Monday, March 17, 2025

Best Food and Drink Subscription Gifts for 2025

Celebrate the foodies in your life with these unique, and of course, delicious, edible and drinkable treats. We’ve found the very best food and drink subscriptions to gift in 2025.

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Latest Tech News

Since its inception in 2020, YouTube Shorts has been TikTok’s fierce competitor in the short-form content sector, but as of recently YouTube has been having a bit of run-in with issues that many users have picked up on. As reported by people on Reddit (see below), a new bug auto-plays the Shorts tab as soon as you open the YouTube app.

YouTube app opens to shorts from r/youtube

This issue has been quite on and off for YouTube and has somehow resurfaced for more and more people over the past few weeks. For many users, the app will automatically open to show its Shorts tab if it was the last thing viewed/ used, as opposed to opening the YouTube homepage as it usually would.

However, according to 9to5Google, it’s noticed a growing trend where YouTube automatically launches Shorts no matter what was previously viewed - and this is the case for both free users and paying subscribers of YouTube Premium. As it stands, it’s not certain if this issue is cropping up for iOS users, however 9to5Google has noticed that Android devices - notably the Nothing Phone (3a) and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold - have fallen victim to this annoying bug.

There’s no doubt that YouTube has contributed a substantial amount of attention to launching its answer to TikTok’s popular short video feed, and even gained an edge over it with a music video remix feature last year. But it’s hard to tell if this bug is a minor fault in the system, or a tactic to get more users to ride the YouTube Shorts train.

How you can fix the YouTube Shorts bug

If you’re an Android user who’s having issues with YouTube playing you Shorts as soon as you launch the app, then there’s a way you can change this. As recommended in 9to5Google’s report, opening and force-stopping the app won’t be enough to solve the issue, but clearing your storage/ cache will help.

Though this is the trick to getting YouTube to stop auto-playing the Shorts tab when you open the app, 9to5Google says that the issue will return when Shorts are opened again. YouTube has yet to comment on its efforts to fix the issue, but we’ll update this story if any new information surfaces.

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Sunday, March 16, 2025

The Power of Apple Cider Vinegar: Proper Dosages, Benefits and Safety Tips

There's a lot of craze around apple cider vinegar. This is what you need to know before you start drinking it.

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La Liga Soccer Livestream: How to Watch Atlético Madrid vs. Barcelona From Anywhere

It's a crucial top-of-the-table clash at the Metropolitano Stadium.

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Latest Tech News


  • Despite predictions, HDDs are here to stay and increasing in capacity
  • Seagate recently sold one exabyte of HAMR storage to two hyperscalers
  • The "tens of thousands of drives" likely cost between $33 and $35 million

Although the likes of Pure Storage, IBM, and Meta believe the writing is on the wall for hard drives, the technology doesn’t look like it will be going away any time soon.

Seagate and its main rival Western Digital are working on magnetic recording methods that will allow the drives to continue increasing in capacity, helping them maintain a clear advantage over SSDs when it comes to storage density.

The main technology leading this charge is HAMR, or heat-assisted magnetic recording, which could see HDDs hitting incredible 100TB capacities. HAMR works by briefly heating the disk surface with a laser to make it easier to write data at higher densities. HDMR - short for heated dot magnetic recording - is HAMR’s likely successor and could lead to even larger drives by focusing the heat and magnetic energy into smaller, more precise areas for even denser data storage.

Not an unreasonable outlay

In a recent The Wall Street Journal article, John Keilman wrote an article covering Seagate’s “fight to store the world’s data”, and mentioned something which caught my attention. “Seagate said two large cloud-computing customers have each ordered one exabyte’s worth of HAMR storage, which works out to tens of thousands of hard drives.”

Keilman didn’t name names - Seagate wouldn’t have told him who the buyers were - but we can narrow the list of suspects down to the usual big US hyperscalers, including Apple, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta. It’s possible that Chinese hyperscalers could have come shopping for the drives, but that seems unlikely to me.

