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We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The M3 lineup of MacBook Air laptops is already seeing big discounts before the release of the new M4 MacBook Air laptops tomorrow. You can get the 13-inch MacBook Air laptop with 16GB RAM and 256GB SSD storage for $794.99 (originally $1,099) after an additional $54.01 on-page coupon on Amazon. This is the lowest price this MacBook has been since its release, according to price-tracking tools. M3 MacBook Air 13-inch Laptop (2024) $794.99 at Amazon $1,099.00 Save $304.01 Get Deal Get Deal $794.99 at Amazon $1,099.00 Save $304.01 If you're looking for longevity in your laptop, the 16GB RAM on any MacBook Air is vital and will last you a long time. All "older" MacBook Airs, including those with M2 and M1 chips, have good discounts right now (if you can find them in stock), but if you can afford to upgrade to the new M4 MacBook Air that comes out tomorrow, March 12, you'll be getting a better value for your money, according to Jake Peterson, Lifehacker's Senior Technology Editor. It's an even better value than the M4 Pro. However, if you prefer to save yourself some $200, the M3 is still a capable and powerful laptop in 2025. You can see the full breakdown of the M3 MacBook Air in CNET's review. The M2 is also deeply discounted, but it's not easy to find a new one in stock right now. Keep in mind the M3 chips have almost double the read speeds of the M2 and 33% faster write speeds. If you're not sure if it's worth upgrading from the M2 or are undecided about which one to get, you can read our breakdown comparing the two. One of the advantages of getting the M3 over the M2 is the dual monitor support on the M3 MacBook Air, a feature that used to come only from the MacBook Pro lineup. View the full article

More than three million developers are using OpenAI’s APIs as shorthand code to infuse apps and websites with an engine of advanced AI. And today, the company’s most popular API, called Chat Completions, is getting a significant sequel called Responses. Eight months in development, it will vastly expand upon and simplify the experience of plugging into OpenAI. For developers, Responses will mean using less code to stack more complex questions to the AI. A hundred lines of code will turn into just three, as the company is courting a wider set of developers who don’t consider themselves LLM experts. For consumers, it will mean you’ll soon be interacting with AI that’s faster, more fluid in using forms of media other than text, and more capable of taking more steps on your behalf. “Completions were very much designed in a world where you could only put text into it, and you could only get text out of it. But now we have models that can do work across multiple mediums. We can put images in, we can get audio out of the model, and [users] can speak to the model in real time and have it speak to you back,” says Steve Coffey, an engineer at OpenAI. “[Completions] is just like the wrong tool for the job…so Responses was designed from the ground up.” What is OpenAI’s new Responses API update? APIs are basically the software gateways to use features from a service or platform inside your own. And to OpenAI, its APIs are as carefully designed as any product—even if we don’t tend to consider APIs as designed objects. The iPhone has APIs for apps using its camera and accelerometers, for instance, while Stripe’s APIs make it possible for websites and apps to take payments—and in each case, the ease of integrating these APIs has been vital to courting developers and growing a business. OpenAI created the modern API for AI in 2020 (and Chat Completions in 2023) so developers could plug into its AI platform. Its competitors have since copied OpenAI’s approach to be something of an informal standard across the industry. Thousands of apps, ranging from Perplexity (an AI search engine) to Harvey (an AI for lawyers), currently integrate OpenAI APIs. Today, OpenAI offers a few different APIs, including one that generates images for Dall-E and another that exclusively works to summarize or write text from scratch. For this release, OpenAI is focusing on Responses, the evolution of its Chat Completion API—the company’s popular way that app developers can plug into the core conversational technology behind ChatGPT. The way the Chat Completions was designed, developers could only send one query in text at a time, and get a single answer in text back. Practically speaking, that meant complicated questions could take several steps, and each individual new question took time, introducing more latency. Now, a developer plugs strings of code into the Responses API, crossed with natural language queries that developers can use that are more or less the way you or I would talk to ChatGPT. (A long user manual helps developers understand what they can and can’t do.) OpenAI’s API will offer “multi turn” conversations that understand context and conversational flow—even when you mix in multimedia like images and, soon to arrive, voice/sound. Responses can also juggle several processes at once, because with a single line of code, you can connect “Tools” hosted by OpenAI into this process. These tools will include a web search (so OpenAI’s responses can be grounded in more real time data), a code interpreter to write and test code, and a file search to analyze and summarize files. The new API will also let developers connect to Operator—OpenAI’s agentic tool that can analyze screens and actually take actions on the user’s behalf—and comes with a new kit of software that helps developers juggle multiple AI agents at the same time. As the company explains, building APIs requires forecasting years ahead at the functions developers may want, and if you squint, it’s not hard to deconstruct OpenAI’s own thesis on the future lurking in the feature set. The API has vastly expanded upon what’s possible to do when you plug into OpenAI as a developer—embracing fuzzy inputs of multimedia, integrating information so responses are current, and perhaps most notable of all, acting on behalf of the user to save them time and effort. “I’m very excited for this year because of the agentic behavior that our models will unlock… the model is taking multiple steps on its own volition and giving you an answer,” says Atty Eleti, an engineer at OpenAI. “On the far end, [it makes way for] AI engineers, AI designers, AI auditors, AI accountants. Little junior interns that you can instruct and operate and ask them to go up and do these things. And I think we’re on the cusp of that becoming a very tangible reality.” Still, these long-term possibilities are grounded in immediate efficiencies. The API updates mean that a simple question, “what’s the weather in San Francisco,” goes from taking a hundred lines of code to just three. Adding all of the aforementioned tools requires just one line of code. This means that coding AI apps should be faster for developers. And because many queries hit OpenAI’s servers all at once, responses should come faster for end users. [Image: OpenAI] The challenge of bringing developers along Like any tool, APIs have to be designed for ease of use. They are not just about coding capabilities, the OpenAI team argues, but about designing clarity and possibility. “The education ladder of an API is something that has to be very consciously designed, because our target audience is not people who know how AI works or how LLMs work,” says Eleti. “And so we introduce them to AI in a sort of a ladder way, where you do a bit of work and you get some reward out of it. You do a bit more work, you understand some more concepts, and then over time, you can graduate to the more complex functionality.” OpenAI gives this instructive feedback to developers through their own mistakes. Whenever it generates errors, OpenAI tries to explain what went wrong in plain language, so the developer can actually understand how to improve their technique. The OpenAI team believes that such feedback, coupled with autocomplete coding tools, should make Responses easy for developers to learn. “I think that really good APIs sort of allow you to start off with the gas pedal in the steering wheel and graduate slowly to the airplane cockpit by exposing more and more functionality in the form of knobs, in the form of like settings and these other things that are hidden from you first, but exposed over time,” says Coffey. The tricky part of updating an API, however, is not just making it self-explanatory. The API also needs to be backwards compatible because software that’s already been built to connect to OpenAI can’t suddenly go dark after an update. So Responses is backwards compatible with software built upon Chat Completions. Furthermore, the Completions API itself will continue working as it always has. OpenAI will continue to support it into the future, offering updates that put Completions as close to feature parity with Responses as it can. (But to use those nifty tools, you’ll need to graduate to Responses.) Over time, the OpenAI API team bets that most of its developers will land on Responses, given the extra capabilities and that it will be price-equivalent to run. Assuming that OpenAI has bet on the right future, AI software is about to become faster, more capable, and more proactive than anything we’ve seen to date. View the full article

