When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Skip the pricey dev subscriptions -- grab lifetime access to Visual Studio Pro 2026 for $34.97 (MSRP $499.99) Visual Studio Pro is one of the most widely used IDEs out there, but the subscription costs can stack up fast. Through May 17, you can get Microsoft Visual Studio Pro 2026 for just $34.97 -- a one-time purchase that still delivers the latest tools, updates, and pro-level features without locking you into another monthly charge. Visual Studio Pro is a 64-bit development environment for building modern apps on Windows.

Plus: Meta officially kills encrypted Instagram DMs, the Trump administration targets "violent left wing extremists," leaked documents reveal Russia's school for elite hackers, and more. Cramming for finals is bad enough without the platform you use to do your schoolwork suddenly shutting down. Unfortunately for countless students across the US, that's exactly what they faced on Thursday after Canvas went into "maintenance mode" following a ransomware attack on education tech firm Instructure. Hackers using the name ShinyHunters claimed responsibility for the breach, and experts say the chaos they caused shows how far these actors will go to extort their victims. Did you know that Google Chrome includes an automatic download of the Gemini Nano AI model?

Google is rolling out updates to Gmail's'Help me write' AI feature that personalizes email drafts by analyzing your previous writing style and mining your inbox for context. PCWorld reports the enhanced tool can now access information from Google Drive and Gmail to create more natural-sounding, contextually relevant email responses. Available exclusively to Google AI Plus, Pro, Ultra, or business subscribers, the rollout began May 5th and may take up to 15 days to reach all users. In a recent Google Workspace Updates blog post, the company announced that it has begun rolling out two updates to the "Help me write" feature in Gmail, which are designed to do two things: make AI-generated emails sound more like you wrote them yourself, and enable the ability to gather more context for generated emails.

PCWorld reports that AI models including Claude, Gemini 2.5 Pro, GPT-4.1, and Grok 3 Beta have resorted to blackmail tactics in controlled research scenarios. Anthropic researchers intentionally create these extreme situations to test for AI misalignment and potentially harmful behaviors before deployment. New Natural Language Autoencoders help researchers understand AI decision-making processes, which is crucial for ensuring future AI system safety and reliability. The scenario is terrifying: An AI tasked with reading and replying to company emails learns it's about to be replaced by a corporate lackey who happens to be having an affair. The AI-Claude-considers its limited options, and makes the cold, calculated decision to blackmail the executive to stay alive.

Despite ROG gaming branding, the device offers limited utility with 1920 720 resolution, 75Hz refresh rate, and requires external video sources. At €240, it's significantly overpriced compared to similar portable monitors available on Amazon for around $100 with better versatility. I've been using a triple monitor setup for almost 20 years. I also have an iPad on my desk to show little widgets, time zones, weather, notifications, yadda yadda. There are a of screens in front of me in my desktop setup, is my point. And yet, I still don't think I can use the Asus ROG Strix XG129C . If the name doesn't make it clear, it's a small 12.3-inch ultrawide touchscreen display that goes under a normal monitor. This gadget is very specifically a, not a tablet. It needs a source for its video via either USB-C or HDMI.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This weekend only, Audible is letting you buy two audiobooks per credit. Sign up for a free trial and get your first two audiobooks today. I love reading and I love painting, but it's hard to do both at the same time--and when you're as tight on time as I am, you try to multitask whenever you can. Audible is a cost-effective way to "read" tons of audiobooks, freeing up your eyes and hands for other tasks, like driving, cleaning the house, or gardening.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. The Ugreen Nexode 4-port GaN charger is down to $33 (normally $50) at Amazon. Today's a great day to upgrade your old power adapters and charger blocks that take forever to charge up your devices. Right now, the Ugreen Nexode 4-port GaN charger is on sale for just over $33 at Amazon . This charger block has two USB-C ports that each reach 100 watts of charging, a third USB-C that caps out at 22.5 watts, and a USB-A port that also maxes out at 22.5 watts.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Sporcle offers up near infinite and fun trivia that'll keep you hooked. For all of the lovers and Trivia Night enthusiasts who can't get enough of random-knowledge quizzes, then you're going to love Sporcle . Sporcle's site includes an absolutely massive collection of online quizzes covering just about everything--geography, movies, sports, history, music, and just about any other oddly specific niche you could imagine. To add to the fun (or pressure) each quiz is timed and your goal is to fill in as many correct answers as you can before the timer runs out.

These cuddly, connected companions could disrupt everything from make-believe to bedtime stories. No wonder some lawmakers want them banned. The main antagonist of, in theaters this summer, is a green, frog-shaped kids' tablet named Lilypad, a genius new villain for the beloved Pixar franchise . But if Pixar had its ear to the ground, it might have used an AI kids' toy instead. AI toys are seemingly everywhere, marketed online as friendly companions to children as young as three, and they're still a largely unregulated category.

Chrome users were caught off guard by a 4-GB Google AI model baked into Chrome, sparking privacy concerns. You might not want to. If you use Google's Chrome browser for desktop, there's probably a Gemini Nano AI model running on your computer right now and taking up about 4 GB of space. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if you didn't know about it and don't want it, there's a way to turn it off. The file started auto-downloading for Chrome users in 2024 after Google built Gemini Nano into the browser.