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Multifamily debt held by all capital sources continues to grow at a faster pace than the overall commercial market, the Mortgage Bankers Association said. View the full article

Calling the groups in charge of professional tennis “a cartel,” the players’ association co-founded by Novak Djokovic filed an antitrust lawsuit against the women’s and men’s tours, the International Tennis Federation and the sport’s integrity agency on Tuesday in federal court in New York. The suit by the Professional Tennis Players’ Association says the organizations that run the sport hold “complete control over the players’ pay and working conditions” and their setup constitutes “textbook violations of state and federal law” that “immunize professional tennis from ordinary market forces and deny professional tennis players and other industry participants their right to fair competition.” The lawsuit seeks a jury trial and wants players to gain access to more earnings, arguing that the governing bodies that oversee the four Grand Slam tournaments — Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, the French Open and the Australian Open — and other professional events “cap the prize money tournaments award and limit players’ ability to earn money off the court.” The WTA Tour and ATP Tour issued separate statements Tuesday saying they would “vigorously” defend themselves. The WTA said it has “committed to a $400 million increase in player compensation” in recent years and labeled the PTPA action a “baseless legal case” that is “regrettable and misguided.” The ATP touted a “major increase in player compensation” that created a jump of “$70 million in the past five years,” and called the PTPA’s case “entirely without merit.” “The PTPA has consistently chosen division and distraction through misinformation over progress,” the ATP’s statement said. “Five years on from its inception in 2020, the PTPA has struggled to establish a meaningful role in tennis, making its decision to pursue legal action at this juncture unsurprising.” The ITF and the International Tennis Integrity Agency — which investigates and adjudicates doping and corruption cases — declined to comment. The PTPA was founded by 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic and Vasek Pospisil in August 2020, aiming to offer representation for players who are independent contractors in a largely individual sport. One of the goals made clear along the way was to become a sort of full-fledged union that negotiates collective bargaining agreements like those that exist in team sports. “For the past few years, the PTPA, an organization I’ve worked on tirelessly since its inception, has made countless efforts to collaborate with the tours in hopes of achieving positive change for players. Despite these efforts and attempts to engage in constructive dialogue, we were met with resistance and a lack of meaningful action. It is because of this ongoing disregard for players that we were left with no alternative but to take action of our own,” Pospisil posted on social media. “For too long, players have been forced to accept a broken system that ignores our well-being, undervalues our contributions, and leaves us without real representation.” Djokovic is not one of the players listed as a plaintiff. “His support for this is already explicit. It’s redundant since PTPA (is) named as plaintiff, and he is on (the executive committee),” PTPA spokesman David Cooper wrote in an email. “He wanted to allow others to step up since this is not just Novak’s (organization).” The PTPA said it met with more than 250 players — women and men, and a majority of the top 20 in the WTA and ATP rankings — before going to court. “Tennis is broken,” PTPA executive director Ahmad Nassar said in a news release. “Behind the glamorous veneer that the defendants promote, players are trapped in an unfair system that exploits their talent, suppresses their earnings, and jeopardizes their health and safety. We have exhausted all options for reform through dialogue, and the governing bodies have left us no choice but to seek accountability through the courts. Fixing these systemic failures isn’t about disrupting tennis — it’s about saving it for the generations of players and fans to come.” —Howard Fendrich, AP tennis writer 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. Beats headphones have been a great alternative for Apple users ever since Apple acquired Beats back in 2014, but even if you're an Android user, the Beats' Studio Buds+ offer some good benefits, they are currently at a great price for earbuds with active noise cancellation (ANC): They are currently $99.95 (down from $169.95) on Amazon—their lowest price ever, according to price tracking tools. Beats Studio Buds + Color: Transparent, Ear Placement: In Ear, Noise Control: Active Noise Cancellation, Sound Isolation $169.95 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $169.95 at Amazon The Beats Studio Buds + are similar to the typically cheaper Beats Studio Buds (which are actually the same price right now), but the Studio Buds+ offer an extra hour of battery life (total of nine hours), 12 more hours from the charging case (total of 36 hours), and, more importantly, better ANC, better microphone quality for calls, and better features for Android users—that's all according to PCMag's "excellent" review. These earbuds with with Google Fast Pair, which seamlessly pairs the Beats Studio Buds+ to your phone (or any Chrome device linked to your Google account). Android users can also download the Beats app to customize tap functions on the earbuds, set ANC mode controls, enable a location-based function for finding a lost pair, and receive firmware updates. The Studio Buds+ microphones are good at isolating your voice and blocking out environmental noise, and the ANC is among the best you can find in the sub-$100 price range. The IPX4 water-resistance rating make these great gym earbuds too. If you're looking for a solid pair of earbuds with a great fit, incredible ANC for its price, crisp call quality, and a companion app for under $100, the Studio Buds + are your best option right now. View the full article

I've tried all kinds of time-tracking apps over the years and they can be helpful, but it's easy to get bogged down in the numbers. Sometimes all you need is a little self-awareness about how long you've been on the computer, either all day or during the current session, without the burden of long-term metrics. Pandan is a totally free Mac app from indie app developer Sindre Sorhus that that does exactly that. The application mostly lives in the menu bar, telling you how long your current computing session has been. You can click the menu bar icon to see how long the previous session was and how long you've been on your computer today. Credit: Justin Pot You can also dig into the history, if you want—the applications goes back 180 days. But history isn't the point of this application, which is very much not a time-tracking app—Sorhus recommends looking into Screen Time if you want to track longterm trends. Pandan is instead about gently reminding you how long you've been on the computer so you can be aware of that. The settings let you set up an optional reminder when you've been on your computer for a particular amount of time. These can take the form of a macOS notification, a pop-up near the menu bar icon, or a HUD in the middle of the screen as seen at the top of this article. The idea is to remind yourself to get up or do some stretches. You can even trigger an Apple Shortcut if you want, which means you can set up your computer to do all sorts of things when it's time for a break. I can't exactly explain everything Apple Shortcuts can do—it's a powerful tool—but know that this means you could do things like load particular applications or play a custom sound when you've been on your computer for a certain amount of time. And Pandan can also be triggered using Apple Shortcuts, meaning you could use it as part of productivity automations you've already set up. That's all power user stuff, though. For most people this application doesn't need to do anything other than the basics, and that's telling you—at a glance—how long you've been at your computer. It's very good at that, and completely free, all from a developer with a great reputation. Check it out if you're interested. View the full article

The European Union’s law enforcement agency cautioned Tuesday that artificial intelligence is turbocharging organized crime that is eroding the foundations of societies across the 27-nation bloc as it becomes intertwined with state-sponsored destabilization campaigns. The grim warning came at the launch of the latest edition of a report on organized crime published every four years by Europol that is compiled using data from police across the EU and will help shape law enforcement policy in the bloc in coming years. “Cybercrime is evolving into a digital arms race targeting governments, businesses and individuals. AI-driven attacks are becoming more precise and devastating,” said Europol’s Executive Director Catherine De Bolle. “Some attacks show a combination of motives of profit and destabilization, as they are increasingly state-aligned and ideologically motivated,” she added. The report, the EU Serious and Organized Crime Threat Assessment 2025, said offenses ranging from drug trafficking to people smuggling, money laundering, cyber attacks and online scams undermine society and the rule of law “by generating illicit proceeds, spreading violence, and normalizing corruption.” The volume of child sexual abuse material available online has increased significantly because of AI, which makes it more difficult to analyze imagery and identify offenders, the report said. “By creating highly realistic synthetic media, criminals are able to deceive victims, impersonate individuals and discredit or blackmail targets. The addition of AI-powered voice cloning and live video deepfakes amplifies the threat, enabling new forms of fraud, extortion, and identity theft,” it said. States seeking geopolitical advantage are also using criminals as contractors, the report said, citing cyber-attacks against critical infrastructure and public institutions “originating from Russia and countries in its sphere of influence.” “Hybrid and traditional cybercrime actors will increasingly be intertwined, with state-sponsored actors masking themselves as cybercriminals to conceal their origin and real disruption motives,” it said. Polish Interior Ministry Undersecretary of State Maciej Duszczyk cited a recent cyberattack on a hospital as the latest example in his country. “Unfortunately this hospital has to stop its activity for the hours because it was lost to a serious cyber-attack,” boosted by AI, he said. AI and other technologies “are a catalyst for crime, and drive criminal operations’ efficiency by amplifying their speed, reach, and sophistication,” the report said. As the European Commission prepares to launch a new internal security policy, De Bolle said that nations in Europe need to tackle the threats urgently. “We must embed security into everything we do,” said European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner. He added that the EU aims to provide enough funds in coming years to double Europol’s staff. —Mike Corder, Associated Press View the full article

If you wanted to play some tunes on your iPhone this afternoon, but found nothing would play, it's not just you: As of Tuesday afternoon ET, Apple Music is down. Apple's System Status website currently confirms Apple Music's downtime. As of this piece, the site shows the following status for Apple Music: Apple Music - Outage Today, 2:26 PM - ongoing Some users are affected Users may be experiencing intermittent issues with this service. All other Apple services, including the App Store, FaceTime, iMessage, and all iCloud services, are currently online. I first saw the news thanks to 9to5Mac's Chance Miller. Both Miller and I are personally not experiencing any issues with Apple Music. In fact, as I write this piece, I'm streaming the same Lo-Fi Breeze playlist I've been playing all afternoon. I've tested it on both my iPhone and my Mac, making sure to stream music and not to play downloaded tracks, and I've encountered zero issues. The service has definitely worked for me since 2:26 p.m., so it's not clear how widespread this Apple Music outage actually is. But if you are having trouble getting Apple Music to work this afternoon, know you aren't alone, and that it likely isn't something on your end. Apple will likely have a fix out as soon as possible for whatever is causing the outage; so, in the meantime, sit tight, and play some music on YouTube. View the full article

