Google's Veo 2 model was announced last December, and now we have an idea of what using it will cost. According to its pricing page: 50 cents per second of footage.Veo 2 is presently limited to two-minute clips in up to 4K resolution a fair sight more than the 20-second, 1080p clips generated by ChatGPT's Sora model. It's somewhat more difficult to compare the two on pricing as Sora uses a subscription-based approach. The staggering $200 ChatGPT Pro plan entitles a user to 500 videos per month, while the Plus plan caps things at 50 videos and hobbles the maximum quality and length to 720p and five seconds, respectively. Veo 2 users, meanwhile, just pay piecemeal whenever they choose.Big-budget feature films cost many multiples of Veo's pricing per second to produce, but that's not really what the model is currently seeking or able to compete with. Google is already testing Veo 2 as a means to quickly generate backgrounds for YouTube Shorts through its Dream Screen feature. It (and Sora) are also likely to take a bite out of the stock footage industry, where high-quality clips can cost 100 times what a Veo 2 clip would. Of course, those clips are typically free of weird artifacts and mangled hands.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/each-second-of-googles-veo-2-ai-video-footage-will-cost-50-cents-155419146.html?src=rss

If you're on the market for a power bank that can serve your laptop in addition to all your mobile devices, the Baseus Blade is one of our favorites. It already starts off pretty affordable at $100, but Engadget readers can get it for $47.59 thanks to an exclusive coupon code. To get the full discount, you'll need to clip the 10 percent coupon on the store page and then use the code BGAEY8HX at checkout to bring the final price down to $47.59. The Baseus Blade is our pick for the best budget laptop power bank. Thanks to the slim form factor and light weight (it's just over a pound), it's easy to slip into a bag next to your laptop. It has a decent array of ports, with two USB-C and two USB-A slots. There's support for 100W fast charging via the USB-C ports. You can also track charging speed and time on an LED display. The power bank has a capacity of 20,000mAh, which is enough to charge a fifth-gen iPad Air 1.5 times over or a 14-inch MacBook Pro to 80 percent, per Baseus. In our testing, we found that it could top up a 16-inch MacBook Pro's battery from 10 percent to 62 percent in just over an hour. You can also use it to juice up a portable games console, such as a Nintendo Switch or Steam Deck. There's certainly a trade off compared with beefier power banks that have a larger capacity. But in terms of bang for your buck, the Baseus Blade isn't bad at all, especially when you factor in the convenience of the slim, 0.7-inch design. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/pick-up-one-of-our-favorite-power-banks-while-its-on-sale-for-52-percent-off-160430876.html?src=rss

Data center and AI processing tasks set to see major boost from new Intel Xeon 6 processors.

Someone leaked Black Basta's chat logs which contain crypto addresses and more.

Silicon Valley is looking at hydrogen and nuclear energy alternatives to meet the energy demands of the AI race.

Vivek Ramaswamy, the Cincinnati-born biotech entrepreneur who departed the Department of Government Efficiency initiative on President Donald Trumps first day, was expected to launch his bid for Ohio governor Monday.Ramaswamy, 39, is set to kick off his campaign in Cincinnati, joining the 2026 Republican primary just a month after presumed frontrunner and then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted left the running to take a U.S. Senate appointment.Ramaswamy sought the GOP nomination for president in 2024 before dropping out to back Trump, who later tapped him to cochair the efficiency initiative with billionaire Elon Musk. A near-billionaire himself, Ramaswamy has promoted his ties to Trump as he lines up key endorsements and donors in the governors race, but the president has made no formal endorsement yet.Ramaswamy joins a competitive GOP primary field to succeed Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, 78, a veteran center-right politician who is term-limited.Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced a bid for the seat in January and Heather Hill, a Black entrepreneur from Appalachia, also is running. Dr. Amy Acton, the former state health director who helped lead Ohio through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, is running as a Democrat.They will compete in a former bellwether state that has tacked reliably red in recent years, having voted for Trump three times by more than 8 percentage points. Republicans also hold every statewide executive office, a majority on the Ohio Supreme Court and supermajorities in both legislative chambers.Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, outlined the 10 core beliefs featured in his presidential campaignled by God is real followed by there are two gendersin the 2024 book, Truths: The Future of America First. He first rose to political prominence with his 2021 book, Woke Inc: Inside Corporate Americas Social Justice Scam, a scorching critique of corporations that he said use social justice causes as a smokescreen for self-interested policies.He seeks to buck the traditional route to Ohios governorship, which runs through extensive government service often stretching decades, and instead mount a Trump-style ascent into the job directly from the business world.The formula has worked for Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, two political newcomers who won Senate seats with the help of Trumps endorsement in 2022 and 2024, respectively. But Ramaswamy will test it in a state government-level race for the first time in recent memory.DeWine passed Ramaswamy over to appoint Husted to the Senate seat vacated by Vance, citing Husteds decades of elective experience. The gubernatorial bid by Husted, a former Ohio House speaker and secretary of state, had locked down many key endorsements and wealthy donors, who are now largely free agents.Yost joined the race as rumors circulated that Ramaswamy was planning a run. Since then, however, Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose have endorsed Ramaswamy.Julie Carr Smyth, Associated Press

