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Spotify says that streaming has made the world ‘value music’

Spotify wants to see 1 billion people paying for streaming music, double the more than 500 million customers who currently subscribe to Spotify and its competitors. In Spotify’s view, artists are lucky to have streaming services, “each doing its part to normalize the behavior of paying for music.”

On Tuesday, the streaming giant announced that it paid out $10 billion to the music industry in 2024, with total contributions reaching almost $60 billion since its founding in 2006 — five years after Napster ceased operation. Spotify estimates that around 10,000 artists generated at least $10,000 per year on the platform in 2014. “Today, well over 10,000 artists generate over $100,000 per year from Spotify alone,” Spotify VP David Kaefer said in the blog post. “That’s a beautiful thing.”

In the blog, humbly titled “Getting the world to value music,” Kaefer describes the pre-streaming era of music as an exclusive club that made it difficult for new artists to enter the industry. “Now, you can record something today and have it on Spotify tomorrow,” said Kaefer. “Everyone’s invited.”

In November, Spotify reported it was on track to achieve its “first full year of profitability” and had €4 billion (about $4.1 billion) in total revenue for the preceding three months — a 19 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier. Next week, it will report earnings for the entirety of 2024.

Spotify reportedly has lower per-stream artist payout rates than rival services like Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music, and the platform’s streaming royalties and recommendation algorithms have been widely criticized by artists and policymakers over the years. Many artists claim that payouts are too small and that the focus on promoting big artists makes it hard for new musicians to be discovered on the platform.

Chris Macowski, Spotify’s global head of music communications, attributes competitors’ higher per-stream rates to “low engagement” on services where subscribers “listen to less music.” Spotify optimizes for “higher overall payout,” he says.

Spotify has released industry payout figures frequently over the last few years to push back against these criticisms. In December, a parody “Spotify Unwrapped” website that compared Spotify subscription fees to artist payouts was taken down by Spotify’s legal team.

Update, January 28th: Added comment from Spotify on per-stream payout rates.

FCC chair says landlords can force bulk internet service on residents

The Federal Communications Commission is eliminating a Biden administration proposal that would have curbed apartment landlords’ ability to force residents into paying for a single internet service provider. As reported by Ars Technica, the new FCC chair, Brendan Carr, will instead allow landlords to implement bulk billing arrangements with ISPs that would make residents pay for internet, cable, and/or satellite television services from a specific provider even if they don’t want them.

“I have ended the FCC’s consideration of a Biden-era proposal that could have increased *by 50 percent* the price that some Americans living in apartments pay for Internet service,” FCC chair Brendan Carr says on X. In a press release, Carr calls Biden’s Bulk Billing proposal “regulatory overreach” and claims it “would have artificially raised the cost of Internet service.”

As Ars mentions, the FCC already bans bulk billing deals that include exclusive service rights, but there isn’t much incentive for other providers to set up a connection that would compete with the service residents already pay for.

If the proposal published last March stood, then Bulk Billing would still have been allowed. Then-FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel claimed it would have reduced broadband costs and increased provider choices for apartments, condos, public housing, and other multi-tenant dwellings by allowing residents to opt out of paying for the buildings’ shared provider.

Apple’s latest iPad Pro has returned to its Black Friday sale price

Apple’s latest iPad Pro features more than just an upgraded processor.

The latest iPad Pro is the most powerful iPad on the market, and as such, it comes at a high cost. Thankfully, you can currently pick up the 11-inch iPad Pro at Amazon with Wi-Fi and 256GB of storage starting at an all-time low $849 ($150 off) at checkout, or at Best Buy for the same price if you’re a My Best Buy Plus or Total member. The 13-inch variant is also on sale at Amazon and Best Buy starting at $1,099 ($200 off), which matches the larger tablet’s lowest price to date.

As the highest-end iPad in Apple’s lineup, the iPad Pro comes with a number of premium features. It runs on Apple’s powerful M4 processor, allowing it to accommodate demanding games and video-editing software, and it’s the first iPad to feature Apple’s new “Tandem OLED” setup, which essentially pulls together two OLED panels to create gorgeous colors and deep, inky blacks. Both size configurations are also remarkably thin and lightweight — the 13-inch model is a mere 5.1mm thick (!) — making them extremely portable.

