The Trump administrations war on electric cars continues with the halt of a national program that sends money to states to install EV charging equipment. It was the latest move by President Donald Trump to reverse Biden-era EV policies even as those policies have personally enriched his top ally, Elon Musk.According to a memo from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program will be put on pause while it is retooled to align with the new administrations priorities (those priorities being more gas guzzlers and fewer EVs). The agency said it is immediately suspending the approval of plans to deploy new EV chargers for all fiscal years and will no longer approve new funding requests until a new plan is implemented.The FHWA said it aims to have updated guidance published by the spring, at which point it will start accepting public comment. After the comment period is closed, it will issue revised guidance that incorporates its responses to public comment.Gas guzzlers > EVsThe agency is also giving leeway to those states (most of which are Republican-run) that have declined to spend federal funds already received under NEVI.Since FHWA is suspending the existing State plans, States will be held harmless for not implementing their existing plans, Emily Biondi, associate administrator at the agency, writes in the memo to state transportation officials. Until new guidance is issued, reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed in order to not disrupt current financial commitments.Since his election, Trump has vowed to reverse many of his predecessors pro-EV policies, including the federal EV tax credit and new tailpipe emission rules that would require automakers to produce more EVs. The NEVI program, in particular, was often criticized by Republicans as wasteful, especially after The Washington Post reported in March 2024 that only seven charging stations with 38 ports had been opened under the program.NEVI may have gotten off to a slow start, but its most recent report for the fourth quarter of 2024 showed improved progress. According to the Q4 update, there are 126 public EV charging ports in operation across 31 NEVI stations in nine states, an 83 percent increase in open NEVI ports over the previous quarter. (In Q3, there were 69 public charging ports in operation across 17 NEVI stations in eight states.)A total of 41 states have released at least their first round of solicitations, as of November 2024. Of those states, 35 have issued conditional awards or put agreements in place for over 3,560 fast-charging ports across more than 890 charging station locations.Since his election, Trump has vowed to reverse many of his predecessors pro-EV policiesThat progress is now at risk with the Trump administration rescinding funds for NEVI. The legality of pausing the program is certainly an open question, especially considering the money for it was approved by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The Trump administration attempted to freeze all funding for federal programs, only to rescind the order after a judge ordered it to be paused.Another variable is Elon Musk, who is leading Trumps efforts to root out waste in the federal government under the umbrella of his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has said he supports eliminating federal incentives for EVs, while also collecting vast sums of taxpayer dollars to expand his companys EV charging network. Tesla has received $31 million in NEVI funds to install 539 DC fast-charging ports, which represents 6 percent of all funds distributed so far, according to a dashboard that tracks the spending.Barring any legal challenges, the EV charging industry now must wait for the Department of Transportation to retool the program. The pause could also give congressional Republicans enough time to write legislation to rescind funding for the program altogether, which would obviate the need for the administration to follow the process it laid out in the memo.Eliminating federal funding for EV charging would have a significant impact on the number of chargers that get installed and could help further dampen EV sales. Consumers routinely cite charging anxiety as among their top concerns about switching to electric power. With todays order, the Trump administration is essentially making that problem worse.See More:

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT, Gemini, and Claude utilize vast training datasets and complex architectures to generate high-quality responses. However, optimizing their inference-time computation remains challenging, as increasing model size leads to higher computational costs. Researchers continue to explore strategies that maximize efficiency while maintaining or improving model performance.One widely adopted approach for improving LLM performance is ensembling, where multiple models are combined to generate a final output. Mixture-of-Agents (MoA) is a popular ensembling method that aggregates responses from different LLMs to synthesize a high-quality response. However, this method introduces a fundamental trade-off between diversity and quality. While combining diverse models may offer advantages, it can also result in suboptimal