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Microsoft's latest Patch Tuesday update is an important one, patching 57 security vulnerabilities (including seven zero-day flaws). It's an update I'd encourage all Windows users to install as soon as possible, especially as those zero-day vulnerabilities pose a serious security risk to anyone using a PC. As it happens, this update comes with an extra patch that Microsoft didn't initially disclose, or, for that matter, intend: removing Copilot from Windows. Copilot disappears in the latest Windows updateSome users, after installing KB5053598 (Windows 11) or KB5053606 (Windows 10) on their PCs, will notice the update not only unpinned Copilot from the taskbar, but uninstalled the Copilot app as well. Microsoft hasn't disclosed why this issue is present in the latest Windows updates, but says it hasn't seen the bug in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, the version of Copilot directly integrated into Microsoft's office suite. The company says it is working on a new update to fix the problem, and, presumably, restore Copilot access to affected Windows users. If you're missing Copilot and want it back before Microsoft issues a new update, you can reinstall the app from the Microsoft Store and pin it back to your taskbar yourself. However, it's possible you don't want to reinstall Copilot. After all, there are a number of users out there who are searching for ways to disable Copilot, and there are even tools out there that help you remove it from Windows. Perhaps Microsoft actually did you a favor here. There is an irony to the situation, that the company pushing its AI tools so hard—whether you want them or not—just removed them on your behalf as part of a software patch. That's not to say Copilot is useless: There are a number of potential benefits the AI tool offers Windows users (and, now, even Mac users). But if you haven't found any benefits to these tools in your work or personal life in the two-and-a-half years since ChatGPT launched this generative AI revolution, you might be content with Microsoft's inadvertent decision to remove its flagship assistant. 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. The Pixel 9 Pro is the latest and most premium model in the Pixel lineup, and right now, the unlocked 128GB Google Pixel 9 Pro is discounted to $749 (originally $999). That's the lowest price it has ever been on Amazon, according to price-tracking tools. The 256GB version is also at a record-low price of $799 (originally $1,099), doubling your storage for $50. Google Pixel 9 Pro, 128 GB $976.20 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Get Deal Get Deal $976.20 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Google Pixel 9 Pro, 256 GB $849.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $1,099.00 Save $250.00 Get Deal Get Deal $849.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $1,099.00 Save $250.00 Google Pixel 9 Pro, 512 GB $1,219.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Shop Now Shop Now $1,219.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Google Pixel 9 Pro, 1TB $1,449.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Shop Now Shop Now $1,449.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Google Pixel 9 Pro XL $699.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $1,099.00 Save $400.00 Get Deal Get Deal $699.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $1,099.00 Save $400.00 SEE 2 MORE The Pixel 9 Pro is the middle-of-the-pack option, sandwiched between the cheaper Pixel 9 and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The Pixel 9 Pro comes with 16GB of RAM, starts with 128GB of memory storage, a maximum 120 HZ refresh rate, and the Android 14 operating system. As Lifehacker's associate tech editor Michelle Ehrhardt explained in her review of the Pixel 9 Pro, the phone's hardware is the best Google has made so far, but its AI features still have hiccups. However, AI features will keep improving over time; the most important thing to get right is the hardware. The battery life can last around 18 hours and 40 minutes, according to Michelle's review (she watched YouTube videos the entire time). The main camera has a 50MP shooter, a 48MP ultra-wide camera with a 123-degree field of view, and a 48MP telephoto camera with a 30x Super Res Zoom. If you have the Pixel 8 Pro, you might not notice a huge upgrade in this version. However, if you're upgrading from an older version or doing a switch from a non-Pixel phone, the 9 Pro has a lot to love. One of my favorite things about Pixel phones is the ongoing support for many years. My Pixel 6A still gets all of the updates and tons of AI features that make the phone feel fresh many years later, with the latest ones dropping last month. With the Pixel 9 Pro, you'll be getting a quality phone with software updates for a while (as long as seven years). View the full article

Large mortgage companies are targeting mergers and acquisitions as well as home equity lending in their 2025 business plans, Boston Consulting Group said. View the full article

It's so tempting to buy starts—I get it. It feels great to look out over the garden, and finally see something in the beds, bringing color back to the landscape. But before you buy, you should seriously consider growing the following vegetables from seed. It might mean waiting a little longer for your crops, but your yields will likely be better. CarrotsCarrot seeds are small and cheap. You can pick up a pack of seeds at the grocery for a few dollars and it will yield far more carrots than a few six-packs of carrot starts. That’s $14 for starts vs. $3 for a packet of seeds. Not to mention: When you buy carrot starts, each cell holds a ton of individual carrot seedlings. You can’t simply plunk a whole cell of starts into the ground. You have to carefully separate them, and then plant each seedling in the ground, with space around it. It takes forever. If you grow from seed, you simply draw a line in the dirt using a yard tool, sprinkle seeds down the line, and lightly cover with dirt. Water, or let the rain do the work for you. You’ll have to thin the seeds, sure, but it's a much easier endeavor. Beets and radishesBeets and radishes both suffer from the same crowded-seedling problem as carrots, but there are two additional reasons to seed these yourself. First, beet and radish seeds are a lot bigger and easier to handle than carrots. So it's quite easy to ensure you’re planting one beet or radish every few inches, and neither has to be buried deep—you can push a seed into the ground with your finger. This means you won’t have to thin them later, and both beets and radishes germinate easily. Second, you don’t want 50 radishes or beets to be ready for harvest at the same time—as every seedling from a six-pack will be. You want 10 or 15. By planting several seeds weekly, you’ll have radishes or beets that are ready for harvest week after week. CornCorn has insufferably shallow roots and is annoying tall. When you transplant corn, it inevitably does not develop strong enough roots to hold itself upright, and will need some additional support. Which is silly, because corn is a huge seed, and has incredibly high germination rates. Even better, you plant it late in the season, so you’re unlikely to miss the timing. Plus, most nurseries only carry standard sweet yellow corn. With seeds you get access to more interesting varieties like Glass Gem or popping corn. BeansBeans, like corn, don’t develop very deep roots, and those roots need to support either a big bushy plant or a tall, climbing vine. It’s almost always better to plant from seed for that reason, so the seed has the opportunity to genuinely root itself in place. Like corn, you can access so many wild and wonderful bean seeds, while your nursery will offer a much smaller variety. In fact, you can try growing almost any bean you buy in the store and really like. Some bean purveyors like Rancho Gordo encourage it, allowing you to sign up to test-grow their beans. For a shipping fee, they’ll send you seed beans every year. CucumbersFor years I purchased cucumber starts, to get a jump on the season. And then my cucumbers did nothing for the first few weeks, which was always disappointing. Meanwhile, I noticed that the cucumbers that naturally grew from whatever seeds were left from last year grew prolifically. This is because cucumbers hate their roots being disturbed. When you transplant them, they go into shock for a few weeks, and stall. They’ll recover, but in those few weeks, you could have grown the starts from seed. LettuceIf you want to eat lettuce all summer long, you want to be planting it all summer long. With lettuce seeds being as abundant and cheap as they are, it’s far more efficient to grow them yourself. Lettuce is easy to germinate, and sprinkling in some seeds every week starting in spring just makes sense. Let the rain do the hard work. Lettuce is great to grow in blocks in your garden, or grow it between other plants. View the full article

This morning, news broke that the fast-credit fintech company Klarna has deposed its competitor Affirm as Walmart’s exclusive provider of “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) loans. Affirm stock (AFRM) dove over 10% Monday morning following the news, before regaining some of those losses. Shares are currently down around 5% as of this writing. According to a press release published this morning, Klarna will be partnering with Walmart’s majority-owned fintech startup, OnePay, “to exclusively offer installment loans for purchases at Walmart in the United States.” The partnership will be available both online and in stores, and will roll out at Walmart checkout this year. Klarna’s BPNL services will allow consumers to pay for items purchased at Walmart in installments, with repayment terms ranging from 3 to 26 months. Based on a January report from Capital One, Walmart is the world’s largest retailer above competitors like Amazon—meaning Klarna is about to become a lot more visible to consumers. “This is a game changer,” Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s cofounder and CEO, said in the press release. “OnePay choosing Klarna as their exclusive installment loans partner at Walmart in the U.S. is a huge vote of confidence as we pursue our goal of being available everywhere for everything.” A big week for Klarna—and a rough one for Affirm Walmart’s former exclusive BNPL partner was Affirm, Klarna’s main rival in the space—and investors seem to think that the major new deal isn’t looking so good for Affirm. In a statement cited by Bloomberg, Affirm shared that its former partnership with Walmart represented about 5% of its gross merchandise volume and approximately 2% of its adjusted operating income in the six months through December. Meanwhile, Klarna is riding high, given that news of its Walmart deal comes just days after the company filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to an initial proposed public offering, a sign that Klarna’s IPO could be coming sooner than expected. Although Klarna has not yet set an official IPO date, it’s now one of the most highly anticipated fintech IPOs this year. View the full article

