Latest Tech News

The Business Traveler of Today Is Changing—and So Is Their Flight Map

“Most of my work starts in Lagos, but it doesn’t stay there for long,” says Anita Ashiru. She’s one of the sole production designers working in Nigeria, where her team builds multi-scale sets and stage designs for the country’s booming Afrobeats industry. Requests often come at a whim for work; Ashiru might be called abroad by the likes of frequent collaborator Davido, a Nigerian-American singer-songwriter who frequently shoots music videos in South Africa. Ashiru’s job is one that largely didn

What to Know About Traveling to China for Business

Amid growing tensions and an escalating trade war between the United States and China, international business travelers may be understandably wary about traveling to the Chinese mainland. The US Department of State currently has a Level 2 travel advisory for China, instructing visitors to “exercise increased caution” because of the “arbitrary enforcement of local laws.” The reality on the ground is more complicated. While there have been instances of detention of US nationals, exit bans, and ra

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Lenovo ThinkPad X9-14 Aura Edition review: A solid business laptop with some quirks

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 . Step aside, old boy. The ThinkPad X9-14 Aura Edition is making me forget all about the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, the most renowned business laptop for over a decade. Of course, Lenovo isn’t doing away with the X1 Carbon, but the X9 series certainly seems like the company’s experimental proje

This retro camcorder upgrades Super 8 film cameras with modern conveniences

is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Camp Snap, a brand known for its budget-friendly screen-free digital cameras, has announced its first video camera. The new Camp Snap CS-8’s design was inspired by the Super 8mm film cameras released by companies like Kodak and Canon in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Its

Uzbekistan’s first unicorn, Uzum, leaps to a $1.5B valuation

At a time when the world feels increasingly divided between East and West, Uzbekistan has emerged as a rare middle ground, as the Central Asian nation’s homegrown unicorn, Uzum, has raised $65.5 million in a new funding round co-led by China’s Tencent and the New York- and London-based VR Capital, with participation from U.S.-based FinSight Capital. The all-equity round brings the Tashkent-headquartered startup’s post-money valuation to approximately $1.5 billion — a nearly 30% jump from the $1

Deal: Only have one HDMI input? Multiply it with the Anker HDMI Switch

Some monitors and TVs only have a single HDMI port. This is fine if your entertainment system is simple, but if you have multiple devices, it can get really annoying to plug and unplug the HDMI port constantly. This is when something like the Anker HDMI Switch comes in handy. It can turn one HDMI input into two, and you can take it home for a mere $9.99 right now! Buy the Anker HDMI Switch for just $9.99 ($10 off) This offer is available from Amazon. It’s a “limited time deal,” meaning it shoul

People are using ChatGPT to write their text messages - here's how you can tell

Kirill Stytsenko/Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways People are using AI to write sensitive messages to loved ones. Detecting AI-generated text is becoming more difficult as chatbots evolve. Some tech leaders have promoted this use of AI in their marketing strategies. Everyone loves receiving a handwritten letter, but those take time, patience, effort, and sometimes multiple drafts to compose. Most of us at one time or another have given a Hallmark card to a loved one or friend. Not because

3D Line Drawings

This is an experiment examing how to create a 3D line drawing of a scene. In this post, I will describe how this can be done by augmenting the process of generating 3D Gaussian Splats 3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering, by Kerbl et al. and leveraging a process to transform photographs into Informative Line Drawings Learning to Generate Line Drawings that Convey Geometry and Semantics, by Chan, Isola & Durand. Examples The majority of scenes shown above are generated u

Verizon is cutting loyalty discounts, raising fees, and removing perks, all at once (Updated)

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Verizon is removing loyalty discounts, which could increase monthly bills by $10 to $25 per line. Several service charges are also increasing, while Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass perks are ending. Despite no base plan price changes, the overall monthly bill will rise for a lot of users due to the loss of discounts and the hike in fees. Update, August 04, 2025 (09:28 AM ET): Verizon has shared the following statement through a spokesperson on the

Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year?