In addition to the new hardware, both models also support Apple Intelligence, so you can take advantage of AI-generated text and email summaries, make your own emoji, add events to your calendar using a photo, and easily access ChatGPT, among a litany of other features. Both tablets are also compatible with the Apple Pencil Pro, which, unlike the USB-C Apple Pencil, offers pressure sensitivity and a “Barrel Roll” gyroscope, so you can quickly turn your digital brush or pen by twisting the stylus as you draw.

Read our 13-inch M4-powered iPad Pro review.

Three more deals worth a look

  • Eufy’s SmartTrack Card is available from Amazon and Eufy (with code WS24SP1T87B2) for $16.88 ($13 off), matching its all-time low. The wallet-friendly location tracker can tap into Apple’s massive Find My network, allowing iPhone owners to easily keep tabs on their cash, cards, and other items. Bear in mind, however, that it lacks the rechargeable battery found in Eufy’s newer SmartTrack Card E30, which also happens to be on sale for $23.99 ($11 off) via Eufy’s online storefront with code WS24SP1T87B1.
  • Fujifilm’s Instax Mini Link 3 is on sale at Amazon, Target, and Best Buy in multiple colors for around $89.95 ($10 off), which matches its best price to date. The pocketable photo printer lets you create high-quality, credit-card sized prints directly from your phone in seconds. You can also edit photos via Fujifilm’s companion app, which lets you add background effects, colorful borders, and other fun tweaks.
  • Now until February 4th, Woot is selling 8BitDo’s Retro Mechanical Keyboard for $59.99 ($40 off) in multiple stylings, including the NES-inspired N Edition and the IBM-like M Edition. The two keyboards are identical — well, aside from their retro aesthetics — and feature 87 hot-swappable, programmable keys with clicky Kailh Box V2 White switches. They also comes with a pair of customizable “Super Buttons” and multiple connectivity modes, so you can choose between Bluetooth, 2.4GHz wireless, or USB-C.

Climate change made the Los Angeles wildfires more likely

A canyon on fire at night.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 9: A view of flames at the mountain as seen from Topanga Canyon near Pacific Palisades in Topanga, Los Angeles, California, United States on January 9, 2025. | Photo: Getty Images

Climate change helped to set the stage for the devastating Los Angeles fires this month, a new study by 32 researchers shows. 

The Palisades and Eaton wildfires broke out in early January and soon killed at least 28 people, destroying 16,000 structures. Hot, dry conditions and extraordinarily powerful winds fanned the flames.

Those conditions were made about 35 percent more likely because of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels warming the planet, according to the study. Fire risk will only grow unless the pollution causing climate change stops. 

“Realistically, this was a perfect storm when it comes to conditions for fire disasters,” John Abatzoglou, professor of climatology at the University of California, Merced, said in a press call today. 

“This was a perfect storm when it comes to conditions for fire disasters.”

In today’s climate, the extreme weather that drove January infernos can be expected about every 17 years, according to the study.

The study was conducted by the World Weather Attribution initiative, an international collaboration of scientists that researches the role that climate change plays in disasters around the world. They look at historical weather data and climate models to compare real-world scenarios to what likely would have happened if the planet wasn’t 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer today, on average, than it was before the Industrial Revolution.

If the planet warms by another 1.3 degrees Celsius, which could happen in 75 years under current policies, the kind of weather that exacerbated the fires this month becomes another 35 percent more probable. 

The length of the dry season in the region has already grown by about 23 days, according to the researchers. That increases the chances of arid weather coinciding with the powerful Santa Ana winds that typically pick up in cooler months.

While those winds return each year, they were catastrophically strong this month — reaching hurricane strength at upwards of 100 miles per hour. For now, scientists don’t have enough research to know how climate change affected the Santa Ana winds, specifically. Their research only shows that fire season is encroaching more into windy season because of climate change, and that made these fires more likely.

The fallout of Meta’s content moderation overhaul

Meta is making sweeping changes to its content moderation policies, including abandoning third-party fact-checks in favor of X’s crowd-sourced “Community Notes” approach and loosening restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity. Under the updated Hateful Conduct policy, for example, calling gay and trans people “mentally ill” is now allowed, while an explicit ban on referring to women as “household objects” has been removed.

Policy chief Joel Kaplan says that in pursuit of “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes,” Meta will focus more on preventing overenforcement of its content policies and less on mediating potentially harmful — but technically legal — discussions on its platform. The company is also ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement appeals to many of the new administration’s talking points. Zuckerberg, who has visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago multiple times since the election and attended the inauguration, has promised to move US content review from California to Texas, where he says there’s “less concern about the bias of our teams.” He also says Meta will work with Trump to “push back on governments around the world that are going after American companies and pushing to censor more.”

