Tech Boys

TikTok may be back online, but the app’s future in the United States is still far from certain. President Donald Trump’s executive order delaying enforcement of the ban was only a temporary reprieve for the company. While ByteDance was once resistant to the idea of selling TikTok’s US business, that seems to have changed since Trump took office. A ByteDance investor said that striking a deal to keep TikTok in the US is “in everybody's interest." Officials in China have also suggested they are “open” to a deal, according to The Wall Street Journal . A number of people and companies have signaled some interest in TikTok. Trump himself has said he would like to see a “bidding war” for the app and that the US government should own a stake in the company. What an eventual deal may look like, though, is unclear. These are the offers we currently know about. Trump’s executive order gave the company 75 days to come to an agreement. Oracle NPR recently reported that Oracle w...

SAVE UP TO $1,200: As of Jan. 31, Best Buy's TV deals features intense discounts on entry-level QLED TVs from TCL and Hisense. Shop 43-inch QLEDs as low as $219.99, 65-inch QLEDs as low as $349.99, and more, with a total of eight sizes to choose from. Opens in a new window Credit: Best Buy Hisense and TCL QLED TV deals Get Deal The swan song of NFL season is kind of like the second coming of Black Friday — for TVs, anyway. With the familiar matchup between the Eagles and the Chiefs officially set, we're already seeing examples of those football-related TV deals pour in. Best Buy is going particularly hard on cheap QLED TV deals, slapping huge discounts on series from Hisense and TCL that are already budget friendly even at full price. SEE ALSO: Top 3 best robot vacuums from CES 2025, from coolest to most practical The easiest way to contextualize the real bang for your buck happening here is to simply see how much other QLED TVs are going for. We've...

In an apparent effort to curry favor with then-President-elect Donald Trump, Meta   CEO Mark Zuckerberg ordered the removal of tampons from all men's bathrooms in company offices. This decision wasn’t about cost-cutting or efficiency — it took effort, served no practical purpose, and sent a clear message about the company’s shifting priorities. Since Trump’s victory, Zuckerberg has overseen a series of policy changes at Meta that critics warn could foster hate speech, misinformation, and harassment on its platforms. Under his leadership, the company has eliminated fact-checkers for Community Notes , lifted prohibitions on certain forms of hate speech , scrapped DEI initiatives , and removed trans-inclusive features from its apps , all while reinstating political content recommendations that could amplify extremist views. These moves align with broader conservative criticisms of social media companies, which Trump and his allies have long accused of being biased against the right...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally addressed his employees' concerns around recent changes within the company. Zuckerberg on Thursday discussed a range of issues during a meeting, most noticeably the dismantling of Meta's fact-checking policies and diversity programs . Zuckerberg made it clear that the company was abandoning both in order to curry favor with the Trump administration. “I want to be clear, after the last several years, we now have an opportunity to have a productive partnership with the United States government,” Mr. Zuckerberg said , according to a leaked interview provided to the New York Times . “We’re going to take that.” Zuckerberg also further confirmed the end of its DEI initiatives were due to the Trump's administration's views. SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg wants more 'masculine energy' in corporate America “We’re in the middle of a pretty rapidly changing policy and regulatory landscape that views any policy that might advantage any...

Hot on the heels of Elon Musk 's  dire emai l to X employees about how the social media platform is "barely breaking even," another one of Musk's companies had some  concerning  news to share. On Wednesday evening, Tesla shared its latest earnings report, covering Q4 of 2024. According to Tesla, the EV company brought in $25.7 billion in total revenue over the final months of last year. SEE ALSO: Tesla stock slides after first-ever delivery drop Those Q4 2024 revenue numbers actually show a nearly two percent increase when compared to the same quarter in 2023. However, while revenue is up, net income is down. Way down . According to Tesla's quarterly report, the company made $2.3 billion in net income in Q4 2024. Net income is the amount the company actually made after subtracting its expenses from its revenue total. That's a whopping 70 percent decrease in net income compared to Q4 2023. As The Verge points out, Tesla's net income for the fin...