For the first time in almost two years, mortgage products available for consumers are at a level established in 2012. View the full article

Reason for crash still unknown after container vessel struck tanker carrying US military fuel View the full article

Apple, Google, and Samsung are competing on multiple fronts—from phones, to health apps, to smartwatches—and that rivalry extends to AI tools as well. All of these tech giants offer AI-powered object removal features in their mobile photo editing apps, which ostensibly allow you get rid of an unwanted person, a tree, a hand, or anything else that's ruining your shot, with only a tap or two on the screen. However, just because Apple, Google, and Samsung all offer AI object removal doesn't mean the tools are of the same standard. There's been a fair bit of chatter online about how these features stack up against one another, so it feels as though a head-to-head object removal test is in order. These AI tools all work in the same way. Obviously, the tools don't know what's really behind the object being removed—but thanks to a combination of clues in the surrounding pixels and the image training built into their underlying models, they can make a reasonably good guess. How good that guess is then determines the quality of the end result. This test covers three tools: Clean Up (in Apple Photos on iOS), Magic Eraser (in Google Photos on Android), and Object Eraser (in the Samsung Gallery app on One UI). These tools all appear as options when you open images in the relevant apps. For testing purposes, I've borrowed some great photos from Taan Huyn, Tolga Ahmetler, and Marek Piwnicki. (A quick note on the comparison images: There's some variation in resolution because of how I saved them using various devices; it has nothing to do with the AI tools in question, so you can mostly ignore the sharpness of the pictures.) Which AI tool is best at removing a lamp from a photo? The original photo. Credit: Taan Huyn/Unsplash Our first photo challenge—removing the lamp in the image above—is relatively simple in some ways, but complex in others. There are some useful guidelines for the AI in terms of the wall and the window, but there are also shadows to deal with (including the shadow of the lamp on the wall behind it, which AI isn't smart enough to know it needs to remove as well). First up was Apple Clean Up. The tool did a fine job of identifying the lamp as I scribbled over it—I like the glow effect—and once the removal process was complete, the back wall was filled in nicely. Most of the window pane work looked okay too, but there were a few weird artifacts left as evidence of an object removal. Next was Google Magic Eraser. The lamp wasn't identified as a suggestion for something to erase, but selecting it was pretty straightforward and accurate in terms of the boundaries. Unfortunately, while most of the job was done well, Magic Eraser left evidence of the lampshade up at the top, like a ghost of what had been there before. Finally, I tried Samsung Object Eraser. Here the object selection process was a bit more fiddly—it's more difficult to zoom and pan in Samsung Gallery, and the automatic selection was less accurate. However, the removal job was the best of the three, with both the wall and the windows accurately filled in. Apple on the left, Google in the middle, and Samsung on the right. Credit: Lifehacker Which AI photo tool does the best job removing a person from a photo? The original photo. Credit: Tolga Ahmetler/Unsplash Our second photo challenge is removing the walking man from this street scene, and it's a tricky one—the AI has to imagine most of the white car behind our primary subject, as well as fill in the road and its markings. What's more, it's a darker scene, with the foreground in focus and the background getting increasingly blurry. With Apple Clean Up, the tool's automatic selection wanted to clear away the cars in the background rather than the man in the foreground, but selecting him was easy enough. The AI fill results were patchy, and got worse further back in the scene, with the car at the back turning into a pixelated mess. Over to Google Magic Eraser, which also wanted to erase people in the background rather than the foreground. It had some trouble picking out the man against the dark and wet street—and it then had difficulty both removing all of the man and replacing the pixels properly. It borrowed pixels from the wrong part of the image on the whole, and the tool couldn't even carry on the yellow line consistently. As for Samsung Object Eraser, again the selection process was a bit awkward, but ultimately it did a perfect job of selecting the male figure against the background. It then did really well at removal: It was the only AI to actually end up with a realistic looking car and road after the man had gone. While it's not perfect, this would probably fool most people at first glance. Apple on the left, Google in the middle, and Samsung on the right. Credit: Lifehacker Which AI photo tool is best at removing a bicycle from a photo? The original photo. Credit: Marek Piwnicki/Unsplash This third photo challenge, removing the bicycle from this scene, offers a lot of information for the AI to use in terms of the surrounding field. The barely visible fencing behind the bike adds to the difficulty, so I was interested to see if these tools would try to continue the fence, or just ignore it and go with the grass. With this one, Apple Clean Up needed a few goes to get the whole of the bicycle selected—possibly because it doesn't appear to be one single object. When that was done, Clean Up was reasonably proficient at filling in the blanks, though both the greenery and the fence it created showed inconsistencies. Google Magic Eraser also needed several attempts to get the entirety of the bike selected. It tried to fill in the fence as well as the field, and while the results weren't a disaster, there were obvious errors—some of the bike wheel spokes are still there, for example. It was maybe slightly better than Apple Clean Up, but not by much. As with the man in the street, Samsung Object Eraser was the best at making an accurate selection first time around, and better at putting something convincing in the space that was left. Both the field and the fence were filled in an accurate, realistic way, and this could easily pass as an unedited photo. Apple on the left, Google in the middle, and Samsung on the right. Credit: Lifehacker The final verdict: Samsung's tool performs bestThe first thing to say is that your mileage may vary with these sorts of tasks—as you will see if you look at similar comparison challenges from around social media and the internet at large. Every photo has different characteristics, and every AI tool has its own approach in dealing with object removal. In terms of my tests, Galaxy AI and Samsung's Object Eraser are the clear winners. The tool seems to take more time over the replacement pixels, and does some actual image generation rather than just copying and pasting pixels from elsewhere in the image—as you can see with the car on the street. That's just an AI imagining of a car, not the actual car, but it makes for a photo that looks genuine. Apple and Google did okay, and were about on a par with one another. The selections are easy to make (easier than with the Samsung, actually), and some more straightforward removal tasks are handled perfectly well. However, these AI removal features do tend to struggle with complex operations where there are fewer clues about how the background should look. Ultimately, it's unlikely that anyone's going to change their phone solely because of the AI object removal tools it offers, but it's interesting to chart the progress these three companies have made with their AI offerings. It's also worth noting that Google Photos and its Magic Eraser are available on all Android and iOS devices, which puts pressure on Apple and Samsung to keep up (or stay ahead). View the full article

