President Donald Trumps long-threatened tariffs against Canada and Mexico went into effect Tuesday, putting global markets on edge and setting up costly retaliations by the United States North American allies.Starting just past midnight, imports from Canada and Mexico are now to be taxed at 25%, with Canadian energy products subject to 10% import duties.The 10% tariff that Trump placed on Chinese imports in February was doubled to 20%, and Beijing retaliated Tuesday with tariffs of up to 15% on a wide array of U.S. farm exports. It also expanded the number of U.S. companies subject to export controls and other restrictions by about two dozen.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country would slap tariffs on more than $100 billion of American goods over the course of 21 days. Mexico didnt immediately detail any retaliatory measures.The U.S. presidents moves raised fears of higher inflation and the prospect of a devastating trade war even as he promised the American public that taxes on imports are the easiest path to national prosperity. He has shown a willingness to buck the warnings of mainstream economists and put his own public approval on the line, believing that tariffs can fix what ails the country.Its a very powerful weapon that politicians havent used because they were either dishonest, stupid or paid off in some other form, Trump said Monday at the White House. And now were using them.The Canada and Mexico tariffs were supposed to begin in February, but Trump agreed to a 30-day suspension to negotiate further with the two largest U.S. trading partners. The stated reason for the tariffs is to address drug trafficking and illegal immigration, and both countries say theyve made progress on those issues. But Trump has also said the tariffs will only come down if the U.S. trade imbalance closes, a process unlikely to be settled on a political timeline.The tariffs may be short-lived if the U.S. economy suffers. But Trump could also impose more tariffs on the European Union, India, computer chips, autos and pharmaceutical drugs. The American president has injected a disorienting volatility into the world economy, leaving it off balance as people wonder what hell do next.Its chaotic, especially compared to the way we saw tariffs rolled out in the first (Trump) administration, said Michael House, co-chair of the international trade practice at the Perkins Coie law firm. Its unpredictable. We dont know, in fact, what the president will do.Democratic lawmakers were quick to criticize the tariffs, and even some Republican senators raised alarms.Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said shes very concerned about the tariffs going into effect because of her states proximity to Canada.Maine and Canadas economy are integrated, Collins said, explaining that much of the states lobsters and blueberries are processed in Canada and then sent back to the U.S.The world economy is now caught in the fog of what appears to be a trade war.Even after Trump announced Monday that the tariffs were going forward, Canadian officials were still in touch with their U.S. counterparts.The dialogue will continue, but we are ready to respond, Canadian Defense Minister Bill Blair said in Ottawa as he went into a special Cabinet meeting on U.S.-Canada relations. There are still discussions taking place.Shortly after Blair spoke, Trudeau said Canada would impose 25% tariffs on $155 billion Canadian ($107 billion U.S.) worth of American goods, starting with tariffs on $30 billion Canadian ($21 billion U.S.) worth of goods immediately and on the remaining amount on American products in three weeks.Our tariffs will remain in place until the U.S. trade action is withdrawn, and should U.S. tariffs not cease, we are in active and ongoing discussions with provinces and territories to pursue several non-tariff measures, Trudeau said.The White House would like to see a drop in seizures of fentanyl inside the United States, not just on the northern and southern borders. Administration officials say that seizures of fentanyl last month in everywhere from Louisiana to New Jersey had ties to foreign cartels.Damon Pike, technical practice leader for customs and trade services at the tax and consulting firm BDO, suggested the responses of other countries could escalate trade tensions and possibly increase the economic pressure points.Canada has their list ready, Pike said. The EU has their list ready. Its going to be tit for tat.The Trump administration has suggested inflation will not be as bad as economists claim, saying tariffs can motivate foreign companies to open factories in the United States. On Monday, Trump announced that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the computer chipmaker, would be investing $100 billion in domestic production.Still, it can take time to relocate factories spread across the world and train workers with the skills they need.Greg Ahearn, president and CEO of The Toy Association, said the 20% tariffs on Chinese goods will be crippling for the toy industry, as nearly 80% of toys sold in the U.S. are made in China.Theres a sophistication of manufacturing, of the tooling, he said. Theres a lot of handcrafting that is part of these toys that a lot of people dont understand the face painting, the face masks, the hair weaving, the hair braiding, the cut and sew for plush to get it to look just so. All of that are very high hands, skilled labor that has been passed through generations in the supply chain that exists with China.For a president who has promised quick results, Ahearn added a note of caution about how quickly U.S. factories could match their Chinese rivals.That cant be replicated overnight, he said.Gillies reported from Toronto. Associated Press writers Anne DInnocenzio in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.Josh Boak, Paul Wiseman and Rob Gillies, Associated Press

