After years of complaints about unlawful repairability policies, the FTC is suing tractor manufacturer Deere & Company. Repairability advocates are calling it a milestone for consumer rights.

MacworldAt a glanceExpert's RatingProsFast chargingCompact and heavyConsApple Watch charging slot difficult to openHigh priceOur Verdict The Nightstand Charger Pro 2 is a great charging stationand not just for the bedside table. It combines high charging speeds with a premium choice of materials and excellent workmanship. The only drawback: the charging slot for the Apple Watch could be a little easier to access.Price When ReviewedThis value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefinedBest Pricing TodayRetailerPriceZens99,99 View Deal107.18View Deal108,55 View Deal111,87 View DealPrice comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwideProductPricePrice comparison from BackmarketPrice When Reviewed99,99 EuroBest Prices Today: Zens Nightstand Charger Pro 2RetailerPriceZens99,99 View Deal107.18View Deal108,55 View Deal111,87 View DealPrice comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwideProductPricePrice comparison from BackmarketWith an edge length of less than 10cm and a height of 8cm, the Zens Nightstand Charger 2 looks small on the bedside table. To prevent it from being accidentally pushed to the side, it has a rubber coating on the underside and, thanks to its zinc alloy materials, weighs a hefty and stable 326 grams.The 15W MagSafe-compatible Qi2 charging pad can be folded out to activate the iPhones standby mode. A charging slot for the Apple Watch is hidden behind the iPhone charging pad. If you need it, simply fold it up.Thomas Bergbold Thanks to Qi2 with 15W, the charging speed is high. After 30 minutes, we measured 30 per cent for the iPhone 15 and 60 per cent for the Apple Watch 7. A 20W power adapter is included with the Nightstand Charger 2. We would have preferred a little higher but this should be just enough for wireless charging of iPhone and Watch.Thomas Bergbold VerdictIt has to be noted that this charging station is not cheap at $110/90, but it is a premium-build charging station. The metal workmanship is high quality, the charging speed is fast and the footprint is perfect for the bedside table. Our only point of criticism is that the charging module for the Apple Watch is a fingernail killer. It is difficult to fold out of its recessed position.

Microsoft has added a pay-as-you-go option to access AI agents alongside its free M365 Copilot Chat plan.M365 Copilot Chatis a chat interface powered by OpenAIs GPT4o that serves up responses based on web data (rather than information held in the Microsoft Graph, as per the paid M365 Copilot subscription). It also includes features such as Copilot Pages and image generation, as well as data protection and IT admin controls at no cost to users.Businesses using M365 Copilot Chatcan also now deploy Microsofts Copilot AI agents, the company announced Wednesday, with metered pricing based on the number of times agents are used.As withmany software vendors, Microsoft began a major push around its M365 Copilot agents towards the end of 2024. These range from chatbots that can answer questions about specific documents to autonomous software agentsthat can complete more complex tasks such as client onboarding or customer support.M365 Copilot Chat provides an on-ramp for business to access Copilot and AI agents, Microsoft said.Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat now has a pay-as-you-go option that allows access to agents.MIcrosoftM365 Copilot Chat reflects a broader change in the world of generative AI happening in 2025: The rise of agents to complement personal AI assistants like Copilot, said J.P. Gownder, vice president and principal analyst on Forresters Future of Work team.The plan lacks many of the core features available in the main M365 Copilot subscription service which costs $30 per user a month notably the AI personal assistant embedded in apps such as Outlook, Teams, Word, and Excel. Microsoft hasstruggled to convince large numbers of customers to adoptits M365 Copilot broadly since the service launched in November 2023.Microsoft said it expects customers will have a mix of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat and Microsoft 365 Copilotour best-in-class offeringto drive AI transformation at scale.On the one hand, having access to a basic LLM is becoming table stakes, so it makes sense for Microsoft to offer a secure and managed Copilot Chat as part of the broader Microsoft 365 offering, said Gownder. On the other hand, this Copilot Chat can act as a conduit to agents, which will soon proliferate throughout enterprises.M365 Copilot Chat agent usage is measured in message credits. These are charged either with a pay-as-you-go model at 1 cent per message, or with pre-paid message bundles priced at $200 for 25,000 messages, Microsoft said in a blog post.Microsoft sets out four types of agent answers, or responses, that each consume a different number of message credits. For example, classic answers, used for pre-written responses that are manually authored when an agent is created, cost 1 message, while autonomous agent responses cost 25 messages.Consumption-based licensing provides a low-cost alternative for customers that want to get started with Copilot services grounded in M365 content, said Larry Cannell, research director at Gartners Technical Professionals Digital Workplace service.CIOs often prefer it to flat-based licensing of new products because they can better align value delivered to the cost of the product, he said. It is much easier to sell a solution based on demonstrated use rather than expected demand.

