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Federal Reserve officials on Wednesday raised their prediction of what inflation will look like at the end of the year from 2.5% to 2.7%. That’s likely taking into account the tariffs that are already in place — for example, the 20% on Chinese goods.

But in about 10 days, the next round of tariffs promised by the Donald Trump administration may — or may not, who really knows? — come into effect. Some of the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada would start then too. Tariffs haven’t shown up yet on a lot of price tags on store shelves and in car lots, but they are in the pipeline.

MFA Inc., a farmers cooperative based in Columbia, Missouri, is owned by 40,000 ranchers and farmers. It sells a lot of fertilizer.

“You know, the two biggest wild cards in our business are weather and the government,” said Chris DeMoss, senior director of plant foods.

He said the less predictable one is the government. Potash fertilizer from Canada was going to be tariffed at the beginning of this month, but that was pushed back to April 2.

“They’re gonna have an impact, there’s no doubt, ’cause 80% of what we use domestically comes from Canada,” said DeMoss.

But whatever that impact is, it will be delayed.

“There’s a lot of tons that were already in place for this spring, so we’ll probably have a better understanding of what all this means as we get into the summer period and into the fall,” he said.

For other products, the delay is gonna be much shorter. Twenty percent tariffs on goods from China are gonna start showing up on stickers in April, predicted Omair Sharif, head of Inflation Insights.

“A lot of sort of furniture and household goods. Things like household appliances. Furniture in particular is a big one. Cookware, cutlery, glassware, rugs,” he said.

Seventy-one percent of our cookware and cutlery is imported from China, Sharif said. So is 45% of all footwear. And the cost increases for these goods tend to get handed on to consumers. 

That’s what happened with washing machines in 2018. “Tariffs went up 20%, prices went up 18%,” Sharif said.

Anderson Economic Group forecast the impact of multiple layers of tariffs on cars over the next few months.

“We found that the typical model produced by these manufacturers in North America would see a tariff cost increase of between $4,000 and $10,000,” said CEO Patrick Anderson.

His advice? Buy that car now. 

Tomatoes from Canada and avocados from Mexico will likely see jumps in April. Other industries wouldn’t be hit with major effects — tariffs on oil, for example.

“Canada would end up eating that because we have so much supply here,” Anderson said.

In the construction sector, builders are nervous about the cost of materials.

“Steel and aluminum is one, and also some goods imported from Canada such as lumber are very important for housing. So that could have an outsize impact on inflation for the U.S.,” said Elijah Oliveros-Rosen, chief economist for emerging markets at S&P Global Ratings.

But for now, it’s still mostly a waiting game.

Finally got that hot new cheetah-print skirt that’s all over TikTok? Too late, it’s already old news.

Social media is spawning fashion microtrends faster than teens can adopt them — sometimes several a week, said Callie Holtermann from The New York Times style desk, who wrote about it. Pair that with fast fashion’s ability to spit out products, and the cycle can be dizzying.

Young people know they are being targeted by marketers, Holtermann said. But they find it hard to step away, even while feeling burdened by the overconsumption.

Holtermann talked with “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal about the pressure kids are feeling to keep up with the latest trend. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: So, trends, I get in fashion, right? That’s been a thing forever. Microtrends — help me out.

Callie Holtermann: Yeah, I hate to come with the news of microtrends to you. Which, of course, I’m slow to bring you. But in recent years, especially since COVID, there have been all of these things that seem kind of like fashion trends. Perhaps it’s a type of top or a print like cheetah print, or even a little phrase like the mob wife aesthetic. But the young people I talked to said they kind of rise and fall in a matter of months, or even weeks.

Ryssdal: The really interesting part about it, well, many parts about it, which were, by turn, interesting and horrifying, is that the younger kids, because these are teenagers, right, getting absorbed by all this, and they know what’s happening.

Holtermann: Totally. I spent the past few months talking to a lot of teenagers and people in their 20s about what the trend ecosystem feels like to them right now. And over and over, they sort of gave me these kind of sobering monologues about how they know that their attention is very valuable. They understand that things like short-form video platforms, like TikTok, and fast fashion are kind of working together to speed up the trend cycle. And yet, at times, they can still feel caught up in it, and that can feel like a kind of confusing and trapped place to be in.

Ryssdal: I bet. It is also, and they know this too, being more environmentally aware, I suppose, than older generations, by and large, they feel bad about it. They know it’s all about consumption, right? It’s about buying things quickly and then turning around buying more things.

Holtermann: Absolutely. Yeah. A trend is, at its core, a structure for advertising and selling something. It also can be a kind of more fun mode for self-expression, but I think the consumption aspect of trends is really heavy on the minds of a lot of young people right now. And you hear the word consumption, and it’s kind of opposite, overconsumption, all the time when you get onto a platform like TikTok or Instagram.

Ryssdal: And while acknowledging that social media, you know, has done a lot of good for a whole lot of people, this is Reason 3,972 that social media can be bad.

Holtermann: I heard from a lot of young people who sort of said that the proliferation of microtrends every year or couple of years — the way that might have been the case when I was in middle school — there can be several a week, and it ratchets up the feeling of insecurity or inadequacy, or if you don’t have and can’t afford that item, right?