performance due to the inclusion of lower-quality responses. Researchers aim to balance these factors to ensure optimal performance without compromising response quality.Traditional MoA frameworks operate by first querying multiple proposer models to generate responses. An aggregator model then synthesizes these responses into a final answer. The effectiveness of this method relies on the assumption that diversity among proposer models leads to better performance. However, this assumption does not account for potential quality degradation caused by weaker models in the mix. Prior research has primarily focused on increasing cross-model diversity rather than optimizing proposer models quality, leading to performance inconsistencies.A research team from Princeton University introduced Self-MoA, a novel ensembling method that eliminates the need for multiple models by aggregating various outputs from a single high-performing model. Unlike traditional MoA, which mixes different LLMs, Self-MoA leverages in-model diversity by repeatedly sampling from the same model. This approach ensures that only high-quality responses contribute to the final output, addressing the quality-diversity trade-off observed in Mixed-MoA configurations.Self-MoA operates by generating multiple responses from a single top-performing model and synthesizing them into a final output. Doing so eliminates the need to incorporate lower-quality models, thereby improving overall response quality. To further enhance scalability, researchers introduced Self-MoA-Seq, a sequential variation that processes multiple responses iteratively. This allows for efficient aggregation of outputs even in scenarios where computational resources are constrained. Self-MoA-Seq processes outputs using a sliding window approach, ensuring that LLMs with shorter context lengths can still benefit from ensembling without compromising performance.Experiments demonstrated that Self-MoA significantly outperforms Mixed-MoA across various benchmarks. On the AlpacaEval 2.0 benchmark, Self-MoA achieved a 6.6% improvement over traditional MoA. When tested across multiple datasets, including MMLU, CRUX, and MATH, Self-MoA showed an average improvement of 3.8% over Mixed-MoA approaches. When applied to one of the top-ranking models in AlpacaEval 2.0, Self-MoA set a new state-of-the-art performance record, further validating its effectiveness. Further, Self-MoA-Seq proved to be as effective as aggregating all outputs simultaneously while addressing the limitations imposed by model context length constraints.The research findings highlight a crucial insight into MoA configurationsperformance is highly sensitive to proposer quality. The results confirm that incorporating diverse models does not always lead to superior performance. Instead, ensembling responses from a single high-quality model yields better outcomes. Researchers conducted over 200 experiments to analyze the trade-off between quality and diversity, concluding that Self-MoA consistently outperforms Mixed-MoA when the best-performing model is used exclusively as the proposer.This study challenges the prevailing assumption that mixing different LLMs leads to better results. By demonstrating the superiority of Self-MoA, it presents a new perspective on optimizing LLM inference-time computation. The findings indicate that focusing on high-quality individual models rather than increasing diversity can improve overall performance. As LLM research continues to evolve, Self-MoA provides a promising alternative to traditional ensembling methods, offering an efficient and scalable approach to enhancing model output quality.Check outthePaper.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitterand join ourTelegram ChannelandLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our75k+ ML SubReddit. NikhilNikhil is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is pursuing an integrated dual degree in Materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Nikhil is an AI/ML enthusiast who is always researching applications in fields like biomaterials and biomedical science. With a strong background in Material Science, he is exploring new advancements and creating opportunities to contribute.Nikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/NYU Researchers Introduce WILDCHAT-50M: A Large-Scale Synthetic Dataset for Efficient LLM Post-TrainingNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/This AI Paper from Meta Introduces Diverse Preference Optimization (DivPO): A Novel Optimization Method for Enhancing Diversity in Large Language ModelsNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/Researchers from University of Waterloo and CMU Introduce Critique Fine-Tuning (CFT): A Novel AI Approach for Enhancing LLM Reasoning with Structured Critique LearningNikhilhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/nikhil0980/Researchers from Stanford, UC Berkeley and ETH Zurich Introduces WARP: An Efficient Multi-Vector Retrieval Engine for Faster and Scalable Search [Recommended] Join Our Telegram Channel

