Bring care, connection and full foot comfort to thousands of runners, hikers and outdoors enthusiasts.🌏 Remote | Flexible Hours | Applicants in South and Central America preferredAbout Creepers SocksCreepers Socks isn’t your average sock brand. Led by a passionate founder who knew blisters, cramped up and smelly feet shouldn’t be part of the journey. Our Merino toe socks are designed to help hikers, runners, and everyday movers feel better in their feet - so they can go further, longer, and happier. And with thousands of 5-star reviews, we know we’re onto something good.Now with over 100,000 socks sold in 2024 and growing fast, Creepers Socks, is ready to build the A-team.But we’re not just about socks - we’re about service, community and the great outdoors. And that’s where you come in.What This Role Is All AboutWe're on the hunt for a people-first, problem-solving, clear-communicating legend to join us as our Customer Support Expert.You’ll be the friendly human behind the inbox - resolving questions, offering guidance, and making sure every Creepers customer feels seen, heard, and stoked with their experience.A Good Fit If You…Love helping people. You get a kick out of solving problems and making someone’s day.Communicate with empathy and clarity. Your written tone is warm, upbeat, and easy to understand.Stay calm under pressure. Whether it’s a shipping delay or a return request, you handle it with grace.Are independent + proactive. You don’t wait to be told what to do—you take initiative and follow through.Get our people. Maybe you hike, maybe you run, maybe you just really value good gear. But you understand the outdoor-loving customer and their expectations.Have experience. You’ve worked in customer support before (bonus points if in eComm). Familiarity with Shopify, CX software, or similar platforms is helpful—but not a dealbreaker.What You’ll Be DoingResponding to customer queries via email, chat, and social platformsHelping with order questions, exchanges, returns, and general product infoEscalating any issues to the founderKeeping our help desk content up-to-dateModerating socialsBringing the Creepers voice to every message—friendly, clear, down-to-earth and humanThe DetailsFully remote (any timezone works—we’ll find an overlap)Full time with flexible hours with the possibility to start part time if needed.Contractor positionWorking closely with Shaun, the founder.The Details RequirementsNot all required.- High school diploma or equivalent; bachelor’s degree preferred- Proven experience in customer service or e-commerce support- Excellent verbal and written communication skills- Proficiency in using CRM systems and customer support software- Familiarity with e-commerce platforms and order processing systems- Strong problem-solving and critical-thinking abilities- Ability to multi-task and manage time effectively- High attention to detail and accuracy- Ability to handle difficult or irate customers professionally- Strong organizational and record-keeping skills- Ability to work both independently and as part of a team- Willingness to work flexible hours, including nights, weekends, and holidays as needed- Basic understanding of social media platforms for customer service purposes- Ability to continuously learn and adapt to new tools and technology- Customer-oriented mindset with a passion for delivering exceptional service- Familiarity with the company's products, services, and policies (will be trained on the job)To ApplyFollow the link to fill out the short application, provide your CV and ideally, submit a short video intro.

The Brick Bay Folly 2026 is now open for entries from architecture students and recent graduates (within the last ten years) to create designs that explore the intersection between sculpture and architecture. The annual competition allows teams to collaborate on the creation of experimental and innovative architectural follies, with the winning team receiving $30,000 in grants towards realising their proposed folly design. Entries are due by 9 am Monday, 16 June 2025. Along with grant and sponsorship money, the selected winning team will receive mentorship and technical support from Resene, Cassidy Construction, Cheshire Architects, Structure Design and Unitec. The finished project is then displayed on-site for up to 48 months and will be photographed by Samuel Hartnett, and featured in Architecture NZ magazine. The competition offers students and recent graduates a rare opportunity to create a conceptual small-scale piece of architecture that, if selected, they can then build. The winning 2024 Brick Bay Folly, Femme-ly Velues, acknowledges the heritage of textile craft among women by referencing the stages of weaving across its three distinct elevations. The team was made up of Claire Ford, Elise Cautley and Jennifer Gao of Yellowhammer Services, Architecture HDT and Jack McKinney Architects, respectively, who joined forces to design a concept based on the fabric crafts they’d been taught by their mothers. Read about their winning submission here. Full submission guidelines and information on how to submit your project can be found at brickbaysculpture.co.nz. The 2026 Brick Bay Folly is supported by Resene, Cassidy Construction, Cheshire Architects, Structure Design, Unitec, ArchitectureNow, Architecture New Zealand, Samuel Hartnett and Brick Bay Sculpture Trust.

