Timef 02/22/2025

The line between spam and scams is thin. Kurt "CyberGuy" Knutsson details his tips for identifying and avoiding phone scams, robocalls and unwanted solicitations.

Don’t suffer the buffer. These WIRED-tested systems will deliver reliable internet across your home, whatever your needs or budget.

Apple has been steadily working to expand the world of the Apple TV+ series “Severance,” through online materials, e-books, podcasts, and other content – and so have its fans. Taking advantage of its platform power, the Cupertino tech giant has been able to easily distribute supplemental material that adds to the show’s storytelling abilities, offering […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Learn how to use base layers, mid layers, and a shell to be comfortable no matter what nature throws at you.

Stay up to date on the latest AI technology advancements and learn about the challenges and opportunities AI presents

Answers to each clue for the February 22, 2025 edition of NYT's The Mini crossword puzzle.

The processor uses qubits that can be measured without error and are resistant to outside interference, which the company says marks a “transformative leap toward practical quantum computing.”

This user-friendly countertop stone mill grinds dried wheat berries, quinoa, and more with the flip of a switch.

Rising temperatures, erratic rainfall, and other climate impacts are throttling cocoa production and driving up chocolate prices.

With the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have obtained a detailed study of the activity from the Milky Way's central black hole.

Plus: Apple turns off end-to-end encrypted iCloud backups in the UK after pressure to install a backdoor, and two spyware apps expose victim data—and the identities of people who installed the apps.

Kurt the CyberGuy takes you through the steps to easily set your preferred web browser whether you're using a Mac, Windows PC, iPhone or Android.

The U.S. Space Force released a view of Earth captured by its X-37B robotic spaceplane, which can spend years at a time conducting experiments in orbit.

Plus: Apple’s visionOS 2.4 makes it easier for guests to use the Vision Pro, Eero has two new Wi-Fi 7 routers, Oppo’s folding phone is the slimmest yet, and Omega drops a bronze Bond watch.

Space-borne UFOs or UAPs (unidentified anomalous phenomena) may go unreported to government agencies because of a loophole in how these mysterious objects are legally defined.

The fight over TikTok's fate continues, as potential buyers emerge to prevent a U.S. ban before Trump's deadline.

Each total lunar eclipse, like the one happening in March 2025, is different, owing to factors like conditions in Earth's atmosphere, which changes the way sunlight is ultimately projected onto the moon.

Get a refurbished MacBook Air for just $230 (reg. $999) while supplies last. Fewer than 50 remain — grab yours before they’re gone.

The PlayAIBox Wireless Adapter is on sale for $84.97 (reg. $129) for a little while longer.

1min.AI’s Advanced Business Plan offers a powerful, all-in-one AI toolkit for just $99.99 — no recurring fees, just lifetime access.

Discover the NanoPhone, a miniaturized smartphone that packs all the essential features into a sleek, ultra-portable design.

This Microsoft Office license is only discounted to $34.97 until February 23. It has Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more for Windows computers.

Scammers are taking advantage of confusion between DOGE and dogecoin.

A virtual private network lets you skirt the prying eyes of your ISP and bypass geo-restrictions. The best VPNs we've tested include TunnelBear and NordVPN.

I've tested over 20 top robot vacs at home to narrow down the best robot vacuums for carpet, hard floors, and everything in between.

The massive underground facility, which has been used to store archives since the 1960s, remains a crucial but convoluted hub for US government records.

Headway Premium is a mobile app that makes learning more accessible through quick summaries and insights pulled from over 1,500 of the top non-fiction books.

How to live stream F1 2025 for free from anywhere in the world.

Live stream England vs. Scotland in the 2025 Six Nations for free from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Wales vs. Ireland in the 2025 Six Nations for free from anywhere in the world.

Live stream Australia vs. England in the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy for free from anywhere in the world.

The best tablets for drawing from top brands like Apple and Samsung.

Connections: Sports Edition is a New York Times word game about finding common sports threads between words. How to solve the puzzle.

The NYT Strands hints and answers you need to make the most of your puzzling experience.

Connections is a New York Times word game that's all about finding the "common threads between words." How to solve the puzzle.

Here's the answer for "Wordle" #1344 on February 22, as well as a few hints, tips, and clues to help you solve it yourself.