LatestMachine LearningGenAI for Better NLP Systems III: A Tool That Simplifies Text Annotation 0 like February 7, 2025Share this postLast Updated on February 7, 2025 by Editorial TeamAuthor(s): Nabanita Roy Originally published on Towards AI. This article explores how prompt engineering & LLMs offer a digital, quick, and better annotation approach over manual onesThis member-only story is on us. Upgrade to access all of Medium.Image Source : Author (Inspiration: https://www.dqlabs.ai/blog/what-is-data-quality-management/)Lets start with a question for this article, shall we? How do you tell the Machine Learning models the meaning of a particular word, especially when they are quantitatively intelligent and lexically challenged?Behind the Medium paywall? Click here to access the blog for free.Data annotation plays a crucial role in developing and assessing NLP models with supervised learning, a branch of machine learning that relies on the guidance it receives to train on a set of data points. It involves identifying and labeling text with additional information to specify the role of words or sentences in the given context.Annotations are widely used in medical research (vast medical terms/jargons in literature), finance and legals (sentiment and other indicators), customer service and chatbots (identify specific keywords and action them), social media, retail and e-commerce and so on. This definitely estimates the spectrum of usage of text annotations to cater to the demands of the AI revolution across various industries.Traditionally, this is used to be a manual job but not anymore. Clearly Generative AI has given us this immense advantage of textual intelligence already and it is Read the full blog for free on Medium.Join thousands of data leaders on the AI newsletter. Join over 80,000 subscribers and keep up to date with the latest developments in AI. From research to projects and ideas. If you are building an AI startup, an AI-related product, or a service, we invite you to consider becoming asponsor. Published via Towards AITowards AI - Medium Share this post

Pokmon Trading Card Game Pocket has a strange black market where players are buying and selling the digital cards online via its controversial trading mechanic.Myriad listings for Pokmon TCG Pocket cards have appeared on eBay, with players charging $5 to $10 per card. This is only possible through the game's recently introduced trading mechanic, as these sellers are simply asking to exchange friend codes with the buyers and then sending a card over.One $5.99 listing for a Starmie ex, for example, asks buyers to ensure they have 500 Trade Tokens, one Trade Stamina, and most importantly, an "unwanted Pokmon ex" to exchange for the card they actually want.This is where things get a bit strange. While it's already a blatant breach of the Pokmon TCG Pocket terms of service as "buying or selling virtual contents or data on the service" is not allowed the seller in these situations essentially loses nothing.The buyer gives up a card they don't need for a card they do, which is a regular trade beyond the price tag, but the buyer doesn't lose stock. Per the restrictions on trading, only cards of the same rarity can be traded, meaning the seller gains an ex Pokmon when they sell one and can therefore just sell it again.Myriad listings for ex Pokmon and 1 Star, alternate art cards, the two rarest available to trade, are listed on eBay, each with varying price tags. Entire accounts are on sale too, offering the likes of Pack Hourglasses and rare cards within them, though this is a fairly common for online games, breach of service or not.Trading in Pokmon TCG Pocket proved controversial upon its release last week, though this trading online isn't directly related to the complaints.Alongside the standard mechanic that restricts players from opening packs or Wonder Picking or, now, trading too much without spending real world money, the feature was also introduced with an extra restriction called Trade Tokens. Players criticized the high cost of obtaining these, as they essentially had to delete from their collections five cards before trading one of the same rarity.This black market would have spawned even if trading had been released with absolutely no restrictions, however. The only relation to what players have complained about so far is in how bare bones the mechanic is, as there is no way to trade without being friends with another player.This is because some players, like siraquakip on Reddit, were hoping for "a pretty safe way for the community to connect more." Players have called for the ability to put cards up for trade publicly within the app, alleviating the need for using external websites like Reddit and Discord, and now eBay, to find the cards they need.Every Alternate Art 'Secret' Card in Pokmon TCG Pocket: Space Time SmackdownDeveloper Creatures Inc. has already warned players against buying and selling cards using real world money and other methods of cheating, telling players before trading launched that "if we confirm that a player has engaged in behavior that violates the Terms of Use, we will warn them, suspend their account, or take other action."The irony is that Creatures Inc. deployed the hated Trade Tokens mechanic in order to stop exploiting the system in ways exactly like these eBay sellers are doing. It's