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Sony has increased the price of its PlayStation 5 by 25% as the video game industry reels from the impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.The Japanese game developer said it had made the “tough decision” to raise the price of the console’s digital edition to £429.99 in the UK and €499.99 in Europe, starting from Monday. There will be no price change for the standard PS5, which comes with a disk drive.The company cited “a challenging economic environment, including high inflation and fluctuating exchange rates” behind its decision to increase the retail price of the PS5 in some markets in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania.In Australia, the standard PS5 will rise to A$829.95, while the digital edition will increase to A$749.95. In New Zealand, the standard console will increase to NZ$949.95, and the digital to NZ$859.95..The technology industry has been grappling with the possible impact of President Trump’s tariffs on its supply chains. Rival Japanese game developer Nintendo unveiled its new handheld console, the Switch 2, the day before Trump launched his barrage of “reciprocal” tariffs on foreign goods on 2 April. A few days later, the company postponed preorders of the device in the US, as it said it would need to assess the potential effect of tariffs.Japan was hit with a 24% tariff on its exports to the US on Trump’s “liberation day” on 2 April. Like most of Trump’s new tariffs, they have been paused for 90 days. However, the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said on Monday that his country did not plan to make big concessions in negotiations with the US and that it would not rush to reach a deal. Talks between the two governments are due this week.Companies such as Apple, whose products are largely assembled in China, are also bracing for higher costs. Analysts at the investment bank UBS have warned that the price of an iPhone 16 Max, with 256GB of storage, could rise 79% from $1,199 (£915) to about $2,150 (£1,600), based on a total tariff of 145%.While there is still a great deal of uncertainty around Trump’s trade policy, Japanese shares rose on Monday after the US said it would pause levies on some electronics, including smartphones. Tokyo’s index of blue chip stocks, the Nikkei 225, closed up 1%.However, US officials said on Sunday that the pause on smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import tariffs on China will be short-lived, with Trump warning on Sunday that no one was “getting off the hook”.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayFree daily newsletterGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionIn a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, the president promised to launch a national security trade investigation in the semiconductor sector and “the whole electronics supply chain”.“We will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China,” he wrote.

Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube808k Halo, Destiny and ex-Microsoft developer Bungie revealed its new extraction-shooter Marathon to the world last week and it seems there has already been some questions about the possibility of a Switch 2 release. In case you were wondering, Japanese publication Famitsu asked about the chances of this upcoming game - due out this September - coming to Nintendo's "next-generation game hardware" and it's currently something the team has no plans for right now but will consider in the future. Bungie director Joseph Ziegler: "At the moment we don't have any plans to add additional compatible hardware, but we will consider it in the future."Although Bungie is now owned by Sony, its games like Destiny are still available (and supported) across multiple platforms. During the Switch generation, the original hybrid system played host to team-based first-person shooters like Apex Legends and Overwatch 2, so it would be nice to see this trend continue in some way or form on the Switch 2. Marathon launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on 23rd September 2025, with a closed alpha taking place soon. Let battle commence "Exclusivity kind of mitigates the sticker shock" Do you think we'll see a game like Marathon on the Switch 2? Would you be interested in this game on Nintendo's new system? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. [source famitsu.com, via famiboards.com, gonintendo.com] See Also Share:0 0 Liam is a news writer and reviewer for Nintendo Life and Pure Xbox. He's been writing about games for more than 15 years and is a lifelong fan of Mario and Master Chief. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment... Related Articles Upgrade Pack Price For Zelda: BOTW And TOTK Has Been Confirmed A pleasant surprise! My Nintendo Adds A Switch 2 Reward (North America) It's a keychain! Nintendo Confirms US Price For 'Switch 2 Welcome Tour' Quick, act surprised! UK Switch 2 Fans, Don't Bother Going To GAME Stores For Your Pre-Order You won't get one Switch 2 GameChat Choppy Frame Rate Explained By Nintendo It's about ensuring the "game experience" is at its best