Boom’s supersonic test plane breaks the sound barrier for the first time

Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 test plane broke the sound barrier three times during its 12th test flight.

Ten months after its long-delayed first subsonic flight took place last March, Boom Supersonic’s prototype test plane, the XB-1, broke the sound barrier today three times during its 12th flight. The XB-1 is a smaller-scale demonstration version of the larger Overture airliner Boom wants to eventually build that will carry 64 passengers on supersonic international flights at cruising speeds of up to Mach 1.7, similar to service that the Concorde offered before it retired in 2003.

After taking off from the Mojave Air & Space Port in California, Boom’s chief test pilot, Tristan Brandenburg, flew the XB-1 to an altitude of 34,000 feet before hitting a top speed of Mach 1.1 (around 844mph) for approximately four minutes. Today’s flight is not only the first time Boom’s demonstrator aircraft broke the speed of sound but also the first time a civil aircraft has gone supersonic. The Concorde was built as a joint venture between the governments of the UK and France, not a private company.

The XB-1 broke the sound barrier two additional times during its return and descent. Today’s test flight took place in airspace known as the Bell X-1 Supersonic Corridor (named after the first plane to break the sound barrier) and lasted almost 34 minutes. The 63-foot-long plane is powered by three General Electric J85-15 turbojet engines, but the company plans to develop and build the four engines needed to power the larger Overture airliner on its own after Boom’s partnership with Rolls-Royce ended in 2022.

During its initial test flight on March 22nd, 2024 — originally scheduled to take place in 2021 — the XB-1 achieved a top speed of just 283mph. The most recent test flight took place earlier this year on January 10th, 2025, when Brandenburg hit a top speed of Mach 0.95 and an altitude of 29,481 feet.

Although its first successful supersonic flight is a milestone for Boom Supersonic, there’s still a lot of development and test flights needed for the company to achieve its current goal of Overture taking its first flight by 2030. As of May 2024, the company has raised over $700 million and has sold 15 supersonic aircraft to United Airlines (with the option to buy 35 more) and 20 to American Airlines.

Ryan Coogler’s Sinners bares its fangs in latest trailer

A man in a shirt holding a machine gun and firing.

It initially seemed like Warner Bros. wanted to keep some of Ryan Coogler’s new gothic horror Sinners shrouded in mystery, but the movie’s latest trailer spells out exactly what’s going on.

Though nobody says “vampire,” in Sinners’ new trailer, twin brothers Elijah and Elias (Michael B. Jordan) know that there’s something demonic going on as they return to their hometown in the South. It’s not just that the town is full of superstition and white men like Remmick (Jack O’Connell) who don’t take kindly to Black people. There is something hunting folks down in the dead of night and leaving nothing behind but burning buildings. And while the twins know how to deal with garden-variety Jim Crow-era racists, they’re understandably shocked to realize that they’re dealing with fanged ghouls with a taste for human blood.

Between its shots of Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) dancing with one of the brothers, a showdown at the local juke joint, and Remmick feasting on a victim, the new trailer kind of telegraphs what feels like a significant amount of Sinners’ plots. The movie still looks tremendous, but hopefully there will still be some surprises in store when Sinners makes its theatrical debut on April 18th.

PowerSchool starts sending breach notifications, but there are still questions left to answer

Education software platform PowerSchool has started sending breach notifications to victims of a December 2024 cyberattack, but has yet to share how many people were affected or what exactly happened, reports BleepingComputer

PowerSchool, which has has more than 18,000 customers worldwide and serves over 60 million students, suffered a breach on December 28th that may have exposed personal data like names, addresses, Social Security numbers, medical information, and grades. In an update published on its website, PowerSchool says it has started notifying individuals in the US, Canada, and abroad affected by the security incident, including educators, current and former students, and parents and guardians as applicable. PowerSchool says it will offer affected students and educators complimentary identity theft protection services and two years of credit monitoring for adults.

“PowerSchool began the process of filing regulatory notifications with Attorneys General Offices across applicable US jurisdictions on behalf of impacted customers who have not opted-out of our offer to do so,” the company wrote on its site. PowerSchool added it’s also starting to notify Canadian regulators and will send a separate update to international customers later in the week. 