TeamViewer, a global provider of remote connectivity and workplace digitalization solutions, has announced a new initiative offering free one-year licenses of TeamViewer Remote to eligible women-led startups and small businesses. This initiative, launched in celebration of International Women’s Day, aims to support female entrepreneurs by providing secure remote access and IT support capabilities. The offer is available through March 31, 2025, for businesses with a female CEO or co-founder. Eligible businesses must have between 5 and 31 employees, be no more than 10 years old, and be registered in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Germany. Additionally, businesses must not be existing TeamViewer customers. Enhancing Remote Access and Productivity TeamViewer Remote enables businesses to access and control devices from any location, providing secure IT support and facilitating remote work. The technology allows employees to safely connect to systems, applications, and files, helping minimize downtime and increase operational efficiency. According to TeamViewer, this initiative aligns with its broader mission to enhance workplace digitalization and support underrepresented groups in business. “At TeamViewer, we believe technology should be an enabler, not a barrier, and by providing these women-led businesses with powerful remote connectivity tools, we’re helping female leaders optimize operations, support flexible work arrangements and focus on growth,” said Mei Dent, Chief Product & Technology Officer at TeamViewer. “This initiative complements our other diversity efforts, such as SheSportTech which supports women in sports technology, and we’re excited to continue empowering women through initiatives that we see first-hand truly make a difference.” How to Apply Female entrepreneurs interested in applying for the free TeamViewer Remote license can find more information on TeamViewer’s website. Applications will be accepted until March 31, 2025. This article, "TeamViewer Launches Free License Initiative for Women-Led Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

TeamViewer, a global provider of remote connectivity and workplace digitalization solutions, has announced a new initiative offering free one-year licenses of TeamViewer Remote to eligible women-led startups and small businesses. This initiative, launched in celebration of International Women’s Day, aims to support female entrepreneurs by providing secure remote access and IT support capabilities. The offer is available through March 31, 2025, for businesses with a female CEO or co-founder. Eligible businesses must have between 5 and 31 employees, be no more than 10 years old, and be registered in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Germany. Additionally, businesses must not be existing TeamViewer customers. Enhancing Remote Access and Productivity TeamViewer Remote enables businesses to access and control devices from any location, providing secure IT support and facilitating remote work. The technology allows employees to safely connect to systems, applications, and files, helping minimize downtime and increase operational efficiency. According to TeamViewer, this initiative aligns with its broader mission to enhance workplace digitalization and support underrepresented groups in business. “At TeamViewer, we believe technology should be an enabler, not a barrier, and by providing these women-led businesses with powerful remote connectivity tools, we’re helping female leaders optimize operations, support flexible work arrangements and focus on growth,” said Mei Dent, Chief Product & Technology Officer at TeamViewer. “This initiative complements our other diversity efforts, such as SheSportTech which supports women in sports technology, and we’re excited to continue empowering women through initiatives that we see first-hand truly make a difference.” How to Apply Female entrepreneurs interested in applying for the free TeamViewer Remote license can find more information on TeamViewer’s website. Applications will be accepted until March 31, 2025. This article, "TeamViewer Launches Free License Initiative for Women-Led Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Government measures require a Commons vote that could provoke a rebellion by Labour MPs View the full article

