Technology

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times' revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player's flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

SEE ALSO: Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more: Play games on Mashable

Here are the clues and answers to NYT's The Mini for Tuesday, January 28, 2025:

AcrossMagic accessory for Gandalf the Grey

• The answer is Staff.

Item often cut with a pocket-sized guillotine cutter

• The answer is Cigar.

Fill with awe

• The answer is Amaze.

Flood stopper

• The answer is Levee.

Word repeated in "Any ___ is good ___"

• The answer is Press.

DownTop of the head

• The answer is Scalp.

Track meet official

• The answer is Timer.

Plant used to make tequila

• The answer is Agave.

Flusters

• The answer is Fazes.

Saves from jail in Capture the Flag, say

• The answer is Frees.

If you're looking for more puzzles, Mashable's got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.

Featured Video For You The Wordle Strategy used by the New York Times' Head of Games

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today's Strands.

Not the day you're after? Here's the solution to the latest Mini Crossword.

One of President Donald Trump's first actions after last week's inauguration was to sign an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, as well as Denali to Mount McKinley. Now Google has announced it will follow Trump's directive, changing how these landmarks are labelled in Google Maps.

While Trump's order alters the U.S. government's official position regarding the Gulf of Mexico and Denali's names, it does not specifically direct companies to follow suit. Even so, Google confirmed that its Maps app will be renaming the Gulf of Mexico and Denali in an X post on Monday.

"We’ve received a few questions about naming within Google Maps," Google wrote (with at least a few of those questions coming from Mashable). "We have a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources."

SEE ALSO: Google and Apple Maps still list Gulf of Mexico, not America, per Trump's order Tweet may have been deleted

The Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is the U.S. government's official source for geographic features' names, maintaining records and standardising information across the country. As of Monday, the GNIS has not yet been updated to reflect Trump's executive order, and still lists the sea and mountain in question as the Gulf of Mexico and Denali respectively.

However, Trump's directive included a 30-day deadline for the name changes to be completed and all references to the Gulf of Mexico removed. Google has thus stated that it will wait until the GNIS amends its records before switching over to the new Trump-mandated names.

"When that happens, we will update Google Maps in the U.S. quickly to show Mount McKinley and Gulf of America," wrote Google.

I never ever under any circumstances install chrome plugins, but I will install one that makes it display Gulf of Mexico instead of Gulf of America on Google maps.

— MC Frontalot (@mc.frontalot.com) January 28, 2025 at 11:56 AM

The tech giant also confirmed that Google Map's name changes won't only be visible to U.S. users. Rather, the "Gulf of America" and "Mount McKinley" labels will be visible to everyone who uses Google Maps regardless of the country they're in. This is due to Google's "longstanding practice" of handling labelling inconsistencies by deferring to a landmark's official name in the country where it's located. 

"When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name," said Google. "Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too."

As such, we can reasonably expect Google Maps to change its label for Denali to Mount McKinley across the globe in the near future, as the mountain is located entirely within U.S. borders.

In contrast, the U.S. does not own the Gulf of Mexico/America, which is also bordered by Mexico and Cuba. It therefore appears likely that while U.S. Google Maps users will see the gulf completely renamed to "Gulf of America," international users may see the new name alongside its internationally recognised label "Gulf of Mexico."

Mashable has reached out to Google for comment.

TL;DR: Get a PDF Expert Premium lifetime subscription for £64.21 (reg. £112.38) and manage your PDFs with seamless editing, organising, and annotation tools.

Opens in a new window Credit: Readdle Limited PDF Expert Premium Plan: Lifetime Subscription (Mac) £64.21 at the Mashable Shop
£112.38 Save £48.17 Get Deal

PDFs are great until you need to edit one — then they can feel like an unsolvable puzzle. With PDF Expert Premium, you’ll never have to wrestle with your files again. This powerful £64.21 (reg. £112.38) tool puts you in full control of your PDFs, making edits, annotations, and organisation simple.

PDF Expert is built for flexibility and ease of use. If you want to tweak text, images, or links, it’s as simple as clicking and typing. You can highlight, comment, and mark up your PDFs with intuitive tools that let you collaborate seamlessly.

