FutureHouse, an Eric Schmidt-backed nonprofit that aims to build an “AI scientist” within the next decade, has launched its first major product: a platform and API with AI-powered tools designed to support scientific work. Many, many startups are racing to develop AI research tools for the scientific domain, some with massive amounts of VC funding behind them. Tech giants seem bullish, too, on AI for science. Earlier this year, Google unveiled the “AI co-scientist,” an AI the company said could aid scientists in creating hypotheses and experimental research plans. The CEOs of AI companies OpenAI and Anthropic have asserted that AI tools could massively accelerate scientific discovery, particularly in medicine. But many researchers don’t consider AI today to be especially useful in guiding the scientific process, in large part due to its unreliability. FutureHouse on Thursday released four AI tools: Crow, Falcon, Owl, and Phoenix. Crow can search scientific literature and answer questions about it; Falcon can conduct deeper literature searches, including of scientific databases; Owl looks for previous work in a given subject area; and Phoenix uses tools to help plan chemistry experiments. “Unlike other [AIs], FutureHouse’s have access to a vast corpus of high-quality open-access papers and specialized scientific tools,” writes FutureHouse in a blog post. “They [also] have transparent reasoning and use a multi-stage process to consider each source in more depth […] By chaining these [AI]s together, at scale, scientists can greatly accelerate the pace of scientific discovery.” But tellingly, FutureHouse has yet to achieve a scientific breakthrough or make a novel discovery with its AI tools. Part of the challenge in developing an “AI scientist” is anticipating an untold number of confounding factors. AI might come in handy in areas where broad exploration is needed, like narrowing down a vast list of possibilities. But it’s less clear whether AI is capable of the kind of out-of-the-box problem-solving that leads to bonafide breakthroughs. Techcrunch event Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 BOOK NOW Results from AI systems designed for science so far have been mostly underwhelming. In 2023, Google said around 40 new materials had been synthesized with the help of one of its AIs, called GNoME. Yet an outside analysis found not a single one of the materials was, in fact, net new. AI’s technical shortcomings and risks, such as its tendency to hallucinate, also make scientists wary of endorsing it for serious work. Even well-designed studies could end up being tainted by misbehaving AI, which struggles with executing high-precision work. Indeed, FutureHouse acknowledges that its AI tools — Phoenix in particular — may make mistakes. “We are releasing [this] now in the spirit of rapid iteration,” the company writes in its blog post. “Please provide feedback as you use it.”

It is a well-known fact that different model families can use different tokenizers. However, there has been limited analysis on how the process of “tokenization” itself varies across these tokenizers. Do all tokenizers result in the same number of tokens for a given input text? If not, how different are the generated tokens? How significant are the…Read More

It is a well-known fact that different model families can use different tokenizers. However, there has been limited analysis on how the process of “tokenization” itself varies across these tokenizers. Do all tokenizers result in the same number of tokens for a given input text? If not, how different are the generated tokens? How significant are the…Read More

Google is preparing to publicly unleash its AI Mode search engine tool for the first time. The company announced today that “a small percentage” of people in the US will start seeing an AI Mode tab in Google Search “in the coming weeks,” allowing users to test the search-centric chatbot outside of Google’s experimental Labs environment.In contrast to traditional search platforms that provide a wall of URL results based on the enquiry or descriptions a user has entered, Google’s AI Mode will answer questions with an AI-generated response based on information within Google’s search index. This also differs from the AI Overviews already available in Google Search, which sandwich an AI-generated summary of information between the search box and web results.AI Mode will be located under its own dedicated tab that will appear first in the Search tab lineup, to the left of the “All,” “Images,” “Videos,” and “Shopping” tabs. It’s Google’s answer to large language model-based search engines like Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT search features. These search-specific AI models are better at accessing the web and real-time data than regular chatbots like Gemini, which should help them to provide more relevant and up-to-date responses.If you’re already familiar with chatbot UI then AI Mode won’t take much to get used to. GIF: GoogleGoogle is also scrapping the waitlist for Labs users in the US to test AI Mode, allowing more people to opt in to try the Search feature before it becomes widely available. AI Mode is still only available to users who are over 18 and paying for a Google One AI Premium subscription, however.AI Mode itself has also been updated with some new capabilities, including a feature that will save past searches to a new left-side panel, allowing users to quickly revisit topics or ask follow-up queries without starting a new conversation. Visual, clickable cards for products and places are also now starting to appear in AI Mode, providing information like opening hours, reviews, and ratings for businesses, and images, inventory, shipping details, and real-time prices for shoppable products.See More:

In my past articles, I have explored and compared many AI tools, for example, Google’s Data Science Agent, ChatGPT vs. Claude vs. Gemini for Data Science, DeepSeek V3, etc. However, this is only a small subset of all the AI tools available for Data Science. Just to name a few that I used at work: OpenAI API: I use it to categorize and summarize customer feedback and surface product pain points (see my tutorial article). ChatGPT and Gemini: They help me draft Slack messages and emails, write analysis reports, and even performance reviews. Glean AI: I used Glean AI to find answers across internal documentation and communications quickly. Cursor and Copilot: I enjoy just pressing tab-tab to auto-complete code and comments. Hex Magic: I use Hex for collaborative data notebooks at work. They also offer a feature called Hex Magic to write code and fix bugs using conversational AI. Snowflake Cortex: Cortex AI allows users to call Llm endpoints, build RAG and text-to-SQL services using data in Snowflake. I am sure you can add a lot more to this list, and new AI tools are being launched every day. It is almost impossible to get a complete list at this point. Therefore, in this article, I want to take one step back and focus on a bigger question: what do we really need as data professionals, and how AI can help.  In the section below, I will focus on two main directions — eliminating low-value tasks and accelerating high-value work.  1. Eliminating Low-Value Tasks I became a data scientist because I truly enjoy uncovering business insights from complex data and driving business decisions. However, having worked in the industry for over seven years now, I have to admit that not all the work is as exciting as I had hoped. Before conducting advanced analyses or building machine learning models, there are many low-value work streams that are unavoidable daily — and in many cases, it is because we don’t have the right tooling to empower our stakeholders for self-serve analytics. Let’s look at where we are today and the ideal state: Current state: We work as data interpreters and gatekeepers (sometimes “SQL monkeys”) Simple data pull requests come to me and my team on Slack every week asking, “What was the GMV last month?” “Can you pull the list of customers who meet these criteria?” “Can you help me fill in this number on the deck that I need to present tomorrow?”  BI tools do not support self-service use cases well. We adopted BI tools like Looker and Tableau so stakeholders can explore the data and monitor the metrics easily. But the reality is that there is always a trade-off between simplicity and self-servability. Sometimes we make the dashboards easy to understand with a few metrics, but they can only fulfill a few use cases. Meanwhile, if we make the tool very customizable with the capability to explore the metrics and underlying data freely, stakeholders could find the tool confusing and lack the confidence to use it, and in the worst case, the data is pulled and interpreted in the wrong way.   Documentation is sparse or outdated. This is a common situation, but could be caused by different reasons — maybe we move fast and focus on delivering results, or there is no great data documentation and governance policies in place. As a result, tribal knowledge becomes the bottleneck for people outside of the data team to use the data. Ideal state: Empower stakeholders to self-serve so we can minimize low-value work Stakeholders can do simple data pulls and answer basic data questions easily and confidently. Data teams spend less time on repetitive reporting or one-off basic queries. Dashboards are discoverable, interpretable, and actionable without hand-holding. So, to get closer to the ideal state, what role can AI play here? From what I have observed, these are the common directions AI tools are going to close the gap: Query data with natural language (Text-to-SQL): One way to lower the technical barrier is to enable stakeholders to query the data with natural language. There are lots of Text-to-SQL efforts in the industry: For example, Snowflake is one company that has made lots of progress in Text2SQL models and started integrating the capability into its product.  Many companies (including mine) also explored in-house Text2SQL solutions. For example, Uber shared their journey with Uber’s QueryGPT to make data querying more accessible for their Operations team. This article explained in detail how Uber designed a multi-agent architecture for query generation. Meanwhile, it also surfaced major challenges in this area, including accurately interpreting user intent, handling large table schemas, and avoiding hallucinations etc.  