Keilman doesn’t say what capacity drives were sold, but we can assume they will have been Seagate’s highest commercial HDD, the Exos M, which ranges from 30TB (CMR) to 36TB (SMR), with a breakthrough 3TB-per-platter density. Based on timing, it’s likely we’re talking about the 30TB models, as the 32TB drive was only added to the range in December 2024, followed by the 36TB model just a month later.

Assuming the hyperscalers in question paid bulk pricing of around $500 per drive (refurbished models of Seagate's Exos 28TB HDD can currently be purchased for as low as $365), their combined bill likely came to somewhere between $33 and $35 million. For a full exabyte of cutting-edge, high-capacity storage, $16 billion or so isn't an unreasonable outlay.

Seagate previously revealed that a 60TB drive was on its way, and the firm recently announced plans to acquire Intevac, a HAMR specialist, which could help it achieve that 100TB capacity goal faster, as well as ramp up HAMR drive production.

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Saturday, March 15, 2025

Best Internet Providers in Fayetteville, North Carolina

Fayetteville's fastest provider is Metronet, but it's not the only option in town. CNET's experts bring you the top picks.

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Latest Tech News


  • Meta is reportedly readying its first in-house AI training chip for deployment
  • The dedicated AI accelerator, made with TSMC, completed tape-out
  • Meta’s shift to custom silicon aims to reduce its dependence on Nvidia hardware

Like many of Nvidia’s highest spending customers, Meta is looking to slash its reliance on the GPU maker’s expensive AI hardware by making its own silicon.

In 2024, the social media giant began advertising for engineers to help build its own state-of-the-art machine learning accelerators, and now, according to an exclusive report from Reuters, Meta is at the testing stage for its first in-house chip designed for training AI systems.

Sources told Reuters that following its first tape-out of the chip, Meta has started a limited deployment, and if testing goes well, it plans to scale production for wider use.

RISC-V business

According to Reuters, “Meta's new training chip is a dedicated accelerator, meaning it is designed to handle only AI-specific tasks. This can make it more power-efficient than the integrated graphics processing units (GPUs) generally used for AI workloads.”

Taiwan-based chipmaker TSMC produced the silicon for Meta as part of the Facebook owner’s Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) program, something which Reuters points out has had “a wobbly start for years and at one point scrapped a chip at a similar phase of development.”

In 2023, Meta unveiled its first-generation in-house AI inference accelerator designed to power the ranking and recommendation systems for Facebook and Instagram, and then in April 2024 it debuted a new version that doubled the compute and memory bandwidth.

At the 2024 Hot Chips symposium, Meta revealed that its inference chip was built on TSMC's 5nm process, with the processing elements on RISC-V cores.

Like a growing number of tech firms, Facebook has thrown its weight behind RISC-V in order to recognize its AI ambitions, and although the Reuters report doesn’t provide any details on the technical aspects of Meta’s new AI training chip, it seems a fair bet that it too will be based on the open source RISC-V architecture.

The Reuters article does note that Meta executives say they want to start using their own chips for training by next year.

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Friday, March 14, 2025

Best Internet Providers in Idaho

Take a look at our experts' choices for the top internet providers in the state of Idaho.

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Latest Tech News


  • New leaked pictures seemingly show a Hasselblad X2D II top plate
  • The camera will likely be an iterative X2D 100C upgrade
  • It could be the camera Hasselblad registered with the FCC in December 2024

If I could have one camera, money no object, the Hasselblad X2D 100C would probably be it. However, I might soon be adding a 'II' to that moniker, following leaks of my dream camera's upcoming successor.

The folks at Photo Rumors shared a post containing a Hasselblad FCC registration for product 'HB722', dated December 4, 2024, followed by a photo that seemingly shows a top plate of an X2D II camera, leading us to believe the upcoming product could be a X2D successor, and that it's coming soon.

The current model is a 100MP medium-format camera with stunning minimalist design and stripped-back user experience. I loved reviewing the camera when it launched in 2022, but an upgrade could deliver meaningful improvements

Yes, the X2D 100C floats my boat, but that doesn't make it the perfect camera.

The next model, seemingly being called a X2D II, suggests an iterative update – I'd expect a major upgrade to be called an X3D instead. However, that's pure speculation, and there's no leaked specs to go off, yet.