Ryssdal: So, on the whole can’t afford thing, I mean, fast fashion is cheap and a lot of these things are not incredibly expensive, but they add up, and it’s not nothing.

Holtermann: I spoke to one young woman who talked about, in middle school, really like begging her parents, saying she just started at a new school, she really wanted to fit in, and she mentioned the fact that she went to school and saw every girl at school had scrunchies. And then she went home and scrolled through TikTok and saw another 20 videos of girls with scrunchies. And it, I think, ratcheted up that feeling for her of, “Oh, I’m not going to fit in without this.” But as our conversation went on, she was one of several young people who expressed to me, “I can feel that this is happening, and I am really trying to take a step back from it.” And so many of these young people who, again, know what is going on are trying to take steps backwards from the trend cycle. Although sometimes, they are finding that difficult to do.

Ryssdal: So where do you land on this? Is this going to keep going, and will it get faster and faster, or is it eventually going to die out because teenagers just go, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Holtermann: It’s funny. I’ve posed this question to so many experts, and I heard a lot of really conflicting things. On one hand, there are people who think that, you know, TikTok is in jeopardy right now. On the other hand, one person I talked to who writes a daily trend newsletter said, “I do think [Generation Z] is growing up and they’re wising up to trends. But coming up right behind them is [Generation Alpha], and she thinks that members of Gen Alpha will be even more clued in to trends than the generations that came before.

Ryssdal: I had such hope there, and then you got to Gen Alpha.

Holtermann: Sorry about that.

Productivity in the U.S. has been on the upswing recently after a long period of slower growth. It’s calculated roughly by dividing gross domestic product by labor hours. If we can get more economic growth out of the same amount of labor, that usually means wages rise — without causing inflation.

Most of the big jumps in living standards we’ve seen throughout history have been driven by jumps in productivity: the introduction of the steam engine, electricity, computers — these all brought productivity booms. And a lot of economists are hoping that what we’re seeing right now might be the start of another one, driven by artificial intelligence.

Productivity rose by 2.7% last year, according to the Labor Department. That’s well above the 1 to 1.5% we’ve averaged since the early aughts, and approaching the levels we saw during the last boom in the 1990s.

Two economists made a friendly bet a few years ago about how much productivity will grow this decade. Erik Brynjolfsson and Robert Gordon registered their wager on the prediction website Long Bets. The stakes are $400.

“But I think it’s more of a reputational bet,” said Brynjolfsson, who’s a professor at Stanford, where he directs the Digital Economy Lab. He’s bullish on productivity. 

His own research on customer service agents who started using an AI large language model showed their productivity improved as much as 34%. And other recent studies on software development, business consulting, writing and sales showed similar results.

“These are the biggest gains I’ve ever seen,” said Brynjolfsson. “I mean, to see double-digit gains just within a few months is almost unheard of.”

In the other corner: Robert Gordon, professor at Northwestern and author of “The Rise and Fall of American Growth.”

“It’s not going to be a revolution,” Gordon said of AI. “It’s not going to blow out human nature. I think that’s all greatly overblown.”

He believes AI will raise productivity, but not in the transformative way that electricity or computers did. He points to the last 20 years or so of modest gains, despite high tech innovations ranging from smart phones to the app economy.

“Those things really are minor compared to the difference it made to have trucks instead of horses, to have airplanes instead of trains,” said Gordon, who doubts that the share of tasks AI can currently automate in the workplace will be enough to significantly move the needle in the broader economy.

For now, Brynjolfsson has pulled to the lead, though it’s not clear yet if the bump in productivity we’re seeing is evidence of the start of a durable AI boom.

Joseph Briggs has been searching for signs. He’s a senior economist for Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research.

“If we look at an economy-wide basis, the impacts still look quite negligible,” he said.

Goldman Sachs has forecast that once generative AI has been widely adopted, it could raise productivity in the U.S. by 15% over 10 years. 

Briggs is watching for signals from the labor market that would indicate AI adoption is slowing job growth. He sees limited evidence in certain industries like computer programming, customer service, management consulting and legal services, where AI has been more aggressively adopted.

But Briggs thinks it will take a couple of years for AI to show up in federal productivity data. Goldman Sachs estimates only about 6% of U.S. companies are using the technology.

“You need to restructure workflows, you have to have workers comfortable using it, and all of these things take time,” Briggs said.

He does, however, see plenty of evidence that companies are making big investments in AI, especially in industries like law.

Annie Datesh is the chief innovation officer for Silicon Valley law firm Wilson Sonsini, which works with a lot of tech startups. The firm developed an AI tool to help review agreements for cloud services, which many tech companies frequently require.

“You’d be negotiating them a lot. It would be high volume, but a standard form, and suddenly automation and AI start to make sense,” she said.

Wilson Sonsini uses AI, trained on its own best practices, to customize the agreements. Then a human lawyer reviews and finalizes them. 

The tech should eventually help the firm serve more clients, faster. But it’s not quite there yet.

