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Written by Matt Elliott Our expert, award-winning staff selects the products we cover and rigorously researches and tests our top picks. If you buy through our links, we may get a commission. Reviews ethics statement How we test What to consider Price Statistically, youll hold onto your next laptop for at least three years. The current sweet spot for a reliable laptop to handle average work, home office or school tasks is between $700 and $800 and a reasonable model for creative work or gaming is upward of about $1,000. The key is to look for discounts on models in all price ranges to get the best configuration you can for your money. Operating System Choosing an operating system is part personal preference and part budget. For the most part, Microsoft Windows and Apple's MacOS do the same things but they do them differently. Unless there's an OS-specific application you need, go with the one you feel most comfortable using. MacBooks currently start at $999, so if you need a laptop for significantly less, its Windows. A Chromebook running on Googles ChromeOS is an excellent (and less expensive) alternative to Windows or MacOS if almost everything you do is in a web browser. They cant run Windows or Mac software. Size Remember to consider whether having a lighter, thinner laptop or a touchscreen laptop with a good battery life will be important to you in the future. Size is primarily determined by the screen, which in turn factors into battery size, laptop thickness, weight and price. Screen When it comes to deciding on a screen, there are a myriad number of considerations: size, resolution, what types of content you'll be looking at and whether or not you'll be using it for gaming or creative work. Higher resolutions are better for fitting more on a screen and look for a dot pitch of at least 100 pixels per inch as a rule of thumb. If the color range is important, look for at least 100% sRGB, or better yet 100% DCI-P3. Processor Intel and AMD are the main CPU makers for Windows laptops with Qualcomm emerging as a third option with its Arm-baed Snapdragon X chips. Apple makes its own Arm-based chips for MacBooks, which makes things slightly more straightforward. You'll still want to pay attention to the number of cores -- the more, the better -- to gauge potential performance as well as Intel x86 vs Arm. Graphics The graphics processor handles all the work of driving the screen and generating what gets displayed, as well as speeding up a lot of graphics-related (and increasingly, AI-related) operations. For Windows laptops, there are two types of GPUs: integrated (iGPU) or discrete (dGPU). Because the iGPU splits space, memory and power with the CPU, it's better for smaller, lighter laptops, but it doesn't perform nearly as well as a dGPU. For things like video editing, gaming, design and so on, you'll need a dGPU. Memory For memory, we highly recommend 16GB of RAM (8GB absolute minimum). RAM is where the operating system stores all the data for currently running applications, and it can fill up fast. After that, it starts swapping between RAM and the storage drive, which is slower. A lot of sub-$500 laptops have 4GB or 8GB, which in conjunction with a slower disk can make for a frustratingly slow Windows laptop experience. Also, many laptops now have the memory soldered onto the motherboard. Storage You'll still find cheaper hard drives in budget laptops and larger hard drives in gaming laptops, but faster solid-state drives have all but replaced hard drives in many models. Not all SSDs are equally speedy, and cheaper laptops typically have slower drives. Get the size you can afford, and if you need to go with a smaller drive, you can always add an external drive or use cloud storage to bolster a small internal drive. The one exception is gaming laptops: Get at least a 512GB SSD. Table of Contents Back to selection

Edgar Cervantes / Android AuthorityTL;DRThe PayPal Honey extension has been caught stealthily replacing YouTubers affiliate revenue cookies with its own.Despite directing customers to the products, creators get nothing, as PayPal Inc. poaches the commission.The Honey extension also intentionally misleads users and often displays bad deals when collaborating with merchants.PayPal Honey is a highly popular browser extension that promises users the best deals when e-shopping. Right before you check out, the tool scans the web for applicable coupon codes and, theoretically, presents them all to you. Sounds too good to be true, right? Thats because it is. A new investigation has revealed how the Honey extension actually works, and apparently, its scamming both the creators who promote it and the customers who rely on its discounts.YouTube channel MegaLag has investigated how PayPal Honey works in the background and exposed the malicious activities it opts for to hurt everyone involved. For years, many well-known YouTubers, bloggers, and other creators have been promoting the