The following content is brought to you by Lifehacker partners. If you buy a product featured here, we may earn an affiliate commission or other compensation. Photoshop has been the industry standard in image-editing software for over 30 years, but up until now, creators have been limited to using it on their computers and tablets. The recent launch of the first Photoshop iPhone app has (finally) changed that. Now you can go to the App Store, search "Photoshop," and download the spanking-new Photoshop iPhone mobile app. It’s available for free with an impressive feature set, but if you’re a savvy Photoshop user, the $7.99 a month/$69.99 a year Photoshop Mobile and Web Plans unlocks a wider set of premium features. Adobe Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan With 100GB of cloud storage and 100 generative credits a month at Adobe Learn More Learn More at Adobe This rundown of the app’s key offerings will help you choose what’s right for you. The 'freemium' version is ideal for beginners Credit: Adobe The mobile app’s free version is an excellent entry point for mobile creators who want to build their Photoshop skills. The free toolkit includes several Photoshop editing tools, including the Spot Healing Brush, unlimited layers and masks, and a new Tap Select tool that makes it a snap to edit photos on the small screen by tapping on the object you want to highlight, instead of having to wrestle with tools. The freebie also comes with the Firefly-powered Generative Fill and Generative Expand AI tools, which let you fill in what's missing or remove unwanted elements from images in seconds. The premium plan has more tools, plus web Credit: Adobe If you have Photoshop experience, the Mobile and Web Plan unlocks full access to Photoshop for iPhone and iPad, plus Photoshop on the web. Add in 100GB storage and 100 generative credits a month, and you’re ready to create from anywhere. Additional premium mobile tools include Object Select, Magic Wand, Remove Tool and Clone Stamp, plus the handy Content-Aware Fill, which allows you to fill portions of an image with content sampled from other parts of the image. All of your mobile files will automatically sync with your go-to Creative Cloud apps and Photoshop on the web, so you can work across all your devices. Exclusive AI webtools uplevel your content Credit: Adobe If you use AI to generate content, the premium plan also comes with exclusive access to next-gen Firefly AI web tools such as Reference Image, Generate Background, and Generate Similar, which lets you generate multiple variations of the same image. Adobe’s first-ever Photoshop iPhone app makes it easy to create on your phone and is a win for all skill levels. Download the free version or subscribe to the loaded Photoshop Mobile and Web Plan for just $7.99 a month. View the full article

Cash earnings to increase from current level of £1,000 in boost to people who sell goods online View the full article

My Boox Palma is one of the most easily lovable pieces of tech I've ever used—an e-ink reader with a phone-like form factor that isn't locked down to one specific retailer's ecosystem. It has helped me read more and waste time on social media less, but as much as I appreciate it, it can also be weird and finicky. For example, why is it so tricky to use it to listen to audiobooks? Like most people, before I got the Palma, my phone was my main driver for audiobooks, music, and podcasts—it was always with me and the apps made it super convenient. But I'd find myself pausing my book every time a notification pinged in my headphones, so I decided to shift that "content" over to my e-reader as well. Then I hit a snag: Every time I closed the protective cover that came with the device, it would go to sleep—shutting off the screen and the front light, disconnecting my Bluetooth headphones, and pausing the audio. While the Palma looks like a phone and runs on Android, it doesn't always act like a phone. And while my iPhone never gave me any problems playing audio with the screen off, doing the same on the Palma (or any other Boox device) requires some tinkering. Three settings to changeWhile it would be nice if the Palma could play audio with the screen off right out of the box—as has been the case for every phone I've used since I got my first smartphone in 2010—you'll need to change a few settings to make it happen. Keep your audio apps active in the background Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham The first thing you'll need to do is adjust your settings to allow apps that play audio to continue running in the background. In the interest of preserving battery life, the Palma OS turns this setting off for every app you download from the Google Play store, but you can fix that in one of two ways. First, you can long press the icon of any app on the home screen. This will bring up a menu with a few different options. Tap Optimize. From the next pop-up menu, select the Others tab, then make sure the slider next to Stay active in the background is turned to On. "Unfreeze" your audio apps Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham Next, you'll need to stop the Palma's OS from "freezing" audio-playing apps running in the background. You can make this change globally, or on a per-app basis. Freezing apps improves battery life, so keep that in mind as you make your decision. To unfreeze a single app, open Settings and scroll down to Apps and Notifications. Tap Freeze Settings, find your audio-playing apps in the list of installed programs, and turn the slider to Off. To unfreeze all your apps, from this same menu, turn the Do not freeze apps running in the background (such as audio/input method) slider to On. You can also stop the Palma from automatically freezing newly downloaded apps by turning the slider next to Automatically enable freezing after installing an app to Off. Keep your headphones connected Credit: Screenshot by Joel Cunningham The last thing you'll need to do is keep the Palma from turning off Bluetooth and disconnecting your headphones after the device goes to sleep. To do that, open Settings and scroll to Power. On the next screen, tap Bluetooth Status After Sleep and select Stay Connected from the pop-up menu. (I'd also suggest turning on Always turn Bluetooth on when the device starts up from this menu, so you won't have to manually turn Bluetooth on every time you want to connect your headphones—though, again, that will affect your overall battery life. Now that that's taken care of, here are other settings you should consider changing on any Boox device. View the full article