therefore clearly not worked, but has turned much of the community against the developer.It's currently "actively investigating ways to improve" the trading feature but hasn't released any specifics on how it will do so despite complaints starting three weeks ago when it first unveiled the feature.Fans have claimed trading is being implemented as a means of increasing revenue for Pokmon TCG Pocket, which is estimated to have made half a billion dollars in less than three months, before trading was possible.This is also evidenced by the inability to trade cards of 2 Star rarity or higher, as if players could immediately trade for their missing cards, they wouldn't need to spend $10 or $100 or more for a random chance of getting them. It cost one player around $1,500 just to complete the first set, for example, and the third in three months arrived last week.Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

Player housing is coming to World of Warcraft, and Blizzard has unveiled its first look at how the MMO will handle it. In a new preview, the WoW team walked through early details, and even threw a quick jab at Final Fantasy XIV's housing in the process.World of Warcraft is adding a sought-after housing feature in its upcoming expansion, World of Warcraft: Midnight. Amid its pillars and goals for housing in the recent dev blog, Blizzard listed "A Home for Everyone" as one of its targets."As a part of our focus on wide adoption, we wanted to ensure that Housing is available to everyone. If you want a house, you can have a house," Blizzard said. "No exorbitant requirements or high purchase costs, no lotteries, and no onerous upkeep (and if your subscription lapses, dont worry, your house doesnt get repossessed!)."Player housing is, in essence, what it sounds like: physical homes players can buy in these MMO worlds, with plenty of room for personalization and decoration, that other players can visit. It's a very popular facet of Final Fantasy XIV where housing feeds player ingenuity, resulting in theater productions, nightclubs, cafes, and museums.Of course, Final Fantasy XIV also has some rather infamous housing woes. There are a limited number of plots per server, you have to pay high amounts of Gil and enter a lottery, and then risk your house being demolished if left alone too long.World of Warcraft's aim seems to be countering some concerns players might have about housing, based on Final Fantasy XIV's situation. Housing is even shared among the Warband, so characters can come and go, and rewards are also shared across characters and factional lines. While a Human character can't buy a house in the Horde zone, a Troll character in your Warband can, and then the Human character can use it.Additionally, while World of Warcraft's housing will be split into just two housing zones and "Neighborhoods" of roughly 50 plots apiece, they are instanced and have both Public and Private options. The former is maintained by game servers and created "as needed," so there's no clear limit yet on Neighborhoods.Blizzard seems to be in it for the long haul with World of Warcraft housing. In its stated pillars, alongside "boundless self-expression" and "deeply social," the team said it wants housing to be a "long lasting journey" with its own roadmap, and updates stretching out into future patches and expansions. It certainly feels like a commitment, and though it took a jab at XIV's systems, it also shows Blizzard is aware of the pitfalls.There are still more details to iron out between now and the expected summer unveiling of World of Warcraft: Midnight.Eric is a freelance writer for IGN.

25 years ago, The Sims made history with the first instalment of a legendary series that would go on to be one of the best-selling of all time. Few simulation games have enjoyed the success and longevity of The Sims and the freedom and creativity to play with life however you want has afforded the series near-unrivalled appeal in the years since.This week, Electronic Arts is celebrating this milestone and the history of the series in a big way, which includes a huge The Sims 4 Free Content Update containing new Create a Sim options, clothing, Build/Buy Items and much more. The festivities will also include the limited-time Blast From The Past Event, which lets players earn revamped versions of iconic items from the original The Sims game via in-game goals.We had the opportunity to chat with Kevin Gibson, Production Director for The Sims at EA. Gibson has been working in production roles across the franchise since 2003, and has first-hand experience of how the series has evolved in that time. The studio is abuzz with excitement about the franchises birthday, and Gibson shares that digging deep into the series past to rediscover nostalgic highlights has been extremely rewarding.Our incredible players have shown us that no one does life like The Sims, and we wanted to celebrate this journey we have been on together, Gibson says. 25 years ago there was a game with an idea that made big a splash at E3, and look where we are today! Weve been part of multiple generations and touched millions of lives.We wouldnt be here today without that, and we wanted to take a moment to pause and