases this year in the US. The new Xbox price hikes, which will go into effect on October 3, or roughly five months after the last set of Xbox price hikes, are as follows: Xbox Series S 512GB: $400 (up from $380 in May / launched at $30
Microsoft said on Friday that it will increase the recommended retail price of several Xbox consoles in the U.S. starting in October because of "changes in the macroeconomic environment." The company said it would not increase prices for accessories such as controllers and headsets, and that prices in other countries would stay the same. While Microsoft didn't explicitly attribute the increase to the Trump administration's tariffs, many consumer companies have been warning for months that high
Starting on October 3, Microsoft says Xbox consoles will be getting yet another price bump, this time ranging anywhere from a $20 increase on the company's entry-level model to $70 for a special edition model with 2TB of storage. If all of this sounds familiar, there's a good reason, the last time xbox prices were raised was only a few months ago in May. The price increases breakdown as follows: Xbox Series S (512GB): $400, up $20 from $380 Xbox Series S (1TB): $450 up $20 from $430 Xbox Ser
In recent weeks, a series of leaks has plagued Elon Musk’s xAI. Indeed, a slow, steady drip of stories from major news outlets has found, as its basis, a healthy helping of anonymous sources and internal company messages that said sources seem more than willing to share. The portrait of the company that’s being painted is one of a tumultuous startup, where change is rapid and much of the staff has been moved around or let go. The most recent leaks were reported in a New York Times piece on Frid
Microsoft is raising prices on Xbox consoles… again. The previous price hike shifted expectations for both the Xbox Series S and Series X. The new pricing structure demands so much money from consumer wallets it seems nobody in their right mind would buy an Xbox in this day and age. The new pricing structure begins Oct. 3. In a post to its support page, Microsoft blamed today’s “macroeconomic environment,” which is a longer way to say “Trump tariffs.” All consoles are demanding at least $50 mor
This week's Meta Connect smart glasses event was, let's admit it, a little cringeworthy. Or at least I cringed when two of Meta's live demos epically failed. (A third live demo took some time but eventually worked.) During the event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed it on the Wi-Fi connection. Now we know what actually happened. Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth addressed each of the live demos in an Instagram AMA (ask me anything) session on Thursday. Let's start with the first demo fai
is a senior editor and author of Notepad , who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Microsoft is raising the prices of its Xbox Series S / X consoles in the US next month. The Xbox Series X will be priced at $649.99 in the US starting October 3rd, up from its existing $599.99 price. The Xbox Series S will move to $399.99, up from $379.99. Microsoft blames the price hikes
The US Securities and Exchange Comission (SEC) has dropped its fraud case against Nikola‘s founder and former CEO Trevor Milton, after Trump’s pardon six months ago. Trevor Milton, who had been convicted of securities fraud, received a pardon from the US President Donald Trump in March, a month after the Phoenix-based electric and hydrogen truck maker Nikola filed for bankrupcy. The full and unconditional presidential pardon overturned a four-year prison sentence, imposed in December 2023, for
The Federal Trade Commission sued Live Nation and Ticketmaster on Thursday, alleging that the companies tacitly worked with scalpers to profit from jacking up ticket prices on the secondary market. As the FTC alleged in a press release, Ticketmaster's years of turning a blind eye to scalpers violated the FTC Act and the Better Online Ticket Sales Act, costing customers "billions in inflated prices and additional fees." Further, artists' efforts to keep event costs low were repeatedly frustrated
At this point, most people know that chatbots are capable of hallucinating responses, making up sources, and spitting out misinformation. But chatbots can lie in more human-like ways, “scheming” to hide their true goals and deceiving the humans who have given them instructions. New research from OpenAI and Apollo Research seems to have figured out ways to tamp down some of these lies, but the fact that it is happening at all should probably give users pause. At the core of the issue with AI int