It’s never been a more complicated time to be a marketer, but connecting with consumers in a meaningful way is as important as ever. For brands like Liquid Death, GoDaddy, and Taco Bell, that sometimes means embracing another product or experience entirely—think: an adult diaper for concerts, celebrity-created goggle glasses, or a live experience for taco fans. Of course, not every risk pays off. But when a weird idea works, it can really work, as marketers from the three brands shared during a panel discussion at the Fast Company Grill at SXSW. “The power of an idea that can transcend channels and reach and connect with consumers is really important,” said Taylor Montgomery, chief marketing officer in North America at Taco Bell. When Taco Bell dreamed up its first Live Mas Live event in 2024, Taylor recalled how the team didn’t know if anyone would watch or like an event modeled after the Apple tech launches—but for tacos. Live Mas Live was just cool and weird enough to work, however, so Taco Bell held its second such event earlier this month in Brooklyn, ensuring a vast majority of invitees were diehard fans, he added. “It is a way to invite consumers in to have a relationship with the brand and for us to be just really real and raw and vulnerable and authentic,” Montgomery told the audience. “We try to stay really anchored on what’s in it for the fans.” The comedic connection Comedy can be a good entry for finding a new audience and converting them to fans. Liquid Death has done several collaborations with not-obvious collaborating brands, and even launched items that have very little direct relevance to the brand’s lineup of beverages. Late last year, Liquid Death collaborated with Depend on a limited-edition, metal-inspired $75 “Pit Diaper” so that music fans wouldn’t have to brave the bathrooms at a concert—and it sold out within hours, said Dan Murphy, senior vice president of marketing. It’s also found success with past collaborations on new products with brands like Yeti, E.l.f. Beauty, and Van Leeuwen Ice Cream. The goal, Murphy said, is to combine Liquid Death with an unexpected brand to reach a new audience and have fun. Often, the result is a parody of marketing or humorous content that “doesn’t smell like an ad” and creates engagement with consumers and the media, he added. “The metrics you should look for are saves and shares,” Murphy said. “If somebody’s going to go back and watch that again, if somebody’s sharing that with a friend, there’s that viral coefficient that is telling you you’re doing it right.” Revising the playbook GoDaddy took a similar approach with a Super Bowl ad this year that followed actor Walton Goggins using the company’s artificial intelligence-powered tools to launch a small business: Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses. As with Liquid Death’s diaper, consumers can actually buy the sunglasses and the ad marked the company’s return to the biggest advertising day of the year after an eight-year hiatus. “Our take was if we’re going to show back up at the Super Bowl, we’ve got to do something wacky and weird enough that people get pulled into the story, but the story has to be true, has to be authentic, and ultimately it’s got to be about the evolution of the products that we’re selling,” said Fara Howard, chief marketing officer at GoDaddy. For people who may recall the controversy-laden ads that made GoDaddy a household name in the first place, this year’s ad illustrated the transformation journey the brand has been undergoing for several years. “Being bold, taking risks has been what put us on the map to begin with,” Howard said. “Using that playbook, but in really different ways, has been our strategy.” Finding what works Of course, not every weird idea resonates with consumers. Murphy said that’s why Liquid Death opts for a “small bets approach” that helps it de-risk because it instead churns out a lot of content that often costs about $30,000. Brands with much larger budgets often miss the mark by mistaking their idea for more than it is. “It’s very easy internally to think your content is great when it’s really not, when it’s just an ad,” Murphy said. “People don’t like ads.” Liquid Death’s goal is to be “the funniest thing in your feed” on a given day, Murphy said, and the marketing team workshops ideas with comedians using a Hollywood-style writer’s room approach—which means keeping the non-funny operational people out of the room. Likewise, Howard said it’s important to know whose feedback isn’t a necessary part of the creative process. “All you’re going to do is make a saltine cracker,” she said. “If you ask everyone, do you like it, do you like it, do you like it, do you like it? And you take their feedback. All you’re going to do is water down the work.” Finally, it’s important not to get stuck looking backwards but to forge on when an idea doesn’t work, Montgomery said. Despite a lot of hype around Taco Bell’s launch of a Cheez-It Crunchwrap Supreme, it didn’t deliver what consumers wanted, but he said the company found success with other ideas. “There are always going to be setbacks; listen to the consumer, but just keep swinging,” Montgomery advised marketers in the audience. “If you’re not failing, you’re not trying.” View the full article

Nvidia indulged all your artificial intelligence fantasies on Tuesday at what was being called the “Super Bowl of AI.” The chip giant’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) was held at the SAP Center in San Jose on Tuesday, and it was—you guessed it—all about AI. Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang made several large announcements during a two-hour keynote, with plenty of meat to keep AI-hungry consumers and businesses happy. That includes partnerships with large automakers to build autonomous vehicles and even personal AI supercomputers that sit right on your desktop. Here are some of the key announcements from Huang’s keynote: GM partnership: General Motors selects Nvidia to build out its self-driving vehicle fleet, incorporating the technology in manufacturing and enterprise centers, in addition to in-vehicle features. Nvidia Dynamo: Dynamo is, in essence, the operating system of an AI factory, which will help companies process information to streamline AI capabilities. DGX Spark and DGX Station: New desktop “personal AI supercomputers” that are powered by Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell platform. The DGX Spark was announced earlier this year under the name “Digits” and will retail for $3,000. Robotics: Huang talked at length about the coming iteration of “physical AI,” which includes robotics, and announced a joint project between DeepMind and Disney Research for a new robotics platform called “Newton.” Huang was even joined onstage by a Disney-like robot that resembled the titular character from Wall-E. Huang noted that “the time has come for robots,” as the world is experiencing a shortage of human workers. We’re “50 million short,” he said, which is what will spur the robotics revolution. With generative AI now in widespread use, and agentic AI becoming ever-more ubiquitous, it’s only a matter of time before robots and other types of “physical AI” become commonplace, too. As such, Nvidia is keen on creating the infrastructure and technology to power it all. Investors didn’t seem too enthused by the keynote, however. Prior to the keynote, shares of Nvidia Corp (Nasdaq: NVDA) were trading at around $118 per share, down roughly 1.5% during intraday trading. After it concluded around 3:15 p.m. ET, shares continued to sag. The stock was down more than 3.4% as of late-afternoon trading on Tuesday. View the full article

Struggling to get enough spinach in your diet? Rather than rustling up a salad or green smoothie, one TikToker has a rather unusual hack to ensure she hits her daily greens goal. “I call it dinosaur time,” TikTok user @sahmthingsup said in a video posted last month, wherein she stands over the sink and stuffs handfuls of raw spinach into her mouth. While it may not be the most appetizing way to consume the leafy greens, the food “hack” has already racked up more than one million views. “For added enrichment, put on a dinosaur documentary,” one user commented. Another added: “My life changed when I realized I could do this with any food I should be getting more of.” In an interview with the New York Post, @sahmthingsup explained that she started eating raw greens as a way of managing her macronutrient-rich diet. Assembling salads every day was time-consuming; when she saw a Facebook post that suggested eating handfuls of spinach over the sink, it was a lightbulb moment. “I thought it was genius, so I decided to do the same and it worked beautifully,” she told the Post. Since it reminded her of a Brachiosaurus eating leaves from the tree in the film Jurassic Park, she decided to call it dinosaur time. And thus a trend was born. Packed with essential vitamins and minerals while being low in calories, spinach is a superfood when it comes to overall health. Rich in vitamin A, C, and K1, as well as iron, calcium, and folate, getting enough spinach in your diet supports immune function, bone health, and red blood cell production. While rawdogging handfuls of spinach may not be everyone’s idea of a fun snack, @sahmthingsup confessed that during dinosaur time, she channels Spike after he hatches out of his egg in the film The Land Before Time. The video somehow found its way onto the radar of Stu Krieger, writer of the 1998 film. He gave the hack his stamp of approval, commenting, “This might be the best channeling of Spike I’ve ever seen.” 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. Online security and an ad-free browsing can be expensive, but right now, StackSocial is offering the AdGuard Family Security Suite for just $49.99, bundling two services that would normally run you a lot more. You can also add the promo code GUARD5 to take off an additional $5, bringing the final cost of this sale down to $44.99. This bundle includes a five-year AdGuard VPN subscription (for up to 10 devices) and a lifetime Family Plan subscription to AdGuard Ad Blocker (covering up to 9 devices) across iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and common browsers like Chrome. Just note that this plan is only for new users, and you need to redeem your code within 30 days of buying. Unlike free VPNs that might log and sell user data, AdGuard operates with a strict no-logs policy, meaning that with AdGuard VPN, your browsing history will stay private. It also lets you connect to over 60 server locations worldwide, so you can bypass geo-restrictions, access region-locked content, and keep your online activity hidden from prying eyes. Whether you're working remotely, streaming content from another country, or just trying to protect your information on public wifi, this VPN encrypts your data with industry-standard AES-256 encryption, preventing ISPs, hackers, and advertisers from tracking you. And with support for up to 10 devices, you can secure your phone, laptop, tablet, and your family’s gadgets under one plan. The AdGuard Ad Blocker Family Plan takes care of the other internet headaches too, blocking pop-ups, banners, and video ads across browsers and apps, meaning you get faster page loads and a cleaner experience without autoplay videos or sketchy pop-ups trying to trick you into clicking. Unlike most ad blockers that only work in browsers, AdGuard’s system-level filtering works on apps too, giving you cleaner feeds on social media and ad-free experiences on mobile games. It also includes advanced parental controls, letting you filter out inappropriate content to create a safer browsing environment for kids. The $45 deal with the promo code GUARD5 runs through March 30. View the full article