But it doesn’t stop at edits. PDF Expert also makes organising large batches of documents effortless. Merge multiple PDFs into one, split files, or rearrange pages to your liking. Plus, its handy search function ensures you’ll never waste time hunting for key information again.

For those focused on security, PDF Expert has you covered. Lock your documents with passwords and control access to sensitive information. Whether you’re handling contracts, assignments, or personal files, you’ll have peace of mind knowing your data is protected.

Great for students, professionals, or anyone who deals with PDFs regularly, you can say goodbye to clunky workarounds and hello to streamlined productivity.

With a one-time payment of £64.2 — a 42% discount — you get lifetime access to PDF Expert Premium's complete suite of features.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

There are lots of reasons to equip your outdoor area with speakers: Maybe you like to dine outside, throw garden parties, or simply kick your feet up and relax when the sun is out. You could always just blast a playlist from your smartphone's speaker, of course, but it never sounds great. If you're serious about music, treat those with the respect they deserve. Invest in a purpose-made outdoor speaker.

You can think beyond your own outdoor space, too. In the Bluetooth-connected world, you can pair your smart device and play music just about anywhere. So, if you're a regular picnicker or traveller, it's good to have a portable Bluetooth speaker that you can use in just about any outdoor space — the park, the beach, the poolside, wherever.

Finding a good pair of speakers is straightforward when you're building a sound system for inside your home, but finding the same kind of high-quality audio for the outdoors can be tricky. You can't use the same speakers for your living room as you do in your garden. Not only can they not withstand the weather, but indoor speakers just aren't built to carry audio in wide-open spaces. Read on for a guide on sweet-sounding outdoor speakers, plus a selection of the best options in 2025.

Are wired or wireless speakers best for outdoors?

Ultimately, it depends how, when, and where you use them. Wireless speakers are great for their portability, which makes them super convenient, but wired outdoor speakers are likely to be more powerful, more dependable, and less susceptible to interference. And with wired speakers, you'll never have to worry about recharging the battery or walking too far out of Bluetooth range. Those are definite perks when you’re throwing an all-day, all-night party and want to mingle with your guests. Outdoor wired speakers also tend to be better at filling large spaces with an even distribution of sound, especially since you can hook up several around the garden.

Wireless speakers — which usually work via Bluetooth — have their plus points, too. Bluetooth speakers can stream audio content from your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or other Bluetooth-capable device. Sometimes, these speakers will also allow for hands-free capabilities through voice assistants like Alexa or Google Assistant. The other bonus is that you can take them to the party, so you're not bound by one location. You can also take a portable Bluetooth speaker to the park, the pool, or on holiday.

But — because of where we are with speaker technology technology right now — there are speakers that effectively fill both roles, delivering massive sound more typical of wired speakers while also offering Bluetooth and streaming technology.

Can you mount outdoor speakers?

Mounting wired speakers around your outdoor living area is an ideal choice when you have the space to place them on walls or under decks. Often, these speakers are sold in pairs and have a stereo configuration with left and right inputs to help fill your space with more complex audio. The only downside is that they have a more limited range of projecting sound as they can only be tilted so far without literally hitting a wall.

If your outdoor space is further away from mountable opportunities, however, you could opt to hide your setup in your landscaping with some in-ground speakers instead. It will involve the careful burying of some wires, but it's a great choice for dispersing audio more evenly as many ground-level speakers boast 360° sound. The only caveat? Whichever option you choose for your outdoor listening, you'll want to ensure that they are actually designed to be used outside.

Are outdoor speakers waterproof?

While on your search for outdoors speakers, look out for keywords like "weatherproof" and "water-resistant". Most outdoor speakers will clearly let you know that all the electrical stuff is safely housed inside a weather-resistant shell. This means it can withstand the elements, including rain, snow, and extreme temperatures. 

A high waterproof rating is standard with portable Bluetooth speakers, but less common on mountable wired speakers. That said, it's common for wired outdoor speakers to be labelled as weather-resistant rather than waterproof. If you are concerned about wild weather, you might opt to place your speakers under some sort of cover to offer them more protection.