A day after the plight of Garmin users whose devices have been stuck in a boot error gained media attention, the company says it has found a solution. “We have resolved the underlying issue causing some devices to be stuck on the start up screen,” a Garmin spokesperson told Engadget, pointing us to a support page the company recently updated. Unfortunately, if your wearable or cycling computer is displaying a “blue triangle of death,” the potential fix may involve losing some data in the process. Depending on the device, Garmin says a factory reset is required. In other cases, you may only need to reset the power on your wearable and sync it with either the Garmin Connect app on your phone or via Garmin Express on a PC. Garmin has provided additional troubleshooting information for those with devices that are still malfunctioning after a power reset, with the required steps varying by product line. For instance, in the case of the company’s popular Forerunner family of running wa...

On Tuesday , President Donald Trump dangled a "buyout" offer in front of 2 million federal workers, encouraging them to resign en masse. The mass email blast from the Office of Personal Management (OPM), designed to rattle employees into quitting, aligns with a key objective of Project 2025 — clearing the ranks of federal workers to install MAGA loyalists . The move is already backfiring. On r/fednews , the Reddit hub for federal employees, workers are rejecting what they see as an intimidation tactic. Posts urge colleagues to stand their ground and resist being pushed out. The consensus remains clear: don’t take the bait. SEE ALSO: Elon Musk and the Roman salute: What it is and why it doesn't matter what you call it "We took an oath to serve our country and fellow Americans. They can drag me out," says the title of one such post . " They can’t fire us as easily as they thought, so they are trying to scare us into quitting, don’t fall for it! ...

SAVE $13 PER MONTH: YouTube TV is on sale for $69.99 per month for your first 6 months, down from the usual price of $82.99 per month. That's an overall savings of $78 for new users. Opens in a new window Credit: YouTube YouTube TV $69.99 at YouTube $82.99 Save $13.00 Get Deal "What should we watch?" The question reverberates through living rooms across the country every night. Sometimes even more than once per night. If you're running out of options or you have plans to watch the most exciting games of the season, check out this streaming deal. Until March 31, new subscribers to YouTube TV can get the first six months for $69.99 per month, marked down from the normal monthly price of $82.99. That's an overall savings of $78. We're less than two weeks away from the biggest football game of the year (according to some people). If you're looking for a way to watch it live, YouTube TV has you covered. In fact, the streaming service is a...

SAVE 10%: As of Jan. 27, you can get 10% off your Ulta haul when you buy online and pick it up in-store or at the curbside. Use the code WINTER10. Opens in a new window Credit: Ulta 10% off when you buy online and pickup in store or curbside with code WINTER10 Get Deal If you’re planning on going to Ulta this week, you might want to do your shopping online and take advantage of the retailer's curbside or in-store pickup options to save some money. Now through Feb. 1, Ulta Beauty is offering anyone who shops online and chooses to pick up their order in-store or curbside a 10% discount on their entire purchase. All you have to do is use the code WINTER10 . Unfortunately, this promo code isn’t valid on Chanel or Dyson products, and you can’t use it on clearance or any of Ulta’s special sale items (e.g., 5 for $5, 5 for $10, Beauty Steals). But think of it this way: By shopping online and picking up in-store, you're less likely to get distracted by all the shin...

If you're reading this, you're looking for a little help playing Strands , the New York Times ' elevated word-search game. Strands requires the player to perform a twist on the classic word search. Words can be made from linked letters — up, down, left, right, or diagonal, but words can also change direction, resulting in quirky shapes and patterns. Every single letter in the grid will be part of an answer. There's always a theme linking every solution, along with the "spangram," a special, word or phrase that sums up that day's theme, and spans the entire grid horizontally or vertically. SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections . If you're feeling stuck or just don't have 10 or more minutes to figure out today's puzzle,...