Confusion and chaos loom as hundreds of thousands of federal employees begin their workweek on Monday facing a deadline from President Donald Trumps cost-cutting chief, Elon Musk, to explain their recent accomplishments or risk losing their jobs.Musks unusual demand has faced resistance from several key U.S. agencies led by the presidents loyalistsincluding the FBI, State Department, Homeland Security, and the Pentagonwhich instructed their employees over the weekend not to comply. Lawmakers in both parties said that Musks mandate may be illegal, while unions are threatening to sue.Trump over the weekend called for Musk to be more aggressive in his cost-cutting crusade through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and posted a meme on social media mocking federal employees who cried about Trump and Elon.Musks team sent an email to hundreds of thousands of federal employees on Saturday giving them roughly 48 hours to report five specific things they had accomplished last week. In a separate message on X, Musk said any employee who failed to respond by the deadlineset in the email as 11:59 p.m. EST Mondaywould lose their job.Mass confusion followed on the eve of the deadline as some agencies resisted the order, others encouraged their workers to comply, and still others offered conflicting guidance.One message on Sunday morning from the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instructed its roughly 80,000 employees to comply. That was shortly after the acting general counsel, Sean Keveney, had instructed some not to. And by Sunday evening, agency leadership issued new instructions that employees should pause activities related to the request until noon on Monday.Ill be candid with you. Having put in over 70 hours of work last week advancing Administrations priorities, I was personally insulted to receive the below email, Keveney said in an email viewed by the Associated Press that acknowledged a broad sense of uncertainty and stress within the agency.Keveney laid out security concerns and pointed out some of the work done by the agencys employees may be protected by attorney-client privilege: I have received no assurances that there are appropriate protections in place to safeguard responses to this email.Democrats and even some Republicans, including Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, were critical of Musks ultimatum.If I could say one thing to Elon Musk, its like, please put a dose of compassion in this, Curtis, whose state has 33,000 federal employees, said on CBS Face the Nation. These are real people. These are real lives. These are mortgages. . . . Its a false narrative to say we have to cut and you have to be cruel to do it as well.Newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel, an outspoken Trump ally, instructed employees to ignore Musks request, at least for now.The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures, Patel wrote in an email confirmed by the AP. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.Ed Martin, interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, sent his staff a message Sunday that may have caused more confusion.Let me clarify: We will comply with this OPM request whether by replying or deciding not to reply, Martin wrote in the email obtained by the AP, referring to the Office of Personnel Management.Please make a good faith effort to reply and list your activities (or not, as you prefer), and I will, as I mentioned, have your back regarding any confusion, Martin continued. We can do this.Officials at the Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security were more consistent.Tibor Nagy, acting undersecretary of state for management, told employees in an email that department leadership would respond on behalf of workers. No employee is obligated to report their activities outside of their Department chain of command, Nagy wrote in an email.Pentagon leadership instructed employees to pause any response to Musks team, according to an email from Jules Hurst, the deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.The Homeland Security Department, meanwhile, told employees that no reporting action from you is needed at this time and that agency managers would respond, according to an email from R.D. Alles, deputy undersecretary for management.Thousands of government employees have already been forced out of the federal workforceeither by being fired or through a deferred resignation offerduring the first month of Trumps second term. There is no official figure available for the total firings or layoffs so far, but the AP has tallied hundreds of thousands of workers who are being affected. Many work outside of Washington.Musk on Sunday called his latest request a very basic pulse check.The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all! Musk wrote on X. In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.He has provided no evidence of such fraud. Separately, Musk and Trump have falsely claimed in recent days that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments.Meanwhile, thousands of other employees are preparing to leave the federal workforce this coming week, including probationary civilian workers at the Pentagon and all but a fraction of U.S. Agency for International Development staffers through cuts or leave.Peoples reported from New York. Associated Press writers Byron Tau, Ellen Knickmeyer, Matthew Perrone and Tara Copp in Washington and Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, contributed to this report.Steve Peoples, Eric Tucker and Amanda Seitz, Associated Press