browser extension on their platforms. Little do they know that Honey has been stealing their affiliate revenue all along.When a customer lets Honey search for coupons during checkout, the service silently deletes the existing affiliate cookies and injects its own. This predatory behavior allows PayPal Inc. to poach the commission despite creators actually directing users to the selected products. Simply put, YouTubers have been advertising a tool that steals from them this entire time.Honeys implications extend beyond creators; the service also adversely affects you the user. While the extension promises to find the best deals online, it sometimes intentionally hides them from you. When a merchant enrolls in Honeys (insignificant) cashback program, it gives them full control over the coupons presented by the extension. This enables sellers to hide better discounts publicly shared on the web from Honey users.Given the blind trust, many customers dont bother to search the web, believing Honey is providing honest results. So, they end up missing out on the most advantageous promotions shared elsewhere, as they opt for the minor ones presented by the deceitful extension.Got a tip? Talk to us!Email our staff at news@androidauthority.com. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.You might like

xAI, Elon Musks AI company, has raised $6 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.Investors gave a minimum of $77,593, per the filing (97 participated, but the document doesnt reveal their identities). xAI later announced (confirming some earlier reporting) that Andreessen Horowitz , Blackrock, Fidelity, Kingdom Holdings, Lightspeed, MGX, Morgan Stanley, OIA, QIA, Sequoia Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Nvidia, AMD, and others numbered among them.The new cash brings xAIs total raised to $12 billion, adding to the $6 billion tranche xAI raised this spring. CNBC reported in November that xAI was aiming for a $50 billion valuation double its valuation as of six months ago.According to the Financial Times, only investors whod backed xAI in its previous fundraising round were permitted to participate in this one. Reportedly, investors who helped finance Musks Twitter acquisition were given access to up to 25% of xAIs shares.Ramping up AIMusk formed xAI last year. Soon after, the company releasedGrok, a flagship generative AI model that now powers a number of features on X, including a chatbot accessible to X Premium subscribers and free users in some regions.Grok has what Musk has described as a rebellious streak a willingness to answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems. Told to be vulgar, for example, Grok will happily oblige, spewing profanities and colorful language you wont hear fromChatGPT.Musk has derided ChatGPT and other AI systems for being too woke and politically correct, despite Groks own unwillingness to cross certain boundaries and hedge on political subjects. Hes also referred to Grok as maximally truth-seeking and less biased than competing models, although theres evidence to suggest that Grok leans to the left.Over the past year, Grok has become increasingly ingrained in X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. At launch, Grok was only available to X users and developers skilled enough to get the open source edition up and running.Thanks to anintegrationwith the open image generator Flux, Grok can generate images on X (without guardrails, controversially). The model can analyze images as well, and summarize news and trending events (imperfectly, mind).Reports indicate that Grok mayhandle even more X functions in the future, from enhancingXs search capabilities andaccount bios to helping with post analytics and reply settings.xAI is sprinting to catch up to formidable competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic in the generative AI race. The company launched an API in October, allowing customers to build Grok into third-party apps, platforms, and services. According to The Wall Street Journal, xAI is preparing to release a standalone consumer app similar to OpenAIs in December.Musk asserts that it hasnt been a fair fight.In a lawsuit filed against OpenAI and Microsoft, OpenAIs close collaborator, attorneys for Musk accuse OpenAI of actively trying to eliminate competitors like xAI by extracting promises from investorsnot to fund them. OpenAI, Musks counsel says, also unfairly benefits from Microsofts infrastructure and expertise in what the attorneys describe as a de facto merger.Yet Musk often says that Xs data gives xAI a leg up compared to rivals. Last month, Xchangedits privacy policy to allow third parties, including xAI, to train models on X posts.Musk, its worth noting, was one of the original founders of OpenAI, and left the company in 2018 after disagreements over its direction. Hes argued in previous suits that OpenAI profited from his early involvement yet reneged on its nonprofit pledge to make the fruits of its AI research available