The Northern Lights or aurora borealis may be visible in the U.S. this week due to a coronal hole and a "co-rotating interaction region" in the solar wind.

Welcome back to The Prompt, Buzzy AI coding tool Cursor's customer support bot replied to a programmer's query with a made up policy that doesn't exist. The snafu led to some users complaints.Getty AI coding software is all the rage. One particularly popular tool is Cursor, built by nascent AI startup Anysphere, which has become one of the fastest growing startups of all time. But even Cursor isn’t immune to hallucinations— AI’s tendency to make false statements and assert them as fact. A few days ago, a developer noticed that switching from one device to another kicked them out of Cursor’s coding platform. When the programmer reached out to the company’s customer support, an agent called “Sam” responded to them that this was expected behavior under a new policy change. Except there was no policy change. The response was made up by Cursor’s AI support bot. CEO Michael Turell confirmed this on Reddit after the AI’s response circulated on social media and elicited complaints from several programmers who often use multiple machines while coding. Some users commented that they were cancelling their subscriptions as a result. Truell apologized on Hacker News and said the user got a complete refund and that the company now ensures that AI responses are clearly labelled as such. Now let’s get into the headlines. BIG PLAYS OpenAI released a set of new AI models called o3 and o4-mini that can understand images, search the web and analyze data from uploaded documents. The company claims the models, which can crop, rotate and zoom into photos, are its most powerful “reasoning” models. Unlike previous iterations, the models consume more time (and compute) to process a query and are trained to figure out how to approach responding to an input. They also have access to external tools allowing them to independently carry out tasks on your behalf. People have since uploaded pictures of random places to ChatGPT and used it to figure out its exact location along with the GPS coordinates and directions to get there. Many have asked the model to respond as if it’s playing GeoGuessr, a popular game where players must find locations based on Google Street View images. Meanwhile, yet another social media trend has led to people using ChatGPT to create AI-generated action figures (with accessories) and Barbie dolls featuring their likeness. The ChatGPT-generated Barbies have various professions like realtor, tech troubleshooter and business coach. Artists have pushed back on the trend by hand drawing their own versions, the New York Times reported. POLITICS + ELECTION Ahead of the Canadian election, Amazon has been flooded with AI-generated books about Prime Minister Mark Carney and other political leaders, Bloomberg reported. Some of them contained incorrect information about the figures. The e-commerce giant took down most of the political books flagged by Bloomberg. This isn’t an isolated incident: people have published hundreds of titles, written with the help of generative AI tools, on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. AI DEAL OF THE WEEK Anthropic has made its first investment into an AI company called Goodfire, a San Francisco-based startup that has raised $50 million in a Series A round led by Menlo Ventures with participation from Lightspeed Ventures and others. The company is building a system to address the black box problem of AI— a gaping hole in our understanding of why AI models work in a certain way. The company aims to understand how neural networks function to unlock new ways to train AI models and improve their performance. DEEP DIVE Before creating Cursor, the wildly popular AI coding tool, Michael Truell was an 18-year-old MIT student, growing restless during his first taste of corporate life as an intern at Google. It was 2019, the summer after his freshman year, and Truell was sitting at the cafe of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, with Ali Partovi, who was recruiting for his vaunted Neo Scholars program, aimed at finding tech’s future crème de la crème while they’re still in college. Partovi, an early investor in Facebook, Airbnb and Dropbox, chatted with Truell about AI research and startup life. Then he gave the student a handwritten coding test — an easy task for Truell, who finished it in record time. After the meeting, Partovi got out his dossier and scrawled a circle with a star inside of it next to Truell’s picture: the investor’s shorthand indicating he was so impressed that he’d invest in any project Truell pursued. Truell would become a Neo Scholar, and three years later, Partovi would become the first-ever investor in his startup Anysphere, maker of Cursor. The company, which reportedly took just a year to reach $100 million in annualized revenue (and has since then doubled it), is among the fastest growing startups of all time. “Ali basically backed us when it was just the idea. We hadn’t really done anything else yet,” Truell told Forbes. “He's not afraid to spend time with and really bet on people before they're very proven.” Neo was founded in 2017 with its scholars program, which selects 30 members each year, giving them access to workshops, networking events and recruitment connections at big tech companies. Similar to the Thiel Fellowship, the program founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel that doles out $100,000 grants to entrepreneurs to forgo college, Neo Scholars can also elect to take time off school to work on a project. But Neo’s version, which comes with a $20,000 grant, is optional and only lasts one semester — designed to be a much less intense commitment than skipping school entirely. Read the full story on Neo on Forbes. WEEKLY DEMO In February, Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas said his AI search company was skipping spending millions on a Super Bowl commercial and instead would give away $1 million to one lucky user who downloaded the app, asked five questions on it and referred it to their friends. But the company’s Android app has 10 major security vulnerabilities leading to impersonation attempts, account takeovers and data theft, according to a report by app testing company Appknox, Forbes reported. These gaps would allow anyone to make a clone of the Perplexity app and collect private user data. The findings are reported as Perplexity is in talks to integrate its AI assistant into smartphones manufactured by Lenovo and Samsung, Bloomberg reported. MODEL BEHAVIOR In the real world race between humans and AI, robots still have a long way to go. 21 humanoid robots scuttled alongside 12,000 humans in a half marathon held in Beijing. But only six crossed the finish line, Wired reported, with the rest failing for a variety of reasons including overheating issues.The fastest robot completed the race in 2 hours and 40 minutes, but only after falling down once and having its batteries swapped out thrice. It’s still baby steps out there for robots.

