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We're just a week away from the big premiere of Taylor Sheridan's newest Yellowstone offshoot, Dutton Ranch, which will undoubtedly draw much attention to the throngs of Paramount+ subscribers hungry for more Duttons. But I believe that a TV diet balanced by a regular dose of realism is healthy, and that's where I come in with your weekly lineup of docuseries.

TL;DR: A lifetime subscription to ChatPlayground AI’s Unlimited Plan is on sale for $74.97 (reg. $619) — 87% off.

Opens in a new window Credit: ChatPlayground AI ChatPlayground AI: Lifetime Subscription (Unlimited Plan) $74.97
$619 Save $544.03   Get Deal

If you’ve ever typed the same prompt into ChatGPT, and then Gemini, and then Claude just to see which one gives you the best answer, ChatPlayground AI was basically built for you. This new AI platform lets you send prompts to multiple models at the same time, and a lifetime subscription is on sale now for $74.97 (reg. $619).

ChatPlayground AI lets you run any prompt across 20+ AI models at once, including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. Instead of toggling between tabs and losing your train of thought, you get side-by-side comparisons in the same tab you’re working from, so you can quickly grab the best response and keep it pushing.

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Beyond chat features, ChatPlayground lets you generate images and PDFs, as well as upload existing images for context-aware answers. You can also streamline any task with prompt engineering tools and saved conversation history. Whether you’re writing, coding, or brainstorming, having everything in one place cuts down on the back-and-forth. Priority customer support is included, too, so you’re not left guessing how to troubleshoot on your own if anything goes sideways.

If you’re paying for multiple AI subscriptions month to month, those costs add up fast. This lifetime deal is worth doing the math on. Right now, the Unlimited Plan is on sale for $74.97 — down from $619. That’s a one-time payment for permanent access to all the models you’re already using, no renewals required.

Stop paying monthly with a ChatPlayground AI Unlimited Plan lifetime subscription for $74.97.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

Whoop, a screen-free fitness wearable with more than 2.5 million users, announced that it's bringing on-demand video consultations with health professionals to its subscriber base.

According to Whoop's announcement on Friday, live consultations with licensed clinicians will be offered to users in the U.S. starting this summer. Whoop is touting the fact that clinicians will have access to an array of biometric data collected in the app, and how that will aid experts in interpreting a user's health information.

Of course, it's probably not a coincidence that Whoop's announcement comes just one day after Google and Fitbit released their Whoop competitor, powered by Google Gemini.

To support users' fitness goals, Whoop is also partnering with the health records company HealthEx to provide Electronic Health Record (EHR) syncing. Under this partnership, Whoop users can keep track of their health history, including diagnoses, medications, and procedures, from right within the app.

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SEE ALSO: I ran the NYC Marathon wearing 7 fitness trackers and they all watched me throw up

"Unlike traditional healthcare experiences that rely on brief, episodic snapshots, these consultations begin with a comprehensive understanding of the member’s health, powered by months of continuous data and, when available, bloodwork and medical history," Whoop says in its announcement.

While many of Whoop's newly announced features will be included in its paid membership, live video consultations will require an additional cost for users, which has yet to be announced.

“WHOOP is a membership, and we take that seriously,” said Whoop Chief Product Officer Ed Baker in a press release. “We’re always asking how we can deliver more value to our members, and these upcoming features are some of the most meaningful we’ve ever built, from bringing clinician support directly into the app to advancing our AI coaching to be more personal and actionable than ever.”

In a statement to CNBC, Whoop stated that the live consultation feature is not meant to replace a primary doctor or emergency visit.

Along with these live on-demand video consultations with health professionals, Whoop is also adding an assortment of new AI features, such as AI-powered personalized coaching.

Speaking of personalized coaching, this will be accessible under one of Whoop's new AI features called My Memory, which will serve as a centralized location to view, manage, and train Whoop's AI. In addition, Whoop is also a Proactive Check-Ins feature, which will provide personalized recommendations to users, such as when to sleep ahead of a big event or reconfiguring a training regimen based on a user's travel plans.