Marcia Dunn, AP reporter: Almost all roads to space begin here in Cape Canaveral. Haya Panjwani, AP correspondent: That’s Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press’ space writer. She’s following Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams’s return home from the International Space Station. PANJWANI: I’m Haya Panjwani. On this episode of “The Story Behind the AP Story,” we’re unpacking how the two astronauts got stuck up there in the first place and what they’ve done in the last few months at the station. DUNN: So Butch and Suni became the first people, the first astronauts, to strap into a Boeing Starliner capsule and be launched into space. This was last June, June 5, 2024. They launched aboard the Starliner on what was supposed to be an eight-day trip to the space station and back. Here we are, more than nine months later. This eight-day mission has turned into a nine-month marathon for them. So, Butch and Suni strap in on June 5. Launch goes off great from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. I’m there watching, watching the rocket fly. They get to orbit safely. All is well, except the next day, as they’re going into dock with the International Space Station as planned, the thrusters start to fail. Helium is leaking. There had been some helium leaks prior to liftoff, but nobody thought it would morph into something bigger and worse. These two are test pilots. Suni’s a helicopter pilot by trade. Butch is a fighter pilot, combat pilot, both military skill people. They temporarily had to take control to try to get the thrusters back in business so that they could make a fully automated docking at the space station. They got docked to the space station, and months started rolling by. We’re now into the summer of 2024. Because engineers on the ground could just not exactly figure out what had happened. Well, what went wrong with the Starliner? Why did all these thrusters malfunction? What’s the deal with all the helium leaking out of it? Now, they were safe at the space station, right? And they didn’t need the Starliner at this point, but to come home. And because NASA was worried that it could be dangerous for them to get aboard this craft with these troubles, they kept them up there while they kept investigating the situation here on the ground. This dragged on for months. And finally, NASA told Boeing, that’s it. Done. You know, you bring that capsule back empty. We’ll see if it survives entry and it lands OK. But, Butch and Suni, we’re sorry, but you’re gonna have to be up there until next year. SpaceX was now the designated taxi service for Butch and Suni. There are only three ways to get Americans back from the space station. SpaceX, the Russians, right, because they have their capsules coming and going, and also, what should have been Starliner. The next SpaceX crew to go up, was launched in September. There should have been four people for astronauts on that flight. They knocked two people off the flight so that there were two empty seats on the SpaceX Dragon capsule for the return leg of Butch and Suni. Well, then they can’t leave until the replacements get there. Right? Because NASA always likes a crew handover between two crews to sort of, like, show them the ropes. And it just makes it an easier transition for everybody. So then they were told, hopefully you’ll be home by the end of March. This month, the end of March. They switched capsules in the end. The brand new capsule that was taking so long to get ready is going to be used by other people on the later this spring. A private crew. They hurried up. Friday night, this past Friday night, finally the replacements lifted off. We know that the crew, the space station crew, was up and watching via monitors and everything. And I’m sure there was a lot of hooting and hollering and a lot of smiles. PANJWANI: Butch and Suni were chosen specifically for this mission. DUNN: Both of them have been on military deployments. Right? So these are not your run of the mill scientists who or maybe a little more touchy feely. These two are like, you know, kick the tires. You know, fly boy, fly girl kind of people. But I have to say, I’ve never seen two people who seem so upbeat. They look on the positive side. Butch has his wife. They have two daughters, one’s college age. His youngest is a senior in high school, so he’s missed most of her senior year of high school. And Suni’s husband, they have two Labrador retrievers, right. That’s their babies. And she has an elderly mother who is and has been quite worried about all this going through all of this and this. They told reporters recently that being in space has got its challenges. No, they didn’t know that this was going to obviously take so long, but they’ve been busy doing experiments. They got to do a spacewalk together. Suni set a world record for most spacewalking time by any woman ever, with her latest spacewalk up there. They get to talk with their families almost every day with an internet phone. They got video hookups, but it’s not the same as being there. And they have told us repeatedly that it’s much harder on their families. Their families are down here on earth waiting and waiting and waiting. And while they’re busy, you know, they’re distracted with their mission. They’re laser focused on their mission. These two are particularly upbeat, positive, optimistic people. Butch in particular is quite a religious man. And he is an elder in his Baptist church back home in Houston, and he’s even done, I understand, some, put in some calls to some of his older church members to try to give them a pep talk, right? Right. He has said he’s used his faith a lot to get him through this and that there’s a reason for everything, and that’s what he’s trying to instill in his daughters as they deal with this as well, that, you know, persevere. This will make you stronger. PANJWANI: Now when they come back to Earth, what’s next? DUNN: NASA wants to have an overlap of at least a few days between the crew that’s recently launched, the replacements and Butch and Suni, and they will come back with two others. Right. The two people, people who launched in September with two empty seats, they’re coming back with them. And so they want a couple of spillover days so that the people who have been up there all this time can show them the ropes. Then they will undock in the SpaceX Dragon capsule that’s been up there since September and splash down off the Florida coast, and then they will be directly taken to Houston. You know, they have had astronauts up there as long as a year. They’ll be treated the same, you know. And of course, any astronaut coming back after six months is not allowed to drive for a certain amount of period because, you know, you’re wobbly when you get back. Your muscles are weak. Your bones are weak. Yes, you’ve been exercising two hours every day. But you know, some people do better than others coming back, right? And so they don’t want you behind a wheel. They don’t want you doing anything that could endanger you accidentally. Between the two of them, of course, they’ve been asked, what can’t… what do you miss? What can’t you wait to to do besides hug your families when you get back? And Suni can’t wait to take her dogs for a walk and jump in the ocean, she told us recently. And Butch can’t wait to get back to face to face ministering of his flock back home at his church in Houston. PANJWANI: Launch audio courtesy of NASA. —Haya Panjwani, Associated Press View the full article

More than 300 organizations in critical infrastructure, including the medical, tech, and manufacturing sectors, have been victimized by a ransomware threat known as Medusa—and with attacks escalating significantly in the first few months of 2025, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) are advising companies to take steps now to secure their systems. What is Medusa ransomware? Medusa is a ransomware-as-a-service software that, when deployed successfully, encrypts your data along with a threat to release stolen information unless you comply with ransom demands. According to the CISA advisory, victims receive ransom notes requesting a response within 48 hours, or Medusa actors will reach out to them by phone or email. Victims are also listed on a data-leak website alongside a countdown timer and ransom demands with direct links to cryptocurrency wallets. Victims can pay $10,000 to add a day to the countdown—meanwhile, Medusa advertises the data for sale before the timer runs out. This "double extortion" approach forces payment to both decrypt locked files and prevent them from being released or sold (so even if you have a backup you can recover, you still face the threat of information being leaked). The Medusa ransomware was first identified in June 2021 and has since affected organizations across the medical, education, legal, insurance, technology, and manufacturing industries. According to the advisory, Medusa actors use common tricks like phishing campaigns and exploitation of unpatched software vulnerabilities to steal victims' credentials and gain access to their systems. While much of the Medusa threat mitigation happens at the organizational level, there are a few things you as an individual can do to protect your accounts and—by extension—the company you work for. How to protect yourself from Medusa ransomwareThe FBI and CISA are recommending a number of steps to lock down your devices and data against the Medusa threat: Use long, strong passwords for all accounts (a minimum of 15 characters is recommended). Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) wherever possible, but especially for webmail, VPNs, and accounts with access to critical systems. Update operating systems, software, and firmware regularly to ensure timely patching of known vulnerabilities. Use a VPN when accessing systems remotely. The advisory also has guidance for organizations, such as auditing user accounts, maintaining offline backups, utilizing network monitoring tools, and discontinuing frequent mandatory password changes (which are considered outdated and may make systems less secure, not more). View the full article