“Well, think about when you hire a new person, right?” said Datesh. “They’re always going to kind of slow you down at first, but then they get trained up, and then they can take over tasks.”

Right now, she said, the AI is still kind of green. “And so you’re still monitoring it and supervising it like it’s that new person, which will theoretically slow you down.”

It’s a pattern you often see when a powerful new technology diffuses through the economy said Stanford’s Brynjolfsson — at first it looks like nothing is happening, until suddenly productivity takes off in what he calls a J-curve.

“With the steam engine, with electricity, with the internal combustion engine, when we measured that, it often took literally decades,” he said. “It took about 30 years for electricity to really have its full payoff.”

Brynjolfsson expects AI to deliver productivity benefits much faster, since it doesn’t require specialized hardware or skills to use. He’s got until 2029 to win the bet.

Roberts at Northwestern said he’s still skeptical, but he’d be glad to be proven wrong.

“I’m happy for the economy if AI surprises me, because don’t we all want more growth?” he said.

Though: whether a productivity boom from AI will necessarily be a win for most workers? That they’re not so sure about.

Bloober Team is taking its horror game cred into a new direction with the launch of publisher Broken Mirror Games. This "co-development label" is collaborating with Rock Square Thunder, an indie outfit founded by ex-Bloober devs, for a new open-world survival horror game called I Hate This Place. It's scheduled for release in the final quarter of 2025 on PC, PlayStation, Xbox Series S/X and Nintendo Switch.

The source material for this adaptation is a comic book series of the same title from Skybound Entertainment by writer Kyle Starks and artist Artyom Topilin. Fittingly, the game has kept a hand-drawn style for its tale of protagonist Elena, who has accidentally unleashed a nightmarish force and now has to fight for her life by using her wits and finding shelter before the sun sets.

While its exact focus in the genre has shifted, Bloober Team has created several well-received horror games such as Layers of Fear, last year's Silent Hill 2 remake and the upcoming Cronos: The New Dawn.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/bloober-team-launches-horror-publishing-label-with-debut-game-i-hate-this-place-220032691.html?src=rss

There’s something really exciting about FBC: Firebreak, Remedy’s take on cooperative, online first-person shooters. I’ve been trying to pinpoint a specific wow factor since attending the game’s developer-led demonstration last week, but I’ve concluded it’s a combination of multiple cool features blended perfectly together. FBC: Firebreak is set in the sterile headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Control and it features Remedy’s trademark dark surrealism, but it’s also infused with a healthy dose of silliness and mechanical depth. The result feels like a modern Left 4 Dead in the best possible way, just with Hiss instead of zombies and three players instead of four.

Left 3 Dead, anyone?

FBC: Firebreak takes place six years after the end of Control. The Oldest House, which used to be the seat of power for the FBC, has been sealed with the Hiss inside, and it’s now time to eradicate the invasion and lift the lockdown. The agency is sending in the Firebreak team, a unit composed of government volunteers with no extra combat training and little hope of making it out alive. As a member of Firebreak, you’re handed some special equipment, patted on the back and locked inside the headquarters with the Hiss and every unfortunate employee it’s infested. Good luck.

The game is broken down by Jobs, which are essentially custom-built missions in specific regions of The Oldest House. All Jobs have three zones, but otherwise each one has a unique objective, crisis, and environment. After selecting a Job, you get to customize your run by setting the Threat Level and Clearance Level — Threat Level determines combat difficulty and the number of rewards up for grabs, while Clearance Level sets the number of zones you have to clear and the type of rewards.

“I will say we do have more than three clearance levels, and you get into some pretty interesting stuff later, such as corrupted items that appear during the job,” game director Mike Kayatta said.

Remedy Entertainment

Before the match begins, each player gets to select one of three Crisis Kits, loadouts designed with specific playstyles in mind. Crisis Kits come with a tool and an item each. The Jump Kit is based around electricity and it has the Electro-Kinectic Charge Impactor, a portable jackhammer kind of device with a conductive metal plate on the end, capable of slamming into enemies or propelling yourself into the air. It also has the BOOMbox, which plays music to attract enemies before exploding. The Fix Kit gives you a big wrench that’s able to repair machinery and stagger Hiss, and it also includes a turret that you have to smack with the wrench to assemble. The Splash Kit is for all the water signs out there — it features the Crank-Operated Fluidic Injector, an industrial water cannon that can extinguish fires and soak enemies so they’re primed for extra damage, plus a Humidifier, which sprays healing water in a wide area.

“A good way to look at all of this is that you're going to kind of combine the threat level and the clearance level and the type of job you want to play to sort of create your own load, your own experience, exactly the session that you're looking for with whatever group you're playing with that night,” Kayatta said.

Members of the Firebreak squad have their own Research Perks, or upgrade slots. You purchase Perks with currency earned during Jobs, and stacking upgrades of the same type strengthens their effect. Equipping three Perks of the same type lends that ability to nearby teammates as well.