Why I'm Leaving NixOS After a Year? Around a year ago, I published a blog post explaining my overall experience Switching from Arch to NixOS. You can read it if you’re interested in my early experiences, but, to give you a spoiler, that post ends with me saying: Unfortunately, though, I don’t think the benefits I’ve gotten in this one month of using NixOS so far justified the cost I’ve initially spent and continue to spend learning Nix and NixOS. — Ultimately, whether the benefits of learnin

Amazon shuts down Wondery podcast studio, cuts 110 jobs

In Brief Amazon is shutting down its Wondery podcast studio, acquired in late 2020, and cutting 110 jobs as part of a broad reorganization of its audio business, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The company plans to move existing Wondery series under its Audible banner or to a new ‘creator services’ team, which will house personality-driven shows, such as Jason and Travis Kelce’s podcast. “The podcast landscape has evolved significantly over the past few years,” Steve Boom, Amazon’s

Verizon is cutting loyalty discounts, raising fees, and removing perks, all at once

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Verizon is removing loyalty discounts, which could increase monthly bills by $10 to $25 per line. Several service charges are also increasing, while Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass perks are ending. Despite no base plan price changes, the overall monthly bill will rise for a lot of users due to the loss of discounts and the hike in fees. Verizon has recently been in the news for revamping its customer support experience, but also for losing 51,000

If you use a password manager app, you probably aren’t using it right

Andy Walker / Android Authority Password managers have their purpose set in their names: to manage passwords. Right? Wrong — they’re meant to do so much more. I used to be in the same boat as many of you probably are, using password managers exclusively for generating and storing strong passwords. Then one day, my life took a wonderful turn: I started using my password manager for more than just passwords. It may sound silly at first, but it’s made my life so much better and more convenient.

Flourishing chemosynthetic life at the greatest depths of hadal trenches

The investigation was carried out during TS42 cruise between 7 July and 18 August 2024 by RV Tan Suo Yi Hao with the full-ocean-depth human-occupied vehicle Fendouzhe, which was fitted with hydraulically powered manipulators on two swing arms. Under the guidance of operators in the human-occupied vehicle, the arms efficiently acquired the samples and stored them safely in a biological box and a geological box of the vehicle. Processing of benthic fauna and sea floor video footage Upon retrieva

People still use our old-fashioned Unix login servers

You're using a tool with a too-generic User-Agent You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace, the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately whatever you're using to do so has a HTTP User-Agent header value that is too generic or otherwise excessively suspicious. Unfortunately, as of early 2025 there's a plague of high volume crawlers (apparently in part to gather data for LLM training) that behave like this. To reduce th

Helsinki records zero traffic deaths for full year

“A lot of factors contributed to this, but speed limits are one of the most important,” said Roni Utriainen , traffic engineer with the city’s Urban Environment Division. Authorities described the milestone as exceptional and credited long-term planning, targeted infrastructure changes, and lower speed limits. Helsinki has completed an entire year without a single traffic-related fatality, according to city and police officials. The last recorded death occurred in early July 2024 in the Kontul

Show HN: NaturalCron – Human-Readable Scheduling for .NET (With Fluent Builder)

NaturalCron NaturalCron is a human-readable scheduling engine for .NET. It lets you write schedules in a clear and intuitive way instead of memorizing cryptic cron strings. Why? Because memorizing 0 18 * * 1-5 is harder than understanding every day between monday and friday at 6:00pm . Readable schedules reduce mistakes, write expressions that you can understand at a glance. Note: NaturalCron is not a cron converter. It’s a new expressive syntax for better readability. 💡 Why use NaturalCron

Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Samsung revise advertising over exaggerated AI claims after regulator scrutiny

Cutting corners: As the landscape for AI-powered products evolves, companies face growing demands to deliver not just innovation, but clearly supported and honestly communicated claims about what their technology can actually do. "When you market AI like magic, you're going to invite scrutiny," said George Heudorfer, an adjunct professor at the University of New Haven's Pompea College of Business. "Sometimes that exaggeration isn't just puffery. It's a performance claim, and you need to back tha

Yearly Organiser

👋 Hello! If you print this page, you’ll get a nifty calendar that displays all of the year’s dates on a single page. It will automatically fit on a single sheet of paper of any size. For best results, adjust your print settings to landscape orientation and disable the header and footer. Take in the year all at once. Fold it up and carry it with you. Jot down your notes on it. Plan things out and observe the passage of time. Above all else, be kind to others. Looking for 2026? Here you go! Mad