After a week of high-profile releases, CES 2025 is over and there was some awful stuff on display. Here's the worst and weirdest products at the show.I saw some weird stuff out at CES 2025There is a lot of amazing tech at CES. This year, I was particularly surprised to see that not only were there a lot of new products, but most of what I saw was imminently shipping.That's a huge departure from year's past where most products were purely vaporware. You can see my existing roundups of gear for Apple users and for the . Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

The forthcoming Calder Gardens museum and cultural space designed byHerzog & de Meuron with landscape designerPiet Oudolfin Philadelphia has announced it will open to the public in September 2025. Sited along a 1.8-acred site on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the sculpture garden dedicated to Alexander Calder's work. Its new director, Juana Berrio, says it "provides a perfect context for Calder Gardens to become one of the most innovative and forward-thinking spaces for art and culture today."As was previously announced by the Calder Foundation, programming for Calder Gardens is being operated jointly with the Barnes Foundation.

Choice and consequence mechanics can be a tricky thing to nail down in games, as weve seen more than a few times over the years, with the list of games that have failed to deliver on grand promises of monumental decisions that will radically change players stories being a long one (and growing longer still by the day). That said, there have also been plenty of examples of games that have successfully allowed players to leave indelible stamps on their journeys through actions that have actual, meaningful, tangible consequences- and several of them have been developed by Obsidian Entertainment.FromKnights of the Old Republic 2andFallout: New VegastoPillars of EternityandThe Outer Worlds, this is a studio that has always prided itself not only on developing some of the best RPGs around, but RPGs that tout best-in-class writing and some of the best, most gripping, most compelling implementation of choice and consequence mechanics youre going to find in a game. With that legacy and track record in mind, its no surprise that expectations in that department are going to be high for the studios upcoming fantasy RPGAvowed.Thankfully, based on what the studio has said about and shown of the game so far, it looks like fans of choice-driven storytelling have reason to be optimistic.Set in the Living Lands a part of thePillars of Eternitysworld of Eora that that specific duology hasnt covered up to this point Avowedis smartly taking players to a setting wherePillars of Eternityisnt going to be required reading for any means, but where the studio is going to be able to continue working with previously established lore. And as was the case with thePillars of Eternitytitles,Avowedis going to see players making plenty of large-scale decisions that will impact the games setting in several significant ways.Players will play as an envoy of the Empire who has been sent to the Living Lands, which, as you might imagine, is going to lead to interesting narrative choices, according to Obsidian. Supposedly, that means making plenty of large-scale political decisions affecting the larger setting throughout the course of the story, with players getting to make decisions that will shape the future of entire factions and groups. That is something that you very much expect to see in Obsidian RPGs at any rate, andAvowedlooks set to continue that trend.But of course, thats not going to be the extent of the choices thatAvowedwill have players make. Getting involved in and steering large-scale conflicts is a big part of choice-driven RPGs of this ilk, but just as important can be the smaller-scale, more intimate choices. That, after all, is where the role playing aspect of these adventures is usually able to really shine through, and again, this is an area where the developer is making all the promises. In 2024,Dragon Age: The Veilguarddisappointed a fair few people with how limited it felt in its role-playing choice mechanics with the overwhelming majority of dialogue choices being different shades of nice and nice, but also sassy soAvowedsinsistence on emphasizing moment-to-moment role-playing with meaningful choices on a smaller scale is something that fans of the genre will definitely appreciate.Therearesome areas whereAvowedis cutting back on choices in ways that we havent seen from Obsidian titles in the past. For instance, the developer has confirmed that the game wont allow players to kill NPCs who are critical to quests and the main story, which in and of itself limits player actions and decisions in major ways. Then again, its easy to understand why the studio has made that decision, given all of the complexity and challenges that the ability to kill any and every NPC would present for any games developers, especially for a full-blown AAA production. IfAvowedcan deliver well-implemented scripted narrative choices the way Obsidian says it will, the absence of more emergent and systemic freedom will be easier to get over.Of course, just as important as the ability to affect the story in choice-driven titles is how the manner in which the consequences of your actions play out. This, too, is an area where Obsidian has always excelled- but what ofAvowed? As per the studio, though there will obviously times where players will be given instant resolution for their choices, the full weight and consequences of other decisions wont become fully clear until much later in the game, with the goal being to keep players on their toes and ensure that things dont feel too predictable or telegraphed.Admittedly, a great deal of what Obsidian has said aboutAvowedis the kind of stuff that you sort of have to take on faith. Choice and consequence mechanics can be a difficult thing to properly showcase for any game before its release- after all, its only after you have played through the whole thing that you understand how impactful your decisions truly were to the story at large. Often, it takes multiple playthroughs, in fact. So yes, all of this does absolutely come with the caveat thatAvowedcould very well just end up not delivering on all of its promises- but that, of course, is where Obsidians track record comes into play.Time and again this studio has proven that it knows how to handle choice-driven storytelling and player choice mechanics better than the vast majority of RPG developers out there, based on which it has earned enough goodwill for people to be able to safely hope that their next big project will continue along those lines, especially when the studio itself is saying that it will. Does that mean theres no chance thatAvoweddoesnt disappoint with its choice and consequence mechanics? Wed have to be foolish to suggest anything like that- as weve seen a disheartening number of times, few games and studios in the industry are safe from turning out to be hot, disappointing messes. But that has rarely ever been the case with Obsidian, so hopefully our optimism inAvowedisnt going to be misplaced.Many, of course, would have preferred that the game had stuck to its original vision. Obsidian Entertainment had originally envisioned and pitched the fantasy RPG as its own take onSkyrim, before ultimately deciding that that sort of a mammoth open world adventure wasnt something it wanted to undertake. But theres an undeniable appeal to smaller, more condensed, and focused experiences, and that stands doubly true when a game is touting the sort of emphasis on choice and consequence mechanics that Avowedis. Meaningful player choices would obviously have been significantly harder to implement across a large-scaleSkyrimsized world, so if a more compact,Outer Worldssized experience is the tradeoff for way more meaningful choice and consequence mechanics, its a tradeoff that many (yours truly included) would make happily. After all, thats what many come to Obsidian RPGs for first and foremost.Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