Imagine that you’re taking the lead on a new IT project that involves building a call center from the network to the servers. The call center itself will house hundreds of jobs and will bridge the gap between customer and product. There are many requirements for a big project like this and as a project manager, you keep track of them all. Requirements gathering is a step in the requirements management process, which consists of gathering, documenting and analyzing project requirements. We’ll start with a requirements gathering definition and then we’ll look into the process and tools you can use. /wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Requirements-Gathering-Template.png Get your free Requirements Gathering Template Use this free Requirements Gathering Template for Word to manage your projects better. Download Word File What Is Requirements Gathering? Requirements gathering, or requirements elicitation, is the process of determining all the requirements of a project. There are two main types of project requirements, business and technical requirements. Business requirements define what an organization will accomplish with the project, while technical requirements explain how the project must be executed. They’re gathered during the initiation phase of the project life cycle, but project managers need to monitor them throughout the project timeline, as they can change. Truly effective requirements gathering and management is started at the very beginning of the project, and must answer the following questions: How long will the project timeline be? Who will be involved in the project? What are the risks for the requirements-gathering process? What is our ultimate goal in understanding our project requirements? What are our technical and business requirements? It sounds fairly simple, but it’s incredibly important. Once the project team has gathered requirements, they should be compiled in a requirements document. Project management software can help with requirements gathering. ProjectManager is a cloud-based work and project management software that organizes your requirements. Use our task list project view to collect, prioritize and assign your project requirements. Plus, once in our software, they’re tracked in real-time with live dashboards and reporting features. Get started with ProjectManager for free today. /wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Gantt-CTA-2025.jpgBuild detailed project schedules once requirements are identified. Learn more What Is a Requirements Document? A requirement document is used to explain what is needed from the product. Among the things it defines is the product vision and how it must be achieved by the end of the project. It doesn’t go into details about how it will be delivered, though. It’s more to put the product in context, such as why the product is needed or what problem it’s solving. The details of how it will do this are not included. Why Is Requirements Gathering Important? Remember back to the last project you managed. What were the risks that came to light? Which resources did you run out of? Was there any scope creep or budgetary mishaps? And overall, what were the impacts of those shortcomings on the project as a whole? Deadlines, scope, cost overrun—without proper requirements identification at the outset, all of those elements will be affected. Design issues to the product will be impacted, and developmental delays will occur. Ultimately, your product won’t be set up for optimal success as it faces an overrun budget. Requirements Gathering Checklist The requirements gathering checklist below is a great starting point for covering all essential project requirements. While this list is not exhaustive, it can help lead to other important questions. Key stakeholders have been identified Goals have been outlined and agreed upon Items within scope have been identified Items outside of scope have been identified Interviews and workshops to collect needs and expectations have been held Functional needs that the project seeks to accomplish have been acknowledged Data needed to reach the project goals have been recognized Stakeholders have signed off on the project Each industry and project will have a different requirements gathering process. For example, some may focus on regulatory compliance or technical complexity while others focus on business objectives and stakeholder involvement. Be sure to tailor the requirements gathering checklist accordingly. Requirements Gathering Process So, how do you gather requirements in the most effective and manageable way possible? Typically, requirements gathering is made up of a few discrete steps. 1. Appoint and Assign First things first: who’s going to be the person that tells everyone you’re the project manager? Ensure that that person understands why this role is so important—everyone must go to you with all project updates, as you will act as the knowledge center for project progress. You’ll also want to identify who the key stakeholders will be. These will be the people who brainstorm, analyze, approve or deny project updates. They’re typically made up of customers, team leads, department managers, board members, business partners or manufacturers. They’ll have the most say in the progress of the project overall. 2. Elicit Requirements & Interview Next, you’ll want to interview all of the stakeholders that you identified. Ask them questions like: What is on your wishlist for this product update? What is your ultimate goal for this project? What do you wish this product would do that it doesn’t already? What got you interested in this product in the first place? What changes would convince you to recommend this product to others? What tools would you need to make this project successful? What are the concerns you have for this project process? 3. Gather and Document Write absolutely everything down. Write until you can’t write anymore. Record every single answer, and create an easily-accessible repository where (approved) others can access if they need to reference any information that was collected during the requirements gathering phase. Not only will this documentation be helpful at the end of the project when you reflect back on goals achieved, updates accomplished, features added and bugs fixed, but it will also act to help manage stakeholder expectations, and keep team members focused and on track. 4. List All Assumptions & Requirements This is the meat of the process. Once you’ve documented everyone’s goals and expectations, you can create a requirements management plan that’s actionable, measurable and quantifiable. During this phase you’ll answer: How long will the project timeline be? Map out your timeline, and then map out your requirements on that timeline. This will help in case some requirements are contingent on dependencies. Who will be involved in the project? Will it be the entire design and development teams, or just a select few from each? Which team members will be available? Which team members specialize in the types of issues the project will tackle? What are the risks for the requirements-gathering process? Define all assumptions, and document all risks that might impact your requirements. Understand that your assumptions are typically divided into three categories: time, budget and scope. They can range from assuming PTO, holidays and sick days, to assuming stakeholders will provide feedback in a timely manner. What is our ultimate goal in understanding our project requirements? What is the time-based goal, the budget goal and the scope goal? Will it be to compete in the market more directly with a competitor? Will it be to solve a customer problem, or fix a bug? By answering all of the questions above in a clear and concise manner, you’ll have a full map of your requirements ready to present to stakeholders. 5. Monitor Progress Once you’ve gotten stakeholder approval on the requirements you’ve presented, you’ll implement them into the project timeline and process. At this point, you’ll want to make sure you have a method in place to monitor and track all of your requirements across all teams to ensure that triggers for risk stay low. You’ll also want to use this data to report project progress to stakeholders, give feedback to department managers, and ensure the project is on track from a time, scope and budget standpoint. Our free requirements traceability matrix is a great tool to keep track of project requirements. Requirements Gathering Template To kick off your requirements gathering, check out this template. Our free requirements gathering template includes a cover page to distinguish this doc from other projects. There’s also a place to track any revisions to the document. Then you can describe the project, its purpose, scope and timeline. There’s even a space for stakeholders to capture their thoughts. Download your template today. /wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Requirements-Gathering-Screenshot-600x482.jpgProjectManager’s requirements gathering template Requirements Gathering Techniques Now that we know what requirements gathering is and we’ve explored the steps of the requirements gathering process, you’ll want to have good sources from which to get them. The primary sources are stakeholders, such as customers, users, et al. Other sources could include experts, analysts and information about competitors. Once the sources have been identified, there are a number of techniques that can be applied to gather the requirements. This is an iterative process and no one requirements-gathering technique is going to do the job by itself. You’ll need to use as many as you feel necessary. Here are some of the top requirements-gathering techniques. Use Case Scenarios A use case is a document that explains how users will perform tasks on your product. It is written from a user’s point of view and done in steps that include: who’s using the product, what they want from the product, the user’s goal, the steps they take to accomplish their task and how the product responds to their action. Brainstorming Conduct a brainstorming session with a group of participants who can say whatever they want about the product as long as they feel it’s important. Have a facilitator lead the group, organizing and prioritizing their responses. Start by explaining the objective of the brainstorming session, get the group to provide as many ideas as possible, don’t criticize or debate and when done gather all the information. Mind Mapping Mind mapping is another way to gather ideas. It involves creating a mind map, which starts by placing the central idea in the center of a page. Then use lines, arrows, speech bubbles and different colors to show the connection between the central theme and the ideas that stem from it. It allows for an organic development of ideas relating to your central idea. It shows how different facts are related. Great Requirements Gathering Tools Requirements gathering tools help streamline the process of collecting, documenting and managing requirements effectively. Here are some of the best requirements gathering tools to consider. Jira This tool is known for its robust requirement tracking features. Jira allows teams to capture, prioritize and track requirements. It has features specific to issue tracking such as issue types, allowing users to categorize and organize requirements. Use Jira to link issues, oversee workflow management and add attachments and comments to requirements. Jama This software is seen as a requirements management tool that is especially ideal for large-scale projects. It provides a central platform where stakeholders can collaborate on requirements in real time. It uses diagrams, flowcharts and interface mockups to visually represent requirements so stakeholders better understand the final product. Confluence Atlassian’s team collaboration tool Confluence is widely used for requirements gathering. Although it isn’t a dedicated requirements management platform, it has features such as collaborative documentation, structured pages, templates, version control and a Jira integration. Accompa Accompa is an online requirements management software that’s known for its user-friendly interface and features that benefit various teams. It supports review and approval workflows so stakeholders can formally sign off on requirements to ensure they meet the necessary standards. This platform is typically ideal for medium-sized teams looking for an affordable requirements-gathering tool. Microsoft Azure DevOps While this is mainly seen as a DevOps program, it offers capabilities for requirements gathering. Azure Boards help manage work such as user stories, features and epics, representing requirements. It also has work item tracking to define, assign and track requirements throughout their lifecycle. There is also a marketplace that has extensions for visual modeling, reporting and requirements traceability. More Requirements Gathering Templates Whatever technique or combination thereof for requirements gathering, you’ll need to have them collected in a document. Templates are a great tool to gather requirements and more. ProjectManager is the online hub for free templates related to any aspect of a project. Here are a couple that can help you with requirements gathering. Stakeholder Analysis Template Speaking of the stakeholders, our free stakeholder analysis template for Excel will help you identify and manage your stakeholders. You can use this free template to describe the stakeholders involved with the project, what their relationship to the project is and the level of commitment, which helps you plan how to manage them. Project Plan Template Finally, you’re going to have to take all this information and use it to inform your plan. Our free project plan template for Word helps you scope out the work and make it down into manageable tasks. There’s also room to manage your team’s workload. The project plan template takes all the requirements gathering and puts it to practical use. ProjectManager Helps with Requirements The key to any great project is to have all requirements gathered from the outset. This requires a seamless method of communication across all channels and a repository that can hold data for an endless amount of time. ProjectManager has tools that make that not only possible but easy. With our cloud-based software, you and your team can host an unlimited amount of documents so you can store any requests from people for any length of time. Plan Your Project on Interactive Gantt Charts Need a Gantt chart that’s cross-functional with a time-tracking system? Our software hosts hybrid tools that can adapt as your project moves forward. Our Gantt does everything Gantts are known for and more. You can filter for the critical path and set a baseline to track the variance between your planned effort and actual progress. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/pm-gantt-screenshot.png Use Multiple Project Views Our software has multiple project views so what you plan on the Gantt is updated across the entire tool, be that the kanban board, task list, sheet or calendar view. Everyone can work how they want and communicate in real time no matter where they are. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Calendar_Wide_Zoom-150.jpg Collaborative to the Core ProjectManager is great for teams looking to communicate with more transparency across multiple locations. With our software, you can collaborate effectively and with ease by adding comments from key stakeholders or team members. Plus, appointees can schedule tasks and make alerts to ensure clients are being well managed and the timeline stays intact. /wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Notifications_Wide_Zoom-175.jpg Our platform is the single source of truth for your project. Email notifications and in-app alerts keep you updated on comments and progress. Real-time dashboards and one-click reports deliver the live data you need to make insightful decisions to deliver a successful project. Gathering and managing requirements across multiple teams are no easy feat. Ensure that team members and stakeholders are up-to-date no matter what. ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps teams collaborate effectively across multiple channels. Get started today for free. The post Requirements Gathering: The Process, Best Tools & More appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

Shares of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) rose over 8% in early morning trading on Monday on news that incoming CEO Lip-Bu Tan has big plans to turn around the ailing chipmaker, including restructuring the company’s approach to AI, resurrecting its manufacturing operations, and eyeing cuts to what Tan views as a “slow-moving and bloated middle management layer,” according to a Reuters report. Tan said he’ll need to make “tough decisions” when he takes Intel’s helm on Tuesday, after the company posted $19 billion in annual losses in 2024. Tan’s appointment comes three months after the company ousted former CEO Pat Gelsinger, as it struggled after missing out on the generative artificial intelligence boom and losing market share to Nvidia and AMD. One problem with Gelsinger’s leadership, a semiconductor industry expert told Reuters, was that Gelsinger was “too nice” and did not want to “fire a bunch of middle management in the way they needed to.” The Reuters report also said Intel could have architecture ready for an AI chip by 2027, and would plan to release a new version of it each subsequent year. This would be a big coup for Intel, which is lagging behind Nvidia and Broadcom (AVGO) in the AI hardware market. In the past several quarters, Intel has lost market share in data centers and PCs, and lost billions in its manufacturing business. Tan also plans to restart production of chips that power AI servers, and expand beyond servers into software, robotics, and AI foundation models, per Reuters. Tan’s appointment comes amid ongoing reports that Broadcom and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) are among several investors in talks to divide the ailing chipmaker’s business into two parts, spinning out its chip-design and marketing business and its manufacturing arm. However, Tan has indicated he won’t split up the company. Tan was a member of Intel’s board until he resigned last August. He spent a decade as CEO of Cadence Design Systems, an Intel supplier and chip-design software company, where he doubled revenue and sent the stock price soaring. View the full article