Activity-based costing (ABC) is a method used to allocate overhead and indirect costs based on the activities that drive those costs. In project management, ABC allows for a more accurate understanding of project expenses by identifying and assigning costs to specific activities, rather than using broad allocation methods. This approach helps project managers make better budgeting, resource allocation and cost control decisions, ultimately improving financial transparency and ensuring projects are completed within budget. Let’s explore ABC costing and the ABC method further. What Is Activity-Based Costing? Activity-based costing is a costing method that assigns overhead and indirect costs to specific activities within an organization based on the actual resources they consume. Unlike traditional costing methods that allocate overhead costs based on a single cost driver (such as labor hours or machine hours), ABC focuses on the various activities that contribute to producing goods or services. The costs associated with each activity (e.g., design, production, distribution or customer service) are calculated and then assigned to products, services or projects based on how much they utilize these activities. This gives a more accurate picture of where costs are incurred in the production process. The main advantage of activity-based costing is that it allows for more precise cost allocation by recognizing that different products or services may consume resources at different rates. By breaking down costs according to activities, businesses can better understand the true cost of their operations and make more informed decisions about pricing, budgeting and process improvement. The ABC method is particularly useful for complex organizations or projects with multiple products or services, where traditional costing methods may overlook the detailed costs associated with specific activities. ABC helps businesses identify inefficiencies, eliminate waste and optimize resources for improved financial performance. ProjectManager helps with activity-based costing with robust Gantt charts that allow project managers to track, manage and assign costs to specific activities within a project. Use it to create tasks and subtasks for projects, which can then be linked to specific activities that will incur costs. Each task can have resources assigned to it, and the costs for these resources can be tracked directly. This enables you to assign and allocate costs to individual activities, which is the essence of ABC costing. Plus, our Gantt links dependencies to avoid cost overruns, filters for the critical path and can set a baseline to track costs and more in real time. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. /wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Gantt-CTA-2025.jpgProjectManager ‘s Gantt charts help with ABC costing. Learn more Activity-Based Costing Steps The ABC method helps businesses understand the true cost of producing goods or delivering services, which leads to more informed decisions about pricing, budgeting and resource allocation. Here are the key steps in the ABC process. 1. Identify Activities The first step in activity-based costing is to identify the key activities that consume resources in the production process. These activities could range from design, procurement and production to distribution and customer service. By identifying the activities, you ensure no critical cost-driving actions are overlooked, leading to a clearer view of where resources are used. 2. Group Activities into Cost Pools Once the activities are identified, they are grouped into cost pools, which are categories that group similar activities. For example, activities like machine maintenance, quality control and assembly might all fall under a production cost pool. Grouping activities into cost pools helps simplify the allocation process and makes it easier to assign costs systematically. 3. Define Cost Drivers Next, define cost drivers for each activity or cost pool. A cost driver is a factor that directly influences the cost of an activity. For example, the number of machine hours might be the cost driver for machine maintenance, or the number of customer orders might be the cost driver for order processing. Identifying the correct cost drivers is crucial because they determine how costs will be allocated. 4. Calculate Cost Driver Rates Once the cost drivers are identified, calculate the cost driver rates. This involves determining the cost per unit of the cost driver. For example, if machine maintenance is $100,000 for 10,000 machine hours, the cost driver rate would be $10 per machine hour. These rates help allocate overhead costs based on how much of the cost driver each product, service or project uses. 5. Allocate Costs to Products or Services Using the cost driver rates, costs are then allocated to specific products or services based on their consumption of the cost drivers. For example, if a product uses 500 machine hours, and the cost driver rate is $10 per hour, the allocated cost for that product would be $5,000. This step ensures that each product or service receives a fair share of the total overhead costs. 6. Take Actions to Minimize Costs and Maximize Profits The final step is to use the data from the ABC technique to take actions to minimize costs and maximize profits. By understanding which activities are the most expensive and which products or services consume the most resources, businesses can make informed decisions about process improvements, cost-cutting strategies and pricing adjustments. For example, a company might decide to streamline a high-cost activity, eliminate inefficiencies or adjust prices to reflect the true cost of production. By following these steps, activity-based costing provides businesses with a clearer understanding of their cost structure and helps optimize resource use, leading to better financial performance and strategic decision-making. Activity-Based Costing Example That’s all abstract, even with examples for each step. To better understand how the ABC technique works, let’s look at a real-life scenario about a furniture company that manufactures different chairs. A furniture manufacturing company produces two types of chairs: standard chairs and luxury chairs. The company incurs various overhead costs related to production, such as machine maintenance, material handling and quality inspection. Instead of using traditional costing, the company implements activity-based costing to allocate costs more accurately. Step 1: Identify Activities and Cost Pools The company identifies three key activities and groups related costs into cost pools. Machine Maintenance: $50,000 Material Handling: $30,000 Quality Inspection: $20,000 Direct Labor: $60,000 Factory Overhead: $40,000 Step 2: Determine Cost Drivers The company selects cost drivers for each activity. Cost Pool: Machine Maintenance – Cost Driver: Machine hours Cost Pool: Material Handling – Cost Driver: Number of material moves Cost Pool: Quality Inspection – Cost Driver: Number of inspections Cost Pool: Direct Labor – Cost Driver: Direct labor hours Cost Pool: Factory Overhead – Cost Driver: Direct labor hours Step 3: Calculate Activity Rates Determine the cost per unit of the cost driver, which helps allocate overhead costs to specific activities based on their consumption. Machine Maintenance: $50,000 /5,000 machine hours = $10 per machine hour Material Handling: $30,000/3,000 material moves = $10 per move Quality Inspection: $20,000/2,000 inspections = $10 per inspection Direct Labor: $60,000/4,000 labor hours = $15 per labor hour Factory Overhead: $40,000/4,000 labor hours = $10 per labor hour Step 4: Allocate Costs to Products Assign the calculated activity rates to specific products or services based on their usage of the identified cost drivers. Standard Chairs (Usage Data) Machine Hours: 3,000 × $10 = $30,000 Material Moves: 1,500 × $10 = $15,000 Inspections: 1,000 × $10 = $10,000 Labor Hours: 2,000 × $15 = $30,000 Overhead (Labor-Based): 2,000 × $10 = $20,000 Total Cost Allocation for Standard Chairs: $105,000 Luxury Chairs (Usage Data) Machine Hours: 2,000 × $10 = $20,000 Material Moves: 1,500 × $10 = $15,000 Inspections: 1,000 × $10 = $10,000 Labor Hours: 2,000 × $15 = $30,000 Overhead (Labor-Based): 2,000 × $10 = $20,000 Total Cost Allocation for Luxury Chairs: $95,000 Traditional Costing vs. Activity Based Costing Traditional costing and activity-based costing are two methods used to allocate overhead costs in an organization, but they differ significantly in approach and accuracy. Traditional costing assigns overhead expenses based on a single cost driver, such as direct labor hours or machine hours. This method is simpler and easier to implement, making it suitable for businesses with uniform production processes and minimal variability in overhead costs. However, because it applies a broad allocation method, traditional costing can sometimes lead to inaccurate cost distribution, potentially distorting product pricing and profitability. In contrast, activity-based costing takes a more detailed and accurate approach by assigning costs based on specific activities that consume resources. Instead of relying on a single cost driver, the ABC method identifies multiple cost drivers, such as machine setups, inspections or order processing, to allocate expenses more precisely. ABC technique is particularly beneficial for companies with complex operations, multiple product lines or high overhead costs, as it provides a clearer understanding of how different activities contribute to total expenses. Although activity-based costing requires more data collection and is more complex to implement, it offers better insights for decision-making, cost control and process improvement. Ultimately, while traditional costing remains a practical option for simpler businesses, the ABC technique is the preferred choice for organizations looking for precise cost allocation and improved financial decision-making. Advantages of Activity-Based Costing Activity-based costing provides a more precise method for allocating overhead costs by linking expenses to specific activities. This approach enhances cost accuracy and supports better financial decision-making. Assigns costs based on actual resource consumption, reducing distortions Provides precise cost data for pricing, budgeting and profitability analysis Helps pinpoint high-cost activities, leading to process improvements Enables businesses to eliminate waste and optimize resource allocation Reveals true costs of products/services, ensuring better financial planning Helps make informed choices about product lines, pricing and efficiency improvements Disadvantages of Activity-Based Costing While activity-based costing provides more accurate cost allocation, it also comes with certain challenges. Its complexity and resource-intensive nature can make implementation difficult for some businesses. Requires significant time, effort and investment to set up Involves detailed tracking of activities and cost drivers, increasing administrative workload Requires extensive data gathering, which can be challenging in large or diverse organizations May not provide enough added value for companies with simple production processes Cost drivers and activities may change over time, requiring continuous monitoring and adjustments Staff may resist adoption due to the additional workload and process changes Related Project Management Templates There are multiple free templates available to help with activity-based costing. Our site has over 100 free project management templates for Excel and Word that cover all aspects of managing a project across multiple industries. Below are just a few examples that can help manage costs. Timesheet Template Download this free timesheet template for Excel to track the hours worked by team members or employees. This weekly summary of start time, lunch, quitting time as well as overtime can be used for time management, but also track labor costs. Workload Analysis Template Managing workload helps to balance resource allocation across the project team. This free workload analyst template for Excel helps keep team members from being overallocated or underutilized, which prevents burnout and keeps projects on budget. Budget Dashboard A budget dashboard is a visual tool that uses charts and graphs to show important financial metrics, such as planned costs vs. actual costs. Use this free budget dashboard in Excel to monitor costs to stay on budget. How ProjectManager Helps With Activity-Based Costing Templates aren’t ideal for managing projects. In terms of costs, they’re always going to be behind. That’s because there are static documents that must be manually updated. Therefore, they’re absolute by the time they’re viewed. Use project management software for more effective cost management. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software that has multiple activity planning, schedule and tracking tools to plan, manage and monitor costs in real time. Manage Resources to Deliver on Schedule and Budget Resources are anything needed to execute the project tasks. Getting the most out of those resources as efficiently as possible saves time and money. That Gantt chart schedules resources, but then to get an overview of resource allocation, view the color-coded workload page. It shows who is overallocated or underutilized across all projects. Then balance the team’s workload from that chart to keep everyone working at capacity without worrying about burnout. There’s also a team page that summarizes team activity, either daily or weekly, and can be filtered to view priority, progress and more. Tasks can even be updated without leaving the page. /wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Team-Light-2554x1372-1.png Track Costs With OnlineDashboards and Reports Resources are only one metric to measure. Get a high-level overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) by toggling over to the real-time project or portfolio management dashboard. It displays time, cost, workload and more in easy-to-read graphs and charts. Customizable reports go deeper and can be generated with a keystroke. Create project or portfolio status reports or reports on variance, timesheets, workload and more. Filter for specific data points or more general info to share with stakeholders. Even secure timesheets can help stay on budget by tracking labor costs. /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dashboard-light-mode.jpg Related Content Activity based costing is only one way to control costs in project management. To learn more, check out the links below. They lead to some of our more recent pieces on job costing, cost control techniques and more. What Is Job Costing? When to Use a Costing Sheet 15 Best Cost Control Techniques Cost Control in Project and Business Management Cost of Production: Types of Production Costs What Is a Cost Baseline in Project Management? ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or out in the field. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. The post Activity-Based Costing Explained (Example Included) appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