recognize all of our players from those who were there at the E3 launch in 1999, to those that are brand new Simmers today enjoying The Sims 4 for the first time. All of the Simmers from all of the years and all of the different ways to play The Sims, are part of this 25-year journey, and this is our way of saying thank you.Blast From The PastThe Blast From The Past event is a particularly nostalgic look back at the early 2000s, bringing memorable clothing, furniture and decor from the early Sims games into The Sims 4. Among the items are some of my personal favourites, including two bold neon inflatable chairs, a three-tiered cake, and the fabulous light-up dancefloor where my young self also ordered many a Sim to boogie on down.A lot has happened in the world in 25 years too in the year 2000, The Sims created a simulation in the image of real life. Now, that original game serves as a time capsule to a past life. For example, in the first game, putting a wired phone inside your home was a necessity. In The Sims 4, Sims carry their own mobile phones, brimming with services that can be accessed anywhere, just like us.Weve taken time to really explore the history of The Sims, going back to the roots and playing the original game, as well as exploring many of the previous game launches to remind ourselves of all the different ways people play with life, Gibson tells us. Everyone at the studio has had a different part of the franchise they cherish as meaningful to them, and the opportunity to share those moments with our players as part of the 25th birthday celebration has been a lot of fun.Preserving the Spirit of The SimsThe original The Sims was great fun, but often irreverent, difficult and downright wacky in the scenarios it presented. Your Sims could perish in freak accidents, their shrill screams piercing through your cheap PC speakers, all while another Sim is receiving a mysterious prank call about canoes. While The Sims has evolved to welcome a wider audience across two decades, its spirit remains largely unchanged, and this is something that the team has always wanted to preserve.The Sims was hard. Your Sims died, a lot. However, a core concept of The Sims was that it was your story and the game provided the push back in a humorous way, Gibson says, The tradition of letting the player tell their story, while the game pokes at the edges with humor and challenge has been a key pillar of how we make decisions for the game.The Sims 4 continues in that original spirit of serving the needs of the player and the story they are telling, while using comedy to enhance the story in new and different ways your Sims can die, they can be ghosts, they can romance the Grim Reaper or even become a Reaper themselves.Even at over a decade old, The Sims 4 continues to feel fresh, with a consistent roadmap of content packs and updates. The Sims as a franchise has always evolved over time, marking huge economical, societal and technological advancements inside its progression systems, and that is reflected in the recent Free Content Update.The Sims 4 team wanted to give our players something that felt more in line with todays fashions and trends for clothing and decor, Gibson adds. We spent time doing a full review of our assets in the game, finding where there was room to draw inspiration from modern expectations of aesthetics and style that our players expect as part of the new content we wanted to add.The Sims can draw from reality, fantasy and science fiction, romance, home decor, world culture, travel and so much more, Gibson adds. Were always building onto this ever-growing toybox of options and experiences within The Sims. In addition, we have a large group of people who are all eager to share moments from their lived experiences and help bring authentic nuances to the game to help tell stories players are interested in telling.The Sims team has also kept a close eye on community requests and discussions over the years, and lots of additions that have been made to The Sims 4 directly reflect what the players are asking for, a demonstrable commitment to building a game for everyone.Our evolution has been fuelled constantly through listening to our players, Gibson adds. The Sims is about the player, the story they are trying to tell, the creative space they are trying to build within, and the expression they want to have within the game. We have evolved the most in the need to change and grow to meet our players expectations of this franchise and to reflect the world we all live in.From the beginning, weve always sought to immerse our player community in this different version of the world we know, where they can experiment and explore, and express themselves. Across all our games and spin-offs, this core commitment to creativity and imagination has always remained true, and underlying it all is an enthusiastic, endlessly inspiring community.The new The Sims 4 Free Content Update and Blast From The Past Event are available to play in The Sims 4 now. There are lots more Sims celebrations going on this week be sure to visit the official website for more information. The Sims 4 base game is also free-to-play on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.The