When you buy a new home, it’s natural to get excited about wanting to move in and settle in as quickly as possible, putting off potential renovations—even the ones that will make you happier in the space—and other home projects until later. And sure, some renovations, like kitchen remodels or additions, require a lot of planning and are best scheduled when your bank account and stress levels have recovered from the home-buying process. That said, there are some home projects that are best tackled right away—because they come with a lot of disruption, take a long time to pay off on the investment, or both. Planting treesIf your property has outdoor space but no trees, the time to plant some is right away. Trees offer a lot of benefits—they beautify the property, provide shade that helps keep your house cool in the warmer months, and add serious value to your house. But trees take decades to mature—20 to 30 years on average, thought some species will mature in just a few years. Depending on where you live and the variety of tree, waiting to plant might mean that the people who get to enjoy your lush, leafy outdoor space (and the added value it brings) will be the folks who buy the house from you. Refinishing the floorsIf your new house has old floors, don’t wait to refinish or replace them. The ideal time to sand, stain, and seal hardwood, tear out worn old planks, or remove ancient carpet is before you have all your furniture in place and you’ve transplanted your busy schedule to the new house. Even if you’re willing to move everything out of some rooms (or an entire floor), the dust and noise of refinishing flooring will probably drive you to move out for a few days or weeks. If you know you’ll need to redo those floors eventually, rip off the bandage and get it done before you move in. Then you can arrange your furniture with the knowledge that you won’t have to move it any time soon. If you’re not going to replace or refinish old flooring, you should at least have a deep clean done before you move, especially if we’re talking about carpeting. Carpets trap dust, dirt, mold spores, and a host of other stuff—and this can all be deep down in the pile, so even a carpet that looks clean might not be. The easiest time to have the floors in your home cleaned is before you and your family are living on it. Removing popcorn ceilingsIf your home has popcorn ceilings you probably know you’re going to get rid of them eventually. There are two compelling reasons to do so right away, before you move in. One, removing popcorn ceilings is a dust nightmare, so getting the work done before your furniture, clothes, and everything else you own can be coated in a layer of grime will be the better option. Two, you might need to worry about asbestos, depending on when your home was built and when those ceilings were installed. You’re well advised to test for it before scraping those ceilings off. If asbestos is present, the removal and remediation will be more complex, and you will have to vacate the house while it’s being done. Painting your home's interiorPainting the interior of your home before you move in is one of the smartest home improvement projects you can do. First of all, a coat of paint will make even a new build home feel fresh and inviting. And painting the walls and ceilings of your house will be a lot easier when you don’t have to move or cover a ton of furniture, window treatments, or possessions. Changing locks and codesThis is one project a lot of homeowners overlook—but it’s crucial: Change (or rekey) the locks and any security codes associated with the house. Homeowners tend to hand out keys to their home over the years—to contractors, neighbors, house cleaners, even dog walkers. And they’re not always great about remembering to collect them, so it’s possible a lot of people have keys to your house when you move in, or the codes to the alarm system you inherited. The time to change those keys and codes is before you move in and get caught up in everyday life and forget to do it. And, yes, you should have the locks changed even if the house is a new build. The builder probably has master keys to those locks or a record of the alarm system codes, and you don’t want to rely on their discretion or competence when it comes to your security. Replacing the windowsReplacement windows are expensive, so it’s no wonder people tend to put this project off. If the windows in your house are in decent shape (even if they’re old) delaying their replacement feels like money in your pocket. But old windows, even if they’re functional, are going to be an eyesore, and they’re not going to be very effective in terms of soundproofing, nor are they very energy efficient. Delaying this project will doom you to years of drafts, water leaks, and being able to hear every car that drives past the house all too clearly. If you’d prefer more peace and quiet and lower utility bills, bite the bullet and replace those windows right away. Air sealing“Air sealing” a house is a process of identifying and eliminating gaps and openings that let your climate-controlled air escape and let the outdoor cold, heat, and/or humidity in. If your house is porous and lacks proper insulation, you’ll constantly lose the battle to keep its interior comfortable—and you’ll pay a lot for a losing cause, too. Sealing up a house is a process of identifying air leaks (a process you can do yourself), then caulking and otherwise plugging up the gaps you identify. While you’re at it, take a look at the insulation in your attic, crawl space, or basement and consider having it upgraded (or added, if it’s missing) to make the house as snug as possible. Getting this done is a lot easier before you’ve moved in, and getting it done as soon as possible reduces the time you’ll be overpaying to heat or cool the place. View the full article