Honestly, to make Text-to-SQL work, there is a very high bar as you have to make the query accurate — even if the tool fails just once, it could ruin the trust and eventually stakeholders will come back to you to validate the queries (then you need to read+rewrite the queries, which almost double the work ). So far, I haven’t found a Text-to-SQL model or tool that works perfectly. I only see it achievable when you are querying from a very small subset of well-documented core datasets for specific and standardized use cases, but it is very hard to scale to all the available data and different business scenarios.  But of course, given the large amount of investment in this area and rapid development in AI, I am sure we will get closer and closer to accurate and scalable Text-to-SQL solutions.  Chat-based BI assistant: Another common area to improve stakeholders’ experience with BI tools is the chat-based BI assistant. This actually takes one step further than Text-to-SQL — instead of generating a SQL query based on a user prompt, it responds in the format of a visualization plus text summary.  Gemini in Looker is an example here. Looker is owned by Google, so it is very natural for them to integrate with Gemini. Another advantage for Looker to build their AI feature is that data fields are already documented in the LookML semantic layer, with common joins defined and popular metrics built in dashboards. Therefore, it has lots of great data to learn from. Gemini allows users to adjust Looker dashboards, ask questions about the data, and even build custom data agents for Conversational Analytics. Though based on my limited experimentation with the tool, it times out often and fails to answer simple questions sometimes. Let me know if you have a different experience and have made it work… Tableau also launched a similar feature, Tableau AI. I haven’t used it myself, but based on the demo, it helps the data team to prepare data and make dashboards quickly using natural language, and summarise data insights into “Tableau Pulse” for stakeholders to easily spot metric changes and abnormal trends.    Data Catalog Tools: AI can also help with the challenge of sparse or outdated data documentation.  During one internal hackathon, I remember one project from our data engineers was to use LLM to increase table documentation coverage. AI is able to read the codebase and describe the columns accordingly with high accuracy in most cases, so it can help improve documentation quickly with limited human validation and adjustments.  Similarly, when my team creates new tables, we have started to ask Cursor to write the table documentation YAML files to save us time with high-quality output.  There are also lots of data catalogs and governance tools that have been integrated with AI. When I google “ai data catalog”, I see the logos of data catalog tools like Atlan, Alation, Collibra, Informatica, etc (disclaimer: I have used none of them..). This is clearly an industry trend.  2. Accelerating high-value work Now that we’ve talked about how AI could help with eliminating low-value tasks, let’s discuss how it can accelerate high-value data projects. Here, high-value work refers to data projects that combine technical excellence with business context, and drive meaningful impact through cross-functional collaboration. For example, a deep dive analysis that understands product usage patterns and leads to product changes, or a churn prediction model to identify churn-risk customers and results in churn-prevention initiatives. Let’s compare the current state and the ideal future: Current state: Productivity bottlenecks exist in everyday workflows  EDA is time-consuming. This step is critical to get an initial understanding of the data, but it could take a long time to conduct all the univariate and multivariate analyses. Time lost to coding and debugging. Let’s be honest — no one can remember all the numpy and pandas syntax and sklearn model parameters. We constantly need to look up documentation while coding. Rich unstructured data is not fully utilized. Business generates lots of text data every day from surveys, support tickets, and reviews. But how to extract insights scalably remains a challenge. Ideal state: Data scientists focus on deep thinking, not syntax  Writing code feels faster without the interruption to look up syntax. Analysts spend more time interpreting results, less time wrangling data. Unstructured data is no longer a blocker and can be quickly analyzed. Seeing the ideal state, I am sure you already have some AI tool candidates in mind. Let’s see how AI can influence or is already making a difference:  AI coding and debugging assistants. I think this is by far the most adopted type of AI tool for anyone who codes. And we are already seeing it iterating. When LLM chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude came out, engineers realized they could just throw their syntax questions or error messages to the chatbot with high-accuracy answers. This is still an interruption to the coding workflow, but much better than clicking through a dozen StackOverflow tabs — this already feels like last century.  Later, we see more and more integrated AI coding tools popping up — GitHub Copilot and Cursor integrate with your code editor and can read through your codebase to proactively suggest code completions and debug issues inside your IDE.  As I briefly mentioned at the beginning, data tools like Snowflake and Hex also started to embed AI coding assistants to help data analysts and data scientists write code easily.  