I'd be all for a new Hasselblad camera, be it a modest or substantial upgrade. Here are the top 5 upgrades I'm hoping for.

The Hasselblad X2D 100C camera from above showing top LCD screen and battery life

I hope the X2D 100C's successor has largely the same design – it's a stunning camera to look at and to use. (Image credit: Future)

Getting up to speed

I've no complaints with the X2D 100C's image quality – its 100MP stills are packed full of detail and divine natural color. A higher-resolution sensor next time around would grab headlines, but I don't think it's necessary, or likely.

Nor would I change much of anything design-wise; the grip provides a firm hold whether shooting in vertical or horizontal format, there's a lovely balance with most lenses, while the minimalist control layout and menus give you quick access to the settings you use the most, doing away with the rest.

If image quality and form factor are fine as they are, what would I change? My desired upgrades largely center on focusing and speed.

First and foremost, I'd love a precise subject detection autofocus mode, specifically people autofocus with eye detection. The X2D 100C features Hasselblad's best-ever autofocus system, but it's still years behind the best mirrorless cameras from Sony, Canon, Nikon and more.

Autofocus precision is key, especially given the huge 100MP files that further highlight poor user technique / camera limitations. Being armed with reliable eye detection AF would make photoshoots way more relaxed.

A shallow depth of field portrait taken with the Hasselblad X2D 100C

Focusing on this occasion for this portrait taken with the X2D 100C is precise, but I found myself constantly second guessing if focusing is where I want it to be. (Image credit: Future)

In addition to precise autofocus, I'd also like autofocus to be significantly faster and reliable. Not that I would plan on using the X2D 100C for sports and wildlife photography, but speedier focusing for portraits would be appreciated.

While we're on the subject of speed, the X2D 100C's continuous burst shooting is limited to just 3.3fps. Understandable given the huge file sizes, but Fujifilm's rival GFX100 II goes at more than double that speed. Again, I'm not shooting action with a medium-format camera, but I would like the option there for faster frame rates, especially for portrait sessions.

Quicker burst shooting could also power a usable high-res shot mode – the type you get with smaller format cameras to quadruple resolution. Imagine a 400MP file from a Hasselblad!

Landscape photography is an obvious strength of a 100MP medium-format camera, for which better weather-sealing and improved battery life could be really useful in a future X2D II – I wasn't overly impressed by the X2D 100C on those two fronts.

Video recording is completely absent in the X2D 100C. Again, I wouldn't naturally think of using such a camera for video work, but when I think about how stunning Hasselblad's color science is for stills, the prospect of 8K video with such gorgeous color is exciting.

To summarize: a faster processor, precise and speedier autofocus, refined handling, and video recording. Those asks amount to a modest and entirely doable upgrade. More lenses are always welcome, too.

Have you experienced the Hasselblad X2D 100C? If so, what improvements would you like to see? Let me know in the comments below.

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Thursday, March 13, 2025

Achieve Your Daily Water Quota With These Hydration Tips

Use these tips to effortlessly achieve your daily water goal and become a healthier you.

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  • Microsoft warns of new version of the XCSSET infostealer
  • It comes with new obfuscation, infection, and persistence techniques
  • It was seen in "limited" attacks in the wild

A new variant of a known macOS malware is making rounds on the internet, targeting users through infected Xcode projects.

Researchers from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said that the modular malware is seen in “limited attacks” at this time, but suggested that people should still keep their guard up.

According to the researchers, this is the first upgrade to XCSSET in three years. It now has enhanced obfuscation methods, updated persistence mechanisms, and new infection strategies.

Scrutinize Xcode projects

“These enhanced features add to this malware family’s previously known capabilities, like targeting digital wallets, collecting data from the Notes app, and exfiltrating system information and files,” Microsoft said.

Microsoft first reported of this new XCSSET strain in mid-February this year, and has now come forward with an in-depth analysis.

Xcode is Apple's official integrated development environment (IDE) for creating apps on macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It includes a code editor, debugger, Interface Builder, and tools for testing and deploying apps.

In essence, XCSSET is an infostealer. It is capable of pulling system information and files, stealing digital wallet data, and grabbing information from the official Notes app.