Google, Instagram, Facebook and weather apps can track your location and use that data to serve you ads; here's what you can do to protect your privacy.

Social media giants Meta and X (formerly Twitter) approved ads targeting users in Germany with violent anti-Muslim and anti-Jew hate speech in the run-up to the country’s federal elections, according to new research from Eko, a corporate responsibility non-profit campaign group. The group’s researchers tested whether the two platforms ad review systems would approve or […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

For years, Meta employees have internally discussed using copyrighted works obtained through legally questionable means to train the company’s AI models, according to court documents unsealed on Thursday. The documents were submitted by plaintiffs in the case Kadrey v. Meta, one of many AI copyright disputes slowly winding through the U.S. court system. The defendant, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Coinbase on Friday said the SEC has agreed to drop the lawsuit against the company with prejudice, meaning it cannot be filed again.  The move, which is still subject to the approval of the SEC’s Commissioners, is yet another signal that the Trump administration plans to be more friendly to crypto than the SEC was […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Experts say the conflicts posed by Tom Krause’s dual roles are unprecedented in the modern era.

Apple on Friday released its first developer beta for iOS 18.4, which adds a new “Priority Notifications” feature, powered by Apple Intelligence. The addition aims to help users manage their notifications by prioritizing important alerts and minimizing distractions from less important ones.  These priority notifications are displayed in a separate section on the phone’s Lock […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

RE:Ukraine Villages is a digital tool which aims to preserve Ukraine's unique village architecture.

Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said the market got it wrong when it comes to DeepSeek’s technological advancements and its potential to negatively impact the chipmaker’s business. Instead, Huang called DeepSeek’s R1 open source reasoning model “incredibly exciting” while speaking with Alex Bouzari, CEO of DataDirect Networks, in a pre-recorded interview that was released […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

OpenAI is forecasting a major shift in the next five years around who it gets most of its computing power from, The Information reported on Friday. By 2030, OpenAI expects to get three-quarters of its data center capacity from Stargate, the data center expansion project that’s expected to be heavily financed by SoftBank, one of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The cybersecurity lead for VA.gov was fired last week. He tells WIRED that the Veterans Affairs digital hub will be more vulnerable without someone in his role.

Norwegian robotics firm 1X unveiled its latest home robot, Neo Gamma, on Friday. The humanoid system will succeed Neo Beta, which debuted in August. Like its predecessors, the Neo Gamma is a prototype designed for testing in the home environment. Images of the robot show it performing a number of household tasks like making coffee, […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Lenacapavir, a twice yearly injection that prevents HIV transmission, was named the breakthrough medicine of 2024. But without US foreign aid dollars, its delivery to millions worldwide is under threat.

This week, Sakana AI, a Nvidia-backed startup that’s raised hundreds of millions of dollars from VC firms, made a remarkable claim. The company said it had created an AI system, the AI CUDA Engineer, that could effectively speed up the training of certain AI models by a factor of up to 100x. The only problem […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Meta is expanding in India, despite recent layoffs of what the tech giant controversially deemed "low performers." © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

For A$62, get lifetime access to Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for Windows and Mac devices.

Law enforcement in the country was pressuring the company to create a tool that would act like a backdoor into customers’ data.

The criminal trial against fintech startup founder Charlie Javice began on Friday, with lawyers laying out their opening arguments, Reuters reported.  Lawyers reiterated their original claims and defenses from the lawsuit filed by JPMorgan Chase against Javice in December of 2022. The financial services giant alleges that Javice had helped “fake millions of customers in […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The Perplexity CEO confirmed that its Deep Research tool is built from a customized version of DeepSeek R1, but like any LLM, there are inaccuracies.

The website we all used before Google Maps is back with a goofy little web toy that lets you name the Gulf of Mexico whatever.

According to a new SEC filing, Meta execs can expect a major increase in bonuses, as the company downsizes its workforce.

Check out where your laptop and smartphone land on the repairability scorecard.

Recipe app developers just got new competition. On Friday, Apple introduced a soon-to-launch feature for Apple News+ subscribers called Apple News+ Food, a new section that will allow users to search, discover, save, and easily cook recipes from dozens of existing News+ publishing partners. It’s set to roll out as part of iOS 18.4 and […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Errol Morris' "CHAOS: The Manson Murders" hits Netflix on March 7.