PowerSchool has yet to release a detailed report disclosing what exactly happened or how many people have been affected. A breach notification posted on the Maine’s Attorney General’s office website reveals that 33,488 people were impacted in Maine. The full scale of the breach could be much larger; attackers claimed in their extortion demand that they stole sensitive data from 62,488,628 students and 9,506,624 teachers, BleepingComputer reported.

Google Play will now verify VPNs that prioritize privacy and safety

Google Play will now display verification badges on approved VPNs as a way to “highlight apps that prioritize user privacy and safety,” the company announced on Tuesday. The new badge will appear on a VPN app’s details page and within search results, proving that it meets specific standards outlined by Google.

To qualify for the new verification badge, VPN apps must complete a Mobile Application Security Assessment (MASA) Level 2 validation, which evaluates an app’s security. VPNs must also have at least 10,000 installs and 250 reviews, be published on Google Play for at least 90 days, submit information on how they collect user data, and opt in to independent security reviews. Google notes that while “other factors contribute to the evaluation,” completing these requirements “significantly increase[s]” a VPN app’s chance of getting a verified badge.

The update has good timing, as many users are downloading VPNs — some of which may not be secure — in order to gain access to TikTok, which still hasn’t returned to Google Play or Apple’s App Store. VPN apps from Nord, hide.me, and Aloha have already received a verification badge.

This builds on Google’s efforts to provide more transparency and security in the Play Store. The company rolled out privacy labels in 2022 and later introduced a badge showing whether an app received an independent security review.

Waymo is letting you tip — but there’s a catch

A security researcher who lives in San Francisco discovered an unreleased feature in Waymo’s app that allows customers to tip for their robotaxi rides.

Jane Manchun Wong, a security researcher who also successfully hacked the display dome on top of a Waymo vehicle to display her name, posted a screenshot of the new tipping feature on X. Alongside buttons for “dismiss,” “view walk,” and “share trip stats,” new button reads “add a ‘tip’,” with “tip” conspicuously in quotes.

But before you get indignant about greedy tech companies suckering customers into blithely handing their hard-earned cash over to robots, it appears that the new function is just a roundabout way to solicit charity donations. Wong posted another screenshot in which customers are asked to select a charity from a dropdown menu.

Wong told The Verge that she discovered the new feature while poking around inside Waymo’s Android app and “reverse engineering it.” She theorizes that it may be a wholesome prank, perhaps getting ready for April Fools Day.

“It’s for charity — so I think it’s great!” she added. “Maybe after Apr 1, they could consider incorporating the charity feature permanently, like rounding up for donation.”

Others saw ulterior motives, with one X user noting that Waymo likely receives tax breaks from the government for collecting a certain amount of charitable donations. Some wondered whether asking for a “tip” for a self-driving car would backfire and cast a negative light on Waymo. After all, eliminating the need to tip a human driver has always been among the selling points for robotaxis.

But that hasn’t stopped some Bay Area tech workers from calling for a tipping feature. Some clearly are joking, but there is a sense that Waymo deserves extra revenue for providing a desirable service. (Waymo has yet to break even, with parent company Alphabet recently committing $5.6 billion to the project.)

Waymo’s public image is still very much a work-in-progress. While the company continues to release data that shows its vehicles are safer than humans, public opinion on robot-driven cars is still fairly negative. A recent survey from AAA found that 64 percent of respondents expressed fear about self-driving cars. And several Waymo vehicles have been vandalized in the past few years, most recently in Los Angeles during an illegal street takeover.

Chris Bonelli, a spokesperson for Waymo, declined to comment.

Update January 28th: Updated to include Waymo declined to comment.

Why everyone is freaking out about DeepSeek

It took about a month for the finance world to start freaking out about DeepSeek, but when it did, it took more than half a trillion dollars — or one entire Stargate — off Nvidia’s market cap. It wasn’t just Nvidia, either: Tesla, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft tanked.

DeepSeek’s two AI models, released in quick succession, put it on par with the best available from American labs, according to Alexandr Wang, Scale AI CEO. And DeepSeek seems to be working within constraints that mean it trained much more cheaply than its American peers. One of its recent models is said to cost just $5.6 million in the final training run, which is about the salary an American AI expert can command. Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said the cost of training models ranged from $100 million to $1 billion. OpenAI’s GPT-4 cost more than $100 million, according to CEO Sam Altman. DeepSeek seems to have just upended our idea of how much AI costs, with potentially enormous implications across the industry.