Sims 4Electronic Arts717Get it nowXbox One X EnhancedUnleash your imagination and create a unique world of Sims thats an expression of you! Download for free and customize every detail from Sims to homes, and much more. Choose how Sims look, act, and dress, then decide how theyll live out each day. Design and build incredible homes for every family, then decorate with your favorite furnishings and dcor. Travel to different neighborhoods where you can meet other Sims and learn about their lives. Discover beautiful locations with distinctive environments and go on spontaneous adventures. Manage the ups and downs of Sims everyday lives and see what happens when you play out scenarios from your own real life! Tell your stories your way while developing relationships, pursuing careers and life aspirations, and immersing yourself in this extraordinary game, where the possibilities are endless. Play with life!Download for Free The base game of The Sims 4 is free to download. Get a plethora of options for building homes, styling Sims, and customizing their personalities. Craft their life stories while exploring vibrant worlds and discovering more ways of being you all at no cost.Create Unique Sims A variety of Sims are yours to personalize, each with distinct appearances, dynamic personalities, and inspiring aspirations. Use powerful customization features to bring your imagination to life. Create yourself, your favorite celebrities, your fantasy, or your friends! Change your Sims clothing to reflect your mood, develop stories that deepen your world, and give their lives purpose with traits and aspirations.Build the Perfect Home Effortlessly build and design homes for your Sims in Build Mode. Construct the home of your and their dreams by planning its layout, choosing furnishings, and altering the landscape and terrain. You can even add a pool, basement, and garden, or rebuild with new ideas and designs!Play with Life Control every moment of your Sims lives from their relationships to their careers. Your choices shape every aspect of their lives from birth into adulthood. Along the way, develop your Sims skills, pursue original hobbies, take them on adventures, start new families, and much more.Add New Experiences Use the Gallery to find inspiration from a community of players just like you. Download and comment on your favorite Sims, homes, and designed rooms.Get More with EA Play EA Play* members can expand their career possibilities with The Sims 4 Get to Work Expansion Pack*Conditions, limitations and exclusions apply. See tos.ea.com/legalapp/eaplay/US/en/PC/ for details. Conditions & restrictions apply. See ea.com/legal for details.

With home prices and mortgage rates remaining absurdly high, purchasing a home isnt in the cards for many aspiring buyers. In Bankrates 2024 Down Payment Survey, more than half of the respondents reported they couldnt afford a down payment. So pooling money with a friendor a few friendsto purchase a home is becoming a popular option. In 2023, 14 percent of buyers purchased a home with a friend, according to Zillow research. Some people are teaming up to buy a house to live in together, while others are buying houses with friends purely as an investment, to rent out and generate extra income, or to flip for a healthy profit. While co-buying has its perksnamely being able to afford a home that you couldnt buy on your ownits a fairly complicated process that doesnt always end well. Here are the five steps you need to take for a smooth transaction.Related StoriesChoose Your Friends WiselyYour college roommate (or tennis partner, coworker, drinking buddyfill in the blank) may be a perfectly nice person, but its important to do some due diligence before entering into a financial partnership with a friend. Jody Fay, a real estate attorney in New York and Connecticut with the Kelsey Company, suggests contacting a local title company to run a judgment and liens search, a litigation search, and a bankruptcy search on your prospective partner. This may cost you a few hundred dollars, but you never know what kind of skeletons someone may have in their closet. Its also a good idea to run a credit check, although the other party needs to agree to this (and if they dont, consider it a red flag). If youre applying for a mortgage, you dont need to be as vigilant about these searches since lenders will be digging into both of your financial histories.Also, make sure you and your friend are on the same page about the home. For example, if the plan is to renovate a home for resale, are both parties on board with the cost and timeline needed to make the necessary changes? What if there are unanticipated expenses beyond the initial budget? What if the house doesnt sell in the expected time or with the desired profit margin? Its important for anyone going into a real estate investment to flesh out all of the what ifs to hopefully avoid conflict and maintain a friendship, Caroline McCay, a senior wealth strategist at CIBC Private Wealth, says.Related StoryDefine Your GoalsIf you plan to use the home strictly as an investment property and rent it out, Fay recommends creating an LLC for this residence. An LLC protects you and your co-owner from