As the US government launches investigations and threatens to pull federal funding, some elite universities have decided to take the path of least resistance. Colleges across the country have responded to the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity programs and student protesters by complying with these “anti-woke” witch hunts. In recent weeks, university administrators at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and other schools have let the government interfere with entire academic departments, fired professors over allegations of antisemitism lobbed by right-wing groups, and announced their refusal to intervene in immigration arrests on campus.The Trump administration has warned it will yank funding from institutions that it claims have engaged in racial discrimination in the form of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and enabled antisemitism by not being hard enough on pro-Palestine protesters. These aren’t empty threats: in March, the administration rescinded $400 million in funding from Columbia and froze $175 million slated for the University of Pennsylvania over the school’s policies on transgender athletes. This week, President Donald T …Read the full story at The Verge.

When you jump into a video on YouTube or Netflix, a lot happens very quickly behind the scenes. Video data is rapidly downloaded to your device, which then has to unpack and normalize that information into a smooth, hiccup-free stream. The process of encoding and decoding video data has changed greatly over the years, with H.264 (AVC) and its successor H.265 (HEVC) remaining two of the most widely used codecs for streaming.But in 2015, tech giants including Netflix, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta banded together to develop video compression’s latest evolution: AV1. The companies, which are part of the overarching Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia), say the video codec is around 30 percent more efficient compared to other standards like HEVC and the Google-developed VP9, allowing it to deliver higher-quality video at a lower bandwidth. AOMedia also claims that it’s royalty-free, meaning streaming device makers and video providers shouldn’t have to pay patent holders for using the technology.That all should have been enough for AV1 to take over the video landscape. But even with all these improvements and the backing of some of the biggest names in tech, the codec hasn …Read the full story at The Verge.

Your plan price isn’t the whole story.Verizon is announcing a new price lock policy today, and the timing is probably no coincidence. The company is extending a three-year price guarantee on certain plans, both for new and existing customers. The announcement comes a day after President Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs, and Verizon says it’s hoping to give customers more “predictability” in the current economic environment. But the fine print leaves Verizon plenty of wiggle room.The three-year guarantee covers the base charge for your rate plan, but not fees and taxes — and you have to be on one of Verizon’s newer myPlan subscriptions to qualify. That means Verizon can still raise your monthly bill in the form of increased fees, which is what wireless carriers tend to do anyway when they want to charge more. They can also cut your monthly autopay discount in half, or persuade you to move to a pricier plan with the offer of a new phone. There are plenty of levers for companies like Verizon to pull, even with a price lock.The price lock isn’t the only new offer on the table, though. Verizon is also throwing in a free phone to new and existing customers. You’ll just need to trade in an old Apple, Samsung, or Google phone in any condition — and again, you’ll need to be on a myPlan subscription to take advantage. With plenty of economic uncertainty ahead, a trade-in deal might sound appealing. Just make sure you read the fine print so you know what you’re getting into.

After purchasing my iPad Air, an Apple Pencil to go with it, and a Logitech keyboard for working on the go, the next thing on my to-do list was making my $600 iPad (plus the cost of the accessories) worth it. Since I primarily use it for my studies and prefer handwritten notes, I spent hours testing every note-taking app I could find in the App Store.

The idea of running two operating systems on one PC is tempting, with the most popular combination being Windows and Linux. Dual-booting is the most common way to achieve this, but it's not necessarily the best option, as it can cause issues. For example, if you have both Windows and Linux installed, Windows may sometimes prevent you from booting into Linux. Using a virtual machine (VM) can, in fact, be a more suitable alternative, especially for those who need to run specific applications or test new operating systems.

We all know that data loss happens and that we should be backing up our data periodically, even if we don't always put that knowledge into consistent practice. Maybe you have copies of your data on various external hard drives, which is better than no backups but still isn't a proper backup strategy. You might have a self-hosted backup solution that automatically backs up your devices, which is most of the way towards the end goal.

The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally been formally announced, alongside a number of unexpected surprises despite the extensive leaks over the last few months. With a number of launch titles confirmed (including the exorbitantly priced $90 physical edition of Mario Kart World), a launch price of $450, and an all-new dock with 4K output support, it's the end of the road for a lot of speculation about the successor to the wildly successful Nintendo Switch... or is it?

The Start menu has never been particularly well-liked and remains one of the most critiqued parts of the Windows operating system. It has always lacked customization tools, and its interface has often felt cluttered.

My digital toolkit was overflowing, but so was my monthly expenses sheet. I found myself trapped in a cycle of paying for several tools, many of which offered features I barely used. So, I decided to do some digital spring cleaning. What I discovered was a wealth of powerful, readily available software that not only matched but, in some cases, surpassed the capabilities of their paid counterparts.

Following up on the release of the world's first 5K2K OLED gaming display, LG announced the pricing and availability for its GX9s series of OLED gaming monitors on Thursday. The display comes in three different varieties, but all of them sport LG's webOS platform that's been at the heart of the company's TVs for years. Now, for the first time, LG is bringing that operating system to its gaming displays.

The world moves faster than ever in 2025, with cultural trends shifting at an accelerating pace. In these times of rapid change, nostalgia can offer a comforting escape. While nostalgia sometimes offers a rose-tinted vision of the past, it also preserves elements worth holding onto and celebrating.

Google has added a new feature to NotebookLM that lets the AI note-taking tool find its own web sources to summarize and narrate. Instead of manually uploading sources like documents or YouTube links, users can now tap the “Discover” button and simply describe the topic they want to get a better understanding of, with the tool then gathering web sources around the subject.Google says the Discover feature started rolling out on Wednesday, and will take “about a week or so” to be available to all users.NotebookLM will hunt through “hundreds of potential web sources in seconds” according to Google, analyzing the most relevant options and then presenting a list of up to ten recommendations, each with a summary explaining its relevance. Users can select which of these sources they want NotebookLM to reference, and import them to use in other features, including FAQs, Briefing Docs, and podcast-like Audio Overviews that use AI hosts to discuss a topic.Sources will be saved within NotebookLM to allow users to read them directly and use them as references for citations, note-taking, and question-answering capabilities. Google says that Discover sources is the first of several Gemini-powered NotebookLM features that are being developed to make it easier for users to find relevant notebook reference materials.Another capability spun from this is “I’m Feeling Curious” — a button that prompts NotebookLM to generate sources on a completely random topic. It’s a good way to see what the feature is capable of, but also a fun way to learn about new subjects, much like Wikipedia’s random article feature.