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 Buckle up for a busy week with Apple's annual iPhone event taking center stage on Tuesday, where we'll be seeing a bunch of new hardware as well as a final preview of iOS 26 and other operating system updates ahead of their public release.
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Expect improved noise cancellation, sleek design tweaks, and new health features if AirPods Pro 3 drop at the iPhone 17 launch.
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Keepa for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera provides price history charts for millions of Amazon products and can alert you when a price drops. Keepa will watch any Amazon product for you and alert you by email, web push, telegram, or RSS when the price drops. You will need to log in with a user name and password to take advantage of this feature. [License: Freeware | Requires:
11|10|8|7|Linux|macOS | Size: Size Varies ]
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As part of a Thursday meeting with the White House's AI Education Task Force — chaired by Melania Trump — Microsoft said it would provide a free Microsoft 365 Personal subscription to college students for a year's time. Microsoft normally charges $99.99 annually for that Microsoft 365 Personal subscription, so that's a fairly substantial savings for a college student.
Students will need to sign up for the (free) subscription using a college ID email address. The subscription includes everything that the Personal subscription already does, including access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more, plus Copilot and 1 TB of online storage.
There is a catch, of course: the first year's free. After that, students will either be asked to pay another year's subscription — though that will be discounted by half, to about $50 per year or $4.99 per month, Microsoft said.
Microsoft is also offering students and teachers free AI courses via LinkedIn Learning, the company said.
Microsoft isn't the only company trying to convince U.S. students to join their programs. In addition to the typical student discounts offered to college students. Google said in April that the company will offer Google Gemini Advanced, plus perks like NotebookLM Plus and 2TB of cloud storage for free.
Not a student? Check out our guide on
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 Apple's upcoming Watch Series 11 will retain the same design as its predecessor but include a new screen with increased maximum brightness, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
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 Ecovacs today announced the launch of its latest vacuuming and mopping robot, the Deebot X11 Omnicyclone. The HomeKit-compatible vacuum has several new features, including battery improvements, support for agentic AI and a 4WD climbing system that can cross higher room thresholds.
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 Apple's iPhone 17 Pro and ?iPhone 17 Pro? Max models will feature a number of significant display, thermal, and battery improvements, according to new late-stage rumors.
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 There's less than a week to go until Apple's "Awe Dropping" event, and there's a good chance that Apple will introduce an updated version of the AirPods Pro. The AirPods Pro 3 are rumored to include new health features, an updated design, and more.
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Recently, a group of scientists claimed they found possible signs of life on a planet called K2-18b. The news made headlines. Researchers said they'd detected sulphur-based gases that, on Earth, are strongly associated with life. But the research caused an uproar in astronomy circles because other scientists don't think the data is strong enough to celebrate an alien find just yet. In fact, they have some real issues with how this whole thing went down, and a new analysis casts further doubt on the findings. NPR science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce is here to wade into the controversy — and tell us what all this means for the future of searching for life beyond our solar system.
Want to hear more about new science research? Let us know by emailing shortwave@npr.org.
Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave at plus.npr.org/shortwave.
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Computex 2025 is approaching, and it's sure to bring a ton of announcements about the latest chips, laptops, gaming devices and more from leading brands. The event in Taipei will kick off on Monday, May 19 with a keynote from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang at the Taipei Music Center. There will be a livestream for anyone not attending in person, so you can watch along on the Computex website or YouTube channel.
Huang's keynote is scheduled for 11PM ET/ 8PM PT on May 18 (11AM on May 19 in Taiwan Time), and we can expect to hear all about the company's developments in the AI space. It'll be followed that same day by a keynote from Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon. Computex this year will, perhaps unsurprisingly, focus heavily on AI, with the overall theme being "AI Next." It'll also highlight products in three categories: AI & Robotics, Next-Gen Tech and Future Mobility.
An estimated 1,400 exhibitors will be in attendance, including ASUS, Acer and AMD, all of which have previously made big
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