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Have you ever wanted to pick up a new Ryobi tool, but saw the price and slowly (or quickly) backed away? There’s a much better place than Home Depot to buy your Ryobi tools, where you'll pay lower prices and still get a warranty.

Hybrids have long been the go-to choice for buyers chasing excellent fuel economy, with models like the Toyota Corolla Hybrid often setting the standard. But one Korean sedan in 2025 is quietly outperforming even that benchmark in efficiency, delivering real-world fuel savings that surprise many shoppers. It proves that hybrid tech isn’t just about being economical, it’s about maximizing efficiency without compromising everyday usability.

As an Android veteran of over 15 years, nothing has ever made me seriously consider switching to an iPhone. However, there’s one feature that I often feel jealous about. It’s called “Focus Mode,” and if you think you know what it does, you’re probably wrong.

Swedish performance brand Polestar will reveal four new EVs over the next three years, from a luxury Grand Tourer (GT) to a compact SUV, in what appears to be an ambitious plan to target Tesla and other legacy European automakers.

Depending on the brand and type you buy, power tools can quickly get extremely expensive. But they don't have to be. If you're a homeowner or a DIY enthusiast who needs some useful items around the house or for completing projects, Ryobi has you covered.

AsteroidOS is an open-source operating system for smartwatches, based on Linux. Nearly eight years after the first version, Asteroid OS 2.0 has been released with more supported watches, more launcher styles, and much more.

Google isn’t wasting any time getting the ball rolling on Android 17. The first beta is rolling out today, and there are some pretty significant changes that the apps you use every day will have to adopt. This is also the beginning of a much faster pace for Android releases. Buckle up.

The addition of native in-cell checkboxes to Excel in 2024 finally ended the era of clunky, floating checkboxes from the Developer tab. They're simple to add and manually check—but this ease of use is a trap. If a human can toggle a checkbox, a single click can break a whole spreadsheet. For a pro-level workbook, your checkboxes should be driven by formulas, not people.

In the wake of Yellowstone’s conclusion, many have been looking to fill the neo-Western void. Luckily, its spin-off, Marshals, will arrive soon. Now is the appropriate time to get a taste of the Wild West life, and I’ve got the perfect series to help you do just that.

At a glance

• Microsoft Research publishes breakthrough in Nature on glass-based data storage that could preserve information for 10,000 years. 
• New technique extends technology from expensive fused silica to ordinary borosilicate glass found in kitchen cookware. 
• Innovations enable faster parallel writing, simplified readers (one camera instead of three), and easier manufacturing. 
• Phase voxel method requires only a single laser pulse, significantly reducing complexity and cost.

Long-term preservation of digital information has long challenged archivists and datacenters, as magnetic tapes and hard drives degrade within decades. Existing archival storage solutions have limited media lifespans that make them less than ideal for preserving information for future generations.

Now, we are excited to report significant progress on Project Silica (opens in new tab), our effort to encode data in glass using femtosecond lasers, a technology that could preserve information for 10,000 years. Glass is a permanent data storage material that is resistant to water, heat, and dust.

In findings published in Nature (opens in new tab), we describe a breakthrough that extends the technology beyond expensive fused silica to ordinary borosilicate glass. A readily available and lower-cost medium, this is the same material found in kitchen cookware and oven doors. This advance addresses key barriers to commercialization: cost and availability of storage media. We have unlocked the science for parallel high-speed writing and developed a technique to permit accelerated aging tests on the written glass, suggesting that the data should remain intact for at least 10,000 years.

Storing data inside glass with femtosecond (opens in new tab) laser pulses is one of the few technologies on the horizon with the potential for durable, immutable, and long-lived storage. Although we have been leading innovation in this type of storage for years, prior to this research the technique only worked with pure fused silica glass, a type of glass that is relatively difficult to manufacture and available from only a few sources.

In the paper, we show how data can be stored in borosilicate glass. The new technique stores hundreds of layers of data in glass only 2mm thin, as with previous methods, but with important improvements. The reader for the glass now needs only one camera, not three or four, reducing cost and size. In addition, the writing devices require fewer parts, making them easier to manufacture and calibrate, and enabling them to encode data more quickly.

Azure AI Foundry Labs

Get a glimpse of potential future directions for AI, with these experimental technologies from Microsoft Research.