SEE ALSO: Oura Ring vs. Whoop: A fight of the best fitness trackers

Amid plenty of news from Fire TV, from the newly launched Fire TV Stick HD to the Ember Artline TV, Amazon also quietly made a major announcement that it would be waving goodbye to the Fire TV name. As of April, Amazon has welcomed in a new title for its line of smart TVs.

Since May 7, an Amazon Web Services outage has caused ripple effects across the internet.

As the AWS outage entered its second day on Friday, Amazon reported recovery efforts were underway.

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In its most recent update, posted at 12:29 p.m. PT, Amazon acknowledged that recovery "efforts are slower than we had previously anticipated," and that "Full recovery is still expected to take several hours."

DownDetector, a platform where internet users can submit error reports, showed a spike in problems with AWS starting around 8 p.m. ET on Thursday. User error reports slowed into Friday, then spiked again around 4 p.m. ET.

(Disclosure: DownDetector and Mashable are both owned by the same parent company, Ziff Davis.)

DownDetector reports ongoing problems at AWS. Credit: DownDetector

The outage centered on the US-EAST-1 Region, and CNBC reports it temporarily shut down trading on the popular apps FanDuel and Coinbase. The popular web analytics company Chartbeat also experienced issues, which it attributed to AWS outages.

A May 7 update on the Coinbase status page stated: "Coinbase experienced service disruptions due to increased temperatures in the affected AWS service. Our team is working to implement a fix and will continue to provide updates. Your funds are safe."

The last major AWS outage affecting the US-EAST-1 Region occurred in October 2025. As Mashable reported at the time, a wide range of apps were seemingly impacted then, including Amazon, Roblox, HBO Max, Venmo, Lyft, Signal, and AT&T.

Internet outages have occurred regularly over the past 12 months. Because AWS provides cloud hosting and other internet services, problems with AWS can cause widespread issues across the web.

This is a developing story...

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Tesla's Cybertruck was already careening down the proverbial road to sales hell. Now, it seems some actual IRL roads could make the wheels come off this thing — literally.

Two years after the Cybertruck recall that made Tesla's angular EV a popular joke (remember the unnecessary foot pad that could slip off, because soap, and jam the accelerator?), the automaker is recalling all the models with 18-inch steel wheels it sold during that time. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that cracks can form in wheel rotors, eventually separating them from the hub, especially when driving over "higher severity road perturbations."

Add rough roads to the things that Musk's "apocalypse-ready" vehicle may not have been best equipped to handle at launch — a list that definitely includes soap and glue, and may, some owners report, include car washes. Our comprehensive list of Cybertruck recall reasons is here, but the TL;DR of faulty parts include windshield wipers, inverters, tire pressure monitoring systems, the backup camera, and steel panels that could also fall off.

Neither the NTSB nor Tesla knows of the wheels actually coming off in any consumer's Cybertruck. But what's got to sting Tesla is that this may have something to do with the small number on the roads, rough or otherwise. Only 173 Cybertrucks with 18-inch steel wheels have been sold between 2024 and 2026, the national recall has revealed. They include the cheaper $71,000 rear-wheel drive Cybertruck, announced in April 2025 and quietly discontinued in Sep. 2025.

That's not the total number of Cybertrucks sold, but it's also not as far off as you might think. We're a long way from Musk's claim that Tesla was going to sell a million Cybertrucks a year, or Tesla's official expectation of 250,000 sales in 2024. Just ask the Kelley Blue Book, which estimates 38,965 Cybertrucks sold in 2024. That slipped to 20,237 in 2025, marking a record-breaking decline in the EV world.

SEE ALSO: Tesla just tied the knot with Elon Musk, for better or worse. (Probably worse.)

And that decline came despite Musk goosing sales through a significant amount of self-dealing. As the Los Angeles Times points out, more than 1,300 of the 7,100 Cybertrucks registered in the U.S. in the last quarter of 2025 were owned by Musk's other companies, including SpaceX.