Resources are what you need to execute your project plan—people, equipment and materials. Managing those resources, and their constraints, is part of how you deliver a successful project. Each task in your project plan will have project resources like people, time and a budget attached. Therefore, you must know their availability to schedule them. That’s a resource constraint, and project managers must learn how to manage those constraints in order to keep the project moving forward. What Are Resource Constraints? A resource constraint is any limitation and/or risk associated with project resources. Identifying these resource management constraints is an essential resource planning activity which occurs during project planning phase. Resource constraints are roadblocks that can derail your project and prevent successful delivery. Constraints impact every aspect of the project life cycle. In fact, the most common constraints in project management are referred to as the triple constraint; time, cost and scope. Projects have a budget (cost), a deadline (time) and the project manager must know exactly what the project will include (scope). /wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Resource-Plan-Template-Excel-image.png Get your free Resource Planning Template Use this free Resource Planning Template for Excel to manage your projects better. Download Excel File The Potential Impact of Resource Constraints Resource constraints are most often associated with cost. The project budget determines the experience and skills of the team you assemble, as well as the nonhuman resources you can acquire. That’s why availability is such an important component of resource constraints. Without managing resource availability and resource allocation during a project, you can quickly find yourself with excellent materials—but no team to use them. (Or, an expert team that doesn’t have the equipment it needs to execute its tasks.) Therefore, cost, availability and access are all tightly woven with managing resource constraints in a project. This is especially impactful on a project when the project manager is responsible for teams that are distributed geographically, which can further complicate the resource management process. Managing your project resources and having the tools to quickly allocate what’s needed is what project management software does. ProjectManager is a cloud-based software that lets you organize, track and allocate resources to match capacity. Manage your resources with online Gantt charts that work seamlessly with our resource management features. Try ProjectManager for free today! /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Construction-Gantt-Task-Info-CTA-BUTTON-1.jpgManage resource costs with ProjectManager’s interactive Gantt charts. Learn More Who Should Care About Resource Constraints? Various roles within an organization should focus on resource constraints, as they are a critical factor in the project’s success. There isn’t one role in particular that is fully responsible for them, rather, it should be a collaborative effort to try to monitor them, especially resource shortages. For example, project managers will oversee resource constraints such as time, budget, personnel and equipment as it directly impacts their ability to deliver projects on time and within budget. They may hold a meeting with other subject matter experts such as team leads to ensure resources are used effectively across projects and departments. Other involved roles may include supply chain managers, finance managers, logistics managers, stakeholders and even individual team members. Anyone impacted by the availability and utilization of resources should care about resource constraints. Resource Constraints Examples Constraints are factors that limit or restrict a resource’s use. Resource constraints are varied, but usually share one thing in common; cost. People, places and things all cost money, whether by salary, rental or purchase. If you’re working on a construction project and need to rent heavy equipment in March to dig a ditch, but all the machinery is under contract until summertime, that’s a resource constraint. You must identify and resolve these constraints in the planning phase of a project life cycle. In the example above, the project manager would look into reserving equipment, perhaps by selecting an alternative rental company. Either way, they should make these decisions long before any ground is broken on the project. Those decisions are documented in a resource management plan, which is a project planning document that defines how project resources will be managed. Failure to do so is a sure way to fall off schedule and overspend your budget. Tips for Managing Resource Constraints Now that we understand resource constraints, let’s discuss some of the best practices to use. Following these project management tips can help with your overall resource management: Be Strategic: Before you manage anything, you need to develop a strategy and ensure it aligns with the corporate strategy. This requires knowing what you’re trying to accomplish, how you’ll determine success and what will help you accomplish your goals. Know Project Requirements: Know your deadlines, milestones, goals, budget and key competitors. Requirements gathering is worth the extra time and effort it takes to set up your project for success. Have a Contingency Plan: You can identify and prepare for resource constraints, but there are always going to be resource management issues that come out of the blue. Don’t let it sideline you. Have a Plan B, C or D for the unexpected. You might not know what will happen, but you should have a contingency plan to know how you’ll respond. Track Time: Resources, like projects, are limited in time. You should know how long you’ll need them and track resource utilization. This is very helpful when you’re dealing with repetitive work. It’s possible you’re not allocating the right amount of time. Prioritize: Not all tasks are equal, and therefore, not all resources are going to be evenly distributed. Take time to prioritize your work. Define the difference between urgent and important, and know the effort required so you can resource your schedule properly. Use Resource Management Software: Having resource management software that plans and tracks your resources saves you time and effort. You want features that give you real-time data and make it easy to reallocate resources when necessary. Resource Management Techniques to Overcome Resource Constraints Resource management techniques are a helpful way to oversee project resources. Utilize the following techniques to help overcome any resource constraints and ensure the project is successful. Resource Leveling to Ensure a Smoother Workflow Resource leveling is the concept of adjusting the project schedule to balance resource demand with availability. It helps achieve a smoother workflow as it prevents resource overload and underutilization. Any non-critical tasks can be delayed while resources and task dependencies can be updated accordingly. Critical Path Analysis to Focus on Key Tasks The sequence of tasks that determines the project’s shortest completion time is the critical path. This technique helps overcome resource constraints by focusing on the tasks that must be done first. This helps reduce delays and optimize resource utilization. Many times, network diagrams and Gantt charts help visualize task dependencies as well as the critical path. Resource Smoothing to Minimize Fluctuations Resource smoothing is a similar concept to resource leveling but it focuses on minimizing fluctuations in resource demand without changing the project’s critical path. In other words, it creates a more stable, predictable resource workload by adjusting task start and finish times within their float. Resource Allocation Optimization to Maximize Efficiency The project manager can assign resources to tasks based on the resource’s skills, availability and cost-effectiveness to ensure there are no resource constraints. The goal of this concept is to maximize resource efficiency while minimizing costs. It’s helpful to use resource management software with built-in resource calendars for this technique. Resource Plan Template Our free resource plan template for Excel helps you allocate your project resources, monitor their availability and track the costs associated with them. /wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Resource-Plan-Screenshot.jpg How to Do Resource-Constrained Scheduling Without resource-constrained scheduling, resource constraints are only abstract. Resource-constrained scheduling deals with scenarios where resources are limited and let you devise ways to ensure you complete tasks on time. Completing projects under resource constraints requires problem-solving. It takes a creative project manager to look at the project and determine how to shift resources to address constraints. To do this, project managers need to balance the triple constraint resources, so this might mean taking from the budget, schedule or scope. Whichever constraint is used, the end result must be a project that continues to meet its deadline and budget. Projects can fail, or not be completed if you cannot resolve resource constraints. Resource-constrained scheduling is often a balancing act. If you can’t hire enough people to manufacture a product and meet demand, then you might seek cheaper materials or reduce inventory. There are risks to the quality of your deliverable and the satisfaction of your customer base, of course. You need to take into account all of these results as you make and adjust schedules. How ProjectManager Helps With Resource Constraints Obviously, managing resource constraints and creating resource-constrained schedules requires a great deal of flexibility. You need more than a spreadsheet to manage all those changes. ProjectManager is cloud-based software that gives project managers greater insight into their resource constraints so they can respond quickly and effectively. Create a Resource Plan on a Gantt Chart The first thing to do is organize all your resources, and the best way to get this complicated data on one page is with ProjectManager’s interactive Gantt charts. Use it to list your tasks and add planned resource costs to them. Dependencies can be linked, and milestones set. Manage Your Resources in Real-Time People are your most important resource and are often the hardest to manage. ProjectManager’s resource management features help you manage your team more effectively. First, you can set their availability. Then, as you assign them tasks, use the color-coded workload chart. You can reallocate their work right from the chart to help them work more productively. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Workload_Wide_Zoom-175.jpg View Your Team’s Progress on Kanban Boards Get transparency into your team’s workflow with ProjectManager’s kanban view. They allow the team to manage their backlog while managers get visibility into their team’s work. They can see any upcoming blocks, and reallocate resources to keep the team working. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Kanban_Marketing_Wide_Zoom-150_Moving-task-to-different-status.jpg ProjectManager is award-winning software that organizes schedules and updates resources in real time to manage projects successfully. Keep track of your team and nonhuman resources to deliver projects on time and within budget. Try ProjectManager free today! The post Overcoming Resource Constraints in Project Management: Examples, Techniques & More appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

A recent YouTube video from channel The Ultimate Discovery makes some claims that might surprise fans of actor Gene Hackman. According to the video, FBI agents searching Hackman's home following his death discovered a "hidden passageway concealed behind the library wall" that led to a "vast, eerie underground warehouse" containing documents, antiques, old photographs, and parts of unidentifiable machines. The walls were covered in runes and symbols that seem to be of ancient origin and could not be translated. Not only that, the bunker connects to larger network of tunnels, "similar to the catacombs of Paris." It's a pretty good story (if you can swallow the premise that actor Gene Hackman is a character in a Lovecraft novel) but It's not true. (I liked Gene Hackman in The Quick and the Dead, but he wasn't that cool.) At least, there's no reason to think it's true. The FBI has not issued a statement about the tunnels, nor have local authorities, and the Ultimate Discovery YouTube channel makes it clear it isn't telling the truth in its channel description, which reads: "Content on The Ultimate Discovery is for entertainment only... our information may not always be correct, up-to-date or complete. Always consult experts and do your own research." But almost a million people have viewed the video, despite the disclaimer and how farfetched the story is on its face. Claims about Hackman's secret tunnels are being repeated on TikTok videos, in X posts, and basically everywhere else. Judging by the comments, people believe it, too. The b-roll footage (that's either generated by AI or from unrelated incidents) helps, but any conspiracy theory that involves secret tunnels is bound to get people worked up. What is it about tunnels?Cave paintings from over 40,000 years ago suggest our ancestors used caverns as religious sites. During the Roman Empire, followers of Mithra dug tunnels specifically for elaborate rites, then swore oaths to not reveal what went on underground. There are around 170 miles of corpse-filled tunnels under Paris and a large portion of it has not been explored. So people have always thought something strange was going on under their feet. And they often aren't wrong. Modern cities are built atop elaborate, mysterious networks of utility tunnels, transportation tunnels, and more, and you generally can't visit them. While you could go down to the city hall and request civic planning documents that describe the sub-basements and sewers under your town, it's easier to just fill in the blanks with whatever you'd like. Hence the prominence of tunnels in modern conspiracy theories. D.U.M.B's: Deep Underground Military BasesUnderground spaces are a key aspect of "Pizzagate" conspiracies, lizard people conspiracies, Fourth Reich conspiracies, and more, whether it's non-existent basements below Italian restaurants in D.C., the claim that children were freed from Mammoth Cave in Kentucky by the National Park Service, or, now, the supposed tunnels beneath Gene Hackman's house. It's not stated outright in the video, but if you're of a conspiratorial mindset, you probably see the Gene Hackman tunnels as connected to our nation's D.U.M.Bs—Deep Underground Military Bases. The existence of a large, interconnected network of military bases under the United States is a common belief among conspiracy theorists. There are various ideas as to their purpose, but among the most widely accepted is that the Deep State uses DUMBs to transport and traffic children, and Hollywood people like Gene Hackman help in some way. Everyone wants that adrenochrome. But the most lasting conspiracy theories often have a germ of truth to them, and there really are underground military complexes in the U.S. Take, for example, The Cheyenne Mountain Complex, which was built under 2,000 feet of granite in Colorado in 1957. It was once the home of NORAD, as seen in War Games, but now it's a United States Space Force installation. Cheyenne Mountain isn't exactly secret, though: Before 9/11, they gave public tours, and if you know someone who works there, you can supposedly still visit. A very D.U.M.B. ideaReality and conspiracy theories differ as to the purpose and extent of underground military installations. Reality says there's a few of them, and they were built mainly so that the government could continue to function after a nuclear war (and probably as a Cold War show of strength.) Conspiracy theorists imagine a huge, interconnected network of underground bases that allow coast-to-coast hidden transportation of stolen children and/or lizard people. But the point of Cheyenne Mountain's design is that it's not connected to anything else. Cheyenne Mountain is built to be self-sufficient. Like most conspiracy theories, asking a few basic questions dispels the myth. Like: Why would the United States spend the time, money, and effort to build secret bases underground when we already have secret military bases that are above ground? It's way easier and cheaper to put up some fences and post some guards in the desert—which is what we actually do. Wouldn't a military jet, a train, or some trucks be a better way of transporting alien bodies or whatever? Again, this is how we already transport secrets. Gene Hackman—seriously?As for why conspiracy theorists would focus on Gene Hackman of all people, your guess is as good as mine. Usually the entertainment industry figures featured in conspiracy theories are particularly outspoken politically and highly visible, like George Clooney or Tom Hanks. Hackman was a lukewarm Hollywood liberal at best (He hated Nixon but supported Reagan) and he hadn't starred in a movie since 2004, so he's a strange target. Maybe the initial uncertainty about how he died was enough to suggest a mysterious hidden world. But as always, reality is way more boring than the imaginations of conspiracy theorists: Hackman was 95 years old when he died of a heart attack, and there was nothing under his house more mysterious than a basement rec room. View the full article