Forward-looking: Most highly recommended microSD cards offer maximum read speeds of around 250 MB/s, but the impending release of the Nintendo Switch 2 has increased demand for significantly faster memory cards. Just as microSD Express technology begins to gain mainstream acceptance, one vendor has introduced a new standard that doubles the theoretical performance. Adata has unveiled a new performance standard for SD Express cards, boasting a 1.6 GB/s maximum read speed and a 1.2 GB/s write speed – roughly double the fastest models currently available. Although the company hasn't disclosed release details, users shopping for Nintendo Switch 2 memory cards will have another, faster (and likely more expensive) option. The SD Express standard was introduced in 2018 with version 7.0, offering read speeds of up to 1 GB/s by leveraging NVMe SSD technology. However, because few portable devices required such high transfer rates, SD Express languished in obscurity for years, while most users and manufacturers stuck with more affordable and established options. Also read: microSD and SD Card Buying Guide Nintendo's upcoming Switch 2 handheld could change that when it launches on June 5. It is expected to be the first mass-market device to require microSD Express cards, and stores across Japan have already reported selling out of them. Games purchased on physical Switch 2 game cards or installed on memory cards will benefit from significantly faster load times compared to the original Switch. For example, Nintendo recently demonstrated that The Legend of Zelda titles can load new areas more than twice as quickly on the Switch 2, taking just a few seconds. Lexar microSD Express card Online retail listings show that only SanDisk and Lexar currently offer microSD Express cards, featuring read speeds of around 900 MB/s. Adata has raised the bar with the new SD 8.0 standard, although it remains unclear how quickly other vendors will follow suit. // Related Stories Adata has yet to reveal pricing details, too, but these next-gen memory cards are unlikely to be cheap. SanDisk's 256 GB SD 7.0 cards start at $60, while Lexar's 512 GB models retail for around $100. In addition, Adata recently announced several new flash memory and SSD products. The UE720 is a USB 3.2 Gen2 flash drive with read and write speeds of 500 MB/s and 450 MB/s, respectively, available in capacities up to 256 GB. The company's new EC680 M.2 SSD enclosure uses a USB 3.2 Gen2x1 interface and a Type-C connector to achieve read/write speeds of approximately 1,050/1,000 MB/s. It supports 2230, 2242, and 2280 form factors.