As frustration with corporate power grows under the oligarch-friendly Trump administration, Mozilla Firefox stands out more than ever for at least one defining trait: It isnt owned by a giant tech company.Were independent and nonprofit, Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers told Fast Company in an interview at Web Summit Qatar. Were the only browser not backed by billionaires.But the nonprofit organization that broke Internet Explorers monopoly in Windows browsers 20 years ago isnt counting only on storytelling that we can do, she added. Were also doing a lot of work on the product.Features getting filled outThe first of a set of new features that Chambers describes as intended to help people navigate the Web more easily should ship in March.One cribs from a clever feature that Microsofts Edge added almost four years ago: an option to display open browser tabs in a column running down the left side of the browser window instead of in a row spanning the top. Neither Apples Safari nor Googles Chrome have seen fit to copy that since.A second sounds like the helpful quick-change tool Firefox offers to route a web search to the search engine of your choice: a sidebar tool that will let you switch between AI chatbots for quick queries that they can answer, hopefully without hallucination.Later in spring or summer, Mozilla plans to address a longstanding user request by shipping support for tab groups (for example, recipes or shopping) that you can create and then open or close as you need them. Safari in particular does this well, while Firefox users have had to install an extension to get a version of it.Another tab-management feature aimed at tab-overload victims like me (I had 76 open tabs open in this laptops copy of Firefox as I was writing this) will employ what sounds like on-device AI to organize tabs.Maybe more so than competitors like Google and Microsoft, Mozilla has been enlisting offline AI to avoid having to send any user data to the cloud. But its not always obvious when its new features work in that privacy-preserving way: I didnt know that Firefoxs page-translation feature worked on-device until I saw Chambers bring that up in a panel at Web Summits Doha conference.We should probably market that more, Chambers admits.A role for regulationBut Mozilla says its already seeing increased adoption of its browserin Europe, where the EUs Digital Markets Act requires designated gatekeeper platforms to open mobile-device app stores and system defaults to potential competitors.In Europe, we grew Firefox share last year, which is the first time weve done it in a long time, Chambers said.Mozilla credits the DMAs choice screen, in which users pick a browser instead of having a system default waiting on their home screens, with goosing Firefox adoption in Android and iOSby 29% in Germany and France since the DMA went into effect last March.The underlying numbers remain low in third-party estimates, however. Cloudflares automated tracking puts Firefoxs mobile share at 1.3% in France and 2.7% in Germany, although Mozilla argues that Firefoxs tracking-prevention measures suppress those user counts. In the U.S., Cloudflare has Firefox at just .8%.Firefox has historically had higher share on Windows and Mac computers, where Cloudflare credits that browser with a 7.6% share worldwide, 21.5% in Germany, 14.6% in France, and 7.1% in the U.S.But its in the U.S. where government antitrust action may threaten Mozilla directly. The antitrust case that the federal government and almost every state attorney general successfully bought against Google over its search business practices could lead to a ban on Google paying other browsers to keep its search engine the default.Chambers would rather not see things come to that.The part thats at risk is the U.S. revenue, she said. If our revenues were to be hurt through that, it would be much harder to sustain Gecko as an independent browser engine.A little engine that couldGecko, the open-source software framework inside Firefox that displays and animates pages, is the only major rendering engine that both runs on Windows and macOS and is not a Google project like the Blink open-source engine inside Chrome (employed by such indie, non-billionaire browser developers as Brave and the Browser Co).But Geckos third-place standing after Blink and Apples WebKit can lead to sites blocking the browserfor example, Formula 1s F1 TV brushes Firefox-using racing fans aside, telling them please switch to an alternative browser.Asked if life wouldnt be easier for Mozilla if it adopted WebKit, also open-source, Chambers said Mozilla has considered it but passed.Its a lot of money and a lot of work to sustain an independent browser engine, she said. It also means we have a seat at the table with regulators, allowing Mozilla to advocate for causes like privacy.In iOS and iPadOS, Apple requires all U.S. third-party browsers to use the WebKit framework included in those mobile operating systems, which limits how third-party developers can differentiate their browsers from Apples Safari.Where Chambers points to Firefoxs speed relative to Chrome and Edge on Windows and to Safari on Macs (she did not mention how Apples browser also regularly lets individual pages devour system memory), her sales pitch for Firefox on an iPhone or iMac gets more evanescent: Youre supporting independent technology.New venturesIn the past, Mozilla has tried to diversify its revenue by selling such add-on subscription products as a VPN service and Relay, a tool to create relay phone numbers and email addresses that mask your real ones.Its now reconsidering parts of that strategy, having already dumped some free-to-use services as Mozilla Social, its attempt to host a Mastodon instance.Were not dialing it back, were working on different ways, said Chambers, adding that the company pulled back spend a little bit on promoting VPN, Relay and the Monitor data-breach-warning service.But last June, Mozilla also spent an unannounced sum to buy Anonym, an ad-tech firm founded to develop privacy-preserving online advertising systems that still let advertisers gauge what sales or other results came from their marketing efforts without snooping on individual shoppers.Chambers defends what might seem an unlikely alignment of a privacy-first browser with an adtech firm founded by former Meta executives as a way to keep online advertising alive in a way that web readers wont resent.The big technology that they use is differential privacy, which creates enough noise into the system so that its anonymous, she said, mentioning both some of the really big ad platforms and companies in health and financial services (both sectors already subject to privacy regulation) are expressing interest.(Another Google antitrust case, the lawsuit brought the U.S. and most states against Google over its display-ads business, may help crack open that market for Mozilla.)This openness to new business models led Mozilla to write the terms-of-service document that Firefox had never had. The company posted those terms on Wednesday and then faced enough blowback that it posted a follow-up addressing user anxiety in a few areas, such as the removal of a pledge never to sell data that Mozilla apparently felt could not be made without risking conflict with some of the vaguer privacy statutes around the world.Getting people to accept online advertising systems that make enough money to allow subscription-free reading across the web remains complicated, even for a company with a solid track record on privacy.But for Mozilla to keep working on that, Chambers has a simpler request of regulators.All that we ask for is that people are given a choice, she said. We dont need it to be a preferential choice, they just need a choice.