What is the best outdoor speaker?

We've tried to narrow down your options and compiled a roundup of top speakers for a wide range of people, budgets, and activities. We’re pretty confident you’ll find what you need to enjoy the outdoors without missing a beat. We've tracked down impressive devices from top brands like Bose, JBL, and Sonos. Just pick a favourite.

These are the best outdoor speakers in 2025.

This content originally appeared on Mashable for a US audience and has been adapted for the UK audience.

Either you've got a Bluetooth speaker and it's time to upgrade, or you haven't got one and you're woefully behind the times. In either case, it's time to splash out on a decent Bluetooth speaker. In this world of synced devices and endless connectivity, it's a must-have device. Particularly if most of your music is streamed from a playlist.

A Bluetooth speaker can integrate perfectly into a smart ecosystem, allowing you to pump up the volume from your phone or speak to Alexa — not to mention offer handy portability for taking on your holidays or even your daily commute.

There are loads of top-quality speakers out there, so you have plenty of choice. The problem with having so many impressive products from top brands is that picking the right device can be tricky. That’s where we come in. Here's a quick guide.

Do Bluetooth speakers sound good?

You’d be surprised at the quality of the audio tech in Bluetooth speakers. But what will you be using your speaker for? Purely music? Podcasts? A bit of both? It will surely factor into what kind of speaker you end up buying — whether that's surround sound, Dolby Atmos, something for the great outdoors, or just plain stereo (which is also great — don't feel pressured to get something super fancy and expensive if you don't really need it). Not all speakers produce the same kind of sound quality, so it's important to know exactly the kind of listening experience you're looking for.

How big are Bluetooth speakers?

Speakers can get pretty big, even portable ones, so take stock of how much useable space you want to dedicate to your audio setup both horizontally and vertically. Not everyone has the room for multiple speakers that work in tandem, so don't overwhelm yourself with something gigantic if it's constantly going to be getting in your way. There are plenty of speakers that can be easily stored or concealed, and some that are small enough to rest on a tabletop or shelf.

How many speakers do you need to buy? 

We always recommend choosing quality over quantity. Having two amazing speakers is always going to get you better results than having five average speakers. Plus, having too many speakers around is just going to take up an unnecessary amount of space. If you have the room, we think two speakers is the perfect number. 

Two speakers are especially ideal if you listen to a lot of music — music is normally recorded for a stereo setting, so having a left and right channel will do you wonders. And if you have a smaller space, even one really good speaker should do you just fine (as long as it sounds great). Many Bluetooth speakers also have easy pairing options with other speakers of the same make, so setting them up should be a breeze.

What are smart speakers?

These are speakers that double up as smart devices, which may connect to Alexa or sync with other smart home devices. They’re great in their own right, but they aren't always the best way to listen to music (sorry, Alexa). If you really can't live without having some sort of smart assistant within your speaker setup, we recommend getting something that is Bluetooth-enabled and connecting it to your smartphone. That way, you get the perks of your phone's built-in smart assistant without downgrading. 

Are Bluetooth speakers waterproof?

Many modern speakers have some kind of water resistance. That means you can rock out at the pool or beach. Or, erm, in the shower. Even if you're not planning on taking your speaker on holiday, it's not out of the question that it could be a target for spills no matter where you have it in your home.

What is the best Bluetooth speaker?

There are plenty of Bluetooth speakers out there that are worth considering. We’ve tracked down some of the very best options. We have lined up impressive Bluetooth speakers from all the biggest brands, with something for everyone and every budget.

These are the best Bluetooth speakers in 2025.

A Chinese manufacturer just shocked a larger, complacent U.S. rival with a cheaper product that is significantly more customizable. News at 11.

In many industries, in the 21st century so far, this statement would not in fact be news; it would be such a familiar tale, few would bother mentioning it. But the old tale is noteworthy in this latest instance, thanks to the industry being Artificial Intelligence. Which, ironically, now seems to be an industry that was not very intelligent about obvious developments coming down the pike.