to all.An xAI ecosystemxAI has outlined a vision according to which its models would be trained on data from Musks various companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, and its models could then improve technology across those companies. It is already powering customer support features for SpaceXs Starlink internet service, according to The Wall Street Journal, and the startup is said to be in talks with Tesla to provide R&D in exchange for some of the carmakers revenue.Tesla shareholders, for one, object to these plans. Several have sued Muskover his decision to start xAI, arguing that Musk hasdiverted both talent and resourcesfrom Tesla to whats essentially a competing venture.Nevertheless, the deals and xAIs developer and consumer-facing products have driven xAIs revenue to around $100 million a year. For comparison, Anthropic is reportedly on pace to generate $1 billion in revenue this year, and OpenAI is targeting $4 billion by the end of 2024.Musk said this summer that xAI is training the next generation of Grok models at its Memphis data center, which was apparently built in just 122 days and is currently powered partly by portable diesel generators. The company hopes to upgrade the server farm, which contains 100,000 Nvidia GPUs, next year; in its press release, xAI said it plans to fully double that number. (Because of their ability to perform many calculations in parallel, GPUs are the favored chips for training and running models.)In November, xAI won approval from the regional power authority in Memphis for 150MW of additional power enough to power roughly 100,000 homes. To win the agency over, xAI pledged to improve the quality of the citys drinking water and provide the Memphis grid with discounted Tesla-manufactured batteries. But some residents criticized the move, arguing it would strain the grid and worsen the areas air quality.Tesla is also expected to use the upgraded data center to improve its autonomous driving technologies.xAI has expanded quite rapidly from an operations standpoint in the year since its founding, growing from just a dozen employees in March 2023 to over 100 today. In October, the startup moved into OpenAIs old corporate offices in San Franciscos Mission neighborhood.xAI has reportedly told investors it plans to raise more money next year.It wont be the only AI lab raising immense cash. Anthropic recently secured $4 billion from Amazon, bringing its total raised to $13.7 billion, while OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in October to grow its war chest to $17.9 billion.Megadeals like OpenAIs and Anthropics drove AI venture capital activity to $31.1 billion across over 2,000 deals in Q3 2024, per PitchBook data.TechCrunch has an AI-focused newsletter!Sign up hereto get it in your inbox every Wednesday.

From Keith Rabois to Matt Miller, a lot of VCs have switched firms or spun out of storied VC institutions this year. These employment changes are surprising because unlike in many other fields, venture capitalists dont traditionally move around very much especially those who reach the partner or general partner level.VC funds have 10-year life cycles, and partners have good reason to stay that course. In some instances, there may be a key man on a firms fund, meaning that if they leave, the funds LPs have the right to pull their capital out if they choose. Many partners and GPs also have some of their own money invested in their firms funds, which gives them further reason to stick around.So, while big-name investor moves in venture capital arent common, they seem to have become so in 2024. So far this year, there have been notable instances of investors returning to old firms, striking out on their own, or taking a pause from investing entirely. There have also been some key hires to note.Heres who we know of so far:DecemberMichelle Volz is leaving her role as an investment partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Volz, who announced her departure on December 21, joined more than two years ago, where she built up the firms American Dynamism vertical. Prior to a16z, Volz was an operator at numerous defense tech startups, including Palantir.Longtime Sequoia partner Matt Miller announced on December 18 that he was leaving the firm to start his own firm focused on European founders. Miller joined Sequoia in 2012 and has backed companies, including DBT Labs, Confluent, and Grafana, among others.After more than a decade at Lux Capital, Bilal Zuberi announced on December 11 that hed be leaving the firm. Zuberi was a general partner at Lux and backed companies, including Desktop Metal, Tendo Health, and Evolv Technology, among many others. Zuberis next move will be partnering with early-stage founders.On December 3, Alex Taussig announced hed be transitioning out of his role as partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, where he was a partner since 2016 and served as one of the co-leads of the firms consumer practice. Taussig plans to focus