In Brief Posted: 1:32 PM PDT · April 14, 2025 Image Credits:Vaughn Ridley/Sportsfile / Getty Images Rippling is trying to serve Deel’s CEO, but bailiffs can’t find him HR tech startup Rippling is trying to serve Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz with papers as part of a blockbuster lawsuit against its competitor. There’s just one problem: French bailiffs hired by Rippling can’t seem to find Bouaziz, Irish newspaper Business Post reports. Rippling sued Deel earlier this year in Ireland alleging the company paid one of its employees to spy on them, according to the lawsuit that includes an affidavit from the alleged spy which reads like a movie. Deel denies all wrongdoing. Rippling needs to serve Bouaziz papers for the case. But French bailiffs hired by Rippling have been unable to find Bouaziz, who is French, at his listed address in Paris. Rippling may need to apply to serve him via email, the Business Post reports. Bouaziz is “highly nomadic” but remains “very attached to France,” French magazine Challenges reported. Bouaziz lists his location as Tel Aviv on LinkedIn, but New York on X.  Deel, Rippling, and Bouaziz didn’t respond to requests for comment.  Topics

ZDNET's key takeaways Amazon sells the Echo Hub for $180.The Echo Hub gives Alexa the place it has earned in the smart home market: A control panel to easily access smart devices, no ads, and no unnecessary fluff.The smart display can be slow and buggy, especially while loading multiple camera views more buying choices The Amazon Echo Hub is currently on sale for $130. Act fast because this deal will only be available for a limited time.Many smart home enthusiasts, myself included, are tired of juggling dozens of apps on their phones to control the smart devices in their homes. While the release of Matter alleviates this hassle, the new smart home connectivity standard has yet to get enough support to eliminate the challenge.As a result, many of us are left looking for smart displays that can give us quick access to control our devices. Some tech-savvy folks may use a repurposed old tablet mounted to the wall as a smart home control center, while others opt for a smart display like an Echo Show or a Google Nest Hub that can already function as a smart home controller out of the box, among other things.Also: This video doorbell gave me similar benefits as a Ring but with no monthly subscriptionsThese devices always have their drawbacks. Amazon's Echo Hub is designed to fill a gap in the smart home controller market by being what these devices are not: a smart home controller and only that.  details View at Amazon There are no frills with the Echo Hub. There's no spatial audio speaker attached to its base, no ultra-high definition for streaming, and no ads to display while in standby mode. It doesn't serve any purpose besides being a smart home hub and controller.Testing the Echo Hub for the past few months has been a refreshing experience. Its navigation is sorted into categories and widgets. At a glance, the Echo Hub displays your widgets on about two-thirds of the screen, with your routines and rooms on the left side and device categories at the bottom. You can customize the widgets and download more from the widgets store. The Echo Hub can get a bit laggy when you pull up your security camera feeds. Maria Diaz/ZDNETThe 8-inch touchscreen display can be wall-mounted, which is my preference. I've always wanted to repurpose a tablet as a wall-mounted smart panel or prop it up on a flat surface using a tabletop stand. Also: This is the most customizable smart home accessory I didn't know I neededAs its name indicates, the Echo Hub is a smart home control panel with the Alexa voice assistant. It also works to connect Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, Matter, Thread, and Sidewalk smart devices.  