Bumble rolled out a handful of new safety features on Monday, including ID verification, in an attempt to draw in a new class of users who are focused on safety. ID verification requests a government-issued ID to authenticate the user’s age and name and then adds a badge indicating they are who they say they are on their profile. Users can then filter profiles by both photo verification and ID verification. ID verification is now available in 11 markets, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with plans to expand further. Another safety-focused feature, “Review Before You Send,” addresses the messaging section, where users often receive inappropriate content. Originally launched for the Compliments feature, it prompts users to revise flagged messages before they’re sent. In addition, the company is launching a new “Share Date” feature that lets users share details about their dates with selected contacts. The safety efforts could help Bumble bring users to its namesake dating app at a time when the broader dating industry is dealing with post-COVID slumps, generational changes in dating behavior, and AI making it harder than ever to tell who is real or fake. Bumble, whose founder Whitney Wolfe Herd is back in the helm after leaving the post a little over a year ago, is pushing to revitalize the dating and social connection company. Bumble reported a 3.8% decline in quarterly app revenue in its most recent earnings report. Bumble’s biggest rival Match Group is also feeling the pressure. The company, which owns Hinge, Tinder, and other star dating apps, recently swapped out chief executives. The company’s new leader, Spencer Rascoff, sent employees a note last week that called for increased focus on product and user experience. Rascoff said that going forward, users need to be at the core of every choice. “Every product decision, policy, and innovation must be guided by their experience and outcomes,” he said. “Trust is the foundation of real connections, and we are committed to rebuilding it with urgency, accountability, and an unwavering focus on the user.” View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. You’ve seen it at the end of hundreds of recipes: “Add salt to taste.” Whether it’s beef stew or a chocolate chip cookie, salt is a seasoning we often lean on as an inoffensive way to wake up the palate. But, like it or not, sometimes salt needs help. (Coming from a long-time salt worshiper, this is saying a lot.) For a surefire way to kickstart your tastebuds, crack open the MSG. I do it on a regular basis. What is MSG? Though the misinformation about MSG is waning, there are still plenty of folks who’ve heard (and believe) that it’s poisonous, leads to health problems, or is bad for you just because. This is incorrect. Our Senior Health Editor, Beth Skwarecki, breaks down how the MSG scare started and the racism that kept it alive long after it was disproven. MSG is exactly what its longer chemical name, monosodium glutamate, indicates: a harmless combination of sodium and the glutamate amino acid. Amino acids combine to form proteins, and they are naturally in our bodies, plants, and other animals. In fact, glutamates and monosodium glutamate are also naturally occurring in plenty of our food already, like parmesan cheese, kombu seaweed, tomatoes, mushrooms, and grapes—to name a few. You might already be enjoying MSG more than you know. What does MSG taste like?Monosodium glutamate is a teeny, clear, crystalline substance. It looks a lot like salt at first glance, but when you look closely you’ll see that the granules are longer and more regular in shape. It dissolves quickly so it doesn’t have a texture when you eat it. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann We identify the flavor of MSG as umami, or savory. It’s one of the five elemental flavors we can detect: umami, salt, sweet, sour, and bitter. Like sweet or salty, or any building block, it’s not exactly like anything else. Umami is a word we can use to describe other things, though, and that can help you identify when you taste it. I often can taste umami in deeply savory foods—dishes with mushrooms, meats, olives, aged cheeses or yeast extracts. When you eat pizza, especially pepperoni pizza, umami is there. Umami adds complexity of flavor, almost like a bass line beneath the music of the entire dish. If you take a bite of risotto and you can feel your mouth water, MSG is actually what is making that happen. When you eat MSG, the glutamate receptors in your taste buds (yep, your body was made to detect glutamates) fire up and actually trigger salivation. Use MSG in your cooking and bakingI want all of my cooking to make people salivate and take another bite. Since MSG doesn’t taste like anything, it can go in sweet and savory dishes without throwing off the flavor profile. Adding a pinch here or there is going to give your casserole, spaghetti sauce, chocolate cake, or blondies recipe an irresistible je ne sais quoi. I highly recommend adding MSG to brownies—here’s my recipe for dark chocolate soy sauce brownies, but you can use boxed mix and just stir in a quarter-teaspoon of MSG to get the same effect without using soy sauce. The same goes for savory dishes. I like to stir a pinch into soups and stews toward the end, taste, and take it from there. Basically, you use MSG as you would any seasoning in your cupboard—add, taste, adjust. Even though sodium is part of the MSG equation, it's not exactly salty, so you will likely use it in conjunction with a pinch of regular cooking salt. If I’m making homemade stocks or broths, I’ll add about a quarter-teaspoon of MSG per four cups of liquid before I add salt simply because I might not need as much as I think. Taste the food if you can, and then add salt to taste. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes we add more salt when what we’re actually looking for is more umami. Using a smidge of MSG can actually help you reduce your salt intake. As Beth mentions in her article linked above, “sodium only makes up 12% of the weight of MSG (as opposed to 40% of table salt).” Get an MSG cellar Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann One of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten was my MSG cellar. But you don’t need one made especially for MSG—you can use any salt cellar. You can also buy these cute panda Ajinomoto MSG shakers instead of a cellar to easily sprinkle it onto your food just like you would salt or pepper. In the store, MSG might be packaged in medium-sized clear bags, or small seasoning bottles. Check the seasoning aisle of your grocery store. In the Uzbek market near me they carry clear bags of Ajinomoto and I decant it at home into my MSG cellar and smaller back-up jars for easier storage. In my Shoprite, I’ll find MSG in seasoning shakers like these from Ac'cent and Spice Supreme. A little goes a long way, so a shaker this size can last you eight months or longer. Here are some things I’ll always season with MSG:All my egg dishes. MSG brings out the best in your breakfast. All it takes is a pinch per two eggs. Add it to your scrambles, omelettes, quiches, and casseroles. Soups and broths. MSG brings complexity, a more “round” flavor, to broths. It’s subtle, but once you have a broth with MSG it’s impossible to go without. A quarter-teaspoon per quart of broth will add a richness that pairs well with every soup, from sweet, earthy borscht to savory beef stew. Fresh sliced tomatoes. Enjoy the best tomato sandwich or BLT of your life. There is no better way to quickly improve crappy tomatoes than to add a mixture of MSG, salt, and sugar. And even if they’re not crappy, I still add it—sans sugar. Burgers and meatballs. Any mixed ground meat situation is better with MSG. Beef and veal meatballs, pork dumplings, turkey burgers—especially turkey burgers—will have a richer, more meaty flavor from a dose of MSG (about a half-teaspoon per pound of meat). This is actually a prime example of when more salt just wasn’t giving me the flavor I wanted. MSG and less salt fixed my burgers and meatballs. Salad dressings. Whether you’ve been looking for a way to avoid those anchovies in your homemade caesar, or your Dijon dressing needs a softened edge, MSG is a great way to improve your whole salad. Gravies and sauces. MSG brings a welcome depth of flavor to tomato sauces, meatiness to brown gravies, and while the French might never admit this, all of the mother sauces are better with MSG. Roasted vegetables. Part of the reason that roasted veggies are so good is because the flavors are concentrated and the natural sugars caramelize. Adding MSG will elevate them to a whole new level of flavor. Simply sprinkle it in when you toss them with oil and salt before roasting. If you’re new to roasting, here’s the easy way to do it. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. Last week we discussed final F-you’s to jobs or bosses you hated, and here are 18 of the best stories you shared. (Caveat: appearing on this list is not an endorsement of said behavior in every case! Stories are shared primarily for entertainment value.) 1. The revenge A legal secretary at the Big Law firm I worked at knew she was going to be fired, so the day before she went into a bunch of partners emails and sent their wives evidence of infidelity, printed out confidential employee evaluations/communications about bonuses/pay and left them in everyone’s desk, and then cleaned out the swag closet (company-branded shirts/hats/bags etc) and dropped several thousands worth of merch with Law Firm’s name and logo off at a homeless encampment. 2. The egg salad I (queer F) quit a job where the manager (M) kept making subtle religious misogynistic remarks. A meeting, I quietly picked up my things, went downstairs, dropped my equipment at HR and left. I had been home for two hours before I realized I’d left my lunch in my desk. Egg salad. I probably could have messaged someone on the team, but hey, no one had the courage to stand up for me so … yeah. I heard through the grapevine they found it two days later. 3. The stand In a former job, I was working for a contractor to the U.S. government and was a very high-performing technical engineer in a niche field. There was another guy I worked with (I’ll call him Jake) who was also good but was very quiet, shy, and afraid of conflict. At some point, our old manager left and we got in a new manager (Tarzan), who I would describe as very macho-assertive. This new manager liked to bark orders and be short with people. This didn’t bother me because I knew I was indispensable, but it did bother Jake and he tried to avoid Tarzan as much as possible. After a few months, I was lucky enough to score a conversion to civil servant and become a government employee directly, working in a different branch of the same agency. I had planned to notify Tarzan and his manager separately by email, but fate intervened. At our next weekly team stand-up, Tarzan was in a terrible mood and chose to leap on a small and inconsequential mistake Jake had made and gave Jake an over-the-top dressing down in front of us all, including, “This is F–king unacceptable on my team.” In the awkward silence that followed, I simply said, “I can’t work on this kind of team. I quit effective next Monday” and left the office. I filled in Tarzan’s manager more fully about the situation and he understood and congratulated me on the move, but I heard from others who remained in the team meeting that Tarzan was truly shocked, and his apology to me later in the hallway made it clear that he spent a day or two wondering whether he was going to face repercussions for “driving me away.” Hopefully he reconsidered his approach in a more lasting way after that! 4. The wedding This is very petty, but I can be petty if pushed. I had a boss who always had to have someone to target. The person was always a woman. For two years, it was me. I couldn’t do anything right. If I said one thing, she said the opposite. She once blamed me for the weather. If I needed her to do something, I always advised her to do the opposite. This same boss always prided herself on being close and in touch with her employees’ personal lives. So when I got engaged, I told everyone but her. I invited everyone but her. (It was an office of 15 people.) I kept the whole thing secret, and everyone else was scared to tell her. My wedding occurred when she was on vacation. Everyone also knew I was moving to be with my husband after I got a job where he was. For at least three months, everyone knew all of this information except her. When she got back from vacation, I put in exactly two weeks. I told her I’d gotten married. The look of shock on her face was all the revenge I needed. Then, at the going-away party I told her I didn’t want, I gave the staff a professionally framed picture of all of us at my wedding right in front of her. On my last day, my boss was out. She tried to call me, but I let it go to voicemail. She told everyone else, “I will never get over this. I can’t believe she did this.” I’m sure she did though. In the future, don’t ever tell me what you pride yourself on. 5. The grant application The (many multi-million dollars) grant funding for my position was ending, so I started looking for a new position. It was a long, frustrating search, during which the grand funder decided to give us a one-year extension, after previously assuring us there would be no extension. Now, in addition to my job search, I had to write a narrative and budget for the extension year. I had 20+ principal investigators who were all clammoring for the last little boost to their individual budgets and no one was willing to compromise so that the overall budget could be, ya know, within budget. My boss was unwilling to assist me in finding a solution. So, I gave all the other PIs what they wanted and cut my boss’s salary out of the proposed budget before submitting the application and starting my new job. 6. The 2FA app I left my job a few years ago. The new big boss was a jerk, told me my position was useless and unneeded. I was their entire IT support, by the way. I knew he was going to fire me or push me out, so I found a new job and peaced out. I wanted to be nice about it, and I offered to show him some basic IT things he’d need to know since he said he wasn’t replacing me because he could do everything I could (reader, he could not). One of the things I tried to insist on was a 2FA that was for a major software admin account, that was tied to my phone (we had to use an app, no choice). I explained that someone else needed to download the app and set it up before I left since the day I did, I was deleting my account/app. He declined (seriously, was like, “No, it’s fine”) and, wouldn’t you know, two days later he tried to get into something and was declined because I wasn’t there with my phone. He texted and called me about it, and I just sent him a single email saying I was no longer an employee and had no access. Then I blocked his number and ingored all other attemps at communication. He didn’t need me after all, he could handle anything! I don’t feel bad one bit. 7. The refused non-compete Years ago my office hired one of our interns to join us full-time. He was a great guy and we were all looking forward to having him on board in part because we were significantly understaffed. He took one look at the contract and said, “Not signing anything with a non-compete.” We knew he had other offers and admin actually listened to us and took the non-compete out of his contract. Which meant they had to take it out of ours as well, but that’s not the point of the story. My boss was a rigid, bigoted jerk. He was also my grandboss’s favorite so we never even tried to get any traction. New hire had two little kids and a wife with a completely inflexible job, so when the kids got sick, he stayed home. We had plenty of sick time but Boss thought this was inappropriate because 1) mothers should stay home with sick kids, not fathers and 2) it showed a lack of dedication to the job. Finally he called new hire into a meeting and told him he should hire a nanny. New hire gave notice the next day and opened his own office across the hall because he had no non-compete. 8. The inventory My boss had it in for me after HR revealed EVERYTHING I told them in an investigation into him. I was a retail manager and we were preparing for the annual store inventory, which was to start when we closed at 6 pm on a Sunday and generally took about six hours. I was in charge of preparing for it. I had detailed notes, a store map marked with what had been prepped and the schedule to finish it. One of the things HR was investigating were complaints that my boss didn’t do anything all day, and preparing for inventory was included. He took no interest in anything I was doing and I managed the process myself. One of the cashiers had left a roll of quarters out at the end of the night on my closing shift. My boss took that opportunity to immediately fire me for “unsecured funds” the next day. I left in tears. This was technically policy, but for $10, unlikely to be enforced unless someone had a grudge. One of my employees called me on my way home, as she noted I didn’t go in back to collect my things. In addition to the energy drink and my lunch in the fridge, I asked her to grab the inventory map and my notebook and erase a to do list on the whiteboard, which she happily did. There was no other record of what had been done and what needed to be done for the inventory, and since he had not participated in the prep work at all, my boss had NO IDEA what to do. The inventory went horribly. What normally took six hours took 11! I felt bad for the hourly employees who were there that long, but at least they got a nice paycheck and none were scheduled to open the next day. My boss was salary. He not only had to stay there for free until 5 am, he had to open the store at 7 am. Since they were short-handed due to losing me, he had to work his full 10-hour shift. 9. The tirade I’ve told this one here before, but it’s so good. It happened like 15 years ago and I still think about it regularly. The best rage quit I ever witnessed: we had a weekly all-hands staff meeting with mandatory attendance. If you were on the road you were required to dial in. ‘Mike’ called in, and when it was his turn to speak he delivered a scathing tirade that was the stuff of quitting fantasies — absolutely A+ stuff. The big boss was so stunned he couldn’t respond at first… but then he pulled it together and hung up on Mike. But Mike was a step ahead — he’d dialed in on TWO lines, so he was STILL on the call, and got another couple of killer lines in before he got disconnected for good! Mike was a company hero for months after that. 10. The wet carpet My then-boyfriend, future-husband and I worked together at a TGIFriday’s-style restaurant in the late 1990s. We were both scheduled on a Sunday morning, and with the plan to drive to work together, I’d spent the night at his place (an apartment in his parents’ basement) on Saturday night. Around 8 am on Sunday, I stepped out of bed to start getting ready and, as I stepped down, my foot touched something wet. Something wet enough to soak my sock in about two seconds. Turns out the basement was flooded — and flooded BADLY. He called in to help with clean-up, and the manager was really crappy to him, definitely assumed he was calling off due to being hungover, wanting the day off. etc. Now, my future-husband wasn’t a manger per se, but he was a keyholding floor supervisor (basically a fill-in if a manager wasn’t available to work), a trainer, and sometimes a fill-in book keeper for the restaurant — so not someone who casually calls off work. He pulled up a four-foot piece of dripping wet carpet, stuck it in a trash bag, and sent me to work with it. What followed became so iconic that when my cousin started working at the same restaurant more than three years later, it was still a story being told to new people. Luckily (for me, not them), the manager who was crappy on the phone was standing at the host stand as I walked in the front door. I dropped the huge, lawn-sized trash bag at their feet and said, “Mike thought you didn’t believe him when he called earlier. He wanted me to bring you this proof and to tell you he quits,” then walked away to clock in. Calls were made to Mike, and the resignation stuck. When the manager asked me to clean up the trash bag, I refused saying it was a gift for him, not me. Still not sure how I didn’t get fired for that. 11. The hotel rooms Back in the early 2000s, I worked at a hotel. Our hotel was negatively affected by 9-11 because of the decrease in travel. We were eventually foreclosed on by the bank and were owned and operated by the bank for three years until it was sold. The people that bought the hotel came in and let almost everybody go and staffed it with their family. They didn’t lay off the front desk manager yet because she had information they needed. The night we all got let go, I went over to the front desk manager’s house and she proceeded to log onto all of the hotel booking sites we sold rooms through — hotels.com, Expedia, Priceline, etc., and changed the rates to $1 per night and then called all of her friends and told them to book a room. The new owners got in the office the next morning and saw all the confirmations for the $1 rooms (the hotel had 400 rooms so probably 100+ were booked this way) and freaked out and started calling her, begging for the login information so they could get in and stop the bleeding. She didn’t answer the phone. 12. The parking access A few jobs ago, I worked with a team that provided onsite parking for corporate employees of a major online retailer with significant physical presence in my nearby metropolitan area. We were all laid off kind of abruptly, because Retailer decided they wanted to switch to a cheaper parking lottery system. Background: the system we used to assign parking worked on sometimes months- or years-long wait lists to get parking in an employee’s chosen buildings, with less secure “temporary” spaces also available at less optimal garages. Parkers were supposed to reach out to us with issues they encountered with their access fobs. One of the people using a temp garage, “Percy,” wrote us silly poems about his access woes whenever he had to reach out, and quickly endeared himself to the entire team that way. He happened to be on a wait list for a building that was notoriously slow-moving and difficult to get parking access in, but he was always upbeat and kind in his emails, which was a nice break from the usual for us. He became legendary in our office even though we were only there about a year and a half. On our last day, a couple coworkers and I realized that because all our emails/inboxes were getting deleted, nobody would get in trouble if we just … gave Percy parking access to his preferred garage. So together the three of us penned a little thank you note to him for always brightening our days and got his new access fob sent out before we left. I hope if he’s still there, he’s loving his parking access. 13. The pickles When I worked at a grocery store we had a worker who was still in high school get fired for missing too many shifts. He seemed to take it well, but when he went to turn in his uniform, he passed through the condiment aisle and took every third jar of pickles and smashed them on the ground. That aisle smelled like pickles for at least a month afterwards. 14. The debrief Mine was a more belated F-you. You know the saying, revenge is a dish best served cold. I used to work for a tiny consulting firm, and they thought they were The Shit. I had worked there for a long time, and I finally screwed up the courage to leave after years of being treated poorly. I got a job at a huge company that was a big client of tiny firm. The CEO of Tiny Firm was buds with a VP of Big Client, so I can only assume management of Tiny Firm thought that they had things locked in for continued business at Big Client. The thing is, that VP has no actual authority over the subsidiary and department I work for, and it’s actually me and people at my level who often make decisions on which consulting firms to bring on for jobs. So when a job came up for bid, my old tiny firm submitted a proposal, along with several others. I reviewed all the bids, and theirs was by far the highest and, quite frankly, missed the mark. I sent them an email letting them know that their bid was not successful and they asked for a debrief. So I responded with a high-level list of their deficiencies. The most satisfying deficiency I got to point out was in a discipline that I am a widely-known expert in (in my industry). They were just flat-out wrong about a regulatory change I was heavily involved in. Best part was that the person who asked for the debrief is the same person who when I resigned said that they weren’t worried about my many years of industry knowledge leaving with me. I guess they needed my industry knowledge after all. 15. The thermostat My mom worked in an office that had grown very toxic —and she was the only person who knew how to adjust the thermostat (don’t ask!). Literally on the way out the door on the day she quit, she jacked it up all the way to 90. 16. The copier I work for a company that services copiers. The way our service contracts are structured, clients are billed based on the number of pages they print. So the more things they print/copy, the more they pay each month. We had one client call in years ago stating that their bill had to be wrong because they never make anywhere near as many pages as they were billed for. They called back a few days later and let us know that they had figured out what had happened. An angry employee who was leaving the company came into the office the day before she was quitting, after everyone else had left, and just printed off hundreds of pages just to run their bill up. 17. “I understand, I just don’t care” I quit my last job with no notice. The PTO policies were draconian, an on-paper 10-hour shift would routinely stretch to 14 hours, and in the throes of Covid staff had to eat their lunches out in their cars – in January, in the northeast. I secured a comfortable new job on a Thursday and told the new place I could start Monday. I’d been there 2 months and wasn’t going to stay a day more. At the end of my shift, I told the managers not to expect me on Monday. They asked me why I was doing this to them; I calmly replied, “Because I don’t like working here.” When admonished that I didn’t understand the staffing bind this put them in, I said, “No, I do, I just don’t care.” Unsure of what to say to this, they looked at me with their mouths open until I decided this wrapped things up and said “Well, enjoy your weekend!” and walked out. As I headed out, one of the friendlier staff, unaware of what just happened, called out, “See you on Monday!” to which I called back, “I wouldn’t count on that!” 18. The escape I unfortunately wasn’t there to witness this myself, but at the fast food joint I worked at in college one of the high school aged employees leapt out of the drive thru window and shouted, “I QUIT” as he ran across the parking lot. View the full article

