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 This week's best Apple deals include big discounts on AirTag, AirPods Max, and Mac mini. We're also tracking great sitewide sales at Satechi, Samsung, and Best Buy, with discounts on everything from Mac-compatible monitors to TVs, headphones, and more.
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 X seems to be working again after struggling with an outage that took the service offline and made it slow to load for much of the morning. According to X's developer platform page, there is an ongoing incident related to streaming endpoints that's caused increased errors. The incident started at 7:39AM PT, according to the page.
That roughly coincides with a spike in reports at Down Detector. The issues seemed to be somewhat intermittent. At some points, X's website loaded partially and only showed older posts. At other times, the app and website failed to load at all.
As of 9:30AM PT, X's Explore and trending pages were loading, but the "following" tab wasn't showing posts and instead suggested users "find some people and topic to follow" (as shown in the screenshot below).
Posts aren't loading.XAs of 11:15AM PT, X's developer site was still indicating ongoing issues, so there may still be some lingering problems even though the website seems to be functioning normally again. Reports on Down Detector have also dropped off considerably.
X didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the outage. As TechCrunch
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 Apple's foldable iPhone will share the same next-generation A20 Pro chip as the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max models when it debuts this September, according to industry analyst Jeff Pu.
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The Luis Enrique-led PSG squad looks to bounce back from a shocking Coupe de France defeat.
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Against a backdrop of intense scrutiny over AI-generated nonconsensual images, the social media site and its AI chatbot had issues Friday morning.
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Enjoy 25% off a membership, 40% off, plus an additional 10% off annual plans, and more deals to save at Vimeo.
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NEW RESOURCES WTTW: Inspector General Launches New Dashboard to Identify ‘Hot Spots' of Police Misconduct. "The database, which includes only closed complaints, was designed to allow both police brass and Chicagoans to […]
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We already knew something Ocarina of Time-related was coming from Nintendo and Lego in 2026, and now we know exactly what that set will look like. Weighing in at a surprisingly modest 1,003 pieces, the typically word salad-y
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No scrubbing is required for this cleaning hack.
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Link and Zelda face off against Ganon in Lego's recreation of the iconic N64 game's climactic boss battle.
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Commentary: An animated iPhone mount is one of several devices from CES that could help Apple level up. (Or at least make Siri cuter.)
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Commentary: Supernatural is now a zombie workout app on the Quest, and the metaverse just lost its best reason to join.
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Although X removed Grok's ability to create nonconsensual digitally undressed images on the social platform, the standalone Grok app is another story. It reportedly continues to produce "nudified" deepfakes of real people. And now, Ashley St. Clair, a conservative political strategist and mother of one of Elon Musk's 14 children, has sued xAI for
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OpenAI just rehired former employees who previously left the company to work at Thinking Machines Lab.
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 Apple increasingly has to compete with other companies for chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), as surging demand for artificial intelligence reshapes capacity and customer priority.
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Here comes another influx of refugees to competing sites like Threads and Bluesky.
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Enjoy 20% off your first order with a Brooks coupon code, plus top discounts and deals on our favorite Brooks running shoes.
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From personalized gifts to business essentials, WIRED can help you save with our selection of VistaPrint promo codes.
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 OpenAI today announced that its lower-priced ChatGPT Go subscription tier is now available worldwide, with U.S. pricing set at $8 per month.
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The tablet doesn't use backlighting, and has other features meant to minimize eye strain.
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Check out Ponies, the new spy thriller series starring Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson.
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On this year's first episode of The MacRumors Show, we take a look at CES 2026, Apple Creator Studio, and the confirmation that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri.
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You know things are messed up when a Big Tech company fights accusations of union-busting by insisting it was only AI layoffs. That's where things stand after a group of fired TikTok moderators in the UK filed a legal claim with an employment tribunal. The Guardian reported on Friday that around 400 TikTok content moderators who were unionizing were laid off before Christmas.