And now? In the first quarter of 2026, the Blue Book says, the Cybertruck sales nosedive has continued at roughly the same rate we saw between 2024 and 2025. That is, a 48 percent decline year on year. Curiously, that's the same overall decline seen across all Tesla vehicles in Germany in 2025, after Musk threw his support behind the extreme right AfD party. (There's still no sign that Tesla will ever sell the Cybertruck in Europe.)

In short, Musk's politics aren't helping him with left-wing or moderate consumers in Europe or the U.S., and his pricey, problematic truck isn't helping him find buyers in conservative U.S. red states either. What's left? Tesla, increasingly reliant for its valuation on the unproven future prospect of Optimus robots that may fall over and self-driving taxis that only just began production, will have to answer that question sooner or later.

SUVs have completely taken over the American car market, and at this point, there’s one for just about every kind of driver. You can spend Bentley money on something ultra-luxurious, buy a rugged Toyota built for the trails, or grab a cheap compact crossover that still handles everyday life with ease.

The Linux community is dealing with its second major security risk in as many weeks. Security researcher Hyunwoo Kim has disclosed a new zero-day vulnerability, Dirty Frag, that gives intruders more control over virtually any Linux distribution once they have an initial foothold.

You probably already know Gboard offers a great voice typing experience. What you might not know is that on a Pixel device, Gboard also supports voice editing. You can take a messy voice draft and use commands to make precise edits, formalize it, or rewrite it—all without touching the screen.

At a glance

• We construct geographically grounded, electrically coherent power grid models entirely from publicly available data and release a dataset spanning 48 U.S. states and multi-state interconnections.
• The models support AC optimal power flow (AC‑OPF) analysis, enabling physics-based study of congestion, capacity, and demand siting without restricted data.
• We demonstrate applications including transmission expansion potential, targeted line upgrades, and placement of large datacenter loads.

Microsoft Research is excited to release an open dataset of approximate transmission topology of the U.S. power grid derived from publicly available data.

The ability to study transmission-level power grid behavior is essential for modern power systems research. Analyses of congestion, transmission expansion, demand growth, and system resilience all depend on network models with realistic topology, electrical parameters, and geographic grounding.

In most of the world, including the United States, realistic transmission-level grid data is classified as critical infrastructure information and subject to strict access controls. These restrictions exist for good reasons, but the resulting lack of realistic grid models is increasingly exacerbating the challenges power systems face. Decisions about where new load can be added – and how additional transmission assets can be deployed to support it – are often gated behind lengthy and opaque processes that can take years. For researchers developing new tools and algorithms, access typically requires long approval cycles, strict non-redistribution agreements, or costly commercial licenses.

As a result, many are left choosing between small “toy” networks with dozens of buses, or synthetic models that do not correspond to real infrastructure. This lack of realistic, shareable models is particularly limiting for data-driven and AI-based approaches, which require large volumes of physically plausible grid data for training and evaluation methods for grid analysis and planning.

Against this backdrop, a natural question arises:

Can we meaningfully understand how the U.S. power grid responds to modern stresses – and facilitate the development of actionable solutions for the system – using only open data?

In this work, we introduce an open-data-derived pipeline for constructing large-scale, transmission-level power grid models that realistically approximate existing networks without relying on proprietary or restricted datasets. We provide an open dataset derived from this process, consisting of transmission-level models spanning 48 U.S. states as well as interconnection-scale networks, ranging in size from small systems with as few as 11 buses to the full Eastern Interconnection grid connecting 21,697 buses. The pipeline has been validated across the continental United States, where sufficient open geographic, energy, and demographic data are available, and is designed to generalize to other regions with comparable public data sources. 

Using only publicly accessible datasets, the pipeline produces geographically grounded, electrically coherent transmission models at state, multi-state, and interconnection scales. These models preserve the geographic structure of transmission corridors, substations, and generators inferred from open data, while explicitly accounting for uncertainty where detailed operational parameters are unavailable through transparent feasibility reporting.