A jury on Monday quickly and completely rejected a man’s claim that Disney’s Moana was stolen from his story of a young surfer in Hawaii. The Los Angeles federal jury deliberated for only about 2 ½ hours before deciding that the creators of Moana never had access to writer and animator Buck Woodall’s outlines and script for Bucky the Surfer Boy. With that question settled, the jury of six women and two men didn’t even have to consider the similarities between Bucky and Disney’s 2016 hit animated film about a questing Polynesian princess. Woodall had shared his work with a distant relative, who worked for a different company on the Disney lot, but the woman testified during the two-week trial that she never showed it to anyone at Disney. “Obviously we’re disappointed,” Woodall’s attorney Gustavo Lage said outside court. “We’re going to review our options and think about the best path forward.” In closing arguments earlier Monday, Woodall’s attorney said that a long chain of circumstantial evidence showed the two works were inseparable. “There was no Moana without Bucky,” Lage said. Defense lawyer Moez Kaba said that the evidence showed overwhelmingly that Moana was clearly the creation and “crowning achievement” of the 40-year career of John Musker and Ron Clements, the writers and directors behind 1989’s The Little Mermaid, 1992’s Aladdin, 1997’s Hercules, and 2009’s The Princess and the Frog. “They had no idea about Bucky,” Kaba said in his closing. “They had never seen it, never heard of it.” Moana earned nearly $700 million at the global box office. A judge previously ruled that Woodall’s 2020 lawsuit came too late for him to claim a piece of those receipts, and that a lawsuit he filed earlier this year over Moana 2—which earned more than $1 billion—must be decided separately. That suit remains active, though the jury’s decision does not bode well for it. Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, who is also overseeing the sequel lawsuit, said after the verdict that she agreed with the jurors’ decision about access. “We are incredibly proud of the collective work that went into the making of Moana and are pleased that the jury found it had nothing to do with Plaintiff’s works,” Disney said in a statement. Musker and Disney’s attorneys declined to comment outside the courtroom. The relatively young jury of six women and two men watched Moana in its entirety in the courtroom. They considered a story outline that Woodall created for Bucky in 2003, along with a 2008 update and a 2011 script. In the latter versions of the story, the title character, vacationing in Hawaii with his parents, befriends a group of Native Hawaiian youth and goes on a quest that includes time travel to the ancient islands and interactions with demigods to save a sacred site from a developer. Around 2004, Woodall gave the Bucky outline to the stepsister of his brother’s wife. That woman, Jenny Marchick, worked for Mandeville Films, a company that had a contract with Disney and was located on the Disney lot. He sent her follow-up materials through the years. He testified that he was stunned when he saw Moana in 2016 and saw so many of his ideas. Along with her testimony saying she didn’t show Bucky to anyone, messages shared by the defense showed she eventually ignored Woodall’s queries to her and had told him there was nothing she could do for him. Disney attorney Kaba argued there was no evidence Marchick ever worked on Moana or received any credit or compensation for it. Kaba pointed out that Marchick, now head of features development at DreamWorks Animation, worked for key Disney competitors Sony and Fox during much of the time she was allegedly making use of Woodall’s work for Disney. Woodall also submitted the script directly to Disney and had a meeting with an assistant at the Disney Channel, which Marchick arranged for him, to talk about working as an animator. But jurors agreed that this didn’t give them reason to believe that “Bucky” made its way to Musker, Clements or their collaborators. Lage, Woodall’s attorney, outlined some of the similarities of the two works in his closing. Both include teens on oceanic quests. Both have Polynesian demigods as central figures and shape-shifting characters who turn into, among other things, insects and sharks. In both, the main characters interact with animals who act as spirit helpers. Kaba said many of these elements, including Polynesian lore and basic “staples of literature,” are not copyrightable. Shape-shifting among supernatural characters, he said, appears throughout films including “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” and Hercules, which made Musker and Clements essential to the Disney renaissance of the 1990s and made Disney a global powerhouse. Animal guides go back to movies as early as 1940’s “Pinocchio” and appear in all of Musker and Clements’ previous films, he said. Kaba said Musker and Clements developed “Moana” the same way they did the other films, through their own inspiration, research, travel and creativity. The lawyer said thousands of pages of development documents showed every step of Musker and Clements’ creation, whose spark came from the paintings of Paul Gaugin and the writings of Herman Melville “You can see every single fingerprint,” Kaba said. “You can see the entire genetic makeup of ‘Moana.'” —Andrew Dalton, AP Entertainment Writer View the full article

Every once in a while, you come across a beautiful app that makes you smile whenever you use it. Tinker is one of those apps for me. It allows you to create beautiful analog clock widgets for your iPhone, and its attention to detail is remarkable. It has a few curated designs to get you started, but you can also bring in your own clock faces and customize every aspect of the widget. The best part—it works with StandBy mode. In addition to your calendar, the iPhone's StandBy mode lets you view photos, live activities, or a clock when the iPhone is charging in landscape mode, essentially turning it into a convincing substitute for a real alarm clock. Tinker adds far more options for the analog clock widget, and for me, the result is a lot nicer than the clock widgets Apple supplies. I quite like the design language of Tinker, too, which reminds me of the skeuomorphic designs that iOS had embraced until 2014, when iOS 7 moved in a different direction. Tinker's app icons mimic the gears in a watch, and the buttons have a neat brushed metal look. All of this will appeal to the kind of person who enjoys analog watches in this digital age. Once you start creating your own watch face in the app, you'll be able to customize four aspects of it—the background, the hour hand, the minute hand, and the center piece. While you're doing that, you'll notice another neat detail—the watch face accurately shows you the current time even while you're customizing the widget. Credit: Pranay Parab There are a few templates available to get you started, and the app directs you to a Discord server if you want even more assets. You're also free to download assets from the internet and add them on your own. This gives you a lot of customizability. Once you've found or created a watch face, you can easily add it as a widget on your iPhone's home screen. Press and hold an empty part of the home screen and tap the Edit button in the top-left corner. Select Add Widget and search for Tinker. You'll be able to select any of your saved watch faces and add it to the home screen. Similarly, once you're in StandBy mode, you can tap and hold the clock widget and replace it with one of Tinker's watch faces instead. The app is free for up to two watch faces, and has a one-time $4 unlock to remove that limit. I really don't know why Apple still stubbornly refuses to let you use your own watch faces on the Apple Watch, but if it ever decides to change its mind, Tinker is exactly the kind of app that I'd use to customize mine. I don't care too much about adding complications to my watch face, but I do care a lot about how the watch face looks. With Tinker, I've already found a few designs that I'd like to use on the Apple Watch over the included options. Here's hoping Apple caves and lets you use your own watch faces with Tinker some day. View the full article

US president says extra levies in response to Ontario’s decision to increase cost of power exports to USView the full article

Old 401(k)s are a little like the old clothes in the back of your closet. You know you should do something about them, but there they sit, mostly out of sight and mind. And so it is with your old 401(k). If deciding what to do with an old (k) plan has been on your to-do list for a while, here are the key steps you should take to get it done. Step 1: Check your account value. If your balance in your former employer’s 401(k) plan is over $7,000, you can leave the money behind in the old plan or roll the assets into an IRA or your new employer’s 401(k). But if your balance falls below that $7,000 threshold, some of the decision-making may be out of your hands. Step 2: Determine whether to stay within the 401(k) confines. Assuming your balance is over $7,000, your next task is to decide whether to roll the money into an IRA or keep it inside a 401(k). I often recommend rolling over the assets from a former 401(k) into a no-fee IRA with a top-notch mutual fund company or discount broker. But some people value the extra creditor protections that can accompany 401(k) assets versus IRA assets, while others may prize 401(k)-specific investment options. Step 3: Assess the quality of your 401(k) options. If you think you will be better off leaving your money inside a 401(k) rather than rolling it over to an IRA, the next job is to conduct some research on your own 401(k) options. Even if you do decide to stay with a 401(k), you may need to decide whether you’re better off staying put in your former employer’s plan or that of your new employer. Step 4: Find the right IRA provider. If a rollover to an IRA is the way to go, the next step is to identify the right brokerage firm or mutual fund company. Look for a firm that offers a breadth of high-quality investment options with no additional layers of fees for IRA investors. Target-date funds are an elegant, low-maintenance, and underutilized option. Step 5: Decide whether to convert your traditional 401(k) assets to Roth. If you decide to roll Roth 401(k) contributions to an IRA or your current employer’s 401(k), your new account will be Roth, too, meaning that you won’t owe tax on qualified withdrawals. If you have traditional 401(k) assets, a rollover is also a good time to consider whether to convert those assets to a Roth account at the same time. Step 6: Execute. If you’ve decided to roll over your assets to an IRA, fill out the paperwork or online form to open the IRA. You’ll then request a direct rollover from your 401(k) plan to the new IRA provider. The process may be a bit more cumbersome if you’re rolling over to your current employer’s 401(k). In both cases, make sure your 401(k) provider makes the check payable to the provider and sends it directly to them, rather than to you. If the check is made out to you, 20% of the balance will be withheld for income tax. You’ll then have 60 days to get that money deposited into an IRA or another 401(k); if that deadline comes and goes, the distribution will count as a withdrawal and you’ll owe ordinary income tax and a 10% early withdrawal penalty if you’re not 55 or older. Step 7: Determine what to invest in. If you’ve decided to roll over your assets from an old 401(k) to another 401(k) or IRA, you’ll also have to determine how you’ll allocate those assets. If all of your retirement assets were in your old 401(k), a sturdy target-date fund is a one-stop, low-maintenance choice that you can hold into retirement. If your old 401(k) is just one of several accounts geared toward retirement, a rollover can be an ideal time to check up on how all the pieces fit together—and where you have holes. This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance Christine Benz of Morningstar View the full article