AI for EDA and analysis. This is somewhat similar to the Chat-based BI assistant tools I mentioned above, but their goal is more ambitious — they start with the raw datasets and aim to automate the whole analysis cycle of data cleaning, pre-processing, exploratory analysis, and sometimes even modeling. These are the tools usually advertised as “replacing data analysts” (but are they?). Google Data Science Agent is a very impressive new tool that can generate a whole Jupyter Notebook with a simple prompt. I recently wrote an article showing what it can do and what it cannot. In short, it can quickly spin up a well-structured and functioning Jupyter Notebook based on a customizable execution plan. However, it is missing the capabilities of modifying the Jupyter Notebook based on follow-up questions, still requires someone with solid data science knowledge to audit the methods and make manual iterations, and needs a clear data problem statement with clean and well-documented datasets. Therefore, I view it as a great tool to free us some time on starter code, instead of threatening our jobs. ChatGPT’s Data Analyst tool can also be categorized under this area. It allows users to upload a dataset and chat with it to get their analysis done, visualizations generated, and questions answered. You can find my prior article discussing its capabilities here. It also faces similar challenges and works better as an EDA helper instead of replacing data analysts. Easy-to-use and scalable NLP capabilities. LLM is great at conversations. Therefore, NLP is made exponentially easier with LLM today. My company hosts an internal hackathon every year. I remember my hackathon project three years ago was to try BERT and other traditional topic modeling methods to analyze NPS survey responses, which was fun but honestly very hard to make it accurate and meaningful for the business. Then two years ago, during the hackathon, we tried OpenAI API to categorize and summarise those same feedback data — it worked like magic as you can do high-accuracy topic modeling, sentiment analysis, feedback categorization all just in one API call, and the outputs well fit into our business context based on the system prompt. We later built an internal pipeline that scaled easily to text data across survey responses, support tickets, Sales calls, user research notes, etc., and it has become the centralized customer feedback hub and informed our product roadmap. You can find more in this tech blog. There are also lots of new companies building packaged AI customer feedback analysis tools, product review analysis tools, customer service assistant tools, etc. The ideas are all the same — utilizing the advantage of how LLM can understand text context and make conversations to create specialized AI agents in text analytics.  Conclusion It is easy to get caught up chasing the latest AI tools. But at the end of the day, what matters most is using AI to eliminate what slows us down and accelerate what moves us forward. The key is to stay pragmatic: adopt what works today, stay curious about what’s emerging, and never lose sight of the core purpose of data science—to drive better decisions through better understanding. The post How AI Is Rewriting the Day-to-Day of Data Scientists appeared first on Towards Data Science.

No matter the gifting occasion, you want to wow your mom. She sacrificed a lot for you, and now you're in a place where you can show her how grateful you are. Part of our larger series dedicated to the Best Gifts for Everyone, this list of gifts for mom attempts to dismantle the played-out tropes that have plagued moms at major holidays for dedicates. When gifting to your mom (or any mom, for that matter) consider hyper-specific things that speak to her unique hobbies or interests. Your mom (or mom figure) should revel in her own glory with gifts that make her feel smart, sophisticated, and valued. Consider what she does when she has no one putting demands on her time — then shop for those moments. And if you get stuck, visit our guide to the best gifts under $50 for even more winning ideas. Opens in a new window Credit: Samsung / Walmart The Frame TV Best for moms with Pinterest-worthy homes Here's the thing about big-screen televisions: They're an eyesore. For the mom who appreciates aesthetics, Samsung's The Frame is here to make her day. The ultra flat screen smart TV looks like any other wall art when not in use, seamlessly blending into the decor and thus creating a more well-appointed space. Buying Options $997.99 from Walmart Opens in a new window Credit: Apple An Apple Watch Series 9 Best for Apple fans Whether she's always jetting off to a workout class or just needs to keep track of her millions of weekly appointments, the new Apple Watch Series 9 is a must-have for moms who are die-hard Apple users. The new smartwatch features a speedy new chip, a bright display, and a fun Double Tap hands-free feature. Buying Options $389.99 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: DoorDash / Mashable Composite SPONSORED Flower delivery from DoorDash Best for easy delivery Need flowers fast? Shop blooms from local florists and get them delivered the same day with help from DoorDash. Now through May 11 (that's Mother's Day), you can take 20% off your first flower delivery order (up to $20) when you sign up for DoorDash