This has all happened over just a few weeks. On Christmas Day, DeepSeek released a reasoning model (v3) that caused a lot of buzz. Its second model, R1, released last week, has been call …

Read the full story at The Verge.

X says its payments service will finally launch this year

X is one step closer to finally launching its payments platform. According to X CEO Linda Yaccarino, the X Money service will debut “later this year” with Visa announced as its first partner.

In her announcement, Yaccarino says the service will support “secure + instant funding to your X Wallet via Visa Direct,” allowing users to make P2P payments and instantly transfer money to their connected bank account. (It sounds a bit like Venmo.) The X Money profile Yaccarino tagged in her announcement says the service is “launching in 2025.”

The service has been approved for money transmitter licenses in 41 US states, according to the X Payments website — however, that’s the only information currently listed on the site. As of June 2024, Bloomberg reported that X Payments is banking with Citibank and has agreements in place with payment providers like Stripe and Adyen.

Introducing a payments system has been a major component of X owner Elon Musk’s goal to transform the platform into an “everything app.” Shortly after purchasing X (then Twitter) in October 2022, he described plans to turn it into a bank that would offer high-yield money market accounts, debit cards, checks, and loan services. Musk previously said “It would blow my mind” if X hadn’t rolled out financial services by the end of 2024.

Yaccarino says the Visa partnership is the “first of many big announcements” that will be made about X Money this year. It’s unclear if the service will be directly connected in some way to X’s creator revenue sharing program. Musk said that X is “barely breaking even” in an email to employees this month, and the company is currently scrambling to bring in revenue as banks reportedly prepare to sell off some of the $13 billion debt the Chief Twit borrowed to buy the platform.

CVS might soon let you open all those annoying locked shelves with your phone

A photo of locked merchandise at a CVS Pharmacy location.
This is perhaps the worst sight at any store. | Photo by: Lindsey Nicholson/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

CVS is releasing a significant new update for its mobile app today, and many of the changes are detailed in this report from The Wall Street Journal. Aside from trying to simplify and speed up the process of picking up your prescriptions, the latest version also includes a feature that should make dealing with locked cabinets a bit less maddening. A trial that’s currently underway in three stores allows customers access the items on those shelves using their phone — without having to summon an overworked employee to open it first.

According to the Journal, “app users need to be logged in, on the local store Wi-Fi, and with their device’s Bluetooth enabled to activate the feature.” You’ve also got to be a member of the CVS loyalty program if you want the convenience of grabbing secured merchandise without calling for help. Signing up for that gives CVS plenty of insight into your shopping habits, so keep that in mind as you weigh the convenience of not waiting around.

“People really, really dislike locked cabinets,” Tilak Mandadi, executive vice president of ventures at CVS Health, told the Journal. Walmart has apparently come to the same realization, as the massive US retailer conducted a similar test last year. CVS aims to expand the program to around 15 stores soon and eventually reach national availability if all goes well.

The CVS Health app, which the company describes as “a successor to the CVS Pharmacy app,” also contains a healthy dose of AI features. Its search is now “enhanced and AI-powered,” and later this year, customers can expect a “new conversational AI chat experience that enables patients to check medication refills, status of their orders, and more.”

As for streamlining the in-store prescription process, the new app will show a personalized barcode that pharmacists can scan for a faster checkout. And if your health insurance is provided by the CVS-owned Aetna, you’ll be able to see the out-of-pocket cost upfront to avoid any surprises. The company is apparently working with other insurers to provide similar pricing transparency in the coming months.

The CVS app has 14.1 million monthly active users, which Mandadi told the Journal is an increase of around 22 percent compared to last year.

The entire story of Twitter / X under Elon Musk

Elon Musk bought Twitter, and now he’s rebranding it as X. Signs have gone up (and back down), icons are changing, and an old plan is new.

How’d we get here?

On April 4th, 2022, we learned that Musk had purchased enough shares of Twitter to become its largest individual shareholder. Eventually, he followed up with an unsolicited offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter’s shares for $54.20 each, or about $44 billion. Twitter accepted Musk’s offer, but then things got weird because he tried to cancel the deal.

There was a lot of back-and-forth about bots and text messages, but in the end, Musk settled on buying the company rather than facing a deposition or Chancery Court trial and eventually strode into Twitter HQ carrying a sink.