The Echo Hub makes it easy to control all of your Alexa-compatible lights. Maria Diaz/ZDNETWait, if Amazon already has the Echo Show, why make the Echo Hub? The Amazon Alexa smart home network is quickly becoming one of the largest and most intuitive smart home automation systems available. The system supports 100 million devices and is the most compatible.The Alexa app quickly connects new devices you add to your smart home with little effort on your end and lets you control devices from different manufacturers in one place. If a smart home device says it "works with Alexa," you can trust the technology will be easy to set up and control with the Alexa app, the voice assistant, and now the Echo Hub.Also: The best smart home devices you can buyI currently have four Echo Shows and four other Echo speakers, so there's a lot of Alexa in my home. As an Apple HomeKit house, I got an Echo speaker to see how Alexa fared against Siri.I then got my kitchen's Echo Show to listen to music or watch the news while cooking dinner and to control smart home devices, but also because I thought the display would give me better views into my calendar, which wasn't the case. The Echo Hub does exactly what it promises to do: give me a clear view into my smart home and a quick way to control it. Here's the Echo Hub camera view. Maria Diaz/ZDNETI've never been quiet about the Echo Show's shortcomings, especially as a person who uses the technology daily. I dislike that I can't control what is displayed during standby, that Alexa only understands me about 70% of the time, that the hardware itself is slow and laggy, that an app like YouTube, which requires a browser, is so hard to navigate with your voice, and that smart home control is such a secondary feature.ZDNET's buying adviceBecause Alexa can handle many different devices, maintains a reliable connection, and makes routines easy to use, I hate to admit that I reach for it more often than my Apple Home app. The Echo Hub puts all that convenience on my wall, within my reach. I can easily run routines from the hub, arm or disarm my Ring Alarm system, check my security cameras, adjust the downstairs thermostat, or turn a light on or off on my way upstairs for the night. While the Echo Hub isn't a smart speaker, Alexa does respond on the device. You can mute it so it doesn't listen for the wake word and adjust its volume. Maria Diaz/ZDNETDuring setup, you can choose which Echo device in your home to play music on when you ask Alexa on the Echo Hub to play something, as it's not a speaker -- another differentiator between the Echo Hub and other Echo devices. This approach means you don't get an Echo Hub instead of an Echo speaker if you still want to play music, especially if you want smart speakers around your home.Like many smart home users, I am only reluctant to completely give in to Alexa and Amazon due to privacy and security concerns, especially considering that data is not handled locally. While companies can always claim to prioritize consumer privacy, you can only take them at face value regarding your personal information. What are the tariffs in the US? The recent US tariffs on imports from countries like China, Vietnam, and India aim to boost domestic manufacturing but are likely to drive up prices on consumer electronics. Products like smartphones, laptops, and TVs may become more expensive as companies rethink global supply chains and weigh the cost of shifting production.Consumers may also experience notable price increases on robot vacuums and smart home products. Manufacturers are exploring options such as relocating production to countries with lower tariffs, but such transitions are complex and may not provide immediate relief. In the short term, shoppers should anticipate higher costs for robot vacuums due to these trade policies. Show more Featured reviews

The 2025 Forbes U30 Europe Technology list features founders like Black Forest Labs’ Frederic Boesel and Jonas Muller, who are advancing AI, alongside innovators like Vivenu’s Simon Hennes, who’s transforming event ticketing with tech-first solutions. By Thomas Brewster, Zoya Hasan and Iain Martin It’s been little over a year since Freiburg, Germany-based Black Forest Labs launched in 2024, but it’s made big waves in a short amount of time. Its AI is now the text-to-image generator integrated into the $6 billion (valuation) Mistral Al’s Le Chat, and it raised over $31 million in a seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz in August. Led by 28-year olds Frederic Boesel and Jonas Muller—along with their over 30 cofounders—the company is positioning itself to be a big mover in AI, making the base models underpinning powerful image generation widely accessible. As Andreessen Horowitz wrote after investing, the Black Forest Labs team “could accelerate innovation across a