For obfuscation, XCSSET now uses a “significantly more randomized approach” for generating payloads to infect Xcode projects. When it comes to updated persistence mechanisms, the new variant uses two techniques: “zshrc”, and “dock”. Finally, for infection, there are now new methods for where the payload is placed in a target Xcode project.

“Users must always inspect and verify any Xcode projects downloaded or cloned from repositories, as the malware usually spreads through infected projects,” the company concluded. “They should also only install apps from trusted sources, such as a software platform’s official app store.”

The in-depth analysis of the malware and its modus operandi can be found on here.

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Latest Tech News


  • The beta version 2.25.7.7 of WhatsApp for Android includes a feature that groups related messages into a thread.
  • This could make parsing sprawling chats far easier.
  • I'm glad that it looks like a practical feature rather than an AI tool.

While companies are falling over themselves to add AI tools to all manner of products and services, WhatsApp seems to be treading a different path, with the messaging service looking to add a feature that groups specific replies to messages into a thread rather than showing them as disparate responses.

This news comes courtesy of WABetaInfo, which spotted the feature in the beta version 2.25.7.7 of WhatsApp for Android. Such betas usually offer a strong indication of what features users can expect to see rolled out in future WhatsApp updates.

In effect, this new feature looks set to be an easy way to track messages that relate back to each other.

Currently, WhatsApp only lets users reply to a single message in isolation. If, like me, you have friends who seem to discuss multiple topics at once, and you’re like me and ask a lot of questions or have thoughts about those different topics, then keeping track of particular elements of a convoluted WhatsApp chat can be a nightmare.

So what might seem like a small upgrade to WhatsApp could be a godsend for folks like me. It’s also gratifying that WhatsApp is looking at a feature that has a tangible real-world use, rather than adding generative AI elements to smoosh emojis together or change the tone of a message – tone never communicates well in text anyway.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, as iPhone users will be familiar with message threads in the default Messages app in iOS. But Apple's implementation isn’t perfect, so if WhatsApp can create a more elegant take, then I’m all for it.

Exactly when this threads feature will actually roll out to WhatsApp users isn’t clear. It might appear soon, or it could take a few more updates for WhatsApp to get it right, and working smoothly across Android and iOS.

For now it’s a case of watch this space, but I’m crossing my fingers that the update will come sooner rather than later, before certain friends drive me mad with too many points and subjects crammed into a blast of messages.

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Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Best Pillow for Every Sleeper in 2025

We tested the top pillows on the market to help you find the perfect one to add to your bed.

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Latest Tech News


  • Bolt Graphics unveils Zeus GPU, targeting rendering, HPC, and gaming
  • Claims include 10x faster rendering, 6x FP64, 300x simulation gains
  • Zeus supports up to 2.25TB memory, 6x 800GbE, 8x PCIe Gen5

Bolt Graphics has announced what it says is the fastest graphics processor ever, which is quite the claim.

Based in Sunnyvale, California, the semiconductor startup says Zeus has a “completely new GPU design for high-performance workloads including rendering, HPC, and gaming” and that it “addresses performance, efficiency, and functionality limitations with legacy GPUs.”

Bolt Graphics adds Zeus offers up to 10 times faster rendering, 6 times higher FP64 HPC performance, and up to 300 times faster electromagnetic wave simulation speeds compared to legacy GPUs.

Stunning path tracing performance

It supports expanded memory through Bolt’s architecture, allowing up to 384GB per PCIe card and up to 2.25TB per Zeus unit in a 2U server, with rack configurations reaching 180TB. Zeus also integrates 400 GbE and 800 GbE Ethernet interfaces directly into the GPU, reduces energy use despite the higher performance, and will be available in PCIe, server, and cloud form factors.

"Zeus increases performance while simultaneously reducing power consumption," said Darwesh Singh, Founder and CEO of Bolt Graphics. "I'm proud of the Bolt team's dedicated effort to create a solution that addresses key customer pain points, enabling them to be more productive and bring their ideas to life."

Slides published by ServeTheHome show Zeus is based on a RISC-V RVA23 out-of-order scalar core and there are a number of different architectures.