These images are by L.A.-based artist Joshua Vides.As it turns out, they're more than just images:Vides wraps each car in vinyl, then hand paints them to create the Pop Art / comic book / A-Ha video aesthetic. The cars were featured in Vides' solo show, Check Engine Light, which premiered in Los Angeles last month. Here's Vides at the L.A. show: Vides is currently in New York City, scouting a location that can host the show there.

Minimalism isnt about stark white walls and empty spaces. Its about intentional designwhere everything has a purpose. And who says minimalism has to be devoid of color? This modern bachelor apartment, designed by Bodes Studio, proves that a sleek, pared-down aesthetic can still feel bold and full of personality. Lets see how this space is designed for a man who values both style and functionality.The foyer sets the tone of this minimalist apartment with color. We see a palette or gray and steel blue welcoming guests. A wall-mounted desk is paired with an ottoman, letting residents take a quick seat as they put on their shoes. The wooden door makes the ambiance inviting.The living room continues this palette. We see a gray sectional topped with steel blue accents. For the entertainment complex, a steel blue panel is illuminated with LED strips on a gray wall. A wooden coffee table with a marble top adds visual interest.The dining area, behind the sectional, features a wooden table, which adds warmth to the space. This is paired with four plush chairs in two alternating colors: gray and steel blue. This is topped with a white vasewhich is illuminated by the sleek pendant pendant lights hanging above.The kitchen behind this space features sleek gray cabinetry. The upper cabinetry is wooden, making sure the space is anything but stark. Theres also under-cabinet lighting, setting a cozy ambiance while providing functionality.With a modern partition, we see a segregated home office. This features wooden textures and sleek matte black cabinetry. Theres enough room for two to work togetherall while enjoying views from the window seen opposite to the setting.The bedroom in the modern apartment features partial slat walls, easily forming the focal point. A minimalist bed with a brown leather headboard sits in the center of the room, while a black ceramic vase sits on the nightstand nearby. We especially love the sleek pendant lights hanging above. The entertainment complex features minimalist white cabinetry mounted onto the wall.The bathroom is an affair of charcoal and wooden elements. The vanity is compact, saving space. Yet, the vessel sink sitting above it adds luxury. The shower cubicle features wood-like elements, further adding warmth. The matte black hardware factors in visual interest, while strategic LED lighting highlights all the right design features.