Air France on Tuesday unveiled a new first-class suite as it expands efforts to lure wealthy travelers from business jets and lend a ‘French touch’ to the tussle for premium revenue. The CEO of parent Air France-KLM, Ben Smith, told Reuters the unspecified investment aimed to place Air France at the top of the European league in airline luxury, signalling a battle with British Airways and Lufthansa. “A large percentage of the customers are flying for business reasons … Many of them have the choice of a private jet or flying in first class,” Smith said in an interview. “What is new for us over the last few years is a marked increase in the number of luxury customers that are flying for leisure purposes.” The air travel industry is locked in a battle for high fare-paying customers as it recovers from the pandemic but is split over the value of investing in first class, with many carriers focusing on steady improvements in business-class seating. Air France’s latest first-class cabin, laid out in four pairs of grey, red-accented beds and seats on select planes, follows a years-long effort to re-invent a once loss-making product since Smith joined the national carrier in 2018. The Canadian executive has long been a champion of first class even as many rivals retrench to business class. But he said only a handful of airlines had the depth of demand or ability to tap into assets like France as a destination. “A lot of people like to experience France. When they get on the airplane outside France, they want to start their journey from San Jose, Tokyo or Sao Paulo already in France through the environment on the airplane,” he said. The launch comes weeks after arch-rival British Airways launched its own new first-class cabin. Lufthansa also offers first class. Neither airline responded to requests for comment. French brand power Smith declined to say how much the investment in the new seats would cost, but the airline says its first-class service is already profitable, in part because the price of the ticket has risen in recent years. An average one-way Paris-New York ticket costs around 10,000 euros in May, according to the Air France website. Tuesday’s rollout reflected the airline’s efforts to strike a chord with France’s broader reputation for luxury, with waiters passing Michelin-starred snacks in the presence of specially invited influencers in a Paris Fashion Week location. Smith insisted, however, that Air France’s “La Premiere” brand could stand on its own feet as a luxury product. Partially state-owned Air France has long been synonymous with first class, with its passenger list so powerful that seats were once reputed to be bugged by the country’s spy agencies. Now, it must compete with now-common lie-flat seats in business class or increasingly accessible private jets. Much of the cost is wrapped up not just in the seats but in bespoke ground services such as special check-ins or limousines. There is also the hidden cost of creating a sub-fleet of airplanes that can only operate on a handful of routes. “Unless it’s rock solid, it can be quite marginal because of the operational complexity, the capital investment and the risk of substituting seats that they could be sure of selling in business class,” said aviation consultant John Strickland. —Joanna Plucinska and Tim Hepher, Reuters View the full article

Tuesday’s news that Google would acquire the Israeli cybersecurity firm Wiz for $32 billion was remarkable on several fronts. The deal, assuming it closes, will be the largest acquisition in Google’s history. And it’s the biggest exit in Israeli history. “Becoming part of Google Cloud is effectively strapping a rocket to our backs,” Wiz CEO Assaf Rappaport wrote in a blog post. “[I]t will accelerate our rate of innovation faster than what we could achieve as a stand-alone company.” It also marks the close of a fast-paced, five-year chapter for the company. Founded in January 2020 by Assaf Rappaport, Yinon Costica, Roy Reznik, and Ami Luttwak, Wiz grew quickly, as the pandemic forced companies and workers online and cloud servers exploded in popularity. And as hybrid work has continued, so has the company’s expansion. An IPO on ice In just 16 months, Wiz became a unicorn, with a $1.7 billion valuation. By October 2021, its valuation had ballooned to $6 billion and by February 2023, that figure had jumped to $10 billion. Last May, the company raised $1 billion in funding, giving it a $12 billion valuation. As Wiz’s fortunes rose, so too did its reputation. The company’s researchers have alerted the public to a number of cloud vulnerabilities in everything from Microsoft’s Azure cloud system to the cloud systems of Oracle and IBM. In January, it raised a red flag about DeepSeek, finding that the Chinese AI system had inadvertently exposed a significant amount of sensitive data. The company has been on Google’s radar for some time. Last year, Alphabet offered $23 billion to acquire Wiz but was rejected. Instead, Wiz’s founders planned to pursue an IPO. “Saying no to such humbling offers is tough,” Rappaport wrote at the time in a memo seen by CNBC. The move was a calculated gamble. Wiz officials were worried whether a takeover by Google would be approved by regulators, given the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s fixation on Big Tech at the time and Google’s own antitrust court battles then. But the IPO market has hardly been welcoming to most tech companies for the past several years. Wiz aimed to hit $1 billion in annual recurring revenue before it filed for a public listing, which gave it some breathing room, but market conditions haven’t improved—in fact, have worsened in the past two months. Between that stock market volatility and the change in White House administrations, which shifted regulatory sentiment, Wiz’s leadership began to reconsider its options. Why regulators might let this one through While Google is still facing a possible breakup following a verdict that found the company to be an illegal monopoly last August, Justice Department officials dropped the push for the company to sell off its AI investments. That could signal improved odds that Tuesday’s deal will not face the same level of antitrust scrutiny it would have in 2024. Part of the secret to Wiz’s success is exactly why antitrust regulators might be amenable to the Google buyout. The company is a native multi-cloud platform. It works equally well on offerings from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and more. That makes this both a security play for Google as well as an AI infrastructure one, as it can secure workloads across multiple platforms and doesn’t force customers to use Google Cloud. “Wiz and Google Cloud are both fueled by the belief that cloud security needs to be easier, more accessible, more intelligent, and democratized so more organizations can adopt and use cloud and AI securely,” Wiz CEO Rappaport wrote in a blog post. “We both also believe Wiz needs to remain a multi-cloud platform, so that across any cloud, we will continue to be a leading platform. We will still work closely with our great partners at AWS, Azure, Oracle, and across the entire industry.“ The deal is expected to close in 2026, pending regulatory approval. View the full article

Google Search seems to have accidentally leaked its various AI Search options and features, that go beyond just AI Mode, which it recently launched. 47 different AI Search options are shown including Info Sleuth, Allium, QTalk, MedExplainer, Fantasy Sports Researcher, Smart Kitchen and many more.View the full article

Deadly bombardment has strengthened Netanyahu’s far-right coalition but drawn the ire of hostages and their familiesView the full article

Radical changes that will cut income for 1mn people may not get many more into work, say analysts View the full article

GIMP, the free and open source image editing application long seen as the best free Photoshop alternative, just released a major update: Version 3. The update brings long-awaited improvements to working with filters, layers, and text. There's also a sleeker user interface with improved UI scaling. Among the biggest changes is nondestructive filters. Previously applying filters, such as blurs, was final—you could use the undo function to get back to a pre-filtered state but you couldn't simply edit or remove the filter. You can now tweak the settings of filters, or even remove filters entirely from the layer panel. Credit: Justin Pot Working with text is also streamlined with the addition of non-destructive text outlines. This allows you to change the widget, style, and color/pattern of text outlines from the text panel in the left sidebar. Credit: Justin Pot There are various useful tweaks to the way layers work. You can can now select multiple layers at once, without the need to link those layers, making it easier to apply changes. Copy and pasting is a lot less confusing: Pasting creates a new layer, instead of a confusing floating layer. This alone makes GIMP a lot easier to use, in my opinion. The paintbrush tool can now automatically expand the size of the selected layer if you paint over the edge. Just select the paintbrush tool and make sure the new "Expand Layers" tool is selected—you'll never again be confused about why the paintbrush isn't working. There are many more changes that make life simpler. Importing PSD files from Photoshop should be more accurate, for one thing, and there's support for RGB color spaces "beyond sRBG," meaning you should see fewer warnings about conversion while importing images. And the user interface has been updated to GTK3, , meaning the user interface looks more modern. There are other visual tweaks, including a welcome screen when you open the application and much better UI scaling: Icons that used to look blown up and blurry on high resolution screens now look great. Basically, if you tried GIMP years ago and weren't convinced, it's worth giving the application another chance. For more details, you can read the blog post announcing the update or the full release notes with more details. View the full article

Google Ads has begun rolling out channel control for select Demand Gen campaigns. This feature will let you specify where your ads appear across Google’s properties. Yes, but. While the feature is live, segmentation by individual channel (e.g., YouTube, Discover, Gmail) is not yet available. This will limit your ability to make data-driven adjustments. Why we care. This update, first announced in January, gives advertisers more control over campaign placement, but the full impact remains unclear since performance data is still aggregated under “Google-owned channels.” What they’re saying. Greg Kholer, director of digital marketing at ServiceMaster, shared seeing the update on LinkedIn: “While exciting, we won’t be making any changes until we’re able to see channel performance segmented out – as of today it’s still all lumped together as ‘Google owned channels'”. What’s next: More search marketers will likely hold off on changes until Google provides detailed channel performance breakdowns. View the full article