The workers were sacked a week before a vote was scheduled to establish a collective bargaining unit. The moderators said they wanted better protection against the personal toll of processing traumatic content at a high speed. They accused TikTok of unfair dismissal and violating UK trade union laws.
"Content moderators have the most dangerous job on the internet," John Chadfield, the national officer for tech workers at the Communication Workers Union (CWU), said in a statement to The Guardian. "They are exposed to the child sex abuse material, executions, war and drug use. Their job is to make sure this content doesn't reach TikTok's 30 million monthly users. It is high pressure and low paid. They wanted input into their workflows and more say over how they kept the platform safe. They said they were being asked to do too much with too few resources."
TikTok denied that the firings were union-busting, calling the accusations "baseless." Instead, the company claimed the layoffs were part of a restructuring plan amid its adoption of AI for content moderation. The company said 91 percent of transgressive content is now removed automatically.
The company first announced a restructuring exercise in August, just as hundre
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 Last year, the Unicode Consortium previewed some of the new emoji that are expected to be added to the iPhone with iOS 26.4 in March or April.
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Microsoft launches Elevate for Educators, offering free AI tools, training, and classroom software to help teachers and students adopt AI responsibly.
The post Microsoft's New Education Push: Free AI Tools, Training, and Premium Software for Schools appeared first on eWEEK.
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The Dreame X50 Ultra works well on a range of floor types, conquers obstacles up to 2.36 inches and makes a great cleaning companion.
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Meta is killing the standalone Workrooms app on February 16, 2026. The company presented Workrooms as a virtual reality space where teams can meet and collaborate in an immersive environment when it launched the product. Now Meta says its Horizon platform has evolved enough to support "a wide range of productivity apps and tools," so it "made the decision to discontinue Workrooms as a standalone app."
The company recently slashed its spending on the metaverse and started the process to lay off more than 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division. Due to those layoffs and organizational changes, it
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A few small changes can make using the latest Windows OS much more enjoyable.
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Here are the settings to change to make sure you have the best picture possible from your TCL TV.
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Gone are the days in which you needed to spend a fortune to get a good smartphone. In 2026, features once exclusive to high-end smartphones - big batteries, multi-camera arrays, high refresh rate OLED displays and more - have made their way down to more affordable models. Yes, you'll still need to buy a flagship smartphone to get the best camera or fastest processor, but you don't have to make nearly as many compromises as you once did if you have a strict budget to adhere to when you go shopping for your next smartphone. If you have less than $600 to spend, let us help you figure out what features to prioritize when trying to find the best midrange smartphone.
Table of contents
Best midrange phones in 2026
What is a midrange phone?
What to consider before buying a midrange smartphone
What won't you get from a midrange phone
Best midrange phones for 2026
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ChrisPC YT Downloader MP3 Converter is a dedicated Windows software for downloading and converting YouTube videos to high-quality MP3 audio files. [License: Freemium | Requires:
11|10|8|7 | Size: 20 MB ]
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After a tumultuous 2025 that saw it lose around 4,000 employees, NASA finally has an operating budget for 2026, and one that largely preserves its scientific capabilities. On Thursday, the Senate passed an appropriations bill funding NASA, alongside the National Science Foundation and a handful of other federal agencies.
Going into the appropriations process, the president called for a 24 percent year over year reduction to NASA's total operating budget. As part of that plan, the White House wanted to reduce the Science Mission Directorate's funding by nearly half, a move that would have forced NASA to cancel 55 ongoing and planned missions, including efforts like OSIRIS-APEX. The bill effectively rejects President Trump's plan, reducing NASA's total operating budget by just 1.6 percent year over year to $24.4 billion.
Per the new appropriations, NASA's science budget will stand at $7.25 billion, 1.1 percent less relative to fiscal 2024, while shuffling the remaining funds to focus on different priorities. For instance, the House and Senate allocated $874 million ( 8.7 percent) for the agency's heliophysics work; planetary sciences, which oversees missions like New Horizons, was cut to $2.5 billion (-6.5 percent) compared to 2024. At the same time, NASA's STEM engagement office, which the president proposed eliminating, escaped unscathed with its funding maintained at parity.