his efforts on his board positions.Nicole Quinn also announced on December 3 that she will be transitioning into a board partner role at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Quinn was also a co-lead of Lightspeeds consumer practice. Quinn joined the firm in 2015 and was most recently a general partner.NovemberSriram Krishnan announced on November 27 that he would be departing Andreessen Horowitz after four years as a general partner. Krishnan, who was focused on AI and crypto investments at a16z, will be joining the incoming Trump administration as a senior policy adviser for artificial intelligence.On November 5, Andreessen Horowitz announced that Brian Roberts is joining the firm as a general partner and will work across the firms American Dynamism and AI Apps funds. Roberts previously worked as a CFO at numerous notable companies, including Splunk, OpenSea, and Lyft.Andreessen Horowitz also announced on November 5 that Andy McCall is joining the firm as a general partner to work across the firms American Dynamism and AI Apps funds. McCall most recently held numerous roles at cloud company Samsara.OctoberParis Heymann left his role as a partner at Index Ventures to join J.P. Morgan as a co-managing partner within the asset managers venture and growth equity practice. The move was announced on October 15. Heymann helped Index launch its New York office in 2022 and was a partner at Arena Holdings before that.On October 9, Julian Eison announced on LinkedIn that he was stepping away from his role as managing partner at Next Ventres. Eison said in his post that he is taking some time to figure out whats next. Hes backed companies such as Pair Team, Juno Medical, and Vital Biosciences.After four years as a partner at Khosla Ventures, Sandhya Venkatachalam has spun out of the firm and launched Axiom Partners, a new VC firm that is targeting $50 million for its debut fund to back AI and machine learning startups. The news of Venkatachalams departure was confirmed on October 8.SeptemberJames da Costa announced on September 17 that he was joining Andreessen Horowitz as a partner focused on B2B software and financial services. This marks da Costas first foray into venture investing; he was previously the co-founder of Fingo, an African neobank.On September 11, Jacob Westphal announced that he was leaving Andreessen Horowitz. Westphal was a partner at a16z for three and a half years. He left to become the portfolio lead at Will Ventures.AugustFreestyle VC announced on August 15 that Maria Palma had joined the firm as a general partner based in San Francisco. Palma was most recently a general partner at Kindred Capital, based in London. Palma has backed companies such as Moov, Novo, and Lottie.JulyAfter nearly seven years, Alex Cook is getting ready to leave Tiger Global, sources familiar with the matter tell TechCrunch. While at Tiger Global, Cook led deals including TradingView, Scalapay and TrueLayer, among others. Prior to Tiger Global, Cook worked at Apollo.Bessemer Venture Partners announced it added Lauri Moore as a partner on July 22. Moore was previously a partner at Foundation Capital for two years and an operator at LinkedIn before that. Moore will be focused on early-stage investments in sectors including data, AI and developer tools.On July 17, DCVC announced it had brought on Milo Werner as a general partner to lead the firms climate investing practice. The firm is currently raising its first dedicated climate fund. Werner was most recently a general partner at Engine Ventures for two and a half years. Werner was a partner at Ajax Strategies prior to that.Anne Lee Skates announced on July 11 that she had left Andreessen Horowitz where she had been a partner on the consumer team since 2019. She added that shes off to do her lifes work and will post more about her future plans soon. At Andreessen, she backed companies including Whatnot, Kindred and Prisms, among others.JuneOn June 17, Spencer Peterson announced that hed left Bedrock, where he served as partner for five years, to become a general partner at Coatue. Peterson is an investor in companies including OpenAI and Rippling, among others.Amanda Robby Robson announced her departure from Cowboy Ventures in a LinkedIn post in early June. Robson had been at Cowboy Ventures since October 2019 and at Norwest Venture Partners for three years prior to that. Robson plans to launch a fund of her own.MaySerena Ventures founding partner Alison Stillman announced shed stepped back from the firm on May 14 after a nearly six-year run working with tennis star Serena Williams. Stillman did not announce her next step.Terri Burns announced on May 13 that she was launching a new venture firm called Type Capital. Burns was previously the first Black woman partner at GV and left the firm back in 2022. Her new fund will focus on pre-seed and seed-stage startups.Last week TechCrunch scooped that Fika Ventures co-founder Eva Ho was going to transition out of the firm after Fika finished