New cybersecurity bot attack defense gives SaaS apps deeper insight into threats and attackers The post New Cybersecurity Bot Attack Defense Helps SaaS Apps Stay Secure appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. I’ve used a lot of fitness wearables, but none have been a constant presence in my life for as long as the Oura ring. I woke up to my first night of collected data on November 3, 2020, and I’ve worn an Oura ring nearly every night since. Here's what I've learned from over 1,500 days worth of data, including my thoughts on the hardware, the app, and on whether it's all been worth it. Oura Ring 4 $349.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Shop Now Shop Now $349.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg How the generations compareOura is now on its fourth generation of rings, and I’ve used generations 2, 3, and 4. Here’s my retrospective of each, including what was new with each generation, and when and why I upgraded (or didn’t). Generations 2, 3, and 4 Credit: Beth Skwarecki Gen 2My first Oura ring, in late 2020, was a review unit from the company that I returned after I wrote about it. It was a second generation (“gen 2”) ring whose exact color, shape, and size I don’t recall. Shortly after sending it back, I decided I’d like to buy one of my own, so I ended up getting a silver Balance in size 7, to wear on my ring finger. The gen 2 had all the important features already: It could record my HRV and resting heart rate, make a pretty good guess at when I was awake or asleep, and make a not-so-great guess at when I was in each stage of sleep. It was widely recognized as the best wearable at sleep tracking, although that still comes with caveats—as we'll see. The ring also recorded my respiratory rate and the way my skin temperature fluctuated from night to night. Its ability to detect changes in temperature was being touted as a possible early detection mechanism for COVID. That didn’t pan out for me either, as we’ll see below, but it was a highly touted feature at the time. Gen 3 My third generation Oura ring—a silver Heritage. Credit: Beth Skwarecki When Oura came out with the gen 3, I reviewed that, too, and the company recommended wearing it on my index finger if possible. So I wore a gen 3 silver Heritage on my index finger and hated using that finger for the ring. I guess I’m in the habit of absentmindedly rubbing my nose with the side of my index finger, because anytime my nose was itchy, I’d reach up without thinking and gouge myself with the ring. When I was done with that review, I gladly switched back to my old gen 2 ring on my ring finger. But then one day, my beloved gen 2 ring died during the night, when I could have sworn I had just charged it. The same thing happened again a night or two later. I realized the battery must be dying, and with luck I was just inside the two-year warranty period. I’ll say more about battery longevity below, but two years appears to be a typical lifespan—and the warranty no longer covers you that long. But at the time, I got a free replacement, and it was a gen 3 (same size and color, but Heritage shape, since they no longer offered the Balance) and they threw in a lifetime subscription. New with the gen 3 ring was the subscription model: $5.99/month to be able to view your data from the ring. (Without the subscription, you get sleep and readiness “scores,” which are useless without the underlying data, in my opinion.) Owners of gen 2 rings didn’t have to start paying a subscription fee if they kept using their old ring, and there was a lifetime subscription promotion for anyone who upgraded to the gen 3 around that time. The gen 3 ring had the same fit and interior shape as the gen 2, but it now had green lights that glowed at night, which I found annoying when putting my kids to bed. It was during the gen 3 era that workout heart rate became available. I never found it very useful, although I was impressed that it auto-detected when I went for a walk or a run. It also interpreted brushing my kid’s hair as “dancing.” Good guess, I suppose! Two years later, in 2024, the battery died again. (A lifespan of two years seems to be sadly common.) This time my ring was out of warranty, since Oura had switched to only offering a one-year warranty. But the gen 4 had just launched, and presumably the company was trying to get rid of their gen 3 stock. They sent me an exact duplicate of the dead one, and that’s the ring I’m still wearing today. Gen 4 The fourth generation Oura ring that I just reviewed. Credit: Beth Skwarecki I did eventually get my hands on a gen 4 Oura ring to review (round shape, black, size 8 for my middle finger). I wrote a comparison of the gen 3 and gen 4 rings, and a review of the gen 4. The gen 4 is nice. But when I was done reviewing it, I happily went back to the gen 3. The essential features are all the same, and I preferred the way the gen 3 fit. With the gen 4, the ring lost its sensor bumps, making it smoother on the interior but also changing the sizing. The gen 4 comes in a wider range of sizes, and its accuracy at picking up heart rate is improved. The app was also redesigned around this time, the better to manage all the different features it’s acquired over the years—stress scores, resilience, chronotype, and cardiovascular age have all needed to squeeze in, and the main screen now has a timeline of your day that includes exercise sessions and more. So if you’re keeping count, I’ve worn six different individual Oura rings, from three different generations (2, 3, and 4), in three different shapes. If we’re counting only rings that I’ve owned for personal use, that would be one gen 2 and two identical gen 3 units, the first two dead from battery issues and the third a new-ish unit that is doing well so far. My favorite generationTechnologically, the gen 4 ring is the best of the generations, but sentimentally, the gen 2 is the one I miss the most. I liked its single-pointed shape, the better to fidget with and get it oriented correctly on my finger. And I loved that the LEDs were infrared rather than visible light. There was no green glow under the ring at night. If they brought back a version of the Oura without the green glow, I’d snap it up in a heartbeat. The features Oura has added over the last four years have been nice-to-haves, but not game changers. I don’t really care about activity tracking; the ring doesn’t do it well, so I either don’t track my workouts or I track them with another device like a Garmin. The everyday experience The top of the Today screen, and what you see as you scroll down. Credit: Beth Skwarecki It takes a few weeks for any wearable to learn your usual numbers, the Oura ring included. This is important to remember because the numbers reported by the ring make the most sense when compared to your own baseline, not to what is a “good” score for others. This is especially true for heart rate variability (HRV), which is one of the more important numbers the ring collects. An HRV of, say, 52 might be high for one person, signaling that they’re well recovered, and unusually low for another, signaling that they may be sick, overworked, or stressed. Knowing that, people sometimes ask on forums whether it’s OK to start wearing their ring during a stressful time or on vacation. Having been at this four years, I say: Start wearing it whenever. Two months from now, the exact metrics you had on your vacation will be history. Heck, you might enjoy looking back at them for comparison’s sake. But your baseline is built over time and changes with time. It’s not something the ring imprints on like a duckling. Continuing to scroll down the Today screen. Credit: Beth Skwarecki These are screenshots of what my Oura app shows me right now, and if you have a ring you’ve been wearing for at least a few weeks, you’ll see something similar. All of the screenshots you’ve seen so far are from the “today” tab, your home screen when you open the app. Most of them are summaries, and you can see more detailed data if you tap them, or if you go into other areas of the app. The scores at the top of the screen—readiness, sleep, and so on—each lead to one of these more detailed views. As I’ve written before, I find that “recovery” scores are too imperfect to be useful. Oura tries to be smart by bumping the score up or down based on a variety of things it measures. But these don’t always match up well to reality. For example, when the sleep algorithm was reading my REM stages poorly (more about that below), it would always ding me for my supposedly bad sleep. And it would sometimes reduce my readiness score if I went for a long walk on a rest day, even though I know from experience those long walks help me more than they hurt. Instead, I look at the raw numbers for my resting heart rate and my HRV. If I’m well rested, and I’m recovering well from the stresses of training and life, my HRV will be high and my RHR will be low. It’s normal for those numbers to get worse over the course of a week as I train and build up some fatigue, and then I see them get better once I’ve had an easier day or two. Watching that rhythm is what helps me to know if I’m recovering well, or if my stress—from training or otherwise—is steering me toward burnout. While RHR and HRV generally track the same trends (high HRV and low RHR are "good") I find they react a little differently. My RHR shoots up anytime my body is going through something stressful. That could be a heavy lifting session (my RHR often shoots up after a competition), but could also be drinking alcohol or even just staying up late. If I have a fever or a migraine, my RHR will skyrocket. Meanwhile, HRV can also dip in response to those things, but a high RHR doesn't always come with a low HRV. It seems like RHR tells me more about how hard something is hitting me, and HRV is how well my body is dealing with it. To be clear, that's not a scientist's understanding of the subject, just my own conclusions about my body from looking at this data over the years. The readiness screen, and (right) what you see when you scroll down. Credit: Beth Skwarecki Because I pay more attention to the raw numbers over the scores or little motivational messages, my favorite screen is the one I get when I tap on my Readiness number. Here’s an example. Notice that my Readiness scores (the blue bars in the graph at the top) have been pretty similar each day this past week. But I can tell that my resting heart rate rose over the latter half of last week, was especially high (for me) on Friday, and has only just come back down to a low number after resting a bit on the weekend. Last week was a hard training week, and this week I’m tapering again for a competition, so I’m hoping to see heart rates in the low 40’s and HRV numbers 95+ as my training ramps down this week. Also, yes, a resting heart rate in the 40's is pretty low. Partly that's just how I'm built (I've always had a low resting heart rate and a high max). Partly it's fitness—my RHR lowers slightly when I'm doing more exercise. And partly it's just that Oura records lower resting heart rates than other devices. When I compared the Oura ring's numbers with those of four other wearables, Oura always gave the lowest RHRs. When it records a 43, Fitbit might record a 50. Again: compare your Oura ring's numbers to each other, not to other people or even other devices. Sleep staging has not been useful (and was often wrong)For as long as I’ve been writing about wearables, I’ve been telling you—as sleep experts have been telling me—that you shouldn’t trust an app when it tells you how much light or deep sleep you got, or how much REM. Wearables tend to be reasonably good at telling how long you slept, but they’re not great at telling you when you’re in one stage versus another, nor do their measures of sleep “quality” mean anything that we can match up to a scientific meaning. My four years’ worth of data bear this out in two important ways. The most important is simply that data on sleep quality (the “sleep score,” in Oura’s case) just duplicates information you could get by looking at total sleep time. Oura has a web-based data viewer with a tool that will show the correlation between any two variables you care to compare. When comparing my sleep score with my total sleep time, surprise! There is a “strong” positive correlation, with a coefficient of 0.77. The more sleep I got, the higher my sleep score. You don’t need a ring or watch to tell you how long you slept; the old fashioned way, keeping a sleep diary, would do the same thing for the cost of a notebook and pen. Dark blue is my sleep score; light blue is amount of sleep. Credit: Beth Skwarecki When it comes to sleep stages, I have an even more dramatic way of showing the pitfalls of trusting an algorithm. I was always skeptical of the way Oura claimed to divide up my sleep into stages. For the first few years, it always reported an implausibly low amount of REM sleep, sometimes just a few minutes when you’d expect to see well over an hour. I mentioned this when I interviewed a sleep scientist, and she confirmed that the numbers I was seeing in my app were highly unlikely to be correct. Oura rolled out a new sleep staging algorithm in the summer of 2023, which they said should improve sleep stage accuracy. See if you can spot on this graph the day the algorithm changed: Light blue is total sleep; dark blue is REM sleep. Credit: Beth Skwarecki Suddenly, I was getting much more realistic estimates of REM sleep (although I’ve never gotten a sleep study in a lab, so I can’t confirm whether they’re correct.) We can even see where the “new” REM sleep came from. Not from awake time, or from light sleep, which were both reported in similar amounts before and after the change. No, the algorithm seems to have taken some of what it previously considered deep sleep, and recategorized it (maybe correctly) as REM sleep. The deep sleep graph looks like the opposite of the one above. I felt validated in my complaints that it must not be picking up my REM sleep properly. I also gained a lesson in just how much we are at the whims of the algorithm. It never predicted when I got sickI don’t think anybody who buys an Oura ring now is looking for an early detection system for when they get sick, but this was a major talking point for the company (and among users) for a little while. In 2020 the company worked with UCSF on the TemPredict study to see if the ring could let healthcare workers know when to test for COVID. Forums that discussed the Oura ring would occasionally feature posts from people who were able to see signs of poor recovery in the app before they realized they were sick. But my own experience didn’t bear that out. When I had been wearing the ring about a