An ex-Biden administration official suggested potential challenges in identifying lands that have access to both employment opportunities and infrastructure. 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. The Blink Mini 2 is currently $19.99 (down from $39.99)—the lowest price it’s ever hit, according to price tracking tools. Blink Mini 2 $19.99 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $39.99 Save $20.00 Get Deal Get Deal $19.99 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $39.99 Save $20.00 It’s a compact, no-fuss security camera with a wide 143-degree field of view, an improved sensor for better low-light performance, and a built-in LED spotlight for color night vision (the night vision works in color with the spotlight on and black and white otherwise). Unlike the original Mini, this one can detect people, pets, and packages—but only if you’re willing to pay for a Blink subscription ($3/month for one camera, $10 for unlimited). Without it, you still get live views, motion detection, and local storage with the Sync Module 2 ($49.99, sold separately), which lets you record footage on an SD card (supported up to 256GB) instead of paying for cloud storage. The camera works with Alexa and supports IFTTT for smart home integrations, but there’s no Google Assistant or Apple HomeKit support. The Mini 2 is IP65-rated, according to this PCMag review, but if you’re thinking about using the Mini 2 outdoors, you’ll need the $9.99 Blink Weather Resistant Power Adapter to make it outdoor-ready—because the default power cable isn’t water-resistant. That extra cost is worth considering, especially if you’re comparing it to alternatives like the TP-Link Tapo C120, which is currently $24.99 (down from $39.99) and fully weatherproof out of the box. The Tapo C120 also captures 2K video instead of 1080p and includes free AI-powered alerts without a subscription. If sharper footage and free smart detection are must-haves, that extra $5 might be the better buy. That said, the Blink Mini 2 still holds its own if you’re already in the Blink ecosystem or just want an affordable indoor camera with Alexa compatibility. Through the Blink Home Monitor app, you can fine-tune motion settings, control the spotlight, and adjust privacy features. View the full article