The green iguana (Iguana iguana), also known as the American iguana, the common green iguana, or simply the iguana, is a large, arboreal, mostly herbivorous species of lizard of the genus Iguana. The species is native to a large geographic area, from southern Brazil and Paraguay as far north as Mexico. It grows to 1.7 metres (5.6 feet) in length from head to tail, although a few specimens have grown more than 2 metres (6.6 feet) with weights upward of 20 pounds (9.1 kilograms). Green iguanas possess a row of spines along their backs and tails, which helps to protect them from predators. Their whip-like tails can be used to deliver painful strikes, and like many other lizards, when grabbed by the tail, iguanas can allow it to break, so they can escape and eventually regenerate a new one. This green iguana was photographed in Palm Beach County, Florida, where the species has been introduced.Photograph credit: RhododendritesRecently featured: Rhinanthus angustifoliusNigeen LakeFork-tailed flycatcherArchiveMore featured pictures

January 16 Jose Calugas1275 Eleanor of Provence received permission from her son King EdwardI of England to expel Jews from the towns of Worcester, Marlborough, Cambridge and Gloucester.1809 Peninsular War: French forces under Jean-de-Dieu Soult attacked the British's amphibious evacuation under Sir John Moore at Corunna in Galicia, Spain.1862 A pumping engine at a colliery in New Hartley, England, broke and fell down the shaft, trapping miners below and resulting in 204 deaths.1942 World WarII: During the Battle of Bataan, U.S. Army sergeant Jose Calugas (pictured) organized a squad of volunteers to man an artillery position under heavy fire, an action that later earned him the Medal of Honor.2018 In MraukU, Myanmar, police fired into a crowd protesting the ban of an event to mark the anniversary of the end of the Kingdom of MraukU, resulting in seven deaths and twelve injuries.Isaac Komnenos (b.1093)George Hunter Cary (b.1832)Cliff Thorburn (b.1948)Seungkwan (b.1998)More anniversaries: January 15January 16January 17ArchiveBy emailList of days of the yearAbout