As of Feb. 21, you can snag the Logitech POP ICON keyboard and mouse combo for just $59.49 at Amazon.

Apple Intelligence is heading to the Vision Pro, as part of an upcoming operating system update. Apple confirmed on Friday that its generative AI platform will arrive on the extended reality headset as part of VisionOS 2.4. A beta version of the software is currently available for developers. The public version is set for an […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Welcome to Startups Weekly — your weekly recap of everything you can’t miss from the world of startups. Want it in your inbox every Friday? Sign up here. Startup life is a story of births and deaths. This week confirmed this, and it confirmed that unicorn rounds are not dead. Most interesting startup stories from […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Crypto exchange Bitby disclosed a breach that that amounts to a loss of $1.4 billion, the largest crypto theft of all time. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The internet spun a tale of an anglerfish seeking the sun, but marine experts say this behavior is more likely due to stress or injury.

"Avatar: Seven Havens" takes place after "The Legend of Korra." Here's what we want to see from the upcoming series.

As of Feb. 21, get the Acer Predator Helios Neo 14 for $600 off at B&H Photo.

Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub compared using CO2 in enhanced oil recovery to fracking, the technology that sent U.S. oil and gas production skyrocketing. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The iPhone 16e may not have MagSafe support, but these phone cases from Speck provide a nifty workaround for Apple's latest smartphone. Also, they're 50% off at Best Buy, just $24.99.

Should you save up for the iPhone 16 or save some cash with the new iPhone 16e? We break down Apple's complicated lineup.

Tiny Michigan biotech startup CircNova has raised a $3.3 million seed round for its technology that uses AI to target so-called “circular RNA.” The development holds promise as a new method to quickly develop therapies for conditions that currently have no drug treatments. The new funding is also a victory lap for co-founder and CEO […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As of Feb. 21, get a Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 with a free watch band from Samsung.

Global investing in fintech startups is starting to see an uptick. Just this week, KPMG issued its Pulse of Fintech report for the second half of 2024. In the fourth quarter of 2024, investment climbed to $25.9 billion from $18 billion in the third quarter, according to KPMG. Granted, this is not the enthusiasm of […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The best Amazon deals on Feb. 21 include the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, Apple AirTags, Garmin vivoactive 5, Samsung M8 smart monitor, and Logitech POP mouse.

As of Feb. 21, you can get the LG StanbyMe portable touchscreen monitor for $896.99, down from $999.99, at Amazon. That's a $103 discount.

As they gain in popularity, AI coding assistants such as GitHub Copilot may appear to be boosting productivity. But in reality, they could be causing overall code quality to decline. That’s the top-line finding from a new report released by software engineering platform GitClear, which analyzed 211 million code lines from 2020 to 2024. According […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

These titles let you play with friends on all kinds of platforms, from computers to Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and even mobile.

AI Innovators, seize your moment! Have insights that could inspire 1,200 AI founders, investors, and enthusiasts eager to advance the future of AI? Take center stage, influence the AI conversation, and exchange ideas at TechCrunch Sessions: AI on June 5 at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. We’re gathering top AI visionaries from the startup world to […] © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

The semaglutide shortage has officially ended in the US—which means the GLP-1 drug industry is about to undergo massive changes.

In an unprecedented step, Apple caved to a reported U.K. government’s demand to prevent users from using end-to-end encryption in iCloud. © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

As of Feb. 21, PlayStation owners can snag a 12-month PS Plus Premium membership for $60 off the usual price. That's just $99.99 for a whole year of the Game-Pass-esque subscription service, rather than $159.99.

Fast charge all your devices with the Anker Prime Power Bank. Now just $149.99 at Amazon— a $30 savings.

Twitch streamers now have to worry about a storage limit for highlights and uploads, but VODs are unaffected.

A little bit of Victorian London history in Steven Knight's new Disney+/Hulu show.

As of Feb. 21, get the Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE for 36% off at Amazon.

A Polish startup unveiled Protoclone, a disturbingly lifelike, bleeding android that looks ripped from a horror film.

Questlove's 'Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius)' asks the question "Is there a burden on Black Genius?" The film's producer Joseph Patel gives us a deep look into the film, Sly Stone's legacy, and the burden that comes with success for Black artists.