wide range of fields.” Sebastian Nevols for Forbes For nearly a decade, Forbes has highlighted young entrepreneurs for our annual 30 Under 30 Europe Technology list, with the help of nominations from the public. To be considered for this year’s list, all candidates had to be under the age of 30 as of April 8, 2025, and never before named to an 30 Under 30 North America, Asia or Europe list. After months of reporting by Forbes editors, candidates were evaluated by a panel of judges including founder of London-based unicorn Faculty, Dr. Angie Ma; partner at Silicon Valley-based IVP, Eric Liaw; EQT Growth partner Carolina Brochado and Under 30 alum and Chainalysis cofounder Jonathan Levin. This year’s cohort is full of founders who’ve made waves in AI just a year or two after founding. Caoimhe Murphy, 29 left another Forbes Under 30 alum, Synesthesia, in 2024 to cofound Anam, which creates AI avatars for customer service and sales. It’s already attracting top tier clients like Spotify and German multinational Henkel. Sweden’s Lovable, founded in 2023 by 24-year-old Fabian Hedin lets users spin up working apps with just some text prompts. And Georgina Steele, 29, founded U.K.-based Maiven last year, which developed AI that can flag potential breaches of environmental law. Others members of this year’s list are making big impacts by disrupting older industries. Featured honoree Simon Hennes, the 27-year-old cofounder of Vivenu, says his ticketing platform is taking a tech-first, white label approach to event ticketing, giving organisers control over how they sell tickets and handle customer information. It’s a different strategy to the major industry players like Ticketmaster, but Hennes thinks a fresh take on an old market is the way to shake things up. “There are lots of Goliaths out there, right?” he told Forbes. “There are big, big companies with massive funding, with thousands of people in seed with a big history, and decades of providing these services. It's not easy to compete with them, but at the same time, it doesn't change the fact that your mission is important and people buy into it.” Investors are confident that such bold approaches will pay off, and the companies on the Technology list have collectively raised more than $300 million in recent years. Among the companies who’ve scored big rounds, Vivenu has raised $60 million, Black Forest Labs $30 million and Lovable $20 million. Not that fundraising is everything. The mission comes first. Hennes says that his company doesn’t yet need more funding as it’s a profitable business. Still, he wants to double headcount and revenue growth over the next year. “Our mission is to become the largest ticket provider globally, right? So we have a long term mission. It's not a short-term mission, it's not a mid-term mission. It's a long term mission.” The same will go for many of this year’s Under 30 Europe group. They may have made big splashes in no time at all, but the road ahead will be long and, with some luck, prosperous. This year’s list was edited by Thomas Brewster, Zoya Hasan and Iain Martin . For a link to our complete 30 Under 30 Europe Technology list, click here, and for full 30 Under 30 Europe coverage, click here. 30 UNDER 30 RELATED ARTICLES

Table of Contents Table of Contents Kill Tony: Kill or Be Killed (2025) The Madness (2024) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993-1995) This month on Netflix, Charlie Brooker returns for more social nightmares with Black Mirror season 7. For the first time in series history, Brooker did a sequel, USS Callister: Into Infinity, the follow-up to the Emmy-winning USS Callister from season 4. The other notable show coming in April is You season 5, the final run for serial killer Joe Goldberg. While Black Mirror and You will dominate the most popular list for all of April, more shows are ready to be watched at the click of a button. Some underrated offerings include a stand-up comedy special, a conspiracy thriller, and a children’s TV show. Recommended Videos We also have guides to the best new shows to stream, the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+. Related Netflix Tony Hinchcliffe has been hosting Kill Tony for nearly 12 years. The stand-up comedy variety show has gained a cult following over the years. It started in small comedy rooms and has since grown to some of the world’s most famous arenas, like Madison Square Garden. After Hinchcliffe stole the show at The Roast of Tom Brady, Netflix got into business with the comedian for three Kill Tony specials, with the first being Kill or Be Killed. If this is your first Kill