Azure AI Foundry Opens in a new tab Key scientific discoveries

The Nature paper details several key new scientific discoveries:

Advances in birefringent voxel (opens in new tab) writing: For the previous type of data storage in fused silica glass using birefringent (i.e., polarization) voxels, we developed a technique to reduce the number of pulses used to form the voxel from many to only two, critically showing that the polarization of the first pulse is not important to the polarization of the voxel formed. We further developed this to enable pseudo-single-pulse writing, in which a single pulse can be split after its polarization is set to simultaneously form the first pulse for one voxel (where the polarization doesn’t matter) and the second pulse of another (where the set polarization is essential). We demonstrated how to use this pseudo-single-pulse writing to enable fast writing with beam scanning across the media.

Phase voxels, a new storage method: We invented a new type of data storage in glass called phase voxels, in which the phase change of the glass is modified instead of its polarization, showing that only a single pulse is necessary to make a phase voxel. We demonstrated that these phase voxels can also be formed in borosilicate glass and devised a technique to read the phase information from phase voxels encoded in this material. We showed that the much higher levels of three-dimensional inter-symbol interference in phase voxels can be mitigated with a machine learning classification model.

Parallel writing capabilities: By combining a mathematical model of pre-heating and post-heating within the glass with the invention of a multi-beam delivery system, we showed that many data voxels can be written in proximity in the glass at the same time, significantly increasing writing speed. We explained a method for using light emissions (a side effect of voxel formation) for both static calibration and dynamic control to fully support automatic writing operations.

Optimization and longevity testing: We developed a new way to optimize symbol encodings using machine learning and a better way to understand the tradeoff between error rates, error protection, and error recovery when evaluating new digital storage systems. We also created a new nondestructive optical method (opens in new tab) to identify the aging of data storage voxels within the glass, using this and standard accelerated aging techniques to support data lasting 10,000 years. We extended the industry standard Gray codes to apply to nonpower-of-two numbers of symbols.

Skip slideshow for: Previous slide

Previous slide

A piece of Project Silica media written with data.

A research-grade Writer used to set the record for high speed data writing into glass.

A research-grade Reader for retrieving data from glass.

Close up of Writer showing high-speed multi-beam data encoding on laser pulses.

End of slideshow for: Demonstrating the technology

As a research initiative, Project Silica has demonstrated these advances through several proofs of concept, including storing Warner Bros.’ “Superman” movie on quartz glass (opens in new tab), partnering with Global Music Vault (opens in new tab) to preserve music under ice for 10,000 years (opens in new tab), and working with students on a “Golden Record 2.0” project (opens in new tab), a digitally curated archive of images, sounds, music, and spoken language, crowdsourced to represent and preserve humanity’s diversity for millennia.

Looking ahead

The research phase is now complete, and we are continuing to consider learnings from Project Silica as we explore the ongoing need for sustainable, long-term preservation of digital information. We have added this paper to our published works so that others can build on them.

Related work

Project Silica has made scientific advances across multiple areas beyond laser direct writing (LDW) in glass, including archival storage systems design, archival workload analysis, datacenter robotics, erasure coding, free-space optical components, and machine learning-based methods for symbol decoding in storage systems. Many of these innovations were described in our ACM Transactions on Storage publication (opens in new tab) in 2025.

Opens in a new tab

The post Project Silica’s advances in glass storage technology appeared first on Microsoft Research.

3D printers and smart homes are relatively nerdy, tech-savvy pursuits. So it makes sense then that one can complement the other, and I’m not even talking about 3D printing mounts for your sensors or other gadgets.

Whether you're running a home server or building out rack-mount data centers, Linux is the OS of choice for servers, and for good reason. But what distro should you go with? Here are the best choices for reliable server distros.

SAVE 20%: As of Feb. 18, you can get the 11-inch Apple iPad Pro (M5) for $799.99 at Amazon, down from $999. That's $199.01 in savings. It's also the best price we've seen on this model.

11-inch Apple iPad Pro M5 $799.99 at Amazon
$999 Save $199.01   Get Deal at Amazon Get Deal at Apple.com

Presidents' Day is technically over, but Amazon still has a few good deals lingering on the site.

Right now, the 11-inch Apple iPad Pro (M5) is down to $799.99. That’s a $199 price cut from the usual $999 sticker — a solid 20% off. It’s also the lowest we’ve seen this model go for, which is pretty cool considering it just launched back in October.