Remedy Entertainment

“For example, one perk might give you the feature that each missed bullet has a chance to return to your clip, or the ability to extinguish yourself by jumping up and down, which is how that of course works,” community manager Julius Fondem said. “If you equip just one perk, you get its effect. Simple, straightforward. If you equip two of the same type, you get a stronger version of that perk. And if you equip three of the same perk type, you can actually share its effect with your nearby crewmates. As you increase your kit proficiency, you'll increase the slots you have to play with, giving you the opportunity to play with a lot of different builds and strategies.”

Killing Hiss is all fine and dandy, but collecting currency is a major goal of each run in FBC: Firebreak, too. Currency is used to purchase new gear and cosmetics as well as Perks. Regardless of whether you actually escape a Job alive, you're rewarded with XP and proficiencies for the gear you used. You can only earn currency by finding it in the environment and successfully escaping with it (and your life).

“Ultimately, Firebreak is about efficiency,” Fondem said. “You can't fail objectives, but the longer you spend doing them, the more and more Hiss will show up to stop you, increasing the chance that your crew dies on the job. That means the longer you spend exploring for currency, the more risk you're inviting and the harder it will eventually become to make it back to headquarters in one piece.”

Speaking of currency — Remedy promises it won’t charge for critical content post-launch.

“We want to keep all of our players united, which means that all playable post-launch content, such as Jobs, will be free for everyone who has the game,” Fondem said. “We'll support the game by offering paid cosmetic content as well.”

The Job that Remedy showed off in the media briefing (and featured in today’s Future Games Show Spring Showcase) was Paper Chase, a mission filled with flying yellow sticky notes, sticky-note monsters, and one hulking sticky-note titan as the final boss. It’s set in a classic FBC office space, concrete walls and blood-orange carpet, and players have to eradicate the rogue, multiplying sticky notes as well as the rushing Hiss. Little squares of paper swirl through the air and cling to the player’s face, covering the screen at times, amid explosions, flickering lights and showers of bullets. At one point, a player places a piggy bank in their melee weapon and smashes it on the Hiss, screaming, “Stand back, piggy’s coming out!” It activates an AOE wind effect on nearby enemies. There are environmental factors to mess with and a range of weapons to deploy — shotguns, machine guns, rifles, pistols, water cannons, turrets, grenades, electrified impact devices, boomboxes — and overall, Paper Chase seems like a damn good time.

Remedy Entertainment

It’s taken plenty of iteration to get to this point. And as it turns out, FBC: Firebreak isn’t limited to three players just to differentiate itself from a slightly similar 16-year-old game with a four in its title.

“The reason why we did three-player squads, really, it was like an organic quirk of the development,” Kayatta said. “We actually started testing with four players. I think it just didn't feel quite as good. It was a little harder to understand where people were. That's something that's, like, not required but definitely helpful in this game. And it just felt like, with all of the chaos and all of the fun systems going off, three just felt right over time. So that's it. And yeah, you can play solo or duo.”

FBC: Firebreak is due out this summer, and it’s heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, plus it’ll be available day-one on Game Pass and PlayStation Plus. It’ll support cross-play. Remedy is aiming for a “lower-minimum” PC spec requirement and optimizing the game for Steam Deck. Still, FBC: Firebreak will ship with full ray-tracing support, DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation and NVIDIA Reflex capabilities.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/fbc-firebreak-first-look-left-4-dead-but-with-remedys-silly-surreal-touch-214657219.html?src=rss

The stock market, bond market and housing market are all kind of in flux these days with everything going on tariff- and inflation- and interest rate-wise.  

On housing, the National Association of Realtors’ report on existing home sales for February came out better than economists expected, up 4.2% from January. But for context, January had been down 4.7% from the month before. January was also the month that pending home sales, a leading indicator of existing-home-sales-to-come, fell to the lowest level on record.  

Housing numbers can bounce around — weather, mortgage rates, just noise in the data. Right now, heading into spring, the market’s looking slightly rosier than it did earlier this year.  

But we also know housing markets can also vary, a lot, depending on where you’re looking.

I’ve been doing a kind of round-robin of calls to brokers and real estate agents across the country recently. And some of what I heard could have been copied-and-pasted from one place to another:

“We’ve had a shortage of inventory, so it’s a good market for sellers, a difficult market for buyers.” – Mike Frank at Keller Williams in Chicago, Illinois.

“Less inventory, prices going up. Buyers competing for properties.” – Debbie Kallfelz with Coldwell Banker in Syracuse, New York.

“We’re seeing a frenzy of activity, very limited inventory and multiple offers.” – Israel Hill at John L. Scott in Portland, Oregon.  

Kallfelz pointed out we’re not seeing such low inventory everywhere.

“Real estate’s always local, we always say that. Other parts of the country, Florida’s an example — condo market, a lot of listings there, for a variety of reasons, insurance and condo fees,” she said.

While Portland’s got a ‘frenzy’ of housing activity, Kallfelz said in the Syracuse area listings are slowing — down about 10% year-to-date.  

It’s a similar story in Charlotte, North Carolina, said real estate agent Steve Scott: “It’s a little slow, even with all the incentives that the builders are putting out,” he said.

Meanwhile, the area has a wave of new buyers coming in.

“We have a lot of retirement — people moving here from the north, and some return from the south because they didn’t like Florida,” he said. That’s making it hard for first-time buyers to compete.