When it comes to your important data, you should always have a backup. And then a backup of that backup. Cloud storage services shouldn't be your whole strategy here, but they can help with that. Sometimes, you just don't have enough physical space to store all the photos you've taken over your life, or all your ebooks and work documents. Plus, there is the convenience factor of syncing your files between all the devices that you use, so that a document you drafted up on your iPad can instantly show up on your Mac or your Windows PC. That said, picking a cloud storage service isn't as easy as it used to be. Now that so much of our cloud usage is tied to platforms and ecosystems, your cloud service will really depend on the devices you use. Google OneIf you're all in on the Android or Google ecosystem, Google One would be the best plan for you. With every Google account, you get 15GB storage for free that's distributed between services like Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Photos. But you can add more storage at just $.99 a month for 100GB and $2.99 for 200GB. With Google One, your Photos are backed up to Google automatically, you're able to upload and share large files on Google Drive, and you won't have to worry about running out of storage in Gmail. Google Drive's web app is solid, and there are desktop app options too. Plus, the per TB rates are quite competitive, and even cheaper than Microsoft's. The 2 TB Premium plan might be best for most users. It's $10 per month, or $100 per year, and supports family sharing (as do the cheaper plans). Plus, you get 10% back on purchases from the Google Store and Google Workspace Premium. If 2TB isn't enough, you can add additional storage all the way up to 30TB, though at a cost of up to $150/year. Microsoft 365Microsoft’s policy of stuffing every possible value-added service into a single plan is still going strong. This is why Microsoft 365 is so popular with businesses. A single plan provides you with access to the entire Office suite and Microsoft Teams for Enterprise, shared with multiple users. Every user gets 5GB OneDrive storage for free, and a Microsoft 365 subscription boosts that up to 1TB. Sadly, unlike with Google One, there are no plans in between these options. While 365's enterprise offerings are popular, the Microsoft 365 Family plan offers a similar package for individuals. This plan supports all the paid Office apps, Copilot AI, and 6TB of storage space, split across 6 accounts, making it a great deal for family users, or for splitting with your friends. It costs $12.99 per month, or $129.99 per year. If you don't want to use multiple accounts, the per TB value for a single account at $9.99/month doesn't make the most sense. In that case, it's better to look at alternatives. iDriveiDrive is a popular choice when it comes to data backups, or storing copies of whole drives on the cloud. But while it's not a pure storage solution, its file sharing and collaboration features make it competitive with the other choices on this list. The service provides a generous 10GB plan for free. A downside is there's no productivity suite built-in here, since individual files aren't really the focus with this service, but a benefit to the backup mindset is that iDrive does provide end-to-end encryption, although it needs to be enabled by the user. And if you forget your encryption key, you’ll lose access to all your files. Still, you can use iDrive to upload data from your computer, and you can share it with others. The 5TB plan will cost you $69.96 for the first year. There’s also a 10TB plan for $105 for the first year. Proton UnlimitedIf what you're looking for is security, and you don't need a lot of features, Proton might be for you. The Proton Unlimited plan gives you access to Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Docs, and gives you 500GB of storage space for either $12.99 per month or $120 per year. The 1TB Proton Duo plan will cost you $15 per month instead. When it comes to free storage, Proton only offers 1GB space for free users. That's more expensive than established cloud syncing services, but what Proton offers you is extra peace of mind. You get encrypted storage, and no one, including Proton, has access to your files. Plus, the company is based in Switzerland, so strict Swiss privacy rules and laws apply here. SyncSync offers a dependable cloud storage alternative to the big companies. It keeps things extremely simple. It's just about storing and syncing files between devices and between different platforms. There are on add-ons, no mail accounts, no document apps, nothing. Like the good-old days of Dropbox. The free plan gives you 5GB space, and you get 2TB storage for $96/year, which is around the same price as iCloud+ or Google Drive. Here, you get client-side encryption, so Sync can't access your data. Sync offers simple and lightweight apps for Mac and Windows and there are mobile clients, too. Anything you transfer to the Sync folder on your device will show up in your Sync account instantly. There are no file limits here, too. Now that Dropbox has become so bloated (more on that later), Sync offers a simpler alternative that is easy to use. pCloudpCloud is another secure cloud backup provider that has two things going for it. The first is that it offers 10GB of storage space for free—this is way more than most of its competitors. Second is that it offers lifetime cloud storage for a one-time fee. This is a good choice for users who don’t like paying a monthly fee. At time of writing, you can get 500GB space for $199 and 2TB storage space for $399. pCloud also has annual plans, but at $99 per year for 2TB storage space, it’s not something I would recommend (you can get a Google One or iCloud+ plans for the same rate). iCloud+iCloud+ is designed for users in the Apple ecosystem, which is where it makes the most sense. iCloud+ is useful not just as a storage service, but it's where users' settings and device data are backed up, too. If you're all-in on the Apple ecosystem, it might make sense to use iCloud+ as your default cloud storage provider, as it makes it easy to sync photos, videos, and documents from your Mac. iCloud+ is another service that focuses highly on privacy, offering end-to-end encryption. A free iCloud account gets you 5GB storage, and Cloud+ offers flexible plans, too, starting at $0.99 for 50GB storage. The 2TB plan for $9.99 per month or $99 per year might be the sweet spot for most users, as it comes with family sharing (the 200GB plan can be shared with family as well). Though, I wouldn't recommend iCloud+ if you're even slightly cross-platform, or you want to frequently access files from the web browser, as the Windows app and the iCloud+ website are not great, especially when compared to the rivals on this list. Why I don't recommend DropboxOne name that's missing from this list is Dropbox. In the previous decade, Dropbox became the go-to option for simple, cross-platform storage that didn't cost a king's ransom, or even anything at all. Now, a free Dropbox account can only run on three devices, is limited to 2GB data, and has lower transfer speeds compared to their paid plans. The app has also pivoted to being more business focused, with lots of support for third-party integration. Its storage plans are no longer the cheapest or the most varied. The 2TB plan costs $11.99/month while both iCloud and Google One are cheaper. The simple-to-use aspect is gone as well. The Mac app, for example, has faced so many issues with reliability that we recommend you use a third-party app instead. Combine all these issues, and it no longer makes sense to use Dropbox in a personal capacity. View the full article

