To upgrade its grid for data centers, PJM Interconnection (which serves 13 states) plans to spend $22 billion and charge nearly $2 billion of that to customers in Maryland, argues Maryland's Office of People's Counsel. The money "will be recovered in rates for decades" and "drive up Maryland customer bills by $1.6 billion over the next ten years alone," they said Friday, announcing an official complaint filed with America's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Extra demand is expected from ..

NASA's $500 million Neil Gehrels Swift space observatory was launched in 2004. But it's now "at risk of falling back through the atmosphere and burning up without intervention," reports Spaceflight Now. Fortunately, a mission to prevent that "just passed a notable prelaunch testing milestone." On Friday, NASA announced that the Link spacecraft, manufactured by Katalyst Space Technologies to intervene before Swift's fate is sealed, completed its slate of environmental testing at the agency's ..

The space agency is planning to put astronauts on the moon in 2028.

September 2025? January 2026? Delivery dates keep slipping for the Trump Organization's "Trump Phone" a gold-coloured Android smartphone priced at $499 (370). But in March the Verge spotted signs the phone was moving forward: FCC listings for a smartphone with the trade name "T1" show that it was tested late last year, and granted certification by the FCC in January... [T]he phone was submitted for testing by another company entirely: Smart Gadgets Global, LLC... Smart Gadgets Global's website ..

"Plant seeds can sense the vibrations generated by falling raindrops," reports ScienceAlert, "and respond by waking from their state of dormancy to welcome the water, new research shows.... to germinate in 'anticipation' of the coming deluge." The finding, discovered by MIT mechanical engineers Nicholas Makris and Cadine Navarro, offers the first direct evidence that seeds and seedlings can sense and respond to sounds in nature... "The energy of the rain sound is enough to accelerate a seed's ..

The startup has expanded to more than 230 cities across the world, but has yet to become profitable.

Cisco has released an open-source tool "to trace the origins of AI models," reports SC World, "and compare model similarities for great visibility into the AI supply chain." [Cisco's Model Provenance Kit] is a Python toolkit and command-line interface (CLI) that looks at signals such as metadata and weights to create a "fingerprint" for AI models that can then be compared to other model fingerprints to determine potential shared origins. "Think of Model Provenance Kit as a DNA test for AI ..

The German automaker said it would refocus on its "core business."

Prime Video has introduced Clips, which is basically TikTok but for Prime Video content.

Samsung has released new software updates for the Galaxy Buds3 Pro and Galaxy Buds4 Pro TWS earphones. The update for the Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro comes with firmware version R630XXU0AZD2, requires a download of about 8MB, and brings stability-focused improvements to the earphones. The update for the Samsung Galaxy Buds4 Pro, on the other hand, weighs around 8.5MB and comes with firmware version R640XXU0AZD2. But the Buds4 Pro's update, like the Buds3 Pro's, also focuses on stability, as the ..

Deletion of a longstanding privacy assurance sparks concerns

All 20 of America's state-run healthcare marketplace sites "include advertising trackers that share information with Big Tech companies," reports Gizmodo, citing a report from Bloomberg: Per the report, seven million Americans bought their health insurance through state exchanges in 2026, and many of them may have had personal information shared with companies, including Meta, TikTok, Snap, Google, Nextdoor, and LinkedIn, among others. Some of the data collected and shared with those companies ..

The Federal Communications Commission issued a notice to allow software and firmware updates until January 2029.

Nvidia is pouring billions of dollars at a time into companies across the AI infrastructure stack, while also signing commercial deals with them.

CNN reports on a "sudden surge of claimed sightings" of "unidentified figures averaging 8 feet tall in wooded areas" along Ohio's Mahoning River. "And it stopped just as quickly as it started," says Jeremiah Byron, host of the Bigfoot Society Podcast, which collected and mapped the reports .... Byron doesn't take every report at face value, making sure he talks to people directly before publicizing their claims. Once word got out about the reports in Ohio, so did the obvious fakes. "I started ..

This week's science news.