Since then, there have been layoffs, more layoffs, and even more layoffs — plus drama over Substack, unpaid bills, and blue checkmarks. With ad revenue still down from previous years, Elon finally abdicated the role of CEO in May 2023, installing longtime NBCUniversal ad executive Linda Yaccarino.

Read on for the latest updates about what’s going on inside Twitter right now.

Nvidia warns that the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 might quickly run out of stock

Nvidia is launching its next-gen RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 graphics cards on Thursday, and it looks like there will be low stocks of both cards. After rumors of the RTX 5090 being in short supply for retailers and card manufacturers, Nvidia has now admitted it believes “stock-outs may happen.”

“We expect significant demand for the GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 and believe stock-outs may happen,” says Tim Adams, Nvidia’s head of GeForce community, in a forum post. “Nvidia & our partners are shipping more stock to retail every day to help get GPUs into the hands of gamers.”

Some retailers and system builders have been warning that some RTX 5090 cards won’t be available until February, with potential delays for weeks or months to come. PowerGPU revealed last week that the system builder was “told to expect it to be that way for the first three months.”

People are already reportedly camping outside some Microcenter locations in the US in preparation for low stocks, eager to get hold of the first RTX 5080 and RTX 5090 cards. Nvidia is launching both of its top of the line RTX 50-series cards at 9AM ET on January 30th, and they’ll be available online at stores like Best Buy and in retailers like Microcenter on day one.

OpenAI launches ChatGPT for government agencies

OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Gov, a version of its flagship chatbot that’s tailored to government agencies. The company says the tool will let US government agencies securely access OpenAI’s frontier models, like GPT-4o.

As noted by OpenAI, government agencies can deploy ChatGPT Gov within their own Microsoft Azure cloud instance, making it easier to manage security and privacy requirements. OpenAI says the launch could help advance the use of OpenAI’s tools “for the handling of non-public sensitive data.”

ChatGPT Gov will come with many of the same features as ChatGPT Enterprise, including the ability to save and share conversations within a workspace, a way to build custom GPTs, and an administrative console for IT teams. OpenAI is similarly working with the UK government to launch an AI chatbot on the UK.gov website.

“By making our products available to the U.S. government, we aim to ensure AI serves the national interest and the public good, aligned with democratic values, while empowering policymakers to responsibly integrate these capabilities to deliver better services to the American people,” OpenAI says in its announcement.

Last week, President Donald Trump rescinded Joe Biden’s executive order that would introduce safeguards for AI systems in the US. Trump also joined OpenAI’s Sam Altman, SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison when announcing Stargate, a $500 billion joint venture to build AI data centers.

Since 2024, more than 90,000 users in over 3,500 US federal, state, and local government agencies have sent over 18 million messages in ChatGPT, according to OpenAI. Some agencies using ChatGPT include the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Minnesota’s Enterprise Translations Office.

Atari’s limited edition Asteroids watch tells time with orbiting spaceships

Atari has released a collection of new watches with a unique design that celebrates the 45th anniversary of Asteroids. In the original version of the game that debuted in 1979, spotting and shooting a passing UFO would earn you extra points. On the Asteroids watch, a pair of orbiting UFOs are less of a threat and are instead used to represent the hour and minute hands — no numbers needed.

Created in collaboration with watchmaker Nubeo (which previously released a collection of Space Invaders-themed timepieces) the new Asteroids collection features five styles, each with a differently colored band — nebula blue, plasma pumpkin, supernova red, nova nightfall, and celestial citrine — and varying colors for the watchface elements. They’re available through Nubeo’s website, which lists each watch’s price as being discounted to $499 from $1,650. You can also order them through Atari’s website, which just lists the price as $499 each, although some have already sold out. Each style is limited to just 125 pieces.

A close-up of the Atari Asteroids watch’s face featuring graphical elements printed with glowing pigments.

The watch uses a Japanese automatic movement that powers three spinning discs. The smallest features a recreation of the game’s simple triangular spaceship in the center that serves as the watch’s second hand, while two larger discs, rotating at different speeds, portray asteroids drifting through space and the UFOs that function as the hour and minute hands.

The Atari and Nubeo Asteroids watch in a case designed to look like the Atari VCS console.

All of the graphical elements on the Asteroids watch’s face are printed with glow-in-the-dark “Swiss Super-LumiNova” pigments and are protected beneath a durable sapphire lens and a stainless steel case. The watch is water resistant with a 21 ATM (atmosphere) rating and a screw-down crown, making it durable enough for recreational diving. It comes in a protective case with an interior that borrows design elements from the Atari Video Computer System (VCS) that launched in 1977.

