I know you've heard of gamification, but have you ever heard of festification? That's what Microsoft will be doing in April and May, with the Microsoft AI Skills Fest. It's a little odd, but it also looks like it might be a heck of a lot of fun. I've written a lot about Microsoft over the years. I've mocked its product naming.

SAVE 29: As of March 31, the ELEGOO Tumbller Robot Kit is 55.99 -- 29 off its 84.99 list price in the Amazon Spring Sale. It's the final hours of Amazon's Spring Sale, and the clock is ticking down on deals I didn't know I needed until 10 minutes ago. It's a self-balancing, LED-blinking, obstacle-dodging STEM toy that's somehow only 55.99 (down from 84.99), and I'm seriously considering buying one just to justify my Prime membership. Once you build it using the step-by-step illustrated manual (which even I could probably follow without crying), it comes to life with features like auto-follow, bouncing mode, and a light show straight out of a Daft Punk concert. You can even control it via an app, so naturally, your phone becomes a robot remote.

TL;DR: Focais Meet One is your AI-powered sidekick that records, transcribes, translates, and summarizes conversations in 120 languages. If you've ever sat through a long meeting only to later realize you remembered none of the details, we've got something that's going to blow your organized little mind. The Focais Meet One isn't just another recorder--it's basically your new AI-powered executive assistant that fits in your pocket. Designed for anyone who's tired of typing notes mid-conversation or rewatching Zoom recordings at 1.5x speed, the Focais Meet One captures crystal-clear audio and then uses advanced AI to transcribe and summarize it in real time. So yes, you can zone out a little and still get a full summary later.

When Bruce Reed served in the Biden administration as the president's deputy chief of staff, he led the effort on working with leading AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI on voluntary comittments to ensure the safety of their products. Reed has since left the White House, but he's not finished with AI, a technology he described to Mashable as "exciting, amazing, sometimes terrifying." He will continue working at Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that supports children and parents as they navigate media and technology. Popularly known for its media ratings of children's content, including video games, TV shows, and movies, the nonprofit also conducts research and advocacy. Reed, a veteran of three Democratic presidential administrations, will lead Common Sense AI, which advocates for more comprehensive AI legislation in California.

OK, so you have to say it with a smile, no matter what you're saying, because the shape of your mouth makes a difference.

OpenAI isn't slowing down when it comes to building extra functions and add-ons into its ChatGPT AI bot, and one of the newest features to roll out--exclusive to paying users, for now--is ChatGPT Projects. This is a major step forward for keeping conversations and data organized in ChatGPT: It gives you the ability to put your discussions with ChatGPT in separate spaces, like folders in a filing cabinet, complete with uploaded documents, web searches, custom instructions, and whatever else you've added. You can have one project for researching birthday present ideas, for example, and one for analyzing the current state of the movie industry. It's up to you how you use them, but Projects can make a genuine difference to workflows in ChatGPT. Projects can include conversations, files, and instructions.

Amazon is springing a bunch of seasonal deals on shoppers. The retail giant is hosting its second-ever Big Spring Sale from Tuesday, March 25, through Monday, March 31, ushering in discounts on "end-of-season winter items" and "springtime favorites" across more than 35 categories, per its press release. Each day of the weeklong sale features "themed daily drops" on top of new limited-time offers. The Big Spring Sale is Amazon's first major savings event of the year -- and unlike its flagship summer Prime Day sale, the deals aren't exclusive to Prime members. Most of them, anyway: Prime members get access to a handful of special offers, which are identified with a "Prime Spring Deal" badge.

From chewing gum to teabags, microplastics have already been discovered in a range of everyday items. These tiny pieces of plastic measure less than five millimeters long and are not biodegradable - meaning they last for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Now, shocking images have revealed the terrifying effects these tiny pieces of plastic could be having on our bodies. Experts from BusinessWaste.co.uk have used AI to produce images predicting how the average man and woman could look after exposure to microplastics. From weight gain and hair thinning to eczema-like rashes and heavy fatigue, the images paint a bleak picture for our future.

Tech expert Kurt Knutsson discusses Joby Aviation and Virgin Atlantic planning to launch 200-mph U.K. air taxis linking airports and cities. Imagine skipping the gridlock and soaring over the English countryside, arriving at your destination in a fraction of the time. What sounds like a scene from a futuristic movie is about to become a reality in the U.K., thanks to a partnership between Joby Aviation, a California-based company, and Virgin Atlantic. They're teaming up to introduce electric air taxis to the U.K., revolutionizing how people travel between airports and nearby cities. Let's take a closer look at this development that could foreshadow the future of transportation here in the U.S. Get security alerts & expert tech tips – sign up for Kurt's The CyberGuy Report now. Joby Aviation's innovative aircraft are at the heart of this transportation revolution.

Tens of thousands of explicit AI-generated images, including AI-generated child sexual abuse material, were left open and accessible to anyone on the internet, according to new research seen by WIRED. An open database belonging to an AI image-generation firm contained more than 95,000 records, including some prompt data and images of celebrities such as Ariana Grande, the Kardashians, and Beyoncé de-aged to look like children. The exposed database, which was discovered by security researcher Jeremiah Fowler, who shared details of the leak with WIRED, is linked to South Korea–based website GenNomis. The website and its parent company, AI-Nomis, hosted a number of image generation and chatbot tools for people to use. More than 45 GB of data, mostly made up of AI images, was left in the open.