I arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport nearly five hours before my domestic flight. This is not my way - usually I roll up to the airport 30 minutes before boarding - but not even I have enough hubris to think that my good luck is more powerful than a partial government shutdown. Congress has yet to pass a bill funding the Department of Homeland Security, meaning thousands of federal employees from TSA to the Coast Guard are working without pay - or, in the case of TSA, calling out of work, causing staff shortages and hourslong security lines at airports across the country. On Monday, President Donald Trump deployed between 100 …Read the full story at The Verge.

Meta willfully violated New Mexico law by misleading users about the safety of its products and engaging in an unconscionable trade practice, a jury found. The company will face a $375 million penalty for the violations, awarding the maximum penalty of $5,000 per violation for 37,500 violations across two counts. The jury decided against Meta on every count, though it declined to award a penalty as high as the state sought, which would have been closer to $2 billion.It's a landmark verdict delivered just one day after closing arguments. New Mexico argued that Meta had flouted state law by misleading consumers and facilitating child predato …Read the full story at The Verge.

Instagram and Facebook content will soon have shopping links baked into posts, essentially cutting out third-party "link in bio"-style tools. Meta announced Tuesday that it's adding commerce features on the two platforms, though the functionality will be slightly different for each.On Facebook, content creators will be able to link their affiliate accounts they have with brands and tag products in Reels and photos. Typically when an influencer wants to send audiences to their affiliate link, they have to comment on a post with a link to the product, or direct audiences toward an affiliate platform like ShopMy or LTK. Now, approved product …Read the full story at The Verge.

How good do you think you are with GNOME? Are you skilled enough to, say, land a 12-month stint with the desktop environment and get a large amount of funding on the way? If so, today is your lucky day. GNOME has revealed the Fellowship program, which is offering people $70k-100k to work on it for a year.

The moment I realized something was off, my desktop just felt... wrong. The icons were there; the files opened fine, but when I tried to move something, the path didn't look like my PC anymore. It said OneDrive. What?

Early this year, it felt like the PC hardware market hit a frustrating peak. DDR5 prices have skyrocketed, and flagship GPUs like the RTX 5080 are floating in the $1,500 region. For many, the option to just stop building isn't really there, but instead it might be time to stop buying consumer parts.

The MacBook Air has been the go-to laptop for many people, thanks to its lightweight and slim design that still manages to pack tons of power and excellent battery life. We had a chance to spend some time with the M4-powered model and really loved it.

A little while ago, we heard thatOpenAI was planning a "superapp" that brings all of its apps together. We saw ChatGPT, Codex, and Atlas brought under one roof, but for some reason, Sora wasn't listed. At the time, it was easy to assume it was because the Sora app was for mobile devices so that it would live independently of the others. However, OpenAI has now confirmed that it's scrapping the Sora AI app entirely, acting as the first casualty of its consumer apps.

A frame from a Sora 2-generated video. | Image: OpenAI On Tuesday afternoon, OpenAI announced "We're saying goodbye to Sora," the video generation tool that it launched at the end of 2024, and centered in a massive licensing deal with Disney only a few months ago. The Wall Street Journal reported the move earlier, saying that OpenAI boss Sam Altman had informed staff that both the TikTok-like Sora app and API access for developers would be discontinued, with no plans to roll the feature into ChatGPT as had previously been rumored. According to The Hollywood Reporter, as a result, the deal Disney announced in December, saying it would invest $1 billion in OpenAI, license its characters for use …Read the full story at The Verge.

NASA's Artemis II Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. | AFP via Getty Images NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has big plans for the future of the agency, including the construction of a $20 billion lunar base that he said will establish an "enduring presence" on the Moon. Isaacman announced the news during NASA's Ignition event on Tuesday, where he also described goals to launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Mars, as reported earlier by the New York Times.As a result of plans to establish a base on the Moon, NASA announced that it's pausing its Gateway project "in its current form," which would've launched a space station orbiting the Moon. Instead, NASA plans to "shift focus to infrastructure that enables susta …Read the full story at The Verge.

It's a well-known fact that Windows 11 is a bloated operating system that's packed with features and apps most people don't want or need. To the point where Microsoft recently promised to clean up some of the unnecessary things it added over time in addition to improving performance.

It's no secret that Intel has been doing better with the mobile side of its chipmaking business lately, but perhaps that's about to change. The Core Ultra 200S Plus series is here, with the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Core Ultra 5 250K Plus. Launching at low MSRPs, this is a clear attempt to show that Intel is back on course, but it comes at a strange time for the enthusiast PC market, with runaway pricing across every other component.