At last: Get ready to close the gate of Oblivion. Bethesda just made it official. The Elder Scrolls IV Remastered launched today. Much of the game has been rebuilt from scratch so it's not just a cosmetic refresh. It's got a modernized UI, streamlined leveling, and much more. A massive leak last week revealed almost everything fans wanted to know about the long-rumored Oblivion remake. The cache included screenshots and side-by-side comparisons. An Xbox Support representative even let it slip that the game would launch on April 21. Well, it's a day late, but Bethesda greeted us this morning with a live feed officially revealing the reboot, and from the looks of it, all the rumors were true aside from the release date. Even some of the side-by-side comparisons appear to have come straight from Bethesda's presentation (masthead). However, Bethesda managed to throw us a few surprises. The most pleasant is that TES: Oblivion Remastered is available as of "right now." The April release is somewhat surprising. May seemed more likely, but maybe that was just me being pessimistic. What's more surprising is that it is available on most platforms, including PlayStation 5! Considering Microsoft has kept most of Bethesda's newer titles away from its biggest rival, it is remarkable that it didn't at least make it a timed exclusive. Xbox may view the Oblivion remake differently than new releases like Starfield and TESVI, which are exclusives (for now). Whatever the case, it's a smart move - millions of PS5 owners will snap this title up, substantially boosting sales. Also read: 26 Years of The Elder Scrolls On appearances alone, there is little reason that fans shouldn't pick up this carefully done remaster unless it turns out to be buggy, a real possibility given Bethesda's track record. It is one of the finer makeovers I have seen recently. It looks gorgeous. I've included screenshots throughout, but please do check out the live footage in the masthead - stills just don't do it justice. The game didn't just get a new coat of paint. Design studio Virtuos rebuilt all models and environments from scratch. Virtuos said it used the Oblivion game engine as the heart of the game while Unreal 5 produced the stunning visual aesthetic and special effects. "We've leveraged nearly every major feature from the latest version of Unreal 5," said Virtuos Executive Producer Alex Murphy. Utilizing Unreal Engine clearly paid off in spades. The only real question is, did developers give the old Oblivion engine any love? I recall revisiting Oblivion on the PS3 a few years ago and had to give up because the control scheme felt too clunky and outdated. Virtuos said that it updated a lot of gameplay elements, like the user interface and experience. Leveling is not as janky anymore - no more hopping around like a crazy rabbit just to level up that agility stat. However, Murphy failed to mention anything about the game controls. Overlooking control modernization would be a rookie misstep, so here's hoping that Virtuos remembered something so simple yet fundamental to the player experience. Some fans in the forums questioned whether Bethesda would include the two Oblivion DLCs, Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles, or if it would split them off to sell separately and push a deluxe bundle. Good news: Oblivion Remastered includes all original DLC. Bad news (depending on how you view it): There is a deluxe version, which offers two weapon and armor skins, a digital artbook, and the soundtrack. The Standard Edition is $50, while the Deluxe costs $60. If you don't want to commit to the deluxe bundle, you can always upgrade later for $10. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered is available on PC through Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. // Related Stories I'm anxious to hear early reviews, especially from our readers. It will also be interesting to see if this opens the doors for other TES remasters. Morrowind, anyone?

Lenovo seems to be really trying hard to make a grand slam in the world of gaming tablets — making them a household name instead of something that you only hear about if you’re in the know. As a result, they’re iterating fast, and there seems to be some sort of effort to empty out stock quickly, even on newer products. To put it all more concretely, we just talked about the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 this January, when CES stuff was going on. Now, there are rumors of an upcoming Lenovo gaming tablet already circulating. It was enough to make me double, even triple check what I was reading. It also seems to be enough for Lenovo to put the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 on sale, bringing it below the $500 mark. If you buy now, the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 can be yours for just $490, which is $60 less than its usual $550. Tap the button below to see it for yourself or keep reading to see why this tablet has been so well-received and you don’t need to wait for Lenovo’s next foray into the gaming tablet space. Related The Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 is a strong and powerful tablet, with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. Its screen is 8.8 inches diagonally, has a 2.5K resolution, and refreshes at an impressive 165Hz. It has Wi-Fi 7 for great gameplay and super quick downloads, and a metal body for a lifespan that should last years. While all of these stats combined come together to paint the Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 as a capable gamer’s tablet, that isn’t all it has uses for. In fact, our Lenovo Legion Tab Gen 3 hands on review showed how the tablet could be useful for non-gamers as well. Advanced cooling features, we argued, are great for gamers and non-gamers alike. Similarly, the USB-C passthrough ports are great for simultaneously charging the tablet while connecting to a monitor for a larger screen — that’s great for creating a spectacular spectator experience for games and other activities. Again, this tablet can be yours for just $490. That’s a discount of $60 off of the usual $550 for a very fresh tablet available to you if you tap the button below. Of course, you can always check out other tablet deals, but you’re unlikely to find a deal on a tablet any newer than this one today. Editors’ Recommendations