DeepSeek has taken off at a difficult time in the U.S., and not just politically. A divided country was just coming to grips with what AI means for business, for jobs, and whether the promised returns would be worth the investment that has been ploughed into (and by) U.S. companies. One thing few seemed to question was that a U.S. business would always be in the lead. No matter who was in or out, an American leader would emerge victorious in the AI marketplace — be that leader OpenAI's Sam Altman, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Sundar Pichai, or for the true believers, xAI's Elon Musk.

ChatGPT appeared to have a grip on the public imagination, and Altman seemed to be the most media savvy public face of the AI salesmen, so — presuming he could stop having weird feuds over celebrity voices and isn't found liable for allegedly abusing his sister — probably him?

Now here comes Liang Wenfeng, founder and CEO of DeepSeek, with a face so unknown there isn't even, at time of writing, a photo on his Wikipedia entry, nor does the mighty Getty archive contain any picture of him. (He did show up at a Beijing Symposium last week, should you want to know what he looks like.) DeepSeek doesn't swim in the media-facing, market-facing waters of the posturing U.S. AI giants. All it has is a better product — a faster, way cheaper product that fulfills a promise Altman forgot: It's open source.

And in the flattened world of the internet, turns out, that's all you need.

A day in the life of DeepSeek

One day, that's all it took. One day for DeepSeek to vault to the top of the app charts on Apple and Google. One day for Nvidia's Jensen Huang to lose nearly $21 billion of his net worth, thanks to the biggest single-day loss for any stock ever.

Reports that DeepSeek may have been partly trained on sanctions-busting Nvidia chips didn't stop the slide, because DeepSeek's secret sauce is that it simply doesn't need as much computing power as other Large Language Models. DeepSeek isn't just cheaper and more customizable, it is up to 50 times more efficient than the top U.S. models. Which could be good news for the environment, and bad news for Nvidia, let alone any U.S. tech giant which have been gearing up their data center budgets and massively overspending on Nvidia chips (in other words, pretty much all of them — except Apple, which has wisely put Apple Intelligence to work mostly on the device itself.)

"Nvidia has basically been getting rich selling shovels in the midst of a gold rush," AI expert Gary Marcus, one of the deepest skeptics of the U.S. AI approach, wrote as DeepSeek news poured in, "but may suddenly face a world in which people suddenly require far fewer shovels ... building $500 billion worth of power and data centers in the service of those chips isn't looking so sensible either."

Indeed, an increasing number of companies may be able to avoid paying for cloud-based AI services at all. At costs of pennies on the dollar, executives will be able to download an open-source LLM that can be customized to fit their database and data needs. It doesn't need to be the absolute fastest and smartest AI, it just needs to be competitive with the fastest and smartest — which DeepSeek's R1 model apparently is.

SEE ALSO: Here's what DeepSeek AI does better than OpenAI's ChatGPT

So what has ChatGPT, and by extension Altman, got on its side? Why, in this fast-moving tech consumer world, where a competitor is only an app store tap away, would anyone stick with the app they know? Sure, many will for a while, but relying on the inertia of your customer base in the face of close-to-free alternatives is a great way to ... become the next AOL. ChatGPT's fall from grace could arguably happen faster than its ascendency in 2022, which in itself was practically overnight.

Which is not to say that U.S. AI companies are sunk. After all, they have an ongoing cyberattack and a protectionist U.S. government in their corner. Today's Washington is willing to pass the CHIPS act to prevent Chinese companies from accessing the latest U.S. chip technology, which evidently did not work, but it is also willing to ban TikTok, the kind of blunt tool that would work to stunt DeepSeek's scary-fast growth. Suspicions over what China could do with all the U.S. customer data its companies are acquiring are rife, and can always be stoked.

But what are you going to do? Keep banning every Chinese LLM that undercuts a bloated U.S. rival? At a certain point, that's playing whack-a-mole, and it ignores the point. If the market wants a super-cheap, super-efficient open-source AI, then American companies need to be the ones who provide them.

If Altman doesn't release a supposedly superior GPT 5 soon, and if he doesn't want OpenAI to be heading for the kind of long-term decline that has affected so many haughty U.S. tech companies in the past, then he needs to join DeepSeek and Meta in the ranks of AI makers that release open-source products.