More than a year after her viral project was shut down, TikTok’s “Tunnel Girl” has officially been given the green light to resume digging a massive tunnel beneath her home. On her TikTok account @engineer.everything, the woman—who identifies herself only as Kala—has built a following of over 657,000 by documenting her ambitious, off-the-books tunnel project in Herndon, Virginia. Despite the handle, Kala has no formal engineering background; she began digging in 2022 as a hobby. While many viewers were fascinated by her underground progress, others questioned the legality of the endeavor. “Are we… are we allowed to build tunnels?” one commenter asked under Kala’s one-year anniversary recap video. The answer, as Kala eventually discovered, is no—not without proper permits. After nearly two years of work, her project was shut down in January 2024. “They did give me a stop work order and are requiring an immediate evaluation by a professional engineer. Fortunately, contrary to rumors here, it is constructed entirely below the slab of my house and it shouldn’t be too hard to get the permits and approval,” she explained in a TikTok video posted shortly after. Turns out, she was right. The permits have now been approved, and the tunnel is officially back in progress. A video posted last week shows Kala receiving a phone call and unrolling stamped construction plans. “You have permits now, so clearly you did a good job!” one commenter wrote. Another added: “Digging is one thing, but navigating a complex permitting process after the work has been done is nearly miraculous.” If you’re inspired to dig your own tunnel, don’t expect the process to be easy. “I’ve had to go and get a lot of engineering certifications, a lot of tests, and provide a lot of documentation and provide a lot of calculations and information for the permit process,” Kala told the news station WUSA9. The tunnel system currently extends 22 feet below ground with a 30-foot entrance below her house on her property. Where does it lead? Nowhere—yet. “The permits that I submitted for only goes about where I wrapped up right now,” Kala told WUSA9. “My permits have a note that [the tunnel] may be expanded in the future, of course, I’ll have to go through the engineering process, the permit process, but I would like to potentially go a little bit further.” Kala hopes to finish the tunnel within the next six months. The end goal? A self-contained underground shelter just outside the footprint of her home—because, well, why not? View the full article

AI tools are creating fake URLs causing 404 errors. Google's John Mueller offers guidance to navigate this issue. The post Google’s Mueller Predicts Uptick Of Hallucinated Links: Redirect Or Not? appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Traffic from generative AI surged to U.S. retail sites over the holiday season and that trend has continued into 2025, according to new Adobe data. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, traffic from generative AI sources increased by 1,300% compared to the year prior (up 1,950% YoY on Cyber Monday). This trend continued beyond the holiday season, Adobe found. In February, traffic from generative AI sources increased by 1,200% compared to July 2024. The percentages are high because generative AI tools are so new. ChatGPT debuted its research preview on Nov. 30. 2022. Generative AI traffic remains modest compared to other channels, such as paid search or email, but the growth is notable. It’s doubled every two months since September 2024. By the numbers. Findings from Adobe’s survey of 5,000 U.S. consumers found AI generates more engaged traffic: 39% used generative AI for online shopping, with 53% planning to do so in 2025. 55% of respondents) use generative AI for conducting research. 47% use it for product recommendations. 43% use generative AI for seeking deals. 35% for getting gift ideas. 35% for finding unique products. 33% for creating shopping lists. One of the most interesting findings from Adobe covers what happens once generative AI users land on a retail website. Compared to non-AI traffic sources (including paid search, affiliates and partners, email, organic search, social media), generative AI traffic shows: More engagement: Adobe found 8% higher engagement as individuals linger on the site for longer. More pages: Generative AI visitors browse 12% more pages per visit Fewer bounces: They have a 23% lower bounce rate. Yes, but. While engaged traffic is good, conversions are better. Adobe found that traffic from generative AI sources is 9% less likely to convert than traffic from other sources. However, the data shows that this has improved significantly since July 2024, which indicates growing comfort. Generative AI for travel planning. In February 2025, traffic to U.S. travel, leisure and hospitality sites (including hotels) from generative AI sources increased by 1,700% compared to July 2024. In Adobe’s survey, 29% have used generative AI for travel-related tasks, with 84% saying it improved their experience. The top use cases amongst AI users include: General research, 54% of respondents. Travel inspiration, 43%. Local food recommendations, 43%. Transportation planning, 41%. Itinerary creation, 37%. Budget management, 31%. Packing assistance, 20%. Once users land on a travel site, Adobe Analytics data shows a 45% lower bounce rate. Gen AI for financial services research. In February 2025, traffic to U.S. banking sites from generative AI sources increased by 1,200% compared to July 2024. Adobe’s survey of U.S. consumers found 27% have used generative AI for banking and financial needs. The top use cases include: Recommendations for checking and savings accounts, 42%. Asking for explainers on investment strategies and terminology, 40%. Creating a personalized budget, 39%. Understanding the tax implications of financial decisions, 35%. Once generative AI traffic lands on a banking site, visitors spend 45% more time browsing (versus non-AI sources). About the data. Adobe’s data comes from the company’s Adobe Analytics platform and is based on more than 1 trillion visits to U.S. retail sites. Adobe also launched a companion survey of more than 5,000 U.S. respondents to understand how they use AI daily. View the full article

