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How long until Severance season 3? Apple TV+ exec gives update

Emmy nominations arrived yesterday, and Apple TV+ had it biggest year ever. Leading the pack was Severance, which scored the most nominations of any show, from any streamer. On the heels of the announcement, Apple TV+ programming head Matt Cherniss gave an update to Variety on the progress of Severance season 3’s development. Michael Schneider writes at Variety: Asked whether Season 3 was on track, Cherniss said…“I know they’re going as quickly as they can. When you have the success that a sho

The best free VPNs of 2025: Secure, safe, and fast VPNs

My top pick for free VPNs available in 2025 is Proton VPN, which, despite its limits, will suit many users who do not want to subscribe. Why we like it: The free version of Proton VPN offers many useful features that are paid for through other services and VPN subscribers. This is important when it comes to free VPN services, as it provides a measure of security and data protection that some shady services do not. After all, if your information is being sold in return for a VPN connection, this

Stranger Things 5’s first trailer promises an epic showdown

The fall of 1987. Hawkins is scarred by the opening of the Rifts, and our heroes are united by a single goal: find and kill Vecna. But he has vanished — his whereabouts and plans unknown. Complicating their mission, the government has placed the town under military quarantine and intensified its hunt for Eleven, forcing her back into hiding. As the anniversary of Will’s disappearance approaches, so does a heavy, familiar dread. The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful

Apple has now fully paid $16.5B to Ireland in back taxes, closing the matter

The nine-year saga between Apple, the Irish government, and the EU ended last year when the final appeal ordered the iPhone maker to pay €13B ($15B) in back tax to the Irish government. That money sat in an escrow account for many years, increasing in value to €14.25B ($16.5B), but has now been paid … The end of a nine-year saga Apple funneled the revenue from all its sales throughout the EU through its European HQ in Ireland. Apple likely chose the location because the country already had an

Best AV Receiver for 2025

AV receivers are notoriously complex, with reams of features and confusing technical specifications. (For example, what's 4K/120Hz anyway?) Yet, what are the things that really matter when buying a new model? I'm going to sum up the most important ones right here. HDMI inputs With most TVs and set-top boxes supporting HDMI, you should buy a receiver that has as many of these HDMI input ports and outputs as possible. Front-mounted HDMI ports are kind of like a human appendix -- unneeded, becaus

Google’s Discover page now summarizes news with AI

Google is rolling out AI-generated summaries directly within Discover, its personalized news feed nestled within the Google Search app. TechCrunch reports that some users in the US are seeing Discover cards on iOS and Android that provide the new summaries in place of a headline and logo from a single publisher, similar to how AI Overviews appear at the top of results in Search. It acts to further obscure news sources at a time when search traffic to publishers is disappearing. The AI summaries

Six Years of Gemini

2025-06-20 - Six years of Gemini! Today is the sixth anniversary of the public announcement of Project Gemini! It's been a quiet year at geminiprotocol.net thus far. I've let two "Apollo days" slip by without a word. I'm about as disappointed in myself for this as I expect many folks are unsurprised by it. I do still have plans and clear ideas for finalising the minor oustanding spec issues. I'd tell people to look forward to something by Apollo 15 day (2025-11-03), but at this point, who'd be

My Family and the Flood

Rosemary, the four-year-old, woke up first. She told my brother-in-law, Lance, that there was something on the roof. Seven of us were at my family’s river house on the Guadalupe, between Ingram and Hunt, for the Fourth. Our little stretch of river is wide, green, cool, deep, and slow. It is some of the best swimming anywhere and one of the most beautiful spots in Texas, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve spent many peaceful afternoons there, floating and staring up at the cypress trees that tower ov

US Government announces $200M Grok contract a week after 'MechaHitler'

A week after Elon Musk’s Grok dubbed itself “MechaHitler” and spewed antisemitic stereotypes, the US government has announced a new contract granting the chatbot’s creator, xAI, up to $200 million to modernize the Defense Department. xAI is one of several leading AI companies to receive the award, alongside Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. But the timing of the announcement is striking given Grok’s recent high-profile spiral, which drew congressional ire and public pushback. The use of technology

Chinese firms rush for Nvidia chips as US prepares to lift ban

Chinese firms have begun rushing to order Nvidia's H20 AI chips as the company plans to resume sales to mainland China, Reuters reports. The chip giant expects to receive US government licenses soon so that it can restart shipments of the restricted processors just days after CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump, potentially generating $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year. Nvidia said in a statement that it is filing applications with the US government to resum