Back in January, State Farm announced that it was canceling its plans to run a Super Bowl commercial due to the impact of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. “Our focus is firmly on providing support to the people of Los Angeles,” the company said in a statement at the time. But now the company is taking its Super Bowl work and bringing it to another pillar of its advertising calendar, March Madness. The spot stars Jason Bateman as . . . Bateman, a less-than-adequate substitute for Batman. Created by agency HighDive, the spot also has Grammy-winning artist SZA, popular streamer Kai Cenat, and content creator Jordan Howlett (aka Jordan the Stallion). Last week, Cenat made an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to tease the spot. State Farm CMO Kristyn Cook says March Madness is a huge part of the culture, and a perfect time to use humor to get an important point across. “I think today, more than ever, it may seem like insurance companies are all the same, but when it comes to coverage, having insurance is not the same as having State Farm,” says Cook. Over the past few years, State Farm has dominated headlines for dropping insurance policies in the areas hit hardest by the fires, due to the risk of extreme weather. It wasn’t the only insurance company to do so, but State Farm was hit hardest by the backlash. Now, the brand is putting on a full-court press as a strong sports marketer to counter the criticism. “Our consistent investment in sports is all about aligning [with] our business strategy, and that’s about how we reach large, engaged audiences,” says Cook. “We want to create that emotional connection with fans. And so you see us doing that, whether it’s in our sponsorships or the creative that we deliver.” Cook says that it’s important for the brand to ask people to really compare its record and services to other options. “Our category is very competitive,” says Cook. “It’s important for us to highlight the difference, and the timing couldn’t be better from a business standpoint. If it feels bold, it was meant to be. Because we feel it was important for people to understand the core message of the campaign.” View the full article

Google has made it much easier to find the answers we seek without navigating to various websites, but that has made it much harder to do business for media companies and other creators. And this new era of artificial intelligence-powered search will reshape the future of the internet, according to Matthew Prince, cofounder and CEO of Cloudflare. Cloudflare has a unique vantage point because it counts content creators and artificial intelligence companies among the more than 20% of the internet that sits behind its network. Driven by a mission to build a better internet, the San Francisco-based company is invested in finding a solution that works for all players involved. “The search-driven business model of the internet isn’t going to be the business model of the internet going forward,” Prince said Sunday during a discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “And to the extent that we can help figure that business model out, I think it is existential for us as a business, but it’s actually existential for the internet itself to figure out a new business model.” After ChatGPT was released to the public in late 2022, Prince recalled how publishers and content creators began to increasingly identify AI companies as their biggest villain. And because the current dynamic of AI systems crawling these websites for information doesn’t provide any incentive for original content creators to churn out new content, that’s a problem for everyone—including Cloudflare. “If people aren’t creating original content, that’s the gasoline that fuels these engines, so you need to have that original content,” Prince said. Prince proposed a three-step possible solution. First, it’s important to create scarcity so creators don’t give away content for free; then if creators have the tools to identify when AI systems are crawling their websites, they’ll have control over which of those systems can access this information; and finally, the process should be monetized with a rate card in which content creators dictate how much it costs to crawl their pages. Evolution of a ‘better internet’ That Cloudflare is now thinking about the information ecosystem online is indicative of how much the internet has evolved since the company’s founding in 2009. Even the name was a nod to the major internet issues of that time: creating a firewall in the cloud. Whereas an encrypted internet was once the table stakes, Prince said, the standard has now become post-quantum resistant encryption. And looking ahead, Cloudflare’s mission to help build a better internet could mean protecting customers against Chinese hackers or making sure they’re fairly compensated for the content they create, he added. And he has an even more ambitious goal to make sure that information online continues to be available to all who need it. “My utopian vision of the future is that we get to a place where humans get content for free and bots have to pay a lot for it,” Prince said. “I can afford to sign up for a bunch of paywalls, but I really do worry about the kid in Rwanda who’s brilliant, but today has much less access even though there’s just as much information out there.” View the full article

Treasuries surged and investors boosted their bets on Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts Monday as fear of a economic slowdown took hold across US markets. View the full article

Organizations talk about wanting innovation, but most aren’t willing to create the right conditions for it. We celebrate disruptors, bold thinkers, and game-changing ideas—but the way most organizations actually run makes creativity nearly impossible. Leaders ask, “How do we encourage creativity?” But the real question is: “How do we keep it alive in a world that values efficiency over exploration?” Efficiency kills creativity, but not how you think Most discussions around creativity killers focus on rigid hierarchies, tight deadlines, and risk-averse cultures. While these are barriers, the deeper, more insidious problem is the cult of efficiency. Organizations optimize for productivity, predictability, and speed—often at the expense of curiosity and imagination. Creativity, by its very nature, is inefficient. It requires space for ambiguity, exploration, and even failure. Yet, in many workplaces, the pressure to deliver immediate results leaves no room for the wandering that leads to breakthrough ideas. I have seen this firsthand in my work as a leadership advisor. In my early career in finance and strategy, I was conditioned to optimize every process for efficiency. However, I also saw that some of the most groundbreaking solutions came not from speed but from leaders and teams who embraced deep exploration. When I transitioned to coaching executives, I noticed a pattern: Those who created intentional space for creative thinking—whether through unstructured brainstorming, cross-disciplinary conversations, or reflection—were the ones who consistently led innovation. Yet, too often, creativity was treated as an afterthought, which happened only in scheduled “innovation sessions” rather than an ongoing practice. Toyota revolutionized manufacturing with Lean principles, but their greatest innovation—the hybrid car—wasn’t the result of efficiency. It was born from experimentation and long-term thinking. Similarly, Steve Jobs’s most groundbreaking ideas didn’t emerge from staring at spreadsheets but from deep, unstructured contemplation—something many leaders today would dismiss as unproductive. The paradox is clear: efficiency is necessary for execution, but it is the enemy of exploration. When efficiency becomes the dominant priority, creativity suffocates. Creativity thrives under purposeful inefficiency To sustain creativity, leaders must resist the impulse to manage it like a process and instead design for it like an ecosystem. Creativity flourishes in environments where friction exists—not in the form of bureaucratic red tape but in the form of intellectual collisions, differing perspectives, and permission to explore the unknown. This is what I call deliberate inefficiency—an approach where slowing down actually accelerates long-term innovation. Organizations that optimize solely for speed often end up producing predictable, incremental solutions rather than true breakthroughs. Throughout my career, I have worked with executives who struggled to break out of the cycle of busyness. One executive I coached, a brilliant strategist at a global biotech company, was feeling stagnant. His days were packed with back-to-back meetings, leaving no time for the deep thinking required for innovation. We worked together to redesign his schedule, blocking time for curiosity-driven exploration and structured white space for creative thinking. Within months, his team started generating novel ideas that reshaped their approach to R&D. What changed wasn’t their ability to be creative—it was their permission to be creative. The leaders who truly champion creativity do not see themselves as managers of ideas but as orchestrators of creative conditions. They assume three essential roles: the Curator, the Gardener, and the Alchemist. The Curator gathers diverse perspectives and fosters creative collisions, much like Pixar’s Braintrust, where raw, unpolished ideas are challenged in an environment of candid yet constructive feedback. The Gardener protects ideas when they are still fragile, allowing them to take root before they are subjected to scrutiny. Great ideas are often killed too early simply because they don’t look fully formed. The Alchemist combines seemingly unrelated elements to create unexpected breakthroughs—think of how Apple blended technology and design to reinvent entire industries. When leaders embrace these roles, they shift from controlling output to facilitating creative breakthroughs. How to design for creativity Creativity can’t be sustained through one-off initiatives like brainstorming sessions or innovation sprints. The most creative organizations embed creativity into their structural DNA. They don’t wait for inspiration to strike; they engineer the conditions where it can thrive consistently. I have helped organizations shift from ad-hoc creative efforts to more structured creativity ecosystems. One company I worked with struggled with stagnation because they relied too much on periodic brainstorming sessions. We introduced mechanisms that embedded creativity into their daily workflows—things like interdisciplinary collaboration spaces, regular storytelling forums where employees could share unconventional ideas, and scheduled “curiosity breaks” where teams could step away from execution to reflect and explore. The impact was profound: teams started developing ideas that had been dormant for years, and the organization saw a measurable increase in both engagement and breakthrough thinking. The best creative cultures recognize that innovation isn’t about having more ideas; it’s about creating the right conditions for meaningful ideas to emerge. This requires shifting from a culture of efficiency-driven execution to one that prioritizes exploration. It means rewarding curiosity, not just execution—encouraging questions, not just answers. It means fostering a culture where failure is viewed as a necessary part of the learning process, not a career-ending mistake. And it requires carving out white space for deep work and reflection, because creativity does not happen in relentless busyness—it happens in the pauses between intense periods of focus. The leaders who will thrive in the future won’t just be efficiency experts—they’ll be the ones who know how to protect and nurture creativity. They will recognize that innovation isn’t about simply having more ideas but about fostering the right conditions for meaningful ideas to emerge. This means prioritizing exploration as much as execution, rewarding curiosity as much as results, and carving out space for deep thinking amid the daily grind. The most innovative organizations won’t wait for creativity to strike; they’ll build the ecosystems that allow it to flourish. View the full article