month, I got sick. It was probably a regular cold or flu, but my COVID test came back inconclusive(?!?) so I never did find out for sure. Whatever the illness, my Oura did not realize I was feeling anything less than stellar until three days after I started feeling feverish, tired, and icky. I got COVID for sure in June of 2022, and it’s interesting to take a look at my Oura ring data from the week I tested positive. I recall symptoms starting on that Thursday or Friday, June 2 or 3. It was on Sunday, June 5, that I felt awful enough that it occurred to me to take a COVID test, which was positive. You can see on this graph that my nighttime temperature peaked on June 7, two days after I tested positive. My readiness scores were all great—above 80—until that day. Every other metric I can think to check was normal as well, including my HRV, average resting heart rate, lowest resting heart rate, and respiratory rate. Dark blue is temperature, light blue is readiness score (out of 100). Credit: Beth Skwarecki Since then, I’ve only had minor colds and sniffles. While I’ve never had Oura drop any hints before I got sick, I have found it validating to see my RHR rise and readiness drop when I’m kinda-sorta feeling under the weather. That tells me that there really is something going on, even if it doesn’t rise to the level of a full-blown fever or coughing fit. But, again, I don’t get that validation until after I’ve started feeling crappy. Just me? I looked up the results of the TemPredict study. The researchers said they were able to use an algorithm to tell who was sick, and that the day the algorithm recognized the illness was on or before symptom onset in 65% of cases, and on or before a positive COVID test in 80% of cases. That is, to be honest, not all that useful! The idea was to predict illness before those dates, so “on or before” is lumping in the cases where it could act as an early warning system with cases where a person already knew they were sick. And, clearly, the algorithm missed a lot of people. Oura gave these results a positive spin. The headline finding was that when the algorithm worked, it predicted illness 2.75 days before a positive test. But symptom onset was 1.98 days before a positive test, so even the algorithm’s prediction—which was not revealed to users in the app, only examined by scientists—would give you less than a day’s notice before you started feeling sick. Oura called these results “preliminary” at the time, but the team has not published anything else on illness detection since then, at least not that I can find. But Oura did eventually launch Symptom Radar, a feature that rolled out to Oura users in December of 2024. I haven’t gotten sick since then, so I can’t comment on whether the algorithm would be able to notice anything I didn’t. Bottom line: I feel confident in saying the promise of illness prediction has fallen flat. If it works for a few people, and if they enjoy getting a day’s notice before they start feeling sick, cool. But that's not exactly helpful in any practical sense. Durability The top of the gen 3 ring that I wore for two years. Credit: Beth Skwarecki When you buy a $300+ piece of jewelry, you expect it to last. Oura owners (and prospective owners) are always asking on forums how easily the ring scratches, so here’s a photo. This is the gen 3 ring that I wore for two full years. You’d have to look closely at the top surface to see the little scuffs and scratches, but there are a few. The bottom surface, where the ring would contact things I’m holding, is more scratched up for sure. This doesn’t bother me, since I see the Oura ring as more of a tool than a pristine fashion piece. Others may feel differently. Oura rings have a titanium exterior, and interestingly I have a comparison for that—my wedding and engagement rings are also titanium. All three get plenty of daily wear. My wedding ring’s scratches are subtle; the Oura ring’s are much more obvious by comparison. Left: the bottom of the gen 2 Oura ring that I wore for two years. Right: the bottom of my wedding and engagement rings, also made of titanium, which I've been wearing for nearly 20 years. Credit: Beth Skwarecki Battery longevityMy biggest disappointment over the years has been the battery longevity. Not the battery life—the ring goes most of a week between charges without any problem. But I’m talking about how much use you get out of the ring before it stops holding a charge. My gen 2 ring came with a two-year warranty, and I recall seeing a Reddit post reminding people to check their battery health before the warranty was up, since some users had found that their battery died right around the two-year mark. I forgot all about that, and then it happened to me. Fortunately, I was just barely inside of the warranty period, and got my replacement. Two years later, the same thing happened again, although Oura had wised up and stopped offering a two-year warranty. The warranty is now one year and doesn’t cover battery issues, at least in the U.S. (A two-year warranty is required by law in the EU.) I lucked out again with my second replacement, since the gen 4 had just launched. I recall being given the choice of a $50 discount on a new gen 4, or a totally free gen 3. I went for the gen 3, but didn’t have an option to ask for a different shape or color. They just shipped me a duplicate of my old ring, in a baggie (no charger). I can’t complain about getting three rings for the price of one. That said, should I really need three rings in four years? There are plenty of five-year-old Apple Watches and Garmin watches out there that cost around $400 originally. You would expect a $300+ Oura ring to last longer than two years. But check the subreddits and forums, and ask any long-time Oura ring user you know. Two years is pretty typical for the gen 2 and gen 3 rings. (It’s too early for a verdict on the gen 4.) If you’re the kind of person to upgrade as soon as a new model is out, this may not matter too much—Oura has been releasing new rings on roughly a two-year cycle. But you should know that you’re not buying something that will last for years and years. I saw someone on a forum who was thinking about getting an Oura ring as his actual wedding ring. Not a good option if you’re going to be sentimentally attached to that specific, physical ring. The Oura is the lowest-maintenance wearable I’ve metWhy have I worn this ring nearly every night for the last four-plus years? Because it’s so dang easy. I don’t need to start or stop anything on the ring itself or on an app. I don’t need to wear it for workouts. It doesn’t take up valuable wrist real estate, so even when I’m wearing a Whoop, Fitbit, Apple Watch, and Garmin watch at the same time and griping about it as I strap them all on for bedtime, it doesn’t bother me at all to have the Oura ring on, too. Even during times I was paying more attention to other wearables, I kept the Oura ring on. Once a week or so, it might pop up a notification on my phone asking me to charge it before I go to bed. And as long as I open the app once or twice a week to be sure it’s syncing, I know my data is stored safely in a place I can look at it later. Charging is low-maintenance, too. I keep the Oura ring’s charger on my nightstand. I’ll charge my ring when I head to the gym, and even if I forget to put it back on right away, I’ll see it on the nightstand when I’m getting into bed. The only thing I find inconvenient about charging is the lack of a secure charging case or even a cheap spare nightstand charger I could bring with me when I travel. That said, the ring holds enough charge that I can get through a weekend trip without charging, as long as the battery was full when I left. My Oura ring data didn’t reveal any deep secrets about recoveryIn terms of the big-picture payoff of wearing the ring, I first need to say what it didn’t give me. My original interest in sleep and recovery tracking (with the Oura or otherwise) was to see if there was a way to predict my performance in the gym. Cardio exercise is reasonably easy to get a handle on, but weightlifting is different. I compete in Olympic-style weightlifting (the sport of the snatch and the clean and jerk). The weights are heavy, but the lifts also require precise technique and coordination. Some days you can snatch 60 kilos, some days you’re lucky to make 53. My coach patiently explained, on many occasions, that if I’m in the middle of a tough training block, fatigue would be masking some of my ability. This pops up in unexpected ways—if I just had a great performance on Saturday, maybe hitting a new PR (personal record), I might struggle on Monday because I'm having a “PR hangover.” Coaches and lifters have known this for decades, if not centuries. But it’s still hard to predict exactly when you’ll feel uncoordinated versus when you’ll perform well. I hoped that metrics like heart rate variability and resting heart rate would give me a window into what was happening under the hood. But it didn’t quite work out that way. While generally I would have better days when my HRV was high and my RHR was low, that wasn’t something I could rely on. There were plenty of times I had a great day in the gym or on the competition platform, despite mediocre recovery metrics. And the reverse happened, too. Ultimately, you don’t know how you’ll actually perform in the gym until you actually get there and do some lifts—performance can only be judged after the fact. I said from the start that I would never trust a device more than I’d trust my own body, and I’m glad I kept that promise. If I had skipped or rescheduled workouts based on my “readiness” or other metrics, I would have missed out on good training. Recovery metrics are a good reality check on the big picture of training and lifeSo if the metrics from the Oura app didn’t reveal any deep secrets or make me change my training, why do I still keep an eye on them, four years on? Because they give me subtle hints about what’s going on in my body, and bring the big picture of my training and life stresses into focus. I have a sense of what HRV and RHR numbers I see when I’m well-recovered and training is going well. I even know how much my resting heart rate tends to drop when I’m in the habit of doing a lot of cardio training (only about 3-4 beats, but that’s enough to be noticeable). I know what it looks like when my training stress has increased but I’m dealing with it well: a slightly elevated RHR, but HRV is still usually pretty high. I know what it looks like when I’m stressed and burned out: high RHR, low HRV. I know that if I’m managing my fatigue pretty well throughout the week, I’ll see the numbers reset on the weekend as my rest days or easy days allow my body to catch up. And I’ve come to know these numbers through comparing them to how I feel—not by trusting a score or a graph or an explanation in the app. You have to take ownership of your new self-knowledge, and learn, not just listen. Would I have gotten just as good an understanding of my body and my training without the ring? Probably, but I’d expect a lot more mental ups and downs. I have a tendency to go too hard and not realize how much I’m pushing myself, and then to beat myself up when things aren’t going according to plan. The data I get from my ring helps to give me a reality check on what my body is going through, whether it’s an under-the-radar cold or a tough training block that compounds with other stress I’m getting from life. I guess the ring has taught me a little bit of self-compassion. That’s helped me immeasurably, even though it’s not the lesson I was expecting to learn from tracking all this data. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I own/manage a business, let’s say a retail heath care equipment supply company that is located in a larger health care campus. I have multiple employees, and for a six-hour shift they get two 15-minute breaks. It isn’t intense or overly physically exhausting work, but I realize it is nice to step away for a few minutes. No problems until a few weeks ago when I hired “Deleana.” She looked great on paper so I hired her. Come to find out she is a smoker. Recently we had a meeting about her ongoing tardiness from breaks and the possibility of disciplinary action, up to and including termination. She then said that I was violating her “smoker’s rights” because she didn’t have enough time to get to her car, have a relaxing cigarette, and make it back in time as the campus is a non-smoking area and she needs to walk a block (or more) to where she can park and smoke. I told her that smoker’s rights really don’t exist and she knew of the campus’ policy as she had to pass multiple signs when she came in for the job interview. So no, she wasn’t going to get an extended break time. Today she surprised me with saying I am not accommodating her physical disabilities (she can’t walk fast enough to her car apparently to get a cigarette finished) and she won’t say what her disabilities are, nor does she (according to her) need to tell me. She said will be visiting her doctor to get a note saying I need to accommodate her disability by giving her longer breaks so she can smoke. Is this a thing? Can somebody require an accommodation just so an employee has time to smoke a cigarette? A quick Google search on work breaks shows that I may not even need to give breaks which would solve the problem, but would be unfair to the other employees. Haha, no. Smoking is not considered a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), nor is it protected under that law. Interestingly, when the ADA was being drafted, the tobacco lobby did try to get smoking included in the definition of “disability.” Since they were simultaneously trying to maintain that smoking wasn’t addictive, they tried to get it covered as a “perceived disability” rather than an actual one. But they didn’t succeed, and smoking is not covered under the law. There are 29 states that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers — meaning that in those states, you can’t refuse to hire a smoker or fire someone for smoking, although some of those states have exceptions for nonprofits and the health care industry. But even if those states, you don’t need to give smokers extra breaks or extra long breaks, and you can fire smokers for exceeding their allowed breaks. Tell Deleana you’ll be continuing to hold her to the same break rules you hold everyone else to … and I would begin preparing to fire her, since if it’s not over this it’s almost certainly going to need to be over something else. (Although personally, I would be tempted to wait for that note, just for the entertainment value of watching someone try to get a doctor’s note requiring them to smoke.) View the full article