Table of Contents Table of Contents Reading Coach with Click to Do Read with Immersive Reader Search your cloud photos with just a few words Add your words to the dictionary in Voice Access AI enhancements in progress In a Windows Insider blog post, Microsoft announces some exciting new features coming to Windows 11, including Reading Coach integration, improved Voice Access, and AI-enhanced Search. These upgrades are part of preview build 26120.3872 in the Beta channel. However, some upcoming features will only be available on Copilot+ PCs, a new category of AI-powered devices that run on Snapdragon (ARM-based) chips. Beyond the features highlighted in this preview, more Copilot+ features are already on the horizon. For example, Microsoft recently confirmed that Recall, which raised privacy concerns, is coming to Windows 11 in build 26100.3902 (KB5055627), now available in the Release Preview Channel. That means it’s just one step away from general release and likely to arrive soon on eligible Copilot+ devices. Recommended Videos So, what new features are coming to Copilot+ PCs, and how do you know if your PC will be compatible with them? Here’s a list of the upcoming features and who can access them. Related Luke Larsen / Digital Trends One of the most practical new features in the update is the addition of Reading Coach to the Windows 11 “Click to Do” feature. This action uses AI to suggest context-aware tools. Microsoft says you can improve your reading fluency and pronunciation with the “Practice in Reading Coach” Click to Do action. You only need to highlight the text recognized by Click to Do on your screen, and then select the ‘Practice in Reading Coach’ option. Once you’re done reading, the Reading Coach gives you feedback and guides you on where there is room for improvement. This is a valuable tool since it gives users a judgment-free way to improve their skills at their own pace. Applying the feedback helps build confidence over time. And, since the feature is always available on your Copilot+ PC, you can practice whenever it fits your schedule, which I find very convenient. Microsoft The fewer distractions you have when reading, the better, and that’s what Microsoft aims to deliver with Immersive Reader. You can access this feature the same way you would Reading Coach, and you can customize the text’s appearance by changing the font, size, spacing, or background theme. While Immersive Reader was initially designed to assist readers with dyslexia and dysgraphia, it offers helpful tools for everyone. For instance, the feature reads the text aloud for you, uses syllable breaks to split words, and highlights verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Another feature that visual learners will love is the picture dictionary option, which shows unfamiliar words with pictures to help users understand them more easily. The picture dictionary feature is great since not everyone grasps information in the same way. I prefer visuals when learning something, since they help speed up the learning process. Who hasn’t understood something better when you were shown an image of what they meant? Good news for Windows Insiders in the European Economic Area, since they can search for pictures saved in the cloud using their own words via the Windows Search box. For example, you can use words like ‘dog on the beach’ and get pictures that fit that description. Being able to search for a picture this way is a huge time-saver since not everyone can remember the exact name they gave a file to find it. The updated search brings together cloud and local results, so everything is displayed in one place. Not too long ago, Microsoft announced this feature in a Windows Insider blog post that Windows Search would get an AI upgrade, allowing users with a Copilot+ PC with a Snapdragon processor to use both semantic and lexical indexing to search for specific photos. Although the feature is currently available for Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs, Microsoft has confirmed that support for AMD- and Intel-powered PCs is coming soon, but a specific timeframe was not provided. I hope it’s sooner than later. 36122466 – definition of word vocabulary in dictionary aga7ta / 123RF Stock Photo Voice Access in Windows 11 is getting smarter, and one of the most useful enhancements is the option to add specific words to the dictionary. If you use hard-to-pronounce or uncommon terms, adding them can help improve dictation accuracy. Even words you typically struggle with won’t be an issue anymore; you’re teaching it your personal vocabulary. Microsoft says this feature will be available in all currently supported languages, including French, English, Spanish, Chinese, and German. Microsoft’s new features are genuinely helpful, especially for accessibility. Immersive Reader, for example, can make a real difference for users with dyslexia or dysgraphia. The only downside right now is that you’ll need a Copilot+ PC with a Snapdragon processor to use them. Hopefully, support for other Copilot+ PCs won’t be far behind. Tools like Picture Dictionary are a great example of how AI can make everyday tasks more intuitive, especially for visual learners. Editors’ Recommendations