Industrial designer Gustav Rosn and business partner David Lindell recently launched Kord, a Swedish design brand. Their stock-in-trade, at least to start, is power. "We saw an opportunity to take something as common as power strips," says Lindell, "and give them a distinct presence and design that feels natural in both homes and other environments. There are few products in this segment that deliver both function and aesthetics and we wanted to fill that gap."Their inaugural product is the Cuboid, a diminutive power stripsorry, cubewith four outlets. A Cuboid+ variant features three outlets and two USB-C ports. "Cuboid is the result of a holistic understanding of the limits of geometry, technical constraints, functionality, and aesthetics," says Rosn. "The asymmetric placement of the outlets gives the product character and originality. At the same time, it is the outcome of technical limitations and the ambition to create a beautiful yet highly compact object. The interaction between form and function brings clarity and purpose to the design. Cuboid is an excellent example of our ambition to merge technology and design in a way that creates value for the user."Both models come with a 2-meter cord, and the company bills them as the smallest multi-socket power strips in the world.They're also offering this optional Cumulus Case, which seeks to "[transform] the Cuboid into a sculptural object." To me this seems a strange choice, one that actively works against purposefulness of the existing design. At press time, the recently-launced venture had yet to announce when they're going into production and where these will be available.

One year ago we first saw EVE, the moderately creepy humanoid robot designed by Norwegian company 1X. Whereas EVE was designed for industrial and commercial environments, the company has since rolled out NEO Gamma, their wheels-free 'bot designed for performing menial tasks in a domestic environment. "Our conviction is that humanoid robots need to live and learn among us," the company writes, "in order to both grow in intelligence and understand the nuances of our lived experience." The company envisions "Building a world where we do more of what we love, while our humanoid companions handle the rest."While I am impressed with the company's technical accomplishments, I find the demo video unsettling enough that I don't want these things living and learning among us:Something about its humanoid form, its bland fashion sense and its motion style is unnerving. At first I thought it was its dispirited shuffling gait, but upon reflection, I wouldn't feel any better about it if it strode with confidence. It may just be that I'm middle-class and uneasy with the idea of having humanoid servants.It also seems very weird to me that they let the thing sit on the couch. However, as with its gait, the alternative seems no better; what are they supposed to do, have the thing stand facing the corner? If I was forced to live with one of these, I think I'd want a dedicated closet to park the thing in. I can't imagine sitting down on a sofa to watch TV with this thing right next to me.That said, NEO Gamma is still in its testing phases. The company hasn't yet announced a release date or a price.

Appliances in our homes are getting smarter, making life safer, more convenient, and more comfortable. They can automate mundane tasks to free us to tackle more important things in life or spend more time with our families and friends. Of course, some families are composed of more than just humans, and our furry friends deserve to benefit from some of that smartness as well.You might have seen a few products advertised as smart food dispensers for our four-legged family members, but food isnt the only thing that pets need to survive. They also need water, of course, and this simple yet eye-catching pet appliance tries to deliver that in measured servings so that nothing goes to waste. And, of course, it also frees up their owners from having to refill their bowls every time.Designer: Passakorn KulkliangWe all know how water is essential not just for a healthy life but for living itself, and thats true for people, pets, and plants. Its not enough to just drink once in a while, though, as staying hydrated is both a necessity as well as a habit. If humans already find refilling their glasses or bottles with water regularly, imagine how much of a chore it feels like to do the same for pets.Pocoro is a design concept that brings the intelligence of smart appliances to pet care for this very specific purpose. It keeps your cat hydrated while also keeping you from stressing over whether they have enough water to drink, especially if youre away from the house. Or even if youre at home, it helps keep you from having to refill their bowl all the time, disrupting your own flow and focus.The design of the smart water dispenser is pretty simple, basically a cylinder with a concave top that serves as the bowl. On one side sits a box-like device with a sensor as well as a single button that switches between three modes. One dispenses water at a time 15-minute intervals, one makes you do all the work yourself by pressing that button, and the third one automatically activates the dispenser when it senses the cat approaching.Despite the simple shape of the design, Pocoro bears striking gradient colors chosen to match certain feline breeds. Warm beige is reminiscent of Siamese cats, while the soft orange is clearly a tribute to ginger Tabbies. Black and white is your typical Tuxedo-wearing feline, while Gray is your modern and refined domestic cat. It would definitely be a nice addition to your living space, presuming your cat doesnt decide to play with it and break it, as they are wont to do.The post Pet water dispenser concept is as smart and as refined as your feline friend first appeared on Yanko Design.