‘A Quiet Place Part III’ Is Coming and John Krasinski Is Directing

A Quiet Place is moving forward again, in more ways than one. John Krasinski just announced that he’s returning to helm A Quiet Place Part III, aimed for release on July 9, 2027. The film follows the 2024 hit A Quiet Place: Day One, which showed an earlier story in this universe. Part III, presumably, will continue the story that began with the first two films, both of which were helmed by Krasinski and starred Emily Blunt. Krasinski will write, direct, and produce the sequel, and though the ca

5 ways to successfully integrate AI agents into your workplace

Techa Tungateja / Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Using AIs effectively means focusing on guidance and governance. You'll also need to ensure you train up talent to manage your AI agents. Track and trace outcomes to create the perfect tech-enabled work assistant. It's not unusual to hear business leaders discuss AI being used to augment rather than replace staff, but what does that new working relationship mean in practice? Also: AI's biggest impact on your workforce is still to come -

Microsoft Needs to Make Affordable 5G Surface Laptops a Reality

Microsoft didn’t launch its 2025 lineup of Surface devices with a 5G option. Instead, it waited a few months for interest to die down enough to release its business-end version with a starting price nearly twice that of the one built for the average joe. It shows that if users want a laptop that can connect to the internet without relying on spotty public or Starbucks Wi-Fi, they need to pay through the nose. Hopefully Microsoft’s new tech will get cheaper later, though only if laptop makers rec

Amazon already plans to put ads in Alexa+ conversations

Which would you rather have: an AI-powered Alexa+ that advertises to you, or an AI-lacking Siri that doesn’t? Hopefully Apple can sort out its AI struggles and users never have to face that decision. But if you’re an Alexa+ user, it sounds like more ads are definitely in your future. Amazon CEO touts opportunities for advertising through Alexa+ Amazon reported its quarterly earnings this week, and the AI-powered Alexa+ unsurprisingly came up. What perhaps was a surprise is how fast Amazon CEO

9 things you shouldn't use AI for at work

Mensent Photography / Getty Images ZDNET's key takeaways Sometimes an AI can cause you or your company irreparable harm. Sharing confidential data with an AI could have legal consequences. Don't let an AI talk to customers without supervision. A few weeks ago, I shared with you "9 programming tasks you shouldn't hand off to AI - and why." It's full of well-reasoned suggestions and recommendations for how to avoid having an AI produce code that could ruin your whole day. Then, my editor and

The anti-abundance critique on housing is wrong

The sharpest criticisms of the book Abundance have sometimes come from the antitrust movement. This group, mostly on the left, insists that the biggest problems in America typically come from monopolies and the corruption of big business. In housing, for example, Ezra Klein and I write that a key bottleneck to homebuilding in the last few decades has been legal barriers to construction, including zoning laws and minimum lot sizes. This is a mainstream view supported by economists and scholars w

Amazon CEO wants to put ads in your Alexa+ conversations

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sees an opportunity to deliver ads to users during their conversations with the company’s AI-powered digital assistant, Alexa+, he said during Amazon’s second-quarter earnings call Thursday. “People are excited about the devices that they can buy from us that has Alexa+ enabled in it. People do a lot of shopping [with Alexa+]; it’s a delightful shopping experience that will keep getting better,” said Jassy on the call with investors and Wall Street analysts. “I think over

The Anti-Abundance Critique on Housing Is Dead Wrong

The sharpest criticisms of the book Abundance have sometimes come from the antitrust movement. This group, mostly on the left, insists that the biggest problems in America typically come from monopolies and the corruption of big business. In housing, for example, Ezra Klein and I write that a key bottleneck to homebuilding in the last few decades has been legal barriers to construction, including zoning laws and minimum lot sizes. This is a mainstream view supported by economists and scholars w

Dark patterns

What to look out for when shopping online Hidden costs Hidden costs are extra costs you only find out about towards the end of your purchase, or which are made less obvious. They include pre-selected extras you may not want and add-ons presented so you feel you have to buy them. Some hidden costs are even sneakier, such as a pre-selected free trial period for a service that renews automatically if you don’t cancel before it ends - charging your card for an ongoing membership. Trick questions

NSW Fair Trading – Dark Patterns

What to look out for when shopping online Hidden costs Hidden costs are extra costs you only find out about towards the end of your purchase, or which are made less obvious. They include pre-selected extras you may not want and add-ons presented so you feel you have to buy them. Some hidden costs are even sneakier, such as a pre-selected free trial period for a service that renews automatically if you don’t cancel before it ends - charging your card for an ongoing membership. Trick questions