Importantly, these are not toy networks or abstract benchmarks. The resulting models support alternating current optimal power flow (AC-OPF) analysis across a wide range of scales, enabling physics-based investigation of questions such as where transmission capacity is physically constrained; where new demand can be absorbed; and how infrastructure changes propagate through realistic network layouts – using only open data.

In this post, we describe the approach at a high level and highlight the system level questions it enables.

How the pipeline works

The pipeline turns publicly available geographic and energy data into transmission-level grid models that are geographically grounded and usable for power flow analysis.

The starting point is OpenStreetMap (opens in new tab), which encodes the physical layout of transmission corridors, substations, and power plants. This geographic skeleton is then augmented with open datasets describing generation capacity, fuel mix, demand, and operational boundaries (including U.S. EIA energy statistics and U.S. Census data), allowing the models to go beyond topology and represent how electricity is produced and consumed.

The key test is solvability. In power system analysis, solving optimal power flow (OPF) problems is a practical check on whether a network description is electrically coherent and practically relevant. OPF determines how generation can be dispatched to meet demand while respecting physical constraints such as transmission line capacities, voltage limits, and generator capabilities. Many inferred or synthetic networks fail this test outright: the topology may appear roughly correct, but other important engineering parameters are not. 

Crucially, this approach moves beyond small benchmark or “toy” networks. In particular, we solve AC-OPF across the entire Eastern Interconnection, spanning 36 states and more than 20,000 buses, derived exclusively from public data sources. This demonstrates that open-data-derived models can produce convergent AC-OPF solutions at a continental scale. 

To be clear, these models are not exact replicas of the operational grid, nor are they intended for market forecasting or real-time operational decision making by power balancing authorities. Electrical parameters are estimated from standard engineering references, parallel circuits are approximated rather than exhaustively enumerated, and demand is allocated using public proxies derived from open data.

The goal is to produce structurally and electrically realistic models that preserve geographic structure and scale from individual states to large multi-region systems using only open data. Full methodological details, validation results, and limitations are described in a companion research paper. 

Why this matters for today’s energy challenges

Access to solvable, geographically grounded grid models unlocks questions that have become increasingly urgent as the energy system evolves, driven by large-scale datacenters, AI workloads, renewable generation, and extreme weather events. We illustrate these capabilities with concrete analyses on models derived from our pipeline.

Where can new transmission physically fit?

Before asking how much new capacity the grid needs, planners must first ask where more wires are even possible. Transmission corridors have a physical limit on how many circuits they can carry: each circuit requires three conductors, and most tower structures accommodate one to three circuits (three to nine conductors). Beyond that, adding capacity typically requires acquiring entirely new rights-of-way – which is expensive, legally complex, and often politically infeasible in urban areas. 

Because our models preserve the geographic structure of real transmission corridors from OpenStreetMap, we can count the number of parallel circuits along each path and visualize where the grid is already physically saturated.

Figure 1. Across the contiguous United States (top), the model identifies 31,488 distinct transmission corridors. The overwhelming majority (27,506) carry a single circuit (green), making parallel lines easier. The roughly 4,000 corridors in orange through red already carry two or more parallel circuits, with the densest packing ten circuits (30 conductors) onto a single path. Zooming into California (bottom), the pattern becomes more discernable. The red corridor north of Sacramento and the orange clusters around the Bay Area and LA basin show where the grid is already physically dense, while the long green radials across the Mojave and into Nevada still have room to grow.

Identifying where the grid is physically boxed in, regardless of generation or demand, is not an optimization problem. It is a spatial feasibility question that geographically grounded models are uniquely positioned to answer.

What if we add capacity where it is needed most?

In dense urban areas, adding new traditional transmission lines is often impractical. The combination of tightly packed buildings, roadways, and complex underground infrastructure leaves little room to establish rights-of-way for high-voltage lines. Alternative power‑transmission solutions are sometimes explored to support urban grid expansion. For example, high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cable systems offer an order-of-magnitude higher ampacity for a given cross-section, enabling the transfer of large amounts of power at lower voltages and simplifying permitting requirements.