Nvidia to resume China AI chip sales after Huang meets Trump

Chinese firms have begun rushing to order Nvidia's H20 AI chips as the company plans to resume sales to mainland China, Reuters reports. The chip giant expects to receive US government licenses soon so that it can restart shipments of the restricted processors just days after CEO Jensen Huang met with President Donald Trump, potentially generating $15 billion to $20 billion in additional revenue this year. Nvidia said in a statement that it is filing applications with the US government to resum

Blender 4.5 LTS Released

The final frontier. After years of work, support for the popular backend in Blender is now on par with OpenGL. It’s not enabled by default yet; make it so in the Preferences. Make sure to keep your drivers up to date! Blender works closely with hardware manufacturers to ensure Vulkan performs as good as possible. See the supported platforms and drivers, and the current limitations.

Perplexity offers free AI tools to students worldwide in partnership with SheerID

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine that competes with Google and ChatGPT, has partnered with identity verification company SheerID to offer up to two years of free premium service to more than 264 million students worldwide, the companies announced Monday. The deal tackles a key challenge for AI companies: providing educational acces

Five EU countries to test age-check app under new child safety rules

France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Greece are preparing to test a new age verification system as part of the EU’s push to regulate how children access online content. Here are the details. The pilot program, announced by the European Commission on Monday (via Reuters), is built on the same technical standards as the upcoming European Digital Identity Wallet, which is set to launch across the EU next year. The move comes alongside new EU guidelines aimed at helping platforms comply with the Dig

Windows 11 has a new battery‑saving feature - here's how to try it

Maria Korneeva / Getty Images Running low on battery juice is one of the most frustrating problems on a Windows laptop. To combat this, Microsoft offers an Energy Saver mode that tries to keep the charge alive. But that option dims your screen, making it more difficult to see, especially in low-light conditions. Now Microsoft has a new trick up its sleeve that aims to preserve your battery without affecting your screen brightness. Introducing Adaptive Energy Saver Currently rolling out as a p

A Little-Known Microsoft Program Could Expose the Defense Department to Hackers

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. Reporting Highlights Chinese Tech Support: Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel. Microsoft is using engineers in China to help maintain the Defense Department’s computer systems — with minimal supervision by U.S. personnel. Skills Gap: Digital escorts of

China's Baidu to bring its driverless cars to Uber globally

A passenger walks near Uber signage after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles, California, on July 10, 2022. Baidu has struck a partnership with Uber to deploy its autonomous cars on the ride-hailing giant's platform outside the U.S. and mainland China. The first deployments are expected to happen in Asia and the Middle East later this year. The two companies said the multi-year partnership will see "thousands" of Baidu's Apollo Go autonomous vehicles on Uber globally.

Reddit is rolling out age verification in the UK

Reddit users in the United Kingdom will now be blocked from accessing “certain mature content” unless they complete the platform’s new age verification process. Reddit announced on Monday that UK users will need to upload a selfie or a photo of their government ID in order to view content that’s restricted for under-18s by the UK Online Safety Act (OSA), including abusive, violent, and sexually explicit materials. The age verification process is performed by Persona, a third-party provider that

The EU is testing a prototype age verification app

The European Union is piloting a blueprint for age verification apps in Denmark, Greece, Spain, France, and Italy that aims to make it easier for online platforms to comply with rules that require them to protect minors. The app prototype was announced on Monday alongside guidelines that online platforms are recommended to adopt in order to comply with the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA). “Making sure our children and young people are safe online is of paramount importance to this Commission,

Show HN: CallFS – S3-style object store in one Go binary (MIT)

CallFS: A High-Performance, Distributed REST API Filesystem CallFS is an ultra-lightweight, high-performance REST API filesystem that provides precise Linux filesystem semantics over various backends, including local storage, Amazon S3, and a distributed peer-to-peer network. It is designed for speed, reliability, and horizontal scalability. 🚀 Key Features Multi-Backend Storage : Seamlessly use Local Filesystem, Amazon S3, or other S3-compatible services (like MinIO) as storage backends. : S

RFC: PHP license update

rfc:php_license_update Date: 2025-07-10 Author: Ben Ramsey, [email protected] Proposed Version: PHP 9.0 Status: Under Discussion First Published at: http://wiki.php.net/rfc/php_license_update Introduction PHP has a long history of confusion, concerns, and disagreements regarding its custom open source license, and the Zend Engine License, which covers the sources in the Zend/ directory, adds to this confusion and additionally complicates matters, since it is not an Open Source Initiative App