A chain of 30 U.S. newspapers including the Sacramento Bee, the Miami Herald and the Idaho Statesman "has started to use a new AI tool that can summarize traditional articles and spit out different versions for different audiences," reports the New York Times. And the chain's reporters "are not happy about it." Journalists in many of the company's newsrooms are now withholding their bylines from articles created by the new tool, meaning that those articles will run with a generic credit rather ..

Nothing launched the Ear (open) TWS earphones in September 2024, but they are still offered in a single color - white. Well, the white model will be joined by a new color next week, as Nothing has announced it will launch the blue version of the Ear (open) on May 11. Nothing hasn't revealed the blue Ear (open) entirely yet, but it did give us a glimpse of the new colorway by sharing its photo on X. You can check it below. Lots of things are blue: the sky, the ocean, a 1996-era Walkman. Swimming ..

A "thermal event" caused a loss of power at a data center in Virginia, leading to an AWS outage.

The FCC has extended waivers allowing certain covered foreign-produced drones, drone components, and routers to continue receiving software and firmware updates until at least 2029, citing cybersecurity and consumer protection concerns.

America's school districts "spent billions on technology during the pandemic," reports the Washington Post. "But now some states are limiting in-school screen time because of concerns about its impact on children." Nationwide [U.S.] schools invested at least $15 billion and possibly as much as $35 billion from federal pandemic relief funds on laptops, learning software and other technology between 2020 and 2024, according to an estimate by the Edunomics Lab, an education think tank. By last ..

Maryland is complaining to the federal energy regulator about PJM's plan to charge it $2 billion for grid upgrades that will mostly benefit data centers, especially as the state claims that the majority of these developments are being built in neighboring regions.

Cloudflare cuts 20% of its jobs due to AI, and its stock takes a 19% spill. The company announced it will be cutting 1,100 jobs and has increased its usage of AI sixfold over the past few months.

Neweggs latest AM5 combo pairs the Ryzen 7 9800X3D with 32GB DDR5 memory, a Samsung Gen 5 SSD, a free Corsair PSU, and a NordVPN subscription.

The Nextorage NEM-PAC is a quiet contender with good performance and a PS5-compliant heatsink. Its a competent Gen 4 SSD but is otherwise unexciting.

It looks as though the upcoming vlogging camera from Insta360 will offer a detachable remote control unit.

Gaming laptops are expensive, and only getting pricier as AI-driven shortages increase. Here are the best options for budget gaming laptops on the cheap, comprised of laptop models that we have tested throughout our full, stringent gaming test suite that measures performance in demanding graphical conditions.

The paper noted that VPN downloads spiked after enforcement began in the UK and several U.S. states.

We took Nvidia's RTX Mega Geometry technology through a series of tests in Alan Wake 2 and the RTX Bonsai Diorama Demo to see how this tech reduces VRAM consumption and eliminates visual artifacts, thus helping pave the way to photorealistic real-time graphics.

Daredevil: Born Again season 3 will be released sometime in 2027 here's everything we know ahead of its eventual release.

The hit Elle Kennedy books series is finally getting its small screen adaptation. But when does Off Campus drop on Prime Video?

It's the best Mortal Kombat film yet.

Apple's old backup boxes only speak AFP and SMB1, but NetBSD under the hood gives them one last shot

Meet AI Hub, and the other new AI apps and services you should know about this week.

The B-52 engine upgrade aims to extend service life, despite rising costs, delays, and ongoing challenges tied to aging aircraft systems

Plus, make a mixtape with help from the folks behind Mixtape.

Never mind the Galaxy S26 and Pixel 10. I want a phone with a 6-inch screen or smaller in 2026.

These connected companions could disrupt everything from make-believe to bedtime stories. No wonder some lawmakers want them banned.

Cant hear what theyre saying? Now you can turn on the subtitles for real-life conversations.

A four-foot humanoid robot named Gabi has become a monk at a Buddhist temple in Seoul, participating in a modified initiation ceremony where it pledged to respect life, obey humans, act peacefully toward other robots and objects. "Robots are destined to collaborate with humans in every field in the future," Hong Min-suk, a manager at the Jogye Order, the largest sect of Buddhism in South Korea, tells the New York Times. "It will only be natural for them to be part of our festival." Smithsonian ..