with the code US20OFFLOWERS2Q25. Buying Options See Details Opens in a new window Credit: Ophanie Rain Shower Head Best for moms who need to relax Gift your mom a trip to the spa every time she takes a shower with this luxurious, high-pressure fixture. Available in chrome and black, it comes with both a rain shower style head and a detachable shower wand that has five different spray settings. At 12 inches wide, it'll be like standing under a waterfall — in the best way possible. Buying Options $45.99 from Walmart Opens in a new window Credit: VITAMIX An electric composter Best for moms who have a garden Composting is the eco-friendly art of recycling food scraps into garden-ready fertilizer. Vitamix's FoodCycler makes indoor composting possible (and easy) — it's particularly handy for people who don't want to deal with worms. It's no bigger than a toaster oven and silently converts scraps into a soil-like substance. Best of all, it's not stinky like a trash can. Buying Options $399.95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: iRobot A Roomba robot vacuum Best for multitasking moms The simple truth is that no one needs to push around a vacuum anymore. Robot vacuums are a little piece of futuristic tech that we are totally obsessed with — and we know your mom will be too. Here's a thought: pop on a movie and spend some quality time with your mom while the robots take over. Buying Options See Details Opens in a new window Credit: OSTER An automatic wine opener Best for the wine enthusiast She'll be thankful for this when the only thing that stands between her and her post-work glass of vino is a stubborn cork. Pressing the "down" side of the button will pull the cork up and out, while the "up" side unscrews it off the end. Buying Options $44.18 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: UNCOMMON GOODS A long-distance touch lamp Best for moms who live far away These colorful touch lamps let your mom know you're thinking about her in real time while doubling as decor. After each person connects their lamp to WiFi, they'll sync up, and a quick tap sends a message to the other. (A touch to one lamp will make the other light up.) Get them in a pair or as many as you need to keep the whole fam connected. Buying Options $99 from Uncommon Goods Opens in a new window Credit: EMBER A temperature-controlled mug Best for tea connoisseurs Instead of gifting yet another mug that'll collect dust, try the Ember Mug 2 — it'll become her new go-to. It's a temperature-controlled smart mug that keeps drinks at her desired temperature (120 through 145 degrees Fahrenheit), which she can choose in the app. Oh, and its charger doubles as a coaster. Buying Options $149.95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: SONY Sony noise-canceling headphones Best for moms who need peace Is your mom constantly being interrupted by everyone else in the house? If so, help her build a wall around her alone time with some noise-canceling headphones. Sony's flagship pair are chic and have some of the best sound-blocking tech out there. (Great for flying, too.) Better yet, they're frequently on sale for $278. Buying Options $348 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: VENUS ET FLEUR Roses that last a year Best for moms who love flowers Gifting flowers isn't cliché if it's done right. Venus Et Fleur's roses are treated with a proprietary solution to keep them looking fresh for up to a year. The packaging itself is also beautiful, and you can choose a single rose or a whole bouquet. Not sure if you believe the hype? Just ask Gigi Hadid or Sarah Jessica Parker — they're both fans. Buying Options See Details Opens in a new window Credit: SAMSONITE Hardside luggage Best for moms who pack way too much Moms overpack simply because they are the queens of being prepared, and that's that. The 21-inch Freeform spinner suitcase by Samsonite has a durable shell that expands to squeeze the necessities in (without going over those annoying carry-on size requirements). Choose from 12 colors to find one that best fits your mom's style. Buying Options $179.99 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: DYSON A Dyson Supersonic Best for moms with long locks She spent years putting you before her hair care routine. Now, you can gift her a salon-level blowout every time she washes her hair. The Supersonic is Dyson's first high-end hair dryer that uses a high-velocity jet of controlled air for extra-fast drying and precise styling on all hair types. It goes so far as to measure its own temperature every 20 seconds to prevent heat-related damage and frizz. Buying Options $429.99 from Ulta Opens in a new window Credit: FELLOW A Fellow Stagg EKG Electric Kettle Best for pour-over coffee fans Some people just *know* that pour-over coffee reigns supreme and that tea tastes better when the water is just the right temperature. If your mom is a part of this club, get her this stylish, minimalist kettle. It has temperature control from 135 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit and will look great in her kitchen. Buying Options $165 from Fellow Opens in a new window Credit: NINJA A Ninja Foodi Best for moms expanding their menu Air frying has been *the* cooking method in the spotlight for the past few years, beloved for its ability to achieve a crispy texture without using