liability if a tenant gets injured on your property. The downside to LLCs is they are associated with higher interest ratesbut the peace of mind is worth the extra money, and an LLC also comes in handy in the event your friend stops paying their share of the mortgage. With an LLC in place, you wont be on the hook if your co-owner defaults on their portion. Apply for a MortgageMortgage lenders are willing to lend to friends buying homes together. You apply for a joint mortgage, but each person still fills out their own separate application, Michael DeSantis, executive board member of The National Association of Mortgage Brokers, says. Heres how it works: The mortgage broker gathers each persons financial details (income, credit, assets, etc.) and inputs this information into the loan system. Then the lender looks at the group as a whole to determine if you qualify. If everything checks out, you get approved for the loan together.Related StoryTenants in Common vs Joint TenancyThis is done surprisingly late in the gameusually in the contract phase or at closingbut its arguably the most important decision you make when buying a home with a friend. The difference boils down to what happens to your share of the property upon your death. In a tenants in common agreement (TIC), your share would be passed down to your beneficiaries. In a joint tenancy, your co-owner automatically inherits your portion of the house. Unless you are buying a home with a family member, you would probably not want to do joint tenancy, Fay says. Work Out the DetailsWho gets the house on Thanksgiving? Who pays the electric bill? These are the kinds of questions that should be addressed in a legal document that both parties sign at the closing called a side operating agreement. Theres a whole host of additional considerations beyond just the financial ones including how often each person (or family unit) will get to use the property and dates for usage; how and who will maintain the property; how should ongoing expenses be divided; and what will happen if one owner wants out? McCay says. If your friend decides they want to sell their share of the home, and you cant afford to buy your friend out, they can sell their share to anyone they want, which means you may end up sharing a home with a strangerso this is especially important to address in an official agreement. Creating a legal document that details the nuts and bolts of the partnership will prevent potential hassles and falling-outs between friends. After all, homes are bought and sold, but, ideally, friendships last forever.Follow House Beautiful on Instagram and TikTok.

While the iPhone 17 rumors garner most of the attention, Apple also has another new iPhone model in the works. The iPhone SE 4 is expected to be a dramatic update to Apples most affordable iPhone, with an all-new design, USB-C for charging, and more.Here are five things to expect from the iPhone SE 4.Table of contentsiPhone SE 4: New featuresNew design with a bigger displayThe biggest change for the iPhone SE 4 will be its design. The current-generation iPhone SE features an iPhone 8-style design with large bezels around the 4.7-inch display and a Home button at the bottom. The iPhone SE 4, however, will reportedly bring a modern overhaul similar to the iPhone 14.According to leaked CAD files, the iPhone SE 4 will feature a 6.1-inch OLED display with a notch cutout at the top. We can also expect a new flat-edged design instead of the iPhone SEs current rounded edges.According to91mobiles, the iPhone SE 4 will measure 147.7 x 71.5 x 7.7mm. The current iPhone SE measures 138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm.Face IDWhile the current iPhone SE features a Home button with Touch ID, the next-generation iPhone SE 4 will reportedly make the jump to Face ID.This change is enabled by the iPhone SE 4s new design with a notch cutout in which the Face ID components will be housed.Faster performance The third-generation iPhone SE is powered by the A15 Bionic chip, which offers excellent performance for the devices low price point. The iPhone SE 4 will further improve on that performance.Last October, 9to5Mac exclusively reported that the iPhone SE 4 will be powered by the A18 chip. The device is also expected to feature 8GB of RAM. The combination of these upgrades means the iPhone SE 4 will be fully capable of running Apple Intelligence features. USB-CFinally, the iPhone SE 4 will make the switch from Lightning to USB-C for charging. This aligns with the latest iPhone 16 lineup, and is legally required due to legislation in the European Union.Apple modemIn a major shift, the iPhone SE 4 will not feature a modem from Qualcomm for cellular connectivity. Instead, it will rely on a modem designed by Apple. The device will mark the first-ever product to feature an Apple-designed modem. For the end-user, this change shouldnt even be noticeable. Apples goal is to ship its first-ever modem and maintain the same level experience that customers have today. If this change flies under the radar, then its a win for Apple. Wrap upIt seems like we are finally nearing the release of the iPhone SE after over a year of rumors. Bloomberg reports that the device could be