But head south to Texas?

“I’m still seeing affordable houses, $300,000s for my first-time homebuyers,” said Mollie Yarborough Steele at Compass Real Estate in Houston.

She said plenty of new starter homes are going up in the suburbs. The fiercest competition is for homes over a million dollars, where she’s seeing a lot of cash offers.

“Which is so amazing to me, that this many people have this much cash,” Steele said.

But with financial markets down sharply in recent weeks, some of that ready-cash may start to dry up.

One of the many justifications President Donald Trump has deployed on behalf of his new tariffs is that they’ll reduce the trade deficit over time. The argument is that taxing imports will boost domestic production, so American consumers buy more American goods, and American producers can sell more to consumers overseas.

But a big problem with that argument is that tariffs will have unintended consequences for the value of the dollar.

If an importer wants to buy goods from another country, the importer typically has to buy them in that foreign country’s currency.

“So if we want to buy some cheese from the Netherlands, we need some euros to buy the cheese with because that’s what they sell it in,” said Ed Gresser, vice president and director of trade and global markets at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Gresser said if the U.S. government slaps a tariff on that cheese, it becomes more expensive. Consumers buy less of it, which means grocery stores will stock less.

“The demand for euros has gone down relative to the dollar,” Gresser said.

And lower demand for euros pushes down the currency’s value relative to others. “That would then lead to a stronger dollar,” said Kathryn Dominguez, an economics professor at the University of Michigan.

So far this year, the dollar’s value has been ticking down. Dominguez said that’s in large part because importers have been trying to bring in extra goods ahead of the president’s tariffs.

“We’ve actually been buying more imports, therefore needing more foreign currency, therefore driving up the value of foreign currency relative to the dollar,” Dominguez said.

But once new tariffs start taking a bite out of imports, the dollar’s value is likely to strengthen again. And that will make American exports more expensive for foreign buyers.

“Meaning that now, U.S. goods, denominated in dollars, would be less competitive relative to goods denominated in other currencies,” Dominguez said.

That’s when American companies are likely to turn their attention to selling more goods to domestic consumers. They might even open up new factories and create new jobs.

But there’s a big tradeoff to keep in mind, said Oleg Itskhoki, an economics professor at Harvard University. “Some jobs would be lost because it will be unprofitable to export because of the stronger value of the dollar,” he said.

Meanwhile, other countries that follow the U.S. lead and slap tariffs on American goods will end up turning inward too.

“The Canadian factories will turn to service the Canadian consumers, instead of exporting to the United States, but the U.S. will be able to export less goods all around the world because of the stronger dollar,” Itskhoki said.

Itskhoki said what we’re talking about is a less efficient global economy.

“We started in equilibrium, when it was efficient to produce in Canada for the American market,” Itskhoki said. “You lose efficiency as a result. And that’s the tax that consumers are paying at the end of the day.”

That’s a tax that causes prices to rise and economic growth to stall.

Console makers and game developers like Microsoft, Nintendo and Electronic Arts have created a new initiative, managed by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), that aims to make it easier to know what accessibility features games have. 

The new Accessible Games Initiative has defined a set of 24 accessibility tags that will appear in participating game storefronts and product pages so players can know what features a game has before they buy it. The tags have easy to understand definitions and cover a range of accessibility features games offer, like subtitles, input remapping for controls, text-to-speech and speech-to-text in chat and narrated menus. All of the tags and definitions are available to view on the Accessible Games Initiative's website. The ESA also says it will provide developers with criteria for the tags so they can develop accessibility features with them in mind.

The new tags are designed to co-exist with existing accessibility information on product pages, but some companies may choose to focus exclusively on the new "cross-industry" standard. For example, Microsoft plans to "replace existing Xbox Game Accessibility Feature tags with their equivalent Accessible Games Initiative tags" to avoid duplication, while keeping its own tags that aren't in the initiative's list.

The idea for the Accessible Games Initiative "was first developed by Electronic Arts, Google, Microsoft, Nintendo of America, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Ubisoft," according to the ESA, and new companies have joined in time for launch, like "Amazon Games, Riot Games, Square Enix and Warner Bros. Games." 

Offering some kind of standardized way to know what accessibility features a game has is desperately needed. While developers have gotten better at offering accessibility features in their games by default, players interested in a specific feature have mostly had to rely on third-party resources like Can I Play That? to figure out how well they've been interpreted and implemented. These tags should start to fix that. 

The only open question is when they'll be adopted. The ESA told The Verge that "the timeline for implementation of the tags is company-dependent," meaning there could be a wait ahead for players hoping to take advantage of the Accessible Games Initiative's work.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/game-companies-will-standardize-accessibility-labels-on-storefronts-and-product-pages-211335539.html?src=rss

There was a time, back in 1988, when Alaska produced more crude oil than any other state.

That’s not the case anymore. Production there has dropped by around 75%.

But a report out this week from the Energy Information Administration is forecasting growth in Alaskan oil output next year, predicting it’ll be the biggest production increase in decades.

Oil production in Alaska first took off in the 1970s, after a series of global energy price shocks. 