deploying its current fund. Ho is stepping back for personal reasons. The move was confirmed by the firm in a blog post on May 9.On May 9, Alison Lange Engel announced she was taking on the role of CEO at Ceros, an AI-powered design company. Lange Engel left Greycroft in December, where she had been a partner since 2019, to take the role.After 15 years, Vic Singh announced on X that he was stepping down from Eniac Ventures on May 1. Singh helped launch the firm in 2009 and is planning to launch a new firm of his own.AprilOn April 30, Ethan Kurzweil announced he was leaving his role as partner at Bessemer Venture Partners after 16 years. Kurzweil will be launching an early-stage-focused investment firm, according to reporting from Axios. Kurzweil will launch the firm with Kristina Shen, who left Andreessen Horowitz after four years on March 29, and Mark Goldberg, who left Index Ventures after eight years last fall.On April 1, Christina Farr announced that shed be leaving OMERS Ventures, where she has served as a principal investor and the lead of the firms health tech practice since December 2020. Farr announced on X that shed be working on her health tech newsletter, writing a book focused on the power that storytelling can have on businesses, and consulting health tech founders.MarchAfter six years as a partner at Accel, Ethan Choi announced that hed be leaving the firm to head to Khosla Ventures in March. Choi will be focused on growth-stage investing at his new firm and has backed such companies as Klaviyo, Pismo and 1Password.While many of the recent VC moves have been by folks looking to start something new, or take on a different opportunity, not all of them have been. On March 13, Chamath Palihapitiyas Social Capital announced that it fired partners Jay Zaveri and Ravi Tanuku. Bloomberg reported that this was due to a matter involving raising money for AI startup Groq.Rabois was not the only person looking to boomerang back to an old haunt in this recent rise of investor reshuffling. On March 5, Miles Grimshaw announced that hed be returning to Thrive Capital as a general partner after serving the same position at Benchmark Capital for three years. Grimshaw originally started at Thrive Capital in 2013 and has backed such companies as Airtable, Lattice, and Monzo, among others.While transitioning from operator to VC is a common career progression in the startup ecosystem, it isnt for everybody. On March 4, Sam Blond announced he had come to that conclusion and would be leaving Founders Fund, where he had been a partner for about 18 months. Blond said he would return to operating and has held roles at companies such as Brex, Zenefits and EchoSign.JanuaryAfter 12 years at Andreessen Horowitz, Connie Chan announced she was leaving the firm on January 23. Chan had served as one of the firms general partners the last five years and has backed companies such as Cider, KoBold and Whatnot.Famed venture investor Keith Rabois announced on January 9 that he was leaving Founders Fund to return to Khosla Ventures. Rabois had been a general partner at Founders Fund for nearly five years; he returned to Khosla as a managing director, his prior role.TechCrunch is monitoring the recent venture moves and will continue to update this article as they happen. If you have any tips or callouts to bring to our attention, contact me here: rebecca.szkutak@techcrunch.com.This post was originally published on May 1. It has since been updated on May 13, July 12, August 15, September 23, November 18, and December 23, 2024, to include additional moves within venture.This post has been updated to better reflect Anne Lee Skates investments at Andreessen Horowitz.

The Byron Thomas Potter House is located at 8 Stimson Avenue in Providence, Rhode Island, and is one of the citys few examples of the Beaux Arts architectural style in a single-family residence. The Beaux Arts style uses an Italian Renaissance form and materials (Roman bricks), classical Greek and Roman decorative elements like columns and balustrades, and a steep mansard roof punctuated by large dormers, to create a grand and imposing architectural statement. The house was designed by 1896 by local architect, Edward I. Nickerson, who was known for his use of traditional forms in an unconventional manner, with emphasis on ornament and differing materials; with this house being a great example of his work in his later years. The residence was built for newlyweds Helen Sheldon Potter and Byron Thomas Potter, a real estate and insurance broker. The residence is now occupied by the International House of Rhode Island, a non-profit that provides a home away from home for international students, scholars, professors, researchers, and their families by providing a venue for folks of different backgrounds, ethnicities, and life experiences to celebrate our similarities and differences and envision a world in which friendship and understanding beat anonymity, isolation, and ignorance. The world needs more of this.