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that effectively put a freeze on most foreign aid. One lesser-known effect of this 90-day freeze? Funding has been halted for the State Department's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy (CDP), a fairly new bureau that utilizes diplomacy to create technological partnerships and tackle emerging cyber threats. SEE ALSO: Will Oracle take over TikTok? Trump says he'll make a decision in 30 days According to a new report by The Record , the freeze on foreign aid has effectively brought the bureau, which has tens of millions of dollars in funding, to a "standstill." The report notes some of the projects that the CDP has worked on such as deploying a "cyber incident response team" in Costa Rica, training with the Vietnamese government on nefarious cyber activity from North Korea, and landing a subsea telecommunications cable in Tuvalu. In addition to the halt in funding, the ...

The latest WhatsApp beta update for iOS gives users the ability to add and switch between multiple accounts on a single device, according to WABetaInfo . It comes over a year after the feature became available for Android . With version 25.2.10.70 for iOS, users are given a choice when adding a second account to the app, WABetaInfo reports: they can set it up as a standalone primary account or “scan a QR code to link the new account as a companion.” The update is available now for beta testers through Apple’s TestFlight program. 📝 WhatsApp beta for iOS 25.2.10.70: what's new? WhatsApp is working on a feature to add and manage multiple accounts within the app, and it will be available in a future update! https://t.co/BtvOK2hAZO pic.twitter.com/CWsBGFMS6v — WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) January 25, 2025 On Android, running two accounts simultaneously on WhatsApp requires a dual-SIM situation, as each account must have its own phone number. WhatsApp does offer another app, Whats...

Inheritance filmmaker Neil Burger reveals all the ways filming with an iPhone gave them access to locations and shots they otherwise would not have been able to achieve. Inheritance is now in theaters. from Mashable https://ift.tt/6NyRZDA via IFTTT

Social platform X is "barely breaking even," owner Elon Musk emailed employees, the Wall Street Journal reported. "Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we're barely breaking even," Musk reportedly said. In a story about banks preparing to sell billions of dollars in debt borrowed by X , WSJ printed other parts of the email: "Over the last few months, we've witnessed the power of X in shaping national conversations and outcomes...We are also seeing other platforms begin to adopt our commitment to free speech and unbiased truth." SEE ALSO: DOGE officially announced. How the Elon Musk-led department will work The latter sentence refers to Meta, which is removing fact-checks in favor of community notes, which X already has. Elon Musk has denied writing this to staff, posting on X, "This report is false. I sent no such email. WSJ is lying." Since his takeover of then-Twitter in 2022 , Mashable has reported...

Operator , OpenAI's new AI agent, will save your deleted data for two months longer than deleted data from ChatGPT. OpenAI has some noteworthy privacy policies nestled in the fine print of Operator's help page. One of which says that data from your Operator interactions — chats, browsing history, and screenshots — are kept in OpenAI's servers for up to 90 days after a user deletes them, per TechCrunch, which first spotted the discrepancy. ChatGPT retains deleted data for only 30 days. SEE ALSO: OpenAI's plan to make ChatGPT the 'everything app' has never been more clear Data retention policies are standard practice, and its common for them to range from months to years depending on the nature of the data. But fundamentally, Operator has access to personal and sensitive data by performing tasks on a user's behalf like browsing the web, logging onto sites (with your supervision), and taking regular screenshots of your screen in order to visually proc...

"Hi, are you doomscrolling? Our bodies were not designed to be anxious and stressed for this long." Back in the very anxious year of 2021, a friendly little bot on Twitter — the Doomscrolling Reminder Bot — came along to offer mindfulness reminders like this. Created just after doomscrolling became the 2020 word of the year, the Doomscrolling Reminder Bot soon became a kind of anxiety index. It gained its largest bump in followers during Elon Musk's chaotic takeover of Twitter . The Bot quit posting new content in 2023, as a lot of the service's less chaotic creators were heading for the exits; even so, its follower count has never dipped below 100,000 Twitter users . These days, however, you don't need a bot to tell you you're doomscrolling. If you're on social media at all, you're doomscrolling. With nightmare fuel coming thick and fast, with trolls in charge of the news cycle , even an aggregator like Google News or Apple News offers potential f...