Donald Trump wants to claw back clean energy funding

Donald Trump waves outside an aircraft.
US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump board Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on January 24, 2025.

The Trump administration sent a memo instructing federal agencies to pause grant, loan, and other financial assistance programs. It’s a catch-all for a wide range of programs President Donald Trump has crusaded against and it’s unclear what specifically is in the crosshairs with this move, but it seems to target Biden-era programs to deploy clean energy.

But just before the funding freeze was set to take effect on Tuesday, a federal judge paused it until February 3rd at 5 PM, and could extend the pause after a hearing on Monday. The administrative stay will let the government continue to disburse only funds that have already been authorized. The freeze was supposed to stop funds for policies Trump rolled back through executive orders, “including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”

There is no single policy in place across the federal government named “the green new deal.” But Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) into law in 2022, which created $369 billion in federal funding for climate action and clean energy. Trump, meanwhile, campaigned on a promise to rescind any unspent IRA funds. The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law also includes $50 billion to address the impacts of climate change and cyberattacks on national infrastructure, and $73 billion for upgrading the power grid. 

“Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law.”

Agencies are supposed to temporarily pause disbursement of funds by 5:00PM ET today. By February 10th they’re supposed to tell the Office of Management and Budget which programs and activities are affected by the freeze. The memo calls “green new deal social engineering policies” and money used to advance social equity, including funds to assist transgender people, “a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.” 

Some Democratic Congressmembers are challenging the freeze as unlawful, according to NBC News, which obtained the memo. 

“Congress approved these investments and they are not optional; they are the law,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a statement. “They say this is only temporary, but no one should believe that. Donald Trump must direct his Administration to reverse course immediately and the taxpayers’ money should be distributed to the people.” 

The Department of Energy did not immediately responded to inquiries from The Verge about what programs might be affected. In an email to The Verge, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that it’s “temporarily pausing all activities related to the obligation or disbursement of EPA Federal financial assistance at this time.“

Anticipating Trump’s efforts to dismantle its programs, the Biden administration scrambled to release much of the funding from the Inflation Reduction Act before leaving office. 

“On the unspent funds, we are at a place where we’re north of $9 out of every $10 of grant funding and other similar dollars that have already hit the economic bloodstream across the country,” Biden’s national climate adviser Ali Zaidi told The Verge earlier this month.

Update, January 28th: A federal judge has temporarily paused Trump’s order.

Amazon is preparing to launch drone deliveries in the UK

Amazon’s first UK drone deliveries will take flight in Darlington, England, the company announced on Monday. The e-commerce giant is taking the initial steps to get Prime Air deliveries off the ground in the area, working with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for authorization to fly its drones in the airspace.

Once Amazon has approval, it will begin hiring team members to launch drone deliveries out of its Darlington fulfillment center. Amazon didn’t share any details about when Prime Air deliveries will launch in the area.

“We’ll continue to work closely with the CAA as they develop the regulatory framework to make commercial drone delivery a reality in the UK,” Amazon said in its announcement. “In the meantime, we will also engage with the Darlington community to answer questions and collect feedback as we seek to offer this new delivery option.”

Other drone companies have already launched delivery services in the UK, with Skysports partnering with the Royal Mail service for commercial deliveries, and Zipline teaming up with the National Health Service to deliver medical supplies to hospitals and other healthcare providers.

Amazon first announced plans to expand its delivery program to the UK in 2023. The company also completed its first drone delivery test in Italy last year using its new MK30 drone, which is supposed to fly farther – and more quietly – compared to its other drones. Amazon already launched the MK30 drone in Arizona and Texas, where it has approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS).

Baldur’s Gate 3: all the news and updates on one of the best RPGs of the year

After spending three years in early access and releasing officially on August 3rd, Baldur’s Gate 3 is on the short list for 2023’s Game of the Year. It’s a beefy Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG and the successor of the Baldur’s Gate series developed by BioWare. The game features some of best, most memorable characters this side of Mass Effect 3, even if they’re a bit hornier than usual.

After its PC release, Baldur’s Gate 3 quickly rocketed up the Steam charts, at one time boasting over 800,000 concurrent players, making it the ninth most-played game on Steam ever. Though released initially on PC, it is now available on PS5 and Xbox Series consoles as well.

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