PHP License Update

rfc:php_license_update Date: 2025-07-10 Author: Ben Ramsey, [email protected] Proposed Version: PHP 9.0 Status: Under Discussion First Published at: http://wiki.php.net/rfc/php_license_update Introduction PHP has a long history of confusion, concerns, and disagreements regarding its custom open source license, and the Zend Engine License, which covers the sources in the Zend/ directory, adds to this confusion and additionally complicates matters, since it is not an Open Source Initiative App

Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and XAI Granted Up to $200M from Defense Department

A view of the Pentagon on December 13, 2024, in Washington, DC. Home to the US Defense Department, the Pentagon is one of the world's largest office buildings. The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday said it's granting contract awards of up to $200 million for artificial intelligence development at Anthropic, Google , OpenAI and xAI. The DoD's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office said the awards will help the agency accelerate its adoption of "advanced AI capabilities to address c

Tesla’s Autopilot is under scrutiny in a rare jury trial

is transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State. Tesla is on trial in Miami today in a case that accuses Elon Musk’s company of liability in a fatal crash involving Autopilot. The driver-assist system has come under scrutiny in the past for a number of fatal incidents, but Tesla has only rarely faced a jury trial over the question of whether Autopilot was at fault for som

Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and xAI granted up to $200 million for AI work from Defense Department

A view of the Pentagon on December 13, 2024, in Washington, DC. Home to the US Defense Department, the Pentagon is one of the world's largest office buildings. The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday said it's granting contract awards of up to $200 million for artificial intelligence development at Anthropic, Google , OpenAI and xAI. The DoD's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office said the awards will help the agency accelerate its adoption of "advanced AI capabilities to address c

This accessory kit was made for tinkerers and has 180 modifications

ZDNET's key takeaways This high-quality screwdriver kit has everything for both the budding enthusiast and professional repairer. This 180-piece kit has 160 quality screwdriver bits and a range of other useful tools, such as plastic prybars, a suction cup, and tweezers. There's no LED light on the front of the screwdriver, so working in dark, cramped spaces can be tricky. $69.99 at Amazon I often get asked about tools, and I genuinely enjoy these conversations because I'm a tool enthusiast. O

I stopped buying ice after testing this smart cooler - and it's hit an all-time-low price

ZDNET's key takeaways The Anker Solix EverFrost 2 is available for $1,349 but currently on sale. This cooler works as a portable mini-fridge, with dual-zone cooling and the capacity to freeze or refrigerate. The Anker Solix EverFrost 2 is bulky and heavy, and it only comes with one battery so you have to purchase the second to reach the full 3.2 day capacity. View now at Best Buy View now at Amazon more buying choices The Anker Solix EverFrost 2 58L electric cooler is typically $1,100, but it

US government announces $200 million Grok contract a week after ‘MechaHitler’ incident

A week after Elon Musk’s Grok dubbed itself “MechaHitler” and spewed antisemitic stereotypes, the US government has announced a new contract granting the chatbot’s creator, xAI, up to $200 million to modernize the Defense Department. xAI is one of several leading AI companies to receive the award, alongside Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI. But the timing of the announcement is striking given Grok’s recent high-profile spiral, which drew congressional ire and public pushback. The use of technology

xAI starts offering Grok to US government agencies

Just days after apologizing for Grok's recent hard turn toward antisemitism, xAI has announced a suite of AI products for government use. Grok for Government brings together the company's latest commercial products, including Grok 4 and Deep Search, with special considerations given to the needs of federal, state and local agencies. To that end, xAI says it will design custom models for specific national security and research customers. It will also develop specialized AI applications for use i

I've tested dozens of cheap portable power stations and this EcoFlow is my favorite

The EcoFlow River 2. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes/ZDNET Power banks have given way to power stations. And while I really like the colossal capacity offered by those behemoths, sometimes I want something I can grab quickly to take with me on a job or in an emergency. The EcoFlow River 2 fits the bill. EcoFlow River 2 specs Capacity : 256Wh : 256Wh Net Weight : Approximately 7.7lbs : Approximately 7.7lbs Dimensions : 9.6 x 8.5 x 5.7inches : 9.6 x 8.5 x 5.7inches AC Input : 100-120V 50Hz/60Hz, 36