SEE ALSO: Apple iPad Pro 2024 (13-inch) review: The battery life is bonkers

We called this tablet a "victory lap" for Apple in our review, and honestly, I get it. It’s impossibly thin (somehow thinner than the new iPhone Air, which we dubbed the "sexiest phone ever made") and features a "drool-worthy" Ultra Retina XDR OLED display. Plus, that M5 chip makes it faster than 92% of the laptops we've tested.

At $799.99, it's still a splurge, but if you want the absolute best tablet Apple makes, this is the time to grab it.

SAVE $703: As of Feb. 18, the LG 75-inch 85A QNED Mini-LED 4K TV is on sale for only $896.99 at Amazon. That's around 44% in savings and matches its best price on record.

Opens in a new window Credit: LG LG 75-inch QNED Mini-LED 4K TV $896.99 at Amazon
$1,599.99 Save $703   Get Deal

While it's not traditionally the best time to buy a TV, it is a pretty great time to buy one specific TV: the LG QNED85A.

As of Feb. 18, the LG 75-inch 85A QNED Mini-LED 4K TV is on sale at Amazon for only $896.99. While Amazon's listing might make it look like a price drop of only $500 or so, it's actually a savings of over $700 (about 44%). The actual list price is between $1,599.99 and $1,799.99 — as seen at Best Buy and LG's own website — so Amazon cuts itself short. This price matches its lowest on record.

The Class 85A series from LG, one of our favorite TV brands, debuted at CES 2025. It's a mid-range Mini-LED option that uses AI to enhance your picture and audio in real time. Its Alpha 8 AI Processor Gen2 can find the perfect HDR and brightness settings for whatever you're watching, while giving the dialogue a boost over background noise and refining the sound to suit your preferences. The AI Magic Remote can also give you content recommendations, picture and audio customizations, and even a generative AI gallery of images to transform your TV into art.

The gaming specs are stacked as well. A 120Hz native refresh rate and VRR 144Hz refresh rate, paired with AMD FreeSync Premium and LG's Game Optimizer, make for a smooth gaming experience. Meanwhile, GeForce NOW and Xbox Cloud Gaming allow for quick game streaming.

If a big screen with stunning picture quality that won't put a huge dent in your wallet is what you're after, the mid-range LG 75-inch 85A Mini-LED 4K TV is a great pick — especially when it's at its best price ever.

SAVE $35: As of Feb. 18, get the Apple AirTag (4-Pack) for $64, down from its usual price of $99 at Amazon. That's a discount of 35%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Apple AirTag (4-Pack) $64 at Amazon
$99 Save $35   Get Deal

How often do you misplace important items like your keys or wallet? If you're the type of person who just can't find things on a regular basis, you might want to give in and pick up a smart tracker like an Apple AirTag to help in the future. Now's a good time to do so, in fact, as you can get a set of four for an excellent price.

As of Feb. 18, get the Apple AirTag (4-Pack) for $64, down from its usual price of $99 at Amazon. That's $35 off and a discount of 35%.

SEE ALSO: The Apple Watch Series 11 has hit its best-ever price at Amazon — save $100

Apple AirTags are extremely easy to use and can help you find all your things when you're in a pinch. Just bring one near your iPhone and you can attach it to a single item or keep it freestanding. You can name it and assign an emoji of your choice, then drop it wherever you want it.

You can track down the tag using the Find My app, which leverages nearby iPhones to ping your tag's location. It has a built-in speaker that can play a jingle to help you locate the tag, or you can follow onscreen instructions to get to your lost item. That makes it especially useful for finding your lost wallet, luggage, or even a pet should you lose it.

This deal is for the 1st-gen Apple AirTags, which have a slightly less loud speaker and range than the new models, but if you're someone who loses things often and you need a little help finding things, this 4-pack is a steal. Hand them out in your family, drop one anywhere you need it, and get some peace of mind. Your phone can help you track just about anything down.

Google's Pixel A-series is generally one of the easiest budget handsets to recommend each year. So, those in the market for a new Android phone might want to take a look at the new Pixel 10a, officially announced today.

The Pixel 10a is priced at $499 (no price increase) and delivers modest upgrades over its predecessor. The new phone will be available starting March 4, and you can pre-order the phone starting today.

I got to preview the phone at a recent demo event, and it looks very similar to last year's Pixel 9a. The prominent horizontal camera bar that adorns the regular Pixel line is still gone, in favor of an inconspicuous little camera array that now sits completely flush with the device's back.