announced as soon as next week. The iPhone SE 4 is expected to be revealed via a press release on Apples website, not a dedicated event. What do you think of the rumored iPhone SE 4? Is it a logical addition to Apples lineup, or is it time for Apple to forgo the iPhone SE strategy entirely? Follow Chance:Threads,Bluesky,Instagram, andMastodon.My favorite iPhone 16 accessories:Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Today dbrand, in collaboration with Kyle Goodrich, launched a new Vision Pro protective cover called Aperture. The accessory does something functional: protects Vision Pros front display without obstructing any of Apples many, many cameras and sensors.dbrand has a good reason for its Vision Pro covers designApples Vision Pro ships with a lot in the box, including a protective cover for the front display.The trouble is, that cover is only meant to be used when the Vision Pro isnt.It works well for keeping Vision Pros outer display pristine while sitting idle, but any time you want to actually use the spatial computer, you have to remove that protective cover.But with dbrands new Aperture accessory, you can protect the front screen even while continuing to use Vision Pro.You just might trigger a partner or childs trypophobia while youre at it. Especially when paired with EyeSight.Last year, Kyle Goodrich posted on X about a custom faceplate hed built for the Vision Pro with this same basic design. There was a lot of online interest in it, so he and dbrand teamed up to make it a full-blown product.Aperture is made from polyurethane and is meticulously designed to not block a single sensor Vision Pro contains.Its available in orange and the less horrifying black option for $49 on dbrands website.You can also get a similarly-styled Vision Pro battery clip in a combo deal for $69.Do you plan to buy Aperture? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments.Best Vision Pro accessoriesAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Following the horrific mid-air collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter in the nation's capital, the US transportation department is readying to "remake" American airspace with Elon Musk at the wheel.That's according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and, of course, Musk himself."I had a conversation with Elon Musk yesterday, pretty remarkable guy. He thinks differently than I think probably a lot of us do, but he has access to the best technological people, the best engineers in the world," Duffy said Wednesday at a Washington event, . "We're going to remake our airspace, and we're going to do it quickly."After Duffy's comments, Musk made his own announcement, in which he also emphasized the need to carry out the vast overhaul in great haste."With the support of President [Donald Trump], the [DOGE] team will aim to make rapid safety upgrades to the air traffic control system," Musk tweeted later that afternoon. "Just a few days ago, the FAA's primary aircraft safety notification system failed for several hours!"Musk was referring to an incident over the weekend when the Federal Aviation Administration's "Notice to Air Mission" system, which is used to send alerts to pilots about changing conditions, went offline.The outage occurred just days after an American Eagle flight collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter as the airliner was attempting to land, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft.The deadliest US air disaster in over 23 years, it's raised serious questions about the state of the country's air regulators. And much of that scrutiny was cast on some of President Trump's decisions barely a week before the horrific plash took place, such as freezing all new hires of air traffic safety controllers, firing the head of the Transportation Security Administration, and disbanding a key aviation safety group at the Department of Homeland Security.Now, the president is apparently leaving it to Musk to clean up the mess who you'd think would be too preoccupied with gutting other wings of the government.It couldn't be a more striking choice to lead air traffic reform, in any case. Musk has beefed with the FAA in the recent past and threatened to sue the agency for "regulatory overreach" all for the mortal sin of questioning the safety practices of a guy whose enormous experimental rockets frequently explode. He's also outright defied the FAA's orders on occasion, fueling up a spacecraft even after being told to halt the launch.Basically, everything Musk has done up to his point has suggested he'd rather have less government meddling in what goes on in the air, which doesn't bode well if he's tapped to "remake" an entire country's system of air traffic control.The fact that both Musk and Transportation Secretary Duffy have emphasized carrying out these changes speedily is also worrying. Musk's ethos of "move fast and break things" may be suited for uncrewed rocket launches. But when human lives are on the line, it sounds incredibly reckless.What his overhauls will look like is unclear. But Duffy tweeted that Musk would help "upgrade our aviation system,"which could be interpreted as something tech-related.Share This Article