And maybe concentrating on the carbon footprint of your AI model — a pretty good proxy for how inefficient it is — isn't such a bad idea after all.

DeepSeek appears to be twisting the knife.

U.S.-based AI stocks took a tumble on Monday following the release of the China-based DeepSeek AI chatbot. The new product from the Chinese tech startup offers a more affordable large language model (LLM), presenting a competitive alternative to OpenAI's options like ChatGPT.

But DeepSeek wasn’t finished. By Monday afternoon, the company unveiled its latest innovation: Janus-Pro-7B, a cutting-edge AI image generation model.

SEE ALSO: DeepSeek AI might be smarter than OpenAI's smartest AI, and you can try it out now

DeepSeek claims its Janus-Pro-7B outperforms existing models such as OpenAI's DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. In a bold move that mirrors its approach with DeepSeek-R1, the company has made Janus-Pro-7B free and open source.

Like DALL-E, a user can input text describing a photo or artwork, and DeepSeek's Janus-Pro will provide the user with an AI-generated image. DeepSeek says that Janus-Pro can both analyze and generate images.

"Janus-Pro is a novel autoregressive framework that unifies multimodal understanding and generation," the company said in a technical report of the model. "It addresses the limitations of previous approaches by decoupling visual encoding into separate pathways while still utilizing a single, unified transformer architecture for processing."

DeepSeek provided AI-generated image examples of the improvements between its prior Janus model, which can be viewed below.

Credit: DeepSeek

Though fairly new to the space, DeepSeek is already positioning itself as a formidable disruptor in the AI race, no doubt leaving industry leaders scrambling to adapt.

The portable handheld PC market has skyrocketed with the Steam Deck exploding in popularity. But what if you made a handheld... well, not a handheld? Someone just did this, and it's probably the most cursed thing I've seen in a while.

Signal is releasing a new feature that lets users move their message and media history when they connect a new desktop or iPad to their account. It is still in beta testing, though.

Eric Migicovsky, the founder of the old smartwatch company Pebble, is bringing the brand back with help from Google. Migicovsky, who still uses a Pebble watch, got Google to agree to open-source the Pebble operating system.

Magic: The Gathering has managed to do pretty well for itself in a world of video games and instant digital gratification. I've been out of the hobby for a long time, so I had no idea how smartly the company had integrated its physical card game with its digital one.

Dragons, fairies, and talking rats descended upon Madison Square Garden on Jan. 24 for Dimension 20's sold-out Gauntlet at the Garden — and the results were nothing short of a blast.

Led by Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan and starring "intrepid heroes" Emily Axford, Ally Beardsley, Brian Murphy, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, and Lou Wilson, Gauntlet at the Garden transported its thousands of audience members back to D20's New York City-set Unsleeping City campaign. That the cast was battling fierce enemies mere subway stops from MSG added an extra layer of intensity to the actual play show, but that site specificity was only the start of Gauntlet at the Garden's magic.

SEE ALSO: Brennan Lee Mulligan on the joys of 'Dimension 20: Dungeons and Drag Queens' Dimension 20's Gauntlet at the Garden brought the multiverse to Madison Square Garden. Credit: Kristy Puchko

Gauntlet at the Garden kicked off with the return of all of The Unsleeping City's original player characters: Sofia Bicicleta (Axford), Pete Conlan (Beardsley), Kugrash (Murphy), Ricky Matsui (Oyama), Misty Moore (Thompson), and Kingston Brown (Wilson). Due to some multiversal shenanigans, the party learns that three enemies from other D20 campaigns are wreaking havoc in New York City. A Crown of Candy's Sugar Plum Fairy is creating a hellish candy land up near Lincoln Center, while A Starstruck Odyssey's Junkmother causes panic in Staten Island's Freshkills Park. Elsewhere, Fantasy High's Kalvaxus tears up Wall Street in search of — what else? — gold. (In keeping with the site specificity of an MSG show, I personally would have loved a climactic fight there instead of Wall Street, as the New York Stock Exchange served as a battleground in the first season of The Unsleeping City.)