The pace of AI development doesn't seem to be slowing down, and we're seeing a flurry of updates for the big apps and models every week. One of the most recent of those updates makes it easier to integrate ChatGPT into Android: You can now set it as the default digital assistant on your phone or tablet. As spotted by Android Authority, you need to have the beta version of ChatGPT for Android installed for this to work at the moment, though the feature will no doubt roll out to everyone in due course. If you'd rather have ChatGPT answering your questions about life, the universe, and everything, this makes it easier to access. To access the beta for ChatGPT, you need to have ChatGPT for Android installed already. Then, open the Play Store on Android, tap your profile picture (top right), and choose Manage apps and device > Manage. Select ChatGPT to see its full listing page, and you should then see a Join the beta box you can tap Join in. The usual rules for betas apply: You get access to the newest features first, but you might also see more bugs along the way. After a few minutes, once you've been registered as a ChatGPT beta tester, you'll see an update appear for the app and you can then dive in. To change the default assistant to ChatGPT or any other app on Android, open Settings and Apps: You can then tap Default apps (on Pixels) or Choose default apps (on Galaxy phones) to find the Digital assistant app option. On the next screen, tap Digital assistant app again to make your choice. Using ChatGPT as your default assistant Changing the assistant setting on a Galaxy phone. Credit: Lifehacker Changing this setting doesn't give ChatGPT any more capabilities—it just means the AI bot can be launched in the same ways you would normally launch Gemini. That can be with a long press on the power button or a swipe up from the bottom-right corner of the screen, depending on how your device is configured, though there's no "hey ChatGPT" voice shortcut you can use. This will work for all ChatGPT users, whether you've subscribed to a paid plan or not, though the features and underlying AI models you get once you've launched ChatGPT will depend on your subscription level. The bot appears on screen as a floating blue circle and goes into the Gemini Live voice mode that's now available to everyone, so you can have a two-way spoken conversation with it. Bear in mind the limitations of ChatGPT as a digital assistant at the moment: It doesn't have anywhere near the same feature set as Google Gemini when it comes to getting its hooks into Android and your other apps. You can't use ChatGPT to set timers or add events to your Google Calendar, for example, and you can't queue up songs in Spotify. On the other hand, you can have a chat about almost every topic imaginable (watch out for hallucinations), and get information that's available on the web—such as the latest sports scores or the local weather forecast for your part of the world. You can get ChatGPT to invent text, create images, and everything else the chatbot is capable of. No doubt more improvements are on the way before OpenAI rolls this option into the stable ChatGPT app. It's an interesting contrast to the iPhone: It seems unlikely that Apple will ever allow an alternative app to take Siri's spot as the default assistant, even if you can now access ChatGPT through Siri. View the full article

Kremlin decree allows firms including Jane Street, GMO, and Franklin Templeton to offload holdings View the full article

A little over a decade ago, Netflix decided to take streaming into its own hands: Instead of relying on commercial content delivery services, the streamer built its own servers from scratch, and gave them away to internet service providers. Since then, Netflix has distributed over 18,000 of these servers, now installed in 6,000 locations spread across 175 countries, forming the company’s Open Connect content delivery network. Now, Netflix is ready to take this tech beyond movies and TV shows: The company has begun to develop its own cloud gaming infrastructure, with servers that could eventually allow any Netflix member to play complex games on their smart TVs without an expensive game console. This kind of cloud gaming requires a whole new generation of Open Connect servers. “The appliances that are going to stream games will need to look different,” says Netflix CTO Elizabeth Stone. “That’s something that we’re building now.” Netflix’s servers have improved by 40x Netflix began working on Open Connect in 2011, and placed a first set of servers in the data centers of select U.S.-based internet providers in 2012. At the time, Netflix engineers taped a different movie quote on each custom-built, bright red Open Connect server. The concept behind Open Connect has stayed pretty much the same ever since: Once a server gets installed in an internet provider’s local data center, it gets loaded up with copies of Netflix’s movies and shows, which are then streamed to the provider’s customers whenever they’re ready to watch something. “When you click play, the content is coming from around the corner,” Stone explains. That allows Netflix to deliver movies faster and more reliably, while also reducing congestion for upstream pipes that connect a service provider to the internet at large—a win-win for everyone involved. These days, the movie quotes are long gone, as are the red chassis housings. The technology itself has changed as well: Netflix server racks now incorporate both machines with fast flash drives that stream Netflix’s most popular fare, as well as massive hard drive clusters to store thousands of additional movies and shows for customers with more eclectic taste. “One half-rack of our servers serves all of Netflix’s catalog,” Stone says. “It can serve about 500,000 simultaneous streams. When we first got started, this half-rack could only serve about 13,000 simultaneous streams.” Video games are a different beast Open Connect’s next challenge is Netflix’s budding video game business. The company has launched more than 120 mobile games since it began exploring gaming in 2021, but its ambitions reach far beyond mobile: Netflix ultimately wants to allow its subscribers to access games comparable to what’s available on Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation directly from the Netflix app running on a regular smart TV. To do this, Netflix has begun to build its own cloud gaming service, which it is currently testing with a subset of its subscribers in eight countries, including the U.S. and Canada. Subscribers in the beta test get to play around a dozen titles, including the indie game hit Oxenfree and the rebooted Atari classic Centipede: Recharged. This trial run helps Netflix test its cloud gaming technology, and optimize the design of its new Open Connect game servers. These appliances are very different from Netflix’s existing streaming hardware. “If you are streaming games to the TV, you execute the game on a server,” Stone explains. The server then captures a live video feed of the game and beams it to the consumer’s TV. That requires Netflix’s game servers to be optimized for real-time graphics rendering. “More GPU-heavy, different types of chips, and a different type of design,” Stone says. Cloud games also need to be delivered with as little latency as possible so that players don’t miss a critical jump or turn due to a delayed stream. For some games, synchronization across locations is also needed to allow Netflix subscribers to play together remotely. “Cloud games tend to be pretty social, in many cases,” Stone says. Stone readily admits Netflix’s current cloud gaming test is small. “As we feel more confident in our approach, we [will] start to scale to other countries and other game types,” she says. “That will come in the coming years.” The Tyson-Paul disaster helped future-proof Open Connect Getting a new technology like cloud gaming right can be challenging, especially for a company the size of Netflix; opening up the service too early to all of its 300 million subscribers could easily overwhelm the company’s infrastructure. Netflix did get a lesson in humility last year when it aggressively expanded into livestreaming—only to have the broadcast of a match between boxing legend Mike Tyson and YouTube star Logan Paul turn into a train wreck. “Everything about Tyson-Paul was extraordinary, including how large that event was,” Stone says. An estimated 65 million viewers tuned in simultaneously, overwhelming even Netflix’s content delivery network. The result: widespread buffering, and some users being kicked from the stream entirely. Stone describes the experience as a painful but necessary lesson. “For that fight, there was no way to simulate that in a lab,” she says. The insights her team gained from that knockout not only helped Netflix successfully stream two NFL games over the holidays, but are helping make Open Connect more resilient for whatever comes next, from live sports to cloud gaming. “Our aspirations are much larger than 300 million members,” Stone says. “In order to stream film and TV to 400 million members, 500 million members all around the world, we need Open Connect to continue to evolve.” View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I’m the head of HR for my small(ish) international company. I’m a mixed-race woman and a mom. We have a variety of private Slack channels, including channels for parents, women, people of color, etc. Our people of color channel is a relatively new addition started by an employee who wanted a safe space for folks who identify as non-white. I was explicitly excluded from the channel because I am HR and the people in that channel wanted it to be a safe space to talk about the issues they face. As a mixed-race person, I felt the sting of exclusion, but as a person in leadership totally understand the desire to have a place where people can vent and express themselves without worrying about the ever-seeing eye of management. This makes me wonder, though, if I should recuse myself from the other private channels that I am part of (parents and women) for fear of my presence making those channels seem “unsafe.” I’d be sad to lose that part of my work community but I want my employees to not worry about leadership watching their every word. Alternatively, should I make sure that I’m in those channels in order to keep a watchful eye? I don’t know the right answer. I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. Other questions I’m answering there today include: Colleague keeps asking if I’m “comfortable” with work I’ve agreed to take on I can’t understand my coworker’s bad writing Giving feedback to a job-hopper View the full article

Announcement of probe comes as government sets out ‘radical action plan’ to cut regulation and red tapeView the full article

Drinks group buys prebiotic brand initially funded by investor on ‘Shark Tank’ show View the full article