See? It's flat. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Last year's model also got rid of the horizontal bar, but the camera still jutted out a little bit. Now, you can lay the Pixel 10a completely flat on a table without it rocking around, a big problem with the latest Samsung phones.

Opens in a new window Credit: Google Google Pixel 10a (8GB RAM, 128GB storage) $499 at Google
Ships March 5 Pre-order Here Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon / Google Google Pixel 10a + $100 Amazon Gift Card $499 at Amazon
Ships March 5 Pre-order Here SEE ALSO: Google responds to claim that it stole NPR host's voice Google Pixel 10a: The specs Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Google Pixel 10a comes in four colors: Lavender, Berry, Fog, and Obsidian. It also costs $499, just like the Pixel 9a did. Here are the basic specs:

• 6.3-inch display with 1080x2424 resolution and 60-120Hz adaptive refresh rate

• Up to 3,000 nits peak brightness

• Google Tensor G4 processor

• 5,100mAh battery

• 8GB RAM

• 128/256GB storage

• Two rear camera lenses: 48MP and 13MP

• 13MP selfie camera

What's new, what's not The display hasn't changed much. Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Eagle-eyed readers will notice quite a few similarities between the Pixel 10a and the Pixel 9a on that list of specs. The battery size, RAM, and storage options are all the same as last year, too. Ditto for the camera specs.

However, the Pixel 10a does carry some upgrades. Google says the Pixel 10a is its most durable A-series phone, with IP68 water and dust resistance. The 6.3-inch Actua display also has new Corning Gorilla Glass 7i and is 11 percent brighter than the 9a.

What kind of performance will it offer? Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Interestingly, the processor hasn't changed, which is unusual for the Pixel A-series. Usually, the budget version of a Pixel phone uses the same processor as the previous model. For example, the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9a both used the Tensor G4 processor. For some reason, Google has kept the Tensor G4 processor in the Pixel 10a, despite the Pixel 10 running on Tensor G5.

At this moment in time, it's impossible to tell what practical difference this will make on performance, especially given that Google is bringing AI feature parity from the Pixel 10 to the Pixel 10a. It doesn't necessarily do anything new software-wise, but it can do basically everything the Pixel 10 could do, as far as I can tell.

Is the Pixel 10a worth it? Credit: Joe Maldonado/Mashable

Processor weirdness aside, the Pixel 10a is looking like another high-value mid-range phone from a company that's gotten very, very good at making those in recent years.

We'll know more about the Pixel 10a once we have a chance to properly test it out, and a full review ill be coming soon.

You can preorder the Google Pixel 10a for $499 at the Google Store. Shoppers who pre-order the phone at Amazon will also get a free $100 Amazon gift card.

The internet is an invaluable part of day-to-day life, but what happens when you don't get the speed you need? How do you even notice, and how can you tell if the problem is on your end or with your ISP?

It's a new lunar phase tonight, but the Moon is still mostly covered in darkness. Things should start to get brighter over the coming days as we move through the lunar cycle, but for now, can you spot the Moon at all?

What is today’s Moon phase?

As of Wednesday, Feb. 18, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. According to NASA's Daily Moon Guide, 1% of the Moon will be lit up tonight.

When is the next Full Moon?

The next Full Moon will be on March 3. The last Full Moon was on Feb. 1.

What are Moon phases?

NASA tells us that the Moon completes a full orbit around Earth in roughly 29.5 days. During this cycle, it passes through eight distinct phases. Although we consistently see the same side of the Moon, the portion illuminated by the Sun shifts as it travels along its orbit. The changing angle of sunlight reflecting off the Moon’s surface is what makes it appear full, partially lit, or nearly dark at different times. The eight phases include:

New Moon - The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it's invisible to the eye).

Waxing Crescent - A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).

First Quarter - Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.

Waxing Gibbous - More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.

Full Moon - The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.

Waning Gibbous - The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)

Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) - Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.

Waning Crescent - A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.

Whenever I see a pretty notebook sitting on a store shelf, I imagine taking it home and all the great things we can do together. Too bad it rarely works out. Now that I've used a touchscreen with a stylus, I find physical notebooks hard to use. There's so much digital notetaking brings to the table that I miss when I pull out pen and paper.

Have you ever felt like you keep seeing the same song, show, or movie recommendation on a streaming service? Recommendation fatigue is real, and it can be frustrating to deal with if you're trying to find new options or stray away from your usual tastes.