SEE ALSO: Inside 'Game Changer,' the internet's favorite game show

Luckily, our intrepid heroes didn't have to face these fiends alone. In Gauntlet at the Garden's biggest interactive moment, the audience got to roll along virtually on our phones in order to determine which allies from other D20 campaigns would be joining in.

Credit: Screenshot: Dimension 20

The rolling mechanic was one of the many ways Gauntlet at the Garden enlarged the scale of a typical D20 episode in order to match its arena. The circular setup at the center of MSG recreated the feel of D20's usual campaigns, complete with lit-up triangular panels that matched the look of D20's set. Those panels changed colors during combat sequences or especially important Box of Doom rolls, and the whole of MSG followed suit, bathing the audience in red light and making us feel like we were in the D20 Dome. Screens above the set showed closeups of the players — a blessing if you were far from the ground or had a limited sightline on some players — as well as animations introducing PCs, enemies, and allies. Pyrotechnics and an oversized 20-sided die rounded out Gauntlet at the Garden's larger-than-life production, turning the show into a delightful mishmash between Dungeons & Dragons actual play and the theatrics of professional wrestling. (An impromptu wrestling match between Murphy and Wilson sealed the deal.)

Gauntlet at the Garden was a joyous fan experience. Credit: Kristy Puchko

On top of Gauntlet at the Garden's three epic showdowns and the excitement of seeing these characters again, the show proved to be a joyous barrage of fan service. Much of this came down to the multiversal angle, with fans jumping into a frenzy at the arrival of allies like Gilear Faeth and Ayda Agueforth — complete with several "Hoot! Growl!" chants — or booing at the appearance of sinister Lord Calroy Cruller. (True to form, Mulligan embraced the heel role, hitting us with a classic, "I'm all the bad guys.") Inside jokes abounded as well — shout-out to Chronomancy, the greatest magic of all.

But Gauntlet at the Garden wasn't just an incredible experience for the fans — it was an incredible experience because of the fans.

Cosplayers throughout MSG set the tone for Gauntlet at the Garden, with audience members dressed as everything from PCs to Kugrash's Juicy Cockroach and Spicy Pigeon Spirit Totems. In the long, cold line to get into the arena, it was a treat to hear people complimenting one another on their cosplays — sometimes of the same character.

During the show itself, the phone dice rolling mechanic allowed for further bonding and excitement between fans. My seatmates and I compared rolls with glee, high-fiving when someone rolled a Nat 20, then promptly losing our minds when Mulligan revealed MSG had rolled a collective Nat 20. I've watched MLB grand slams and WNBA buzzer-beating threes live, and MSG's eruption at any Nat 20 roll captured that same sense of victorious euphoria as any major sporting event.

Because that's how Gauntlet at the Garden felt: Major. As Dungeons and Dragons continues to explode in popularity, not just as a game but as a form of live performance, Gauntlet at the Garden stands out as a turning point representative of how big actual play can truly get, and what level of spectacle it can achieve.

Dimension 20 is now streaming on Dropout. Gauntlet at the Garden will stream on Dropout at a later date.

Social media sites promised that we could network and make connection with people, but the truth is that sites like LinkedIn only benefit a handful of people, and the web is open to anyone who wants to start a site. So why not put your own stamp on the internet,and let your business card point to a personal site all your own? Here are some key reason to go your own way.

Samsung's Galaxy S25 brings several improvements in performance, cameras, and on-device AI experiences, but are they enough to upgrade from the two-year-old Galaxy S23? Let's find out.

My first few iPads (I've had many) were all cellular models and I used that feature extensively. However, times have changes, and the case for a tablet with a cellular radio just isn't as strong anymore. I've gone Wi-Fi only for many years now, and I'm unlikely to go back. Here's why.

When shopping for the woman in your life, real romance isn't about the amount of money you spend or picking out the biggest bouquet of roses. It's about showing that you pay attention to her complaints, know what she likes, and appreciate what she does for you by gifting her something that makes her life easier. We're picking the bar up off the floor in 2025 with Valentine's Day gift ideas for women that are sure to please. Thoughtful, practical, whimsical, or appropriately mushy, these gifts go beyond the classic flowers and jewelry that you've already thought of.