Saving your passwords in your browser—like Chrome or Firefox—provides an easy way to access logins when you need them on websites, and having a safe place to keep strong, unique passwords is better than, well, not. However, browser password managers aren't necessarily the most secure nor the most convenient for filling password or payment fields in apps, nor do they come with features included with third-party password management tools, like encrypted storage or dark web monitoring. If you're transitioning away from your browser's password manager or simply want to remove credentials you no longer use, here's how to delete saved passwords in the most popular browsers. How to delete saved passwords from ChromeChrome allows you to remove saved passwords one by one or mass delete all data stored in Google Password Manager. To delete individual logins, open your settings via the three vertical dots in the upper right corner of the browser window. Select Passwords and Autofill > Google Password Manager. (You can also go through Chrome > Settings > Autofill and passwords > Google Password Manager.) Click the arrow on the credential you want to remove to open the record and select the Delete button. To delete everything at once, select Settings from the Google Password Manager left-hand menu and hit the Delete data button next to Delete all Google Password Manager data followed by Delete on the pop-up message to confirm. (This feature was recently identified by Android Authority as coming soon but seemed to be available already at the time of writing.) Chrome on mobile doesn't have a mass delete button yet, but you can remove individual passwords or select multiple passwords at once. In the Chrome app, hit the three horizontal dots in the bottom nav bar and open Password Manager. Click Edit to select the passwords you want to remove, and click Delete. To turn off password saving, toggle off Offer to save passwords and passkeys in your Google Password Manager settings. How to delete saved passwords from FirefoxTo manage and delete saved passwords on Firefox, tap the three vertical lines to open the menu panel and click Passwords. Select an entry and click Remove to delete it, or click the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner and click Remove All Passwords. On mobile, you can individually delete within the login record or select multiple credentials to delete at once by tapping Edit on the main password list. To disable password saving and management in Firefox, go to Firefox > Preferences/Settings > Privacy & Security and go to the Passwords section. Uncheck Ask to save passwords (or Save Passwords toggle on mobile). How to delete saved passwords from SafariThe process for removing saved passwords from Safari will depend on whether you have macOS Sequoia with the new Apple Passwords app. If you do, passwords can be deleted in the app by selecting the login and going to Edit > Delete either in the record or from the main menu bar. Or select all using Command + click and drag and drop to the Deleted folder. You can view deleted items for 30 days before they are permanently removed. In the mobile app, you can select one or more passwords and hit Delete. Note that Passwords now functions more like a third-party password manager than other browsers. Otherwise, for macOS Sonoma and earlier, go to Safari > Settings > Passwords, sign in with your password or Touch ID, select the website you want to delete the password for, and click Delete Password or Delete Passkey. You can also turn off password saving in the Passwords app under Passwords > Settings > Save passwords. Select Do Not Ask When Signing In from the drop-down menu. How to delete saved passwords from EdgeTo delete saved passwords in Microsoft Edge, go to Settings and more > Settings > Privacy, search, and services. Under Clear browsing data, tap Choose what to clear > Passwords > Clear now. If you want to turn password saving off, instead of selecting Privacy, search, and services, go to Profiles > Passwords > Settings and toggle off Offer to save passwords. How to delete saved passwords from OperaOpera allows you to delete saved passwords individually or in bulk. Open Settings, tap Advanced in the left navigation bar, and click Privacy & Security. To remove all passwords, click Clear browsing data > Advanced, select the Passwords and other sign-in data box, and click Clear data. To delete passwords one by one instead, go to Autofill > Passwords, click the three-dot menu, and hit Remove. To turn off password saving, toggle Offer to save passwords off at the top of this same screen. View the full article