The Zeus 1c26-032 is a single-chiplet design and supports DisplayPort 2.1a and HDMI 2.1b, along with an RJ45 BMC port - typically seen on DPUs, servers, and other infrastructure components. There’s also a QSFP-DD port for 400GbE and two PCIe Gen5 x16 slots. The 1c26-032 includes 32GB of LPDDR5X and up to 128GB of DDR5.

The Zeus 2c26-064/128 is a two-chiplet module, while the 4c26-256 is a four-chiplet configuration. In the case of the latter, which has 500W of chip power, each chiplet is paired with 64GB of LPDDR5X and up to 512GB of DDR5, bringing the total memory capacity to 256GB of LPDDR5X and up to 2TB of DDR5. Combined, the GPU supports up to 2.25TB of total memory.

It also includes six 800GbE (OSFP) ports, which ServeTheHome notes is “a lot of connectivity coming out of a GPU. Putting that into perspective, that is ~12x PCIe Gen5 x16 lanes worth of bandwidth.”

The slides show the Zeus 2c26-064/128 outperforms the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and RTX 5090 in path tracing workloads by roughly 9x and 4.8x, delivering 154 Gigarays compared to 17 Gigarays (RTX 4090) and 32 Gigarays (RTX 5090). In FP64 compute performance, Zeus achieves 10 TFLOPS, significantly ahead of 1.4 TFLOPS (RTX 4090) and 1.6 TFLOPS (RTX 5090) - roughly 7.1x and 6.25x higher, respectively.

Comparing the Bolt Zeus 4c26-256 against Nvidia’s consumer GPUs, path tracing performance is approximately 18x higher than the RTX 4090 and nearly 10x higher than the RTX 5090, while FP64 compute throughput is over 12x greater.

All of this should be taken with a pinch of salt of course. As ServeTheHome observes, “This feels like an announcement where we really want to see product. The fact that we are still a few months away from early developer kits makes this feel a bit early. On the other hand, if Bolt Graphics has Zeus competing with a combination of NIC and consumer GPU, while offering more memory, then it could be a really neat combination. I am always a bit skeptical of products until we see them live.”

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Tuesday, March 11, 2025

Latest Tech News


  • President Trump picks Sean Plankey as CISA director
  • Plankey also served as part of Trump's previous administration
  • CISA faces potential turbulence under Trump

President Trump has announced Sean Plankey as his pick for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director in Sean Plankey.

Plankey’s nomination will be heard before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and if confirmed, he will head up the agency following some potentially interesting directional changes. This follows the news that the US is set to pause cyber-offensive operations against Russia, despite CISA reaffirming its commitment to defending against all cyber-threats, “including from Russia”.

Prior to the 2024 election, Plankey predicted a second Trump presidency would bring “more pointed measures at [our] adversaries,” anticipating a landscape with “more delineation between competitive nations versus adversarial ones.”

A supportive President?

Considering President Trump’s appointment of some pretty controversial cabinet members, Plankey does seem a more balanced pick, as he hold qualifications for the role. This includes experience as weapons and tactics branch chief at US Cyber Command, and global head of cybersecurity software for Indigo Vault - a post-quantum encryption document protection platform.

Industry professionals like Brian Harrell have previously praised Plankey’s appointment, calling him a “straight shooter” who will refocus CISA towards risk reduction and protection against adversaries.

In the first Trump administration, Plankey served as Principle Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity, Energy, Security, and Emergency Response (CESER).

President Trump created CISA in 2018 with the aim of protecting government agencies and US infrastructure from cyberattacks and digital threats. Trump was “definitely supportive of cybersecurity issues”, in his previous administration, Plankey confirmed, so the partnership is certainly well established.

“For all the misinformation and disinformation on President Trump’s goals, our cybersecurity positions are not radical,” Plankey said before the election.

“Use cyberspace operations strategically and tactically to achieve U.S. national security goals. This is how you effectively protect the interests of America and if this is radical then the disinformation campaign has won."

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New 2025 Christmas Movies on Netflix, Prime Video and More to Get the Holidays Started

Here's a stack of merry films you can watch now. from CNET https://ift.tt/zQd2pXU