Altman’s resignation opens up the opportunity for future deals between OpenAI and the nuclear-energy startup. Oklo shares fall after hours.

Partnerships between the state, its universities and its national labs demonstrate the Mountain West’s ambitions in quantum technology.

The ‘Ted Lasso’ actor struggles to land on a stage persona in his funny if uneven comedy special.

Mmm, cookies? Google won’t ditch third-party cookies in Chrome after all Google will no longer prompt you to disable third-party cookies in Chrome. Ryan Whitwam – Apr 22, 2025 3:36 pm | 13 Credit: Getty Images Credit: Getty Images Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Google has made an unusual announcement about browser cookies, but it may not come as much of a surprise given recent events. After years spent tinkering with the Privacy Sandbox, Google has essentially called it quits. According to Anthony Chavez, VP of the company's Privacy Sandbox initiative, Google won't be rolling out a planned feature to help users disable cookies. Instead, cookie support will remain in place as is, possibly forever. Beginning in 2019, Google embarked on an effort under the Privacy Sandbox banner aimed at developing a new way to target ads that could preserve a modicum of user privacy. This approach included doing away with third-party cookies, small snippets of code that advertisers use to follow users around the web. Google struggled to find a solution that pleased everyone. Its initial proposal for FLoC (Federated Learning of Cohorts) was widely derided as hardly any better than cookies. Google then moved on to the Topics API, but the company's plans to kill cookies have been delayed repeatedly since 2022. Until today, Google was still planning to roll out a dialog in Chrome that would prompt users to turn off third-party cookies in favor of Google's updated solution. According to Chavez, Google has been heartened to see the advertising industry taking privacy more seriously. As a result, Google won't be pushing that cookie dialog to users. You can still choose to disable third-party cookies in Chrome, though. Maintaining the status quo While Google's sandbox project is looking more directionless today, it is not completely ending the initiative. The team still plans to deploy promised improvements in Chrome's Incognito Mode, which has been re-architected to preserve user privacy after numerous complaints. Incognito Mode blocks all third-party cookies, and later this year, it will gain IP protection, which masks a user's IP address to protect against cross-site tracking. What is Topics? Chavez admits that this change will mean Google's Privacy Sandbox APIs will have a "different role to play" in the market. That's a kind way to put it. Google will continue developing these tools and will work with industry partners to find a path forward in the coming months. The company still hopes to see adoption of the Privacy Sandbox increase, but the industry is unlikely to give up on cookies voluntarily. While Google focuses on how ad privacy has improved since it began working on the Privacy Sandbox, the changes in Google's legal exposure are probably more relevant. Since launching the program, Google has lost three antitrust cases, two of which are relevant here: the search case currently in the remedy phase and the newly decided ad tech case. As the government begins arguing that Chrome gives Google too much power, it would be a bad look to force a realignment of the advertising industry using the dominance of Chrome. In some ways, this is a loss—tracking cookies are undeniably terrible, and Google's proposed alternative is better for privacy, at least on paper. However, universal adoption of the Privacy Sandbox could also give Google more power than it already has, and the supposed privacy advantages may never have fully materialized as Google continues to seek higher revenue. Ryan Whitwam Senior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam Senior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he's written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards. 13 Comments