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MacworldThe Macalope believes it was Shakespeare who wrote Kill all the estimates of iPhone sales.He might have that off slightly but hes pretty sure it was something like that.This has long been a hot topic for the Macalope, probably peaking when the iPhone X was released. Boy, that was a wild avalanche of nonsense. Take your mind back to the heady days of early 2018, if you can. The Philadelphia Eagles were Super Bowl champions (can you imagine?), California legalized recreational use of marijuana (we got so high that weekendyou couldnt feel your face, remember?), and Nikkei reported that Apple had cut iPhone X orders by not 10, not 20, not even 30 but a whopping 50 percent. This made complete sense as Apple is notoriously terrible at running its own business.This wackadoodle idea was taken at face value and we were informed that almost nobody wanted the iPhone X via headlines that read Almost nobody wants the iPhone X. Clearly this was a big problem and pundits were only too ready to explain where Apple went wrong with the iPhone X under headlines that read Heres Where Apple Went Wrong With the iPhone X. So helpful. And has Apple even said thank you?IDGPundits were falling over themselves repeating this story and some even upped the ante, saying Apple hadnt cut orders by 50 percent, dont be ridiculous. No, it had cut iPhone X orders by 66 percent. This probably would have continued until they were suggesting Apple had cut iPhone X orders by infinity percent but this commentary ran through spring and pundits had to get on with telling us what a disappointment the iPhone XS was going to be.As it turns outha, funny storythis was all wrong. The iPhone X topped sales charts and took 35 percent of the total handset industry profit. Oopsie doopsie. Oh, well.The Macalope brings this up not just because its demonstrably easier to write a column that is basically a rehash of previous columns hes written over the years. Partly because of that, though, because boy is it ever! Its like doing a clips episode! But really because John Gruber noted the other day that its still going on. Not about the iPhone X, but now about the iPhone 16 line.As Gruber points out, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicted last fall that the iPhone 16 Pros would underperform and the big winner would be the iPhone 16 Plus. These were guesstimates (or estiguesses, depending on what part of the country youre from) that were not born out by the facts.I think Kuo picks these numbers not at random, and not based on an honest attempt to even guess the actual sales, but rather to create headlines and inject his name into the news.John Gruber, March 2, 2025There is no doubt that this is a tactic many analysts take. The Macalope does not think that Trip Chowdhry actually believed Apple would disappear in 60 days if it didnt release an iWatch in 2014. He was making a bombastic statement in order to get attention. Why anyone would want to get attention as a wrongness engine is a bit beyond the Macalope, but its clear that some people see that as a winning strategy.Actually, looking around at things today, theyre probably right.The Macalope has been talking about Apple sales estimates since October of 2006, when Merrill Lynch cut iPod estimates (remember iPods?) from 8.3 to 7.7 million, just days before the company announced the real number. That number?8.7 million.Look, maybe we should just stop trying to estimate Apple unit sales until we can figure out whats going on.Which will probably be never.

With the AI Phone and Magenta AI, Deutsche Telekom is helping to shape further developments in the smartphone sector. Deutsche TelekomWhat would it be like if a digital concierge on your smartphone could reserve a table, call a cab or summarize texts by voice command or keyboard input in the future, without you having to call up the various apps? Thats Deutsche Telekoms vision for an app-free AI phone a vision that is now taking shape.The German telecommunications group is being supported by the AI start-up Perplexity.ai and its digital assistant. This can be accessed directly via the home screen or the smartphones power button. The AI phone offers additional AI features in the form of applications from:Google Cloud AI (object recognition),Elevenlabs (podcast generator) and Picsart (GenAI design tool). As Head of Technology Claudia Nemat announced at the Deutsche Telekom booth at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the AI phone will be available in the second half of the year at an affordable price. Technical details about the Android-based smartphone were not disclosed. However, as most of the data is processed in the cloud, the hardware requirements are not that high.Alternatively, Deutsche Telekom offers customers selected AI services via its MeinMagenta (My Magenta) app with Magenta AI. These already include the AI-supported search engine from Perplexity but apparently not the Perplexity Assistant, which is freely available as an app. The aforementioned AI tools Google Cloud AI, ElevenLabs and Picsart are also set to be added in the summer.Deutsche Telekom has also thought about public administration and business customers. At MWC, the company is using more than 30 solutions from ten countries to show how AI can contribute to growth, efficiency and customer satisfaction. One example is an AI chatbot that helps court clerks to search and analyze legal documents saving 70 percent of time, according to Nemat.AI keeps hackers happy Deutsche TelekomWhen it comes to cyber security and AI, Deutsche Telekom was apparently inspired by its competitor O2 and its AI grandma. Similar to Daisy, who drives telephone fraudsters to despair through endless conversations, the second-generation Telekom AI honeypots, based on the open source platform Beelzebub, now react as if the hackers request had been successful and evaluate their actions in parallel. According to Telekom, this also provides data on the attackers tactics and tools.However, AI is not only intended to provide more security in the network, but also to ensure efficient and smooth operation. To this end, Deutsche Telekom says it is working with Google Cloud to develop a RAN Guardian Agent. The multimodal AI assistant, which is based on Gemini 2.0, should be able to analyze network behavior in real time,Recognize anomalies and take self-healing measures if necessary in order to optimize network performance.According to Nemat, the adjustments are so granular that humans would not be able to make them on their own. The WLAN becomes an alarm system Telekom also presented WiFi Sensing in Barcelona. With this technology, which is supported from Wi-Fi 7 onwards, algorithms analyze the Wi-Fi signals between the access point and Wi-Fi-enabled devices and detect when something changes. Thanks to machine learning, the technology can even distinguish whether a child, an adult or a pet is moving through the room. In contrast to the use of cameras, privacy is protected: Wi-Fi sensing also penetrates walls.One possible scenario for Wi-Fi sensing is that movement in an empty home in the event of a break-in, for example triggers an alarm. In a smart home, the router could detect that everyone has left the home and trigger the heating to be turned down accordingly.It is currently not known when corresponding applications will be available for Deutsche Telekom Speedport routers.