Sorry, OpenAI (and Google and Meta and…). 

A recently released AI model called DeepSeek from a China-based startup is currently wreaking havoc on the tech space in the U.S. 

Why? Because it's blowing all other Big Tech models out of the water. And, to top it off, it's allegedly doing so with less funding and less technological resources.

Here's what the AI industry says about DeepSeek compared to OpenAI's leading chatbot, ChatGPT.

DeepSeek is actually open

Now, regarding AI outputs, everyone might have a different opinion based on their specific use case. So, there are still areas where other AI models might beat DeepSeek's outputs.

SEE ALSO: Could Trump ban DeepSeek? What the TikTok ban saga tells us.

For example, some users discovered that certain answers on DeepSeek's hosted chatbot are censored due to the Chinese government. That is true.

But, here's a fact: DeepSeek is open in a way that OpenAI said ChatGPT would be – and never delivered. In fact, as OpenAI sheds its original "open" ethos, DeepSeek went ahead and released its model as open-source. Anyone can download the DeepSeek R1 model for free and run it locally on their own device. This means your data won't be shared in any way with DeepSeek. In addition, as even DeepSeek pointed out, users can get around any censorship or skewed results.

DeepSeek is more affordable than OpenAI

While OpenAI's training for each model appears to be in multiples of tens of millions of dollars, DeepSeek claims it pulled off training its model for just over $5.5 million.

And that price difference also appears to be passed on to the consumer.

API access for DeepSeek-RI starts at $0.14 for one million tokens or roughly 750,000 words. DeepSeek's latest model is reportedly closest to OpenAI's o1 model, priced at $7.50 per one million tokens. That's a pretty big disparity in pricing.

DeepSeek's outputs for certain tasks seemingly beat ChatGPT

ChatGPT and DeepSeek users agree that OpenAI's chatbot still excels in more conversational or creative output as well as information relating to news and current events.

However, the consensus is that DeepSeek is superior to ChatGPT for more technical tasks. If you use AI chatbots for logical reasoning, coding, or mathematical equations, you might want to try DeepSeek because you might find its outputs better.

For most queries, though, it appears DeepSeek and ChatGPT are on par, roughly giving the same output. 

Even being on equal footing is bad news for OpenAI and ChatGPT because DeepSeek is entirely free for most use cases. Regular ChatGPT users may have to subscribe to its paid tier at $20 a month. 

For companies utilizing AI-model API access, the price difference between two largely equivalent models may be too much for them not to switch from OpenAI's ChatGPT to DeepSeek.

Featured Video For You 3 ways to detect AI generated images

Apple has released the macOS Sequoia 15.3 update, bringing its AI emoji generator and other improvements and under-the-hood changes to the Mac computers.

Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, is taking the European Union (EU) to court over its tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China. Filed last Wednesday with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by Tesla’s Shanghai division, the lawsuit comes in the wake of similar legal moves by BMW and other Chinese car manufacturers.

The tariffs are part of the EU’s ongoing efforts to combat what it sees as unfair trade practices. A 2023 investigation concluded that Chinese EV manufacturers, including Tesla’s Shanghai operations, benefited from government subsidies like low-interest loans, cheap land, and supplier discounts.

SEE ALSO: Tesla stock slides after first-ever delivery drop

Following the probe, the EU introduced steep anti-subsidy tariffs in late October 2024, with Tesla hit by a 7.8 percent rate and other manufacturers facing duties as high as 35.3 percent. These levies are in addition to the EU's existing 10 percent standard import tariff on vehicles.

According to The Financial Times, roughly 20 percent of all EVs sold in the EU last year — around 300,000 units — were manufactured in China. Tesla’s relatively low tariff rate stems from an individual review that determined the company received minimal support from the Chinese government compared to other automakers.

Tesla’s legal filing does not reveal specific details about its argument. The case against the European Commission will be heard in the General Court, the EU’s second-highest judicial body, with the possibility of appealing the verdict to the ECJ.

The entire legal process is expected to take around 18 months.

Between the Galaxy S25+ and the iPhone 16 Plus, there are several factors to consider while making a purchase. Let's break down all of them to determine which phone suits you better.