Jeff Kralowetz with market intelligence firm Argus Media said that growth was helped along by the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, “which was able to take all of this crude from the northern part of Alaska to the port of Valdez in the southern part of the state and sell it.” 

Now though, a lot of those northern oil fields are, what they call in the business, “mature,” said Charles Mason, an economist at the University of Wyoming. 

“So you get a certain amount of production early on, and then it tends to taper off. And the only way you arrest that is by having more wells drilled,” said Mason. 

Mason said that’s been happening less lately in Alaska, in part because of conservation measures. But also because the arctic tundra isn’t an easy place to do business, said Ellen R. Wald of the Atlantic Council. 

“If you’re going to need to build pipelines, you can only transport those pipelines to where you need them to be during the winter because you have to use ice roads,” said Wald. 

Cheaper fracking has helped some other states surpass Alaska’s output. But two new oil developments in Alaska are expected to boost production. Not to anywhere near peak levels, said Wald.

“But I do think this is meaningful, because they’ve put in all the investment and infrastructure,” she said. 

This could make future expansion easier. 

Jeff Kralowetz of Argus Media said the changes could also be felt elsewhere in the domestic oil economy.

“A lot of the new refineries or the refinery modifications in California were designed to run Alaskan crude,” said Kralowetz. 

Because as California’s own production of crude has fallen, refineries there are now more reliant on oil from the Arctic.

If you own a Honda Prologue or Acura ZDX, you'll soon have a lot more places you can charge your car. Honda and Acura EVs will be able to access the Tesla Supercharger network in June 2025, when Honda's official NACS-CCS adapter goes on sale.

Adapters will be available to purchase from authorized dealerships, and EV owners will receive a notification from the HondaLink and Acura EV apps when they're available. The apps will also be able to locate Tesla Superchargers around the same time. Honda says the adapter is the safest way to charge on Tesla's more than 20,000 chargers in the US, but hasn't shared how much it'll actually cost once it's available. For a preview of the possible price range for Honda's adapter, car makers have charged anywhere from nothing (Rivian) to $230 (Ford) for an NACS adapter.

Honda's plan to adopt the North American Charging Standard (NACS) has been in the works since 2023. In finally offering its own adapter, Honda joins other EV makers like Mercedes-Benz, Rivian, Polestar, Lucid and Ford in giving existing EV owners a way to take advantage of Tesla's expansive charging network.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/honda-and-acura-evs-will-be-able-to-use-the-tesla-supercharger-network-in-june-185608357.html?src=rss

In late February, Anthropic released Claude 3.7 Sonnet. As the industry's first hybrid reasoning model, it was a major milestone for the company. Rather than forcing users to pick between a version of Claude that can answer a question nearly instantaneously or work through a problem step by step, the chatbot can do both, with a simple toggle allowing you to switch between Claude's different “thinking modes.” Today, Anthropic is enhancing 3.7 Sonnet by giving it the ability to search the web.

"With web search, Claude has access to the latest events and information, boosting its accuracy on tasks that benefit from the most recent data," Anthropic explains. Before today, Claude's knowledge cut-off was October 2024, meaning if you asked it about recent events, there was a good chance you wouldn't get the best answer. When Claude turns to the web for help, it will list citations you can tap or click on to fact-check its answers.

If you live in the US and pay for Claude, you can enable web search through the profile settings menu. Anthropic says it will roll out the feature to free users and more countries soon. With today's announcement, Anthropic is playing catchup. OpenAI began rolling out ChatGPT Search to paying subscribers last fall, and as of the start of this past February, all users, including those without a ChatGPT account, can use the feature for free.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/anthropics-claude-chatbot-can-now-search-the-web-too-183501166.html?src=rss

If you receive a lot of email, and most people do, then sometimes it can be a challenge to pull up a particular old missive in your inbox. Google has decided that the solution must be more artificial intelligence. Today, the company announced that it is rolling out an update that uses AI to assess inbox search queries to account for recency, frequent contacts and most-clicked emails. The "most relevant" search feature is rolling out globally to personal accounts, while business accounts will get it at an unspecified future date.

If the idea of yet more AI in your software icks you out, at least you won't be required to use this feature. Google notes that once a personal account gets the "most relevant" search results option, there will be a toggle to swap back to the "most recent" view that will show hits in reverse chronological order as usual.

If you're happily on board the AI train, you're in luck, because there are a lot more places that Google has been putting this technology. This month alone, AI has been popping up in more aspects of Google's search and shopping portals.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gmail-is-getting-ai-powered-search-results-181745405.html?src=rss

Because of sanctions that will prevent Huawei’s latest foldable from going on sale in the US, many folks who are interested in the handset will never lay eyes on it in person. Still, you might want to get a load of this oddity.

The Pura X should maybe have a “wide load” warning that pops up on the back once it’s opened up. Per CNBC, the 6.3-inch display has a 16:10 aspect ratio. That means it’s wider and more tablet-like than most other phones. It's not quite as unusual as Huawei's (admittedly cool-looking) tri-fold Mate XT, but it's still funky. Close the hinge and the Pura X folds into a square that has a 3.5-inch display and brings the rear camera array to the front.