an excessive amount of oil. The Ninja Foodi takes the place of an air fryer as well as a pressure cooker, broiler, and more, saving some serious storage space in the kitchen. Buying Options $249.99 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: YETI A Yeti Rambler tumbler Best for moms on the go This durable 20-ounce tumbler has double-wall insulation that'll keep your mom's beverages at her desired temperature until the very last drop. (Bonus: Both it and its lockable magnetic lid are dishwasher-safe.) It comes in more than 10 colors, so you're sure to find one in her favorite shade. Buying Options $35 from YETI Opens in a new window Credit: PHILIPS A Philips Hue starter kit Best for keeping her home cozy Smart lightbulbs: Because no one likes coming home to a dark house. (Or getting up to flick a switch once they're comfy in bed). This particular kit contains a hub and four white Philips Hue bulbs, which Mom can control using their companion mobile app or by talking to her go-to smart assistant; it works with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple Homekit. Buying Options $99.99 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: REBRILLIANT A bathtub tray Best for the stressed mom This convenient bathtub caddy has spots for a tablet or phone, a wine glass, and a candle — or whatever else your mom needs to have for a relaxing bath. The extending sides make the tray adjustable and compatible with most bathtubs. Buying Options $33.99 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: NESPRESSO An espresso maker Best for moms who love coffee Moms who refuse to be addressed before they've had their coffee know that some mornings require a little extra zing. She'll appreciate being able to add a shot or two to her mug by simply hitting a button on her Nespresso Vertuo Next. Available in white and dark grey, this compact machine can whip up barista-level espresso and rich regular coffee. Buying Options $179 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: Jungalow Jungalow Hook Pillows Best for the home If she’d never be satisfied with run-of-the-mill throw pillows, Jungalow offers a huge variety of fun and unique hook designs. We're talking everything from pomegranates to matching rainbow sets, plus designs like the popout flowers of the Primavera Pillow or the lounging feline on the lumbar-supporting Tigress Pom Pom Pillow. Buying Options See Details Opens in a new window Credit: TILE A Tile tracker Best for moms who lose stuff Ah, the perfect gift for any mother who’s ever uttered the phrase, "I wish I could call my keys." The Tile Mate Bluetooth tracker attaches easily to keyrings, but she can stick it to pretty much anything she has a habit of misplacing. Have her install the companion smartphone app so she can ring the Mate every time the object in question goes MIA. (She can also press a button on the Mate to do the reverse if her phone decides to wander away.) Buying Options $24.49 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: FUJIFILM A portable printer Best for nostalgic moms A mom who loves digging through old photo albums would also probably love to be able to add to that collection whenever she wants. With Fujifilm's Instax Mini Link 2, she can print photos (using real instant film!) directly from her smartphone's camera roll via Bluetooth anytime, anywhere — no need to lug around any separate equipment. Buying Options $99.95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: THEPAINTEDPRESS A personalized ring dish Best for sentimental moms While there are a ton of sites and stores that sell personalized ring dishes, we're particular fans of ThePaintedPress, a California-based Etsy shop that sells clay pieces with adorable hand-painted designs. Each dish starts at $17, and you can choose to add extra details like a heart, a name or phrase, or a floral arrangement for a few bucks more. Buying Options $17 from Etsy Opens in a new window Credit: BARTON A hanging egg chair Best for moms who love their yard If your mom is one to insist on sitting outside on every warm night, this egg-shaped swing will give her an ultra-relaxing place to do so. Made from weather-resistant resin wicker and steel for sturdiness, it'll look great on a porch or in the yard, and comes complete with a comfy cushion. Buying Options $199.95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: MASTERCLASS A MasterClass subscription Best for the mom with a dream hobby Has your mom ever wanted to take up interior design? Has she ever thought about getting into screenwriting? What's the status of her wilderness survival skills? There's a MasterClass for all of that (and then some). Sign her up for a year-long subscription to the online learning platform, and she'll get unlimited access to an ever-changing library of over 100 celebrity-taught classes. Buying Options $120 from MasterClass Opens in a new window Credit: SONY A Bluetooth record player Best for moms who enjoy the oldies Take your mom back to her younger years with this fully automatic turntable from Sony, which finds a happy medium between modern technology and nostalgia. She can blast her favorite LPs throughout the house by connecting it to a Bluetooth speaker or soundbar, and even rip them into digital MP3 files for on-the-go listening via USB. Buying Options $248 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: EARFLEEK An earring subscription box Best for moms who like to accessorize Gifting subscription boxes can sometimes be expensive, but EarFleek will send your mom a new pair of earrings every month for as low as $4.33 per month. That's way cheaper than most earrings in stores, and you get free shipping to boot. (They won't just be random earrings, either: You can personalize the boxes based on your mom's personal style.) Buying Options $52 from CRATEJOY Opens in a new window Credit: FOREO The LUNA mini 3 Best for skincare-obsessed moms The next best thing to a professional facial, the LUNA mini 3 is an app-controlled cleansing brush that can help Mom tackle her skincare routine like a pro. Suitable for all skin types, it pulsates gently for a deep clean, promising great-looking and softer-feeling skin in just minutes. (For especially busy moms, there's also a 30-second Glow Boost mode). Buying Options $179 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: PHILIPS The Philips SmartSleep Best for sleep-deprived moms This specialty alarm clock is designed to wake the user up naturally by gradually increasing its light intensity, starting 30 minutes before her wake-up time. (It basically mimics a sunrise.) By the time her room is filled with light, the alarm will set off a beep. This is ideal if your mom struggles to get up in the morning, or if she just wants a gentler morning routine. Buying Options $179.95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: AMAZON An Amazon Prime membership Best for a gift that keeps giving If she's still using someone else's Prime membership, bring her up to date by gifting her one of her own. She'll get perks like free two-day shipping, access to Prime Video and Music, free Kindle ebooks, grocery delivery, one free year of Grubhub+, and more. Buying Options $139 / year from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: AMAZON A smart plug Best for the techie mom While many of us are all set with smart devices, a smart plug might help her streamline her smart home one step further. It might not seem like the most exciting gift at first glance, but it’ll allow her to automate everything from her living floor lamps to her essential oil diffuser. Buying Options $24.99 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: L'Occitane Some nice hand cream Best for the mom who loves a manicure You really can’t go wrong with a tube of L'Occitane hand cream — especially if Mom is regularly complaining about dry hands or cuticles. This fast-absorbing shea butter cream is one of the best we’ve found and will help her hands remain healthy and moisturized — even into the winter. Buying Options $30 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: SK-II Some SK-II Facial Treatment Masks Best for at-home facials Looking for a luxurious gift for mom? Consider picking up a pack of SK-II facial masks. These high-end masks are a favorite among beauty experts because they're full of moisturizing ingredients that melt into the skin. Buying Options $95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: LE CREUSET A Le Creuset utensil set Best for elevating her kitchen counters Sure, she probably doesn’t need a five-piece utensil set, but this little Le Creuset gift set will still some elegance to her kitchen counter. Available in classic Le Creuset colors, this charming pack is both affordable and sophisticated. Buying Options $69.95 from Amazon Opens in a new window Credit: Vitruvi A fancy humidifier Best for the interior-design minded mom Humidifiers are great for skin, plants, and health in general, especially during winter months. They're a nice addition to any space, but to be honest, not a lot of them are design-friendly. Your mom might not treat herself to a more expensive humidifier simply because its prettier, but that's what makes this Vitruvi pick especially great as a gift. Plus, the interior can be cleaned in the dishwasher and it makes almost no sound. Buying Options $229 from Vitruvi Opens in a new window Credit: Brooklinen A fancy bathrobe Best for encouraging spa vibes If your mom is a go-getter type, encourage her to kick back and relax with a spa-like robe. Made of 100% Turkish cotton, Brooklinen's stylish robe will help your mom get into a calm state of mind and make her feel like she lives in a luxury resort. Buying Options $109 from Brooklinen Opens in a new window Credit: Parachute An upgraded towel set Best for updating mom's bathroom If she's still using the towels you also used when you lived in her house as a kid, it's time for a much-needed upgrade. The Parachute Soft Rib towels are plush, super absorbent, and the earthy tones will look great in any bathroom. Buying Options $224 from Parachute Home Nicole Cammorata Director of Special Projects As Director of Special Projects, Nicole Cammorata helps guide Mashable's editorial innovations, licensing programs, and specialty series. Previously, she was the site's Executive Editor and its very first Shopping Editor before that. Nicole is also the site's resident gifting expert and gets a thrill out of helping readers find the perfect present. She received a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an MFA in fiction writing from The New School. She lives in Maine with her husband, their two young children, and a backyard full of flowers.