Tony episode, here is the format. Hundreds of comedians drop their names into the Bucket of Destiny. If a comedian’s name is called, they get to perform stand-up for one minute onstage. Then, Hinchcliffe, co-host Brian Redban, and a panel of comedians conduct an interview that typically leads to a roast. The jokes are quick, the laughs are abundant, and the craziness never stops. That’s Kill Tony in a nutshell. Watch Kill Tony: Kill or Be Killed on Netflix. The Madness (2024) Amanda Matlovich / Netflix Colman Domingo is having a moment. In the past three years, Domingo has won an Emmy for his performance on Euphoria, received two Oscar nominations for Best Actor (Rustin, Sing Sing), and signed on to be in the cast of Steven Spielberg’s next movie. Despite the busy schedule, Domingo still found some time to headline The Madness, a conspiracy thriller series that aired in November. Muncie Daniels (Domingo) is an author and rising star in media. Right before his career is about to take off, Muncie discovers the dead body of a white supremacist in the Poconos. Much to his dismay, Muncie is framed for murder and becomes the top suspect. Now, Muncie goes into survival mode, doing whatever he can to stay alive. The Madness is a throwback to the ’70s political thrillers that fed into people’s paranoia. Watch The Madness on Netflix. It’s morphing time. Admittedly, this pick is not for everyone. You likely had to be a child when Mighty Morphin Power Rangers aired in the early ’90s. However, the Power Rangers came back in a big way in 2023 with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, a special to honor the 30th anniversary of the show. Now, go back to the beginning and see the origins of the teenagers who became superheroes in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. In the city of Angel Grove, five teenagers — Jason Lee Scott (Austin St. John), Zack Taylor (Walter Emanuel Jones), Billy Cranston (David Yost), Trini Kwan (Thuy Trang), and Kimberly Hart (Amy Jo Johnson) — are recruited by the wizard Zordon to become Power Rangers. The teens agree and get to work on saving the world, mainly from the villainous Rita Repulsa (Machiko Soga). It’s children’s television, but you’ll be surprised by how well the action holds up for a kids show. Watch Mighty Morphin Power Rangers on Netflix. Editors’ Recommendations

DO THE MATH OpenAI continues naming chaos despite CEO acknowledging the habit OpenAI's brand new "GPT-4.1" has a funky name but reasonable performance for the price. Benj Edwards – Apr 14, 2025 4:53 pm | 4 Credit: Maskot via Getty Images Credit: Maskot via Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more On Monday, OpenAI announced the GPT-4.1 model family, its newest series of AI language models that brings a 1 million token context window to OpenAI for the first time and continues a long tradition of very confusing AI model names. Three confusing new names, in fact: GPT‑4.1, GPT‑4.1 mini, and GPT‑4.1 nano. According to OpenAI, these models outperform GPT-4o in several key areas. But in an unusual move, GPT-4.1 will only be available through the developer API, not in the consumer ChatGPT interface where most people interact with OpenAI's technology. The 1 million token context window—essentially the amount of text the AI can process at once—allows these models to ingest roughly 3,000 pages of text in a single conversation. This puts OpenAI's context windows on par with Google's Gemini models, which have offered similar extended context capabilities for some time. At the same time, the company announced it will retire the GPT-4.5 Preview model in the API—a temporary offering launched in February that one critic called a "lemon"—giving developers until July 2025 to switch to something else. However, it appears GPT-4.5 will stick around in ChatGPT for now. So many names If this sounds confusing, well, that's because it is. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged OpenAI's habit of terrible product names in February when discussing the roadmap toward the long-anticipated (and still theoretical) GPT-5. "We realize how complicated our model and product offerings have gotten," Altman wrote on X at the time, referencing a ChatGPT interface already crowded with choices like GPT-4o, various specialized GPT-4o versions, GPT-4o mini, the simulated reasoning o1-pro, o3-mini, and o3-mini-high models, and GPT-4. The stated goal for GPT-5 will be consolidation, a branding move to unify o-series models and GPT-series models. So, how does launching another distinctly numbered model, GPT-4.1, fit into that grand unification