"It's almost everything we had been asking for, and it's very encouraging to see a House and Sen
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 While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another eight months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
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 An unreleased Apple display with the model number A3350 surfaced in a Chinese regulatory database today, according to a filing viewed by MacRumors.
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X has placed more restrictions on Grok's ability to generate explicit AI images, but tests show that the updates have created a patchwork of limitations that fail to fully address the issue.
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Hansi Flick's men take on the Segunda División leaders for a place in the quarterfinals.
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Watch more backstabbing and deception in the hit competition series.
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 The Ford Nugget may forever have the spirit of a carefree 22-year-old, but Ford's beloved camper van is actually turning the big 4-0 this year. To celebrate, Ford Pro is kicking off 2026 with a 40th anniversary edition styled to match the original Nugget from 1986. The neutral black-and-white color scheme looks stunning inside and out, while the pop-to
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NEW RESOURCES Maps Mania: Mapping ICE Activity. "People Over Papers is a community-driven map showing reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity. People Over Papers lets anyone submit sightings of possible […]
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 When you think of trailer companies, Honda probably isn't the first name that comes to mind. Nonetheless, the automaker has just revealed its prototype Base Station travel trailer, which can be towed by a compact SUV as small as a Honda CR-V or Toyota RAV4.
Continue Reading
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Even when you're in an area with good cellular coverage, your iPhone status might read SOS. Here's what to know.
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Merge Labs has emerged from stealth with $252 million in funding from OpenAI and others. It aims to use ultrasound to read from and write to the brain.
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Bowing to pressure, the company said it would restrict X users from generating explicit images of real people in jurisdictions where such content is illegal.
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As you kick off 2026 with new health goals, you might be eyeing those "healthy" sodas at the store, but do they live up to their promises?
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 A British hobbyist has applied multicopter drone thinking to radically simplify the steering and powertrain of his high-performance radio-control car - and absolutely demolished the world top speed record in the process.
Continue Reading
Automotive, Transport
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Coinbase's CEO isn't happy. Senators pump the brakes.
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How close are we to getting those new Avengers, Avatar and Coco rides? And what about the new lands for Cars, Monsters Inc. and Disney's villains? Here's what you can expect and when.
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Cowork is a user-friendly version of Anthropic's Claude Code AI-powered tool that's built for file management and basic computing tasks. Here's what it's like to use it.
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The top executive of the crypto exchange Coinbase scuttled a planned Senate committee vote on a major cryptocurrency bill after voicing his concerns, a sign of the company's clout.
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Whether you prefer to exercise early in the morning or late at night, this is the best time to sweat it out.
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NEW RESOURCES 2600: The 2600 Voice BBS Archives, Hope_16 Videos, And A Shower Curtain. "For those who don't know, the 2600 Voice BBS was a unique hacker bulletin board system run by […]
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What's not a given is paying full retail price. Yep, you can snag discounts on Windows 11. How much you'll save depends on your circumstances (and your stomach for hassle), but if you're lucky, you could technically get it for free. Legitimately for free, since installing Windows without ever activating it doesn't count as a full, sanctioned copy of the software. (Ahem.)
Here's how, in several different ways. These strategies often apply for Windows 10 licenses too, but that operating system got the axe on October 14. Your better bet will be Windows 11, as it'll get feature updates.
Simple upgrade: Trade up from Windows 10 to Windows 11
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Photo Credit: Fabrice Coffrini | Reuters
At present, there is no evidence that healthy children and adolescents need booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, World Health Organization chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a news briefing, she said that while there seems to be some waning of vaccine immunity over time against the fast-spreading Omicron variant of the coronavirus, more research is needed to determine who needs a booster shot.
"There is currently no evidence that healthy children or heavy adolescents need boosters. No evidence at all," he said.
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