SpaceX has fully removed the waitlist for Starlink in the US, although subscribers in high-demand areas will still need to pay a congestion charge. The official Starlink.com map no longer shows any sold-out areas across the country. Large patches of Washington state and Florida were previously placed behind a waitlist. As a result, interested users across the country can now subscribe to the Starlink residential tier; at $120 per month, it's one of the most affordable satellite internet plans. That said, SpaceX can still impose a "demand surcharge," which will reach $100 or even $250 if you subscribe in an area already full of customers, where capacity has been stretched. In the US, SpaceX initially revived the waitlist for the Starlink residential plan in November before expanding it to more areas in February. The company didn’t explain the change, merely saying in a support page that “residential service is at capacity and residential service activations are currently not possible.”(Credit: Starlink.com)Removing the waitlist suggests SpaceX has added more capacity to the network. The company currently has nearly 6,600 Starlink satellites in operational orbits, up from 6,000 in late November, according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell. Still, the $100 and $250 “demand surcharge” for certain areas indicates that congestion remains a problem, which can slow down Starlink speeds for neighboring users. Allowing more customers to sign up risks exacerbating the issues if the capacity remains under strain. Recommended by Our Editors(Credit: Starlink.com)SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But satellite industry analyst Tim Farrar suspects the company removed the waitlist to “pressure” the Federal Communications Commission to relax rules that would let SpaceX increase the radio emissions from Starlink satellites, thus boosting internet speeds. “Those waitlists were set at an average of ~5 subs/sq mile (about 5 subscriptions per square mile) in the US. In the near term, service will deteriorate in many areas,” he tweeted. In the meantime, the FCC voted this week to review the satellite spectrum rules, giving SpaceX a win. In US areas without congestion, SpaceX is offering free Starlink dishes to customers who sign up for one year of service. Caleb Henry, an analyst with Quilty Space, notes that US customer growth for Starlink appeared to slow last year. "Assuming US subscriber growth continued to stall or even plateau, removing growth barriers [waitlists] and offering free dishes where excess capacity is available gives Starlink new opportunities to jumpstart growth in a mature but still highly lucrative market," he says."The free terminal offering in particular may allow Starlink to compete more aggressively to steal customers from incumbent satellite internet providers Hughesnet and Viasat," he adds.

Cybersecurity can be complicated. (I sat in on a pentesting session during the RSAC’s cybersecurity conference this week, and I don’t envy them their jobs.) But not all of it is—especially when it comes to big wins for us everyday users. So, see this? This account type is a security problem.PCWorld That is what David Weston, CVP of Enterprise and OS Security at Microsoft, says is the biggest security threat to your PC. The reason: Admin permissions are a major opportunity for hackers. Think of it like your house—once someone’s inside, they can go into any part of it and mess around. In particular, if you use an Administrator account daily, then remote access to your PC is possible—and those two things combined can enable real damage. Hackers can not only slip into your PC, but they can also spy on you, add software to your system, run malicious code, change software settings, and more. The solution: In your Windows settings (“Accounts”), create a separate local Administrator account with a strong, unique password. Whenever you need higher-level permissions, you’ll be prompted for your admin account’s password. (You won’t need to log out of your normal account, so it’s pretty seamless.) Next, downgrade your existing account to a Standard user. It’s a quick change and easy to do. Create additional users on this screen. Once done, you must elevate the account’s permissions from Standard User to Administrator.PCWorld You can reference our past guide on how to create the new Administrator account and downgrade your existing account to a standard user for step-by-step instructions. While it refers to Windows 10, I’ve verified the instructions apply to Windows 11, too. Once you complete these tasks, you’re good to go. For something so big, the fix is pretty small.

Russia's Baikal Electronics has produced and sold 85,000 processors since its founding, but due to post-2022 sanctions and blocked shipments from Taiwan, it now aims to restart production with new chips like Baikal-L and Baikal-S2 at SMIC.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Windows 11 is getting a new Settings page with advanced options Taras Buria Neowin @TarasBuria · May 1, 2025 17:12 EDT Windows 11 is about to receive a new Settings section with some advanced features. Technically, it is not new. It is rather a rework of the "For developers" section, where users and developers can tweak all sorts of additional features. Microsoft probably understands that those things are useful not only for developers, and renaming to "Advanced" might clear things up a bit (the first about this appeared over a year ago). Like it often happens, the news about the "Advanced" page comes from a sharp-eyed Windows enthusiast @phantomofearth on X. In addition to a new name, this area of the Settings app is getting a slight makeover and more features. Microsoft recently discontinued the Dev Home app, promising to integrate certain parts into the OS itself. Now, we see the result. New features in the "Advanced" section include the ability to toggle long paths in directories, Virtual Workspaces settings, File Explorer source code integration, and more. Besides, Microsoft is tidying things up with feature groups like Taskbar, File Explorer, Terminal, Virtual Workspaces, and more. For reference, here is what the "For Developers" page looks like in the current Windows 11 version 24H2: As of right now, you can only find the new "Advanced" page in Windows Server build 26404. It is hidden by default, and enabling it requires the now-traditional tinkering with feature IDs. It probably won't take long for it to show up in consumer versions of Windows 11 in the insider program, so look out for new builds in the upcoming days and weeks. In case you missed it, the Settings app is also getting more bits and pieces from the legacy Control Panel, which is something I recently complained about in my article about five things that still grind my gears in Windows 11. Soon, Windows 11 will have modern keyboard settings, giving you one less reason to use the old Control Panel. Tags Report a problem with article Follow @NeowinFeed