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Can or should AI be constrained?gettyIs it urgent that we step up regulation of artificial intelligence? Thats the view of Geoffrey Hinton, considered the Godfather of AI, who took the opportunity at his recent acceptance of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics to sound warnings on the unfettered AI wave sweeping our world. Hes calling on governments to develop stronger regulations to guide AI development and deployment, and companies to fund greater AI safety initiatives, as reported by the University of Toronto.The question is, when it comes to regulating or moderating AI development, how much is too much? What do we need to understand? AI risks are real and need to be addressed, but they are application and use-case specific, Jake Parker, senior director of government relations for the Security Industry Association, told me. Lawmakers should take a technology-neutral approach to regulation and ensure the most stringent requirements apply to truly high-risk applications based not on how AI technologies work but how they are used, Parker urged.There is potential for overreach and unintended consequences in trying to broadly constrain a still-nascent technology, Parker cautioned. Rushing too fast to regulate broadly in such a complex and dynamic field would be a mistake. Getting it right is more important. Overly broad legislation could potentially draw in and limit everyday uses of narrow AI if not carefully crafted.In many ways, this is not the first time we have encountered the question of regulation versus innovation. "I would argue that these concerns are neither unique nor specific to AI these are rather challenges addressed widely by other regulations, said J-M Erlendson, transformation engineering lead at Software AG. Its the specific zeal with which regulators approached the AI problem that is itself an issue."In addition, regulations meant as AI guardrails would likely be more detrimental to smaller businesses and startups than larger establish companies. Most large-scale AI-focused organizations would have shuffled the compliance challenges off to their existing compliance departments, Erlendson pointed out. This would have left the biggest relative burden on the shoulders of startups and early-stage organizations. Meta puts another cost-line on the books, while three-engineers-in-a-garage call it quits I dont think that was anyones intention.MORE FOR YOUStill, there are issues both ethics and practical concerns with AI that need to be acted upon sooner than later. AIs impact on data privacy and the use of data are not matters that can put off until later, said David De Cremer, dean of the DAmore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University and author of The AI-Savvy Leader.The key is well-targeted efforts and regulations to keep AI safe and fair. Regulations regarding smaller, specialized AI models would make more sense because it is those models that bring the most harm and threats such as models for deepfakes that are creating misinformation, De Cremer said.Erlendson would like to see a greater emphasis on enforcing existing data and intellectual property regulations. That takes, first and foremost, transparency, both on the training data and the connection between training input and model output, he said. Companies need to know the boundaries of development to effectively mitigate the risk of this new technology, while leveraging its many specific benefits in targeted use cases.Liability for the issues or harms that may arise with AI usage is also an open question that needs to be settled. This is particularly visible in the case of copyright protection if the model is learning from - and replicating copyrighted works, transparency can detect and report on violations and provide a framework for legal action, said Erlendson.We need to more precise on defining who is liable when new tech is made available and what their liabilities are, said De Cremer. Who is liable if the AI models violate privacy rights, copyrights and so forth? We need clearer definitions of liability and better guidelines on where the responsibilities lie for developers, businesses transitioning the tech into business and society, and businesses and organizations deploying the tech.There is a self-regulatory aspect at work as well businesses want to avoid the risk of extending too far with AI. They avoid working with AI models that are black boxes and even for AI experts todays LLM models are all black boxes, said De Cremer. This means that most companies mainly use supervised ML models as they do not want to run any risks towards their customers. The most recent AI models are thus not being used in businesses and customers are not being exposed to them either.Ultimately, this self-regulation stems from customers comfort with AI. Concern about AI safety to date has focused on development of newer models in the future, which businesses are not using anyway, he added. It will take some time before that happens. Remember the most advanced AI models are never simply transferred from the lab to the company, there is always significant time between that.