The handset, which starts at 7,499 Chinese yuan (about $1,037), stands out for other reasons. The Pura X is the first Huawei phone that doesn't have a lick of Android. It runs on a version of HarmonyOS that the brand revealed back in November. It also features Xiaoyi, an in-house AI assistant that uses DeepSeek's tech to bolster Huawei's own Pangu model.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/huawei-reveals-a-wide-ass-1610-foldable-with-a-deepseek-powered-ai-assistant-171548907.html?src=rss

Meta’s Threads is finally allowing users to change their default feed in the app, in a move that addresses what has long been one of the most frustrating parts of the service. With the update, users will be able to make the “following” feed or a custom feed the default view in the app rather than Threads’ sometimes chaotic “for you” feed.

Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta would test the feature way back in November, but the company has said little about it since. Now that it’s official, the change could help address criticism that Threads isn’t as useful for following real-time events because it pushes users to the “for you” algorithmic feed, which often surfaces older posts with many replies rather than newer posts from followed accounts.

It could also help Meta as it tries to lure more users from X and Bluesky, which saw a surge of new users last year. Threads currently has 320 million monthly active users, according to a Meta spokesperson, while Bluesky has about 33 million.

The long overdue change arrives alongside several other upgrades to the service. The app is also finally getting a setting that allows users to limit quotes and replies to followers only. That should address complaints about reply guys and unnecessary dunking (previously, the app’s quote controls had options for “profiles you follow” and mentioned accounts only).

Meta

Threads is also making changes that make it easier to surface topics in various parts of the app. As a refresher, topics on Threads are essentially the site’s version of hashtags (with a few notable distinctions). Now, the app will surface topics in more places in an effort to steer users toward more relevant posts.

While drafting a new post, Threads will allow users to browse topics, including ones that are currently trending in the app. The service will also more prominently highlight trending topics alongside relevant feed posts. Meta is also testing the ability to add topics to Threads profiles, much like how you can add hashtags to Instagram profiles. The company notes that taking advantage of topics could help users’ expand their reach, noting that “internal data” suggests that posts with a tagged topic “generally receive more views than those that without one.” That will likely be useful info for Threads creators trying to decipher the app’s sometimes confusing algorithm.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/threads-will-finally-let-everyone-change-their-default-feed-170001140.html?src=rss

TikTok is bringing Amber Alerts to the For You feed, the platform just announced via blog post. It has teamed up with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to bring these alerts to users and to “leverage the power of the US TikTok community” to help reunite kids with their families.

The social media platform started experimenting with this functionality last year, with a pilot program in Texas. The rollout was successful, with TikTok saying Amber Alerts in Texas were viewed more than 20 million times and contributed to 2.5 million visits to NCMEC's website.

When an AMBER Alert is issued, users who live near the missing child will see it show up in the For You feed. The posts will feature two hyperlinks. One will lead to the relevant NCMEC data and the other will contact 911, just in case there’s information to impart. The platform is also donating advertising credits from these posts to “amplify NCMEC's messaging via their official TikTok account.”

This is just the latest social media platform to integrate Amber Alerts in some way. Instagram began pushing these alerts to users back in 2022. Facebook did the same in 2015. Here’s hoping that TikTok’s adoption of this idea leads to more kids returning safely to their loved ones.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-is-adding-amber-alerts-to-the-for-you-feed-162909699.html?src=rss

Tesla is recalling more than 46,000 Cybertrucks due to a potential safety issue. According to a filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the armored vehicle's cant rail (a cosmetic exterior trim panel) could detach from the truck, potentially leading to injury or a collision.

The recall covers all 46,096 Cybertrucks manufactured between November 13, 2023, and February 27, 2025. Given that the vehicle launched in late 2023, that should be, well, just about all of them. The NHTSA filing states that owners of the vehicles can visit a Tesla service department for a free cant rail replacement.

The recall is the latest in a recent downward slide for Tesla. Last month, its US sales reportedly fell two percent year over year even as the country's EV market grew by 16 percent. The automaker's picture is even gloomier in other regions: Its China sales plummeted by 49 percent (compared to 85 percent EV growth in the country) and sales dropped by 76 percent in Germany (vs. 31 percent EV growth there).

That has resulted in Tesla's stock falling by over 40 percent since January. Elon Musk's DOGE shenanigans are leading to snowballing consequences not only for the US government but also for his EV company.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-recalls-over-46000-cybertrucks-over-a-faulty-exterior-panel-153844072.html?src=rss

Many Shark robot vacuums and related products have been deeply discounted as part of the Amazon Spring Sale. This includes the well-regarded Shark AI Ultra robovac, which is now $300 instead of $438. That’s a pretty serious deal.

The Shark AI Ultra not only made our list of the best robot vacuums, but it was our very favorite. This is a fantastic machine. The suction is strong, particularly for a robot vacuum, and the mobile app is easy to use. The vacuum ships with an extra-large self-emptying base that can go 60 days without manual intervention.