plan? It's hard to say. Altman foreshadowed this kind of ambiguity in March 2024, telling Lex Friedman the company had major releases coming but was unsure about names: "before we talk about a GPT-5-like model called that, or not called that, or a little bit worse or a little bit better than what you’d expect..." GPT-4.1 feels exactly like that "called that, or not called that" model—a significant iteration, but apparently not the generational leap worthy of the GPT-5 moniker, further fragmenting the lineup before the promised consolidation. Also, it's worth noting that Altman said in February that GPT-4.5 would be the company's "last non-chain-of-thought model." But apparently, plans have changed. Is 4.1 better than 4.5? Yes and no In some key ways, 4.1 is greater than 4.5. It makes us wonder if OpenAI has been using LLMs to name its products, owing to the famous example last year where ChatGPT commonly reported that the numerical value "9.11" was greater than "9.9". Jokes aside, the confusing naming strategy is matched by equally puzzling performance claims. OpenAI positions GPT-4.1 as a clear advancement over GPT-4o, particularly in coding and following complex instructions (you can see the full benchmarks on OpenAI's site). The new model family also brings that massive 1 million token context window—about four times larger than GPT-4o's capability. Notably, unlike the multimodal GPT-4o (where "o" stood for "omni"), the announcement for the GPT-4.1 family makes no mention of audio input or output capabilities, suggesting a focus on text and image inputs with text output, as AI expert Simon Willison noted in his blog. Compared to the soon-to-be-retired GPT-4.5 Preview, the picture becomes far more complicated. While GPT-4.1 scores significantly better on the SWE-bench Verified coding benchmark (54.6 percent versus 38.0 percent for GPT-4.5) and generates code diffs more reliably, OpenAI's benchmark data reveals GPT-4.5 still performed better on academic knowledge tests, instruction following, and several vision-related tasks. (SWE-bench Verified is an industry benchmark that aims to evaluate how well AI models can understand and modify real-world software repositories to fix bugs or implement new features—essentially measuring how useful the AI would be to actual software engineers in production environments.) This raises the question: Why retire a seemingly more capable model in the API? OpenAI explains that GPT-4.1 delivers "improved or similar performance on many key capabilities at much lower cost and latency." In other words, GPT-4.1 hits a practical sweet spot—good enough performance for most API use cases, but delivered faster and cheaper than the more resource-intensive GPT-4.5 Preview. GPT-4.5 is very slow and very expensive. The new models come with lower prices compared to their predecessors. GPT-4.1 costs $2 per million tokens for input and $8 per million tokens for output, representing a 26 percent cost reduction for median queries compared to GPT-4o. GPT-4.1 mini is priced at $0.40 for input and $1.60 for output per million tokens, while GPT-4.1 nano costs just $0.10 for input and $0.40 for output per million tokens. In comparison, GPT-4.5's pricing was off the charts--costing $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens through the API. So 4.1 is an upgrade over 4o that almost matches 4.5 but costs far, far less to run. Got that? The API-only strategy So another question remains: Why create a model that outperforms GPT-4o in important ways but not offer it to ChatGPT users? According to OpenAI, many improvements from these research models "have been gradually incorporated into the latest version of GPT-4o" in ChatGPT, with more features planned for future updates. Essentially, ChatGPT's GPT-4o has become a constantly evolving "brand" model that absorbs capabilities from the company's various research models over time. This creates a two-track system: developers using the API get specific, consistent models with clearly defined capabilities, while regular ChatGPT users receive a single model that changes behind the scenes. Developers can select precisely which model fits their needs and cost requirements, choosing between 4.1, 4.1 mini, 4.1 nano, 4o, and other variants. Meanwhile, consumers get whatever version of GPT-4o OpenAI decides to push out. But it won't make the naming simpler. As one Hacker News commenter astutely observed, "I need an AI to understand the naming conventions that OpenAI is using." Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards Senior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 4 Comments