Experts are concerned that artifacts and bootprints on the moon might be affected by lunar landing missions, space tourism and space junk. NASAEvery two years, the nonprofit World Monuments Fund releases a list of cultural heritage sites it deems most at risk of disappearing because of threats like war or climate change. The line-up of landmarks usually includes historic temples, cemeteries and neighborhoods. But this year, a surprising new locale made the list: the moon.The moon seems so far outside of our scope, Bndicte de Montlaur, the organizations president and chief executive officer, tells the New York Times Zachary Small. But with humans venturing more and more into space, we think it is the right time to get ourselves organized.Case in point: On Wednesday, the same day the group released its2025 World Monuments Watch report, a SpaceX rocket blasted off from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida to launch two private robotic landers to the moon.More broadly, NASA plans to put humans back on the moon during this decade through its Artemis missions. The space agency also wants to build a permanent base on Earths natural satellite to help prepare for possible human missions to Mars. And thats just the United Statesother countries are also pursuing lunar missions.The moon is further imperiled by the growing mass of space junk floating in its vicinity, as well as the emerging space tourism market. Advocates of protecting human heritage on the moon have raised concerns about vacationers in the future damaging lunar historic sites, or robotic spacecraft inadvertently destroying them when landing.More specifically, the World Monument Fund says such disturbances could threaten more than 90 sites on the moons surface that reflect some of humankinds most extraordinary feats of courage and ingenuity.One such location is Tranquility Base, the name given to the place where astronauts first walked on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. There, they left behind 106 artifacts, from Neil Armstrongs boot print to the descent stage of the landing module itself.Places like Tranquility Base represent remarkable science and engineering milestones rooted in millennia of astronomical study and remain a source of growing scientific knowledge, according to the World Monuments Fund.These landing sites also mark moments that stirred the collective imagination and inspired a sense of global wonder and shared accomplishment, the group adds.Protecting the moon will be tricky, since it doesnt belong to any one nation or government. But experts are optimistic that international cooperation is possible.You have some precedents and the main, most interesting one is Antarctica, where monuments were nominated like Shackletons Hut, de Montlaur tells the London Times Jack Blackburn. You have a treaty in Antarctica recognizing heritage and protecting it.Fifty-two countries, including the United States, have already signed the Artemis Accordsa non-legally binding set of statements that describe best practices for exploring the moon, Mars, comets and asteroids. Among theirmany goals, the accords are meant to protect shared outer space heritage, but they dont include specific guidelines for how countries nations do that.The moon is just one of the 25 sites on this years list of at-risk areas, selected from more than 200 nominations. Others include places threatened by climate change, such as heritage sites on the Swahili Coast of East Africa.This region faces pressing threats like storm surges and rising sea levels, de Montlaur tells the Art Newspapers Allison C. MeierMaines 66 historic lighthousessome of which are more than 200 years oldare also grappling with sea-level rise and increasingly intense winter storms.They are now facing a threat level not anticipated or seen before, says Ford Reiche, whose private Presumpscot Foundation owns two Maine lighthouses, to the Bangor Daily News Troy R. Bennett. Some will likely be lost.Human conflicts are devastating other landmarks on the list, including the Teachers House in Kyiv, Ukraine, where the nations parliament began meeting after the Ukrainian Peoples Republic declared independence in 1918. Its dome was damaged and its windows and doors knocked out by a nearby Russian missile strike in October 2022. The World Monument Fund says it supports efforts to rehabilitate the building as a national symbol of resilience and enduring identity in times of conflict.Gaza also made the list. Much of the area has been destroyed by Israels military since October 7, 2023, in response to a surprise invasion of southern Israel by Hamas militants. The Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, for example, has sustained at least two strikes. Its believed to be the third-oldest church in the world, and its an important place of worship for the few Christians in Gaza, most of whom are Greek Orthodox.On Wednesday, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire deal.As we all know, the Middle East is a cradle of civilization, de Montlaur tells NPRs Neda Ulaby. And in Gaza, you have examples of those various communities and their heritage that have lived there.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Artifacts, Astronauts, Climate Change, Cultural Heritage, History, Monument, Moon, NASA, Outer Space, Religion

Unlike traditional deep learning, which interpolates between data points, program synthesis searches for discrete programs that explain data.Read More