It’s great for pet hair and all-around cleaning tasks. The only major downside is that this isn’t a hybrid unit, so it doesn’t mop. For that, consider the Shark Matrix Plus. This 2-in-1 robovac vacuums and mops, and it’s currently on sale for $400. That’s a massive discount of 47 percent, as the typical price is an eyebrow-raising $750.

This one also includes a self-emptying base that can accommodate 60 days of dirt and debris. It boasts a true HEPA filter and excels at mopping away deep stains. This is thanks to powerful scrubbers that operate at 100 times per minute. We couldn’t truly recommend this model at its original price, as that’s a whole lot of cheddar, but it’s a steal right now for $400.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/shark-robot-vacuums-are-up-to-47-percent-off-as-part-of-the-amazon-spring-sale-151615172.html?src=rss

Any music fan will know how time-consuming it can be to keep tabs on which artists are playing nearby soon. To make that a bit easier — and help make sure you don't miss shows by musicians you like — Spotify is debuting its latest personalized playlist.

Concerts Near You will update every Wednesday with 30 songs from artists that align with your interests and are playing close to you. Tapping on a track will reveal details about the relevant show as well as links to buy tickets. You'll be able to share this personalized playlist and any event info with friends to see if any shows catch their interest.

Spotify

The playlist is something that makes sense for all involved. You may be able to stay better in the loop about upcoming concerts, and it should help artists sell more tickets. Perhaps Spotify will get a cut of any sales it facilitates too.

For Concerts Near You to work properly, Spotify says you should make sure the location that's set in the Live Events section of the app is correct. All it takes to find the playlist is to search for "concerts." You can also follow artists to get updates about their shows and switch on notifications to get reminders about them coming to town.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotifys-latest-custom-playlist-highlights-artists-with-upcoming-shows-in-your-area-150817219.html?src=rss

In case you need further evidence that companies involved in AI chip manufacturing are looking to give themselves whatever edge they can, SoftBank is adding to its institutional expertise by buying former Intel president Renee James’ Ampere Computing. The conglomerate is paying $6.5 billion in cash for the chip design business.

Ampere, which James founded in 2018, focused on cloud-native computing at first. No prizes for guessing which area the company has moved into since then: "sustainable AI compute," according to a press release.

SoftBank is betting that Ampere will bolster Arm’s research and development. It was reported last month that Arm, which SoftBank also owns, is working on an in-house chip.

"As SoftBank Group broadens its AI infrastructure investments in ventures such as Cristal intelligence and Stargate, the acquisition will help enhance SoftBank Group’s capabilities in key areas and accelerate its growth initiatives," the company said in a statement. Ampere is set to keep its name and run as a wholly owned subsidiary after the deal closes, which is expected to happen later this year pending regulatory approval and other closing conditions.

"With a shared vision for advancing AI, we are excited to join SoftBank Group and partner with its portfolio of leading technology companies," James, who is CEO of Ampere, said in a statement. "This is a fantastic outcome for our team, and we are excited to drive forward our AmpereOne roadmap for high performance Arm processors and AI."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/softbank-is-buying-ex-intel-president-renee-james-chip-design-company-for-65-billion-141112408.html?src=rss

If you’re looking to boost the Wi-Fi coverage in your home without spending too much, the Amazon Spring Sale has you covered. The TP-Link Deco mesh Wi-Fi system is $120 off as part of the Big Spring Sale. While not a record-low, it's close to it and a great deal considering how expensive mesh Wi-Fi systems can be.

The Deco XE75 Pro comes with three nodes (or satellites) offering coverage up to 7,200 square feet, which is especially beneficial for large family homes or home office setups. Each node has one 2.5 Gbps and two Gigabit ports which offer a stable and reliable wired connection for devices such as your PC, laptop and game consoles. Thanks to AI-driven mesh technology, your mesh Wi-Fi system uses the same user name and password, meaning you can move from room to room switching nodes in the background and on the fly for an uninterrupted wireless connection.

If you’ve never used a mesh Wi-Fi system (or have limited experience with them), setup is fairly simple using the Deco app. You’ll have access to three wireless network bands as well: 6 GHz (2402 Mbps), 5 GHz (2402 Mbps) and 2.4 GHz (574 Mbps). We ranked the Deco XE75 Pro “best mesh Wi-Fi system for most” in our best mesh Wi-Fi system buying guide because of its excellent performance, comprehensive coverage and user-friendliness. This three-pack gives you everything you need (and arguably more than you need) to enjoy fast and reliable whole-home coverage.

You can set up a separate guest Wi-Fi network, meaning your friends and family can easily join your Wi-Fi without having to grant them access to your devices or data. Although the app could do with a bit of polish in places, it does support voice commands via Alexa, so you can conveniently turn your guest Wi-Fi on or off with voice commands.

TP-Link’s HomeShield is built into the Deco XE75 Pro, which gives you access to a suite of customizable security features. You can set parental controls to block specific websites, strengthen your network security, or program “no internet” bedtimes for your kids. With this deal, you get a lot of bang for your buck, future-proofing your home Wi-Fi at a fraction of the usual cost.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/get-120-off-our-favorite-mesh-wi-fi-system-with-this-amazon-spring-sale-deal-133030064.html?src=rss