With views of current finances among the poorest Americans already near the lowest in 14 years, tariffs are set to add more pressure by making many everyday items even pricier. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. At $144.95, down from a steep $349.99, the Sony SRS-XG300 is at its lowest price ever, according to price-trackers. That’s a massive drop for a speaker that bagged PCMag’s Best Speaker of the Year 2022 and its Editor’s Choice award. Plus, free shipping is included for everyone, and if you're a Prime member, it’ll be at your doorstep in a day. Sony packed this one with plenty of features, starting with its IP67 rating, which makes it fully waterproof and dust-proof. Poolside splashes, a bit of dust at the beach, or just a rowdy party setup—this outdoor speaker is equipped to handle it all. It also has a built-in USB-A port that lets you charge your phone in a pinch and an aux input (so you're not stuck with just Bluetooth). It's claimed to have 25 hours of battery life, but like all speakers, that depends on how loud you go. Sony SRS-XG300 $144.95 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $349.99 Save $205.04 Get Deal Get Deal $144.95 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $349.99 Save $205.04 When it comes to sound, you get two front-facing woofers and tweeters that push out a frequency range of 20Hz to 20KHz, with passive radiators (with LEDs around them for a little extra flair), adding a deep low end. If you want to dial up the thump even more, a Mega Bass button lets you do just that without distorting, even at higher volumes. However, while the highs stay crisp, the mids reportedly take a bit of a backseat (something to consider if you’re into detailed vocal clarity). Its Bluetooth 5.2 support keeps the connection stable, and with support for AAC, LDAC, and SBC codecs, streaming quality is solid. Android users also get Google Fast Pair for quick setup, but there’s no AptX support, which might be a letdown for those looking for top-tier wireless audio. On the plus side, if you have other Sony speakers, you can sync them for a multi-speaker setup via the app. Speaking of apps, the SRS-XG300's companion app gives you a bit of EQ control, though it’s pretty basic, and you can't save custom presets (but at least it remembers your settings), notes this PCMag review. If you're considering alternatives, you might want to check out the JBL Charge 5 ($119.95, down from $179.95). View the full article

Trend driven by rents rising faster than house prices as landlords leave the marketView the full article

Japanese automaker Nissan’s chief executive, Makoto Uchida, is stepping down after the company reported dismal financial results. Nissan Motor Corp. said in a statement Tuesday that Ivan Espinosa, who is now the company’s chief planning officer, will take Uchida’s place, effective April 1. Espinosa, who joined Nissan in 2003, has spent much of his Nissan career in Mexico and Southeast Asia, overseeing product planning including the drive toward electric vehicles. “I sincerely believe that Nissan has so much more potential than what we’re seeing today,” Espinosa told reporters, while stressing that he needs time to come up with details for a turnaround. He stressed his love for Nissan, noting he has developed a deep understanding of what makes the company unique and valuable. Nissan said the company leadership needed to be “renewed” to achieve long-term growth. Uchida, who remains as a director, expressed confidence in Espinosa as “a real car guy,” and stressed he was handing over the baton of leadership to better unify company ranks. “I am confident that Nissan will definitely make a comeback,” he said, appearing at the hastily called news conference with Espinosa. Speculation about Uchida’s future was rife after he called off talks last month with Japanese rival Honda Motor Co., announced late last year, to set up a joint holding company to integrate its businesses. At the time, he told reporters the focus of the talks had changed to making Nissan into a Honda subsidiary, which he denounced as unacceptable. He also said their strategic partnership to realize synergies on specific projects like electric vehicles and other research will continue. Nissan is projecting a loss of 80 billion yen ($540 million) for the full fiscal year through the end of this month. When asked about talks with Honda and other possible partnerships, Espinosa declined comment, saying he needed more time. During Uchida’s more than five years at Nissan’s helm, sales faltered, including in key markets like the U.S. and China. Uchida also earlier announced the company was slashing 9,000 jobs. It’s a sad turn for the maker of the Z sportscar, loved by auto buffs around the world, and the Leaf electric car, a pioneer in that sector that launched in 2010. Uchida joined Nissan in 2003, job-hopping from major Japanese trading company Nissho Iwai, and worked with Nissan’s alliance partner Renault SA of France before overseeing Nissan’s China operations. Nissan was rescued from near bankruptcy by Renault in 1999. In 2018, Carlos Ghosn, the former superstar executive sent in by Renault, was arrested by Japanese authorities on various financial misconduct charges, including under-reporting his compensation. He later fled Japan for Lebanon. Nissan’s tarnished corporate image after the Ghosn fiasco was a major challenge, Nishida said. So were the COVID-19 pandemic and broader shifts in the auto industry. Apart from Uchida’s departure as chief executive, Nissan announced other sweeping managerial changes, including giving an expanded role to Guillaume Cartier, its chief performance officer, in global marketing and customer experience. Eiichi Akashi, corporate vice president of the Vehicle Planning and Vehicle Component Engineering Division, was named chief technology officer, succeeding Kunio Nakaguro. Teiji Hirata, a corporate vice president, will become chief “monozukuri” officer and executive officer, responsible for manufacturing and supply chain management, replacing Hideyuki Sakamoto. Jeremy Papin, the chief financial officer, was also appointed to be an executive officer. There was no change for Stephen Ma, who serves as chairperson of Nissan’s management committee in China. Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyama —Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer View the full article

Arena is expected to cost at least £2bn and be the ‘centrepiece’ of a major regeneration projectView the full article

The Coalition for Financial Ecosystem Standards, a fintech group co-founded by Sima Gandhi, is publishing guidelines for how banks and others can assess them. View the full article

Installing a bunch of applications at once on Windows can be annoying. You need to find the installer packages, download them, then run them all, one after another. It requires spending a bunch of time clicking though menus and checking boxes. But you don't have to live this way. Linux users have long used package managers to accomplish this with far greater ease—as have some Mac users. Using a package manager, you can type a single command to install as many different applications as you want. And, it turns out, Windows comes with a package manager. It's called Winget. You can try it right now—just open PowerShell, which you can find in the start menu or by right-clicking the Windows logo and clicking "Terminal." Type winget search followed by the application you want to install. In most cases, you should be delivered a list of options. Credit: Justin Pot In the above example I wanted to install Steam, so I ran the command winget search steam. I got a long list of results, mostly because there are a bunch of applications that include the word "steam." The second column, labeled ID, tells me the exact name I need in order to install the package in question. After finding the application I want, I can install it with a command. In this case, I type winget install Valve.Steam and hit enter, and Winget will take it from there. Credit: Justin Pot After I type that command, Winget downloads Steam and automatically runs the installer for me. Note that if you're not using an administrator PowerShell, you will be prompted by to give installation permissions. You can launch PowerShell as an administrator by right-clicking the Windows logo on the taskbar and clicking "Terminal (Admin)". Alternatively, you can use sudo for Windows. That caveat aside, you can use these commands to install any of almost 8,000 applications. And it gets even better, because you're not limited to installing one application at a time—your command can include as many apps as you want, and winget will install them all. Credit: Justin Pot Bulk install a bunch of programs with hep from winstall.appYou could look up the ID name for every application you want to install as described above, but there's a website that makes the process a lot easier for you—winstall.app. It's basically a directory for Winget that allows you to select as many applications as you want and copy a single command you can use to install them all in one go. Credit: Justin Pot Winget can also run updates, delete programs, and moreWinget can do more than just install applications. You can also use it to update all of the software you've installed using it. First, type winget update to see a list of all the applications that need updates. Next, type winget update --all to install all the listed updates. You can also remove applications using Winget too: type winget remove followed by the package name of the application you want to remove—for example, winget remove Valve.Steam. There's a bit more Winget can do, including downloading installers without running them (winget download) and exporting your current list of packages so you can reuse it on another devices (winget export). Learn more by checking out the official Winget documentation from Microsoft. View the full article