Short point-to-point superconducting power links have already been demonstrated in U.S. cities: Columbus, Ohio, Albany, New York, Long Island, New York (decommissioned), and Chicago (operational).

To explore what such connections might accomplish, we modeled two hypothetical HTS links in the Massachusetts grid, each connecting a substation northwest of Boston to load centers closer to the city. We then re-solved AC-OPF and compared the results to the unmodified baseline.

Figure 2. In the baseline (top), one transmission line exceeds its thermal rating (≥100%, dark red) and two more operate above 90%. After adding two HTS links (bottom, dashed lines), every line in the network drops below 90% loading. The energy price falls 42%, from $22.7/MWh to $13.1/MWh, as generation that was previously bottlenecked behind constrained corridors becomes deliverable.

This is precisely the kind of insight that publicly available price data cannot provide. Wholesale electricity prices reflect whether congestion exists, but not how close the system is to congestion nor how power flows change when new assets are added. A line operating at 95% of its thermal limit and one at 50% look identical in market data – until one of them reaches capacity. Physics-based models expose that margin directly, making it possible to evaluate interventions before they are built. 

Where should new demand go?

Rapid growth in electricity demand raises a question that existing market signals answer poorly: where on the network can new consumption be absorbed without triggering congestion?

Wholesale electricity prices reflect marginal generation costs, current congestion patterns in the transmission grid, and transmission losses, which are typically small – but they do not capture how close the system is to its limits. Siting decisions based solely on price therefore miss the physical margin that determines whether new demand can be served without infrastructure upgrades.

To illustrate this, we placed the same hypothetical 500 MW datacenter at two locations in the Maryland grid and re-solved AC-OPF for each (locations were chosen arbitrarily and do not reflect Microsoft’s datacenter portfolio or expansion plans). The two sites are plausible alternatives from a market perspective, with similar population density, comparable electricity prices, and proximity to major load centers:

• Site A (Baltimore area): a substation in the Baltimore metropolitan region, near an existing generation complex and dense transmission infrastructure
• Site B (Washington, DC suburbs): a substation in Montgomery County, serving a similarly dense suburban area within the Washington–Baltimore corridor

Despite these similarities, the physical outcomes differ. Adding the datacenter at Site A pushes a nearby transmission line into thermal overload, while placing the same load at Site B is absorbed by the existing network without violating line limits. The two sites are less than 50 miles apart, yet one would require transmission reinforcement and the other would not.

Figure 3. Placing the datacenter near Baltimore (top) pushes one transmission line into overload (≥100%) and raises the energy price from $24.6/MWh (baseline) to $28.6/MWh (+16.1%). The same load placed near the DC suburbs (bottom) keeps all lines below 95% and raises the price to $26.4/MWh (+7.4%). The Baltimore site yields a price $2.1/MWh higher – a difference that, across the 500 MW load, amounts to roughly $9,100 per hour or ~$80 million per year.

This distinction – largely invisible in price data – emerges directly from a more direct first-principle transmission-level power flow analysis. It highlights why geographically grounded, physics-based models are necessary for demand-siting decisions in a stressed grid.

Looking ahead

This work shows that it is possible to study transmission-level grid behavior at realistic scales without access to restricted infrastructure data. By grounding models in real geography and making uncertainty explicit, open-data-derived grids can support analyses that are difficult or impossible with small benchmarks or purely synthetic networks.

While the examples here focus on the United States, the approach generalizes to other regions where comparable open data is available. More broadly, we see this capability as an enabling layer: a way to improve the study of congestion, feasibility, and system stress – whether for planning studies, scenario analysis, or data-driven methods that require realistic grid structure.

We are releasing an open dataset of grid models spanning 48 U.S. states and six multi-state interconnections, ranging from small systems with tens of buses to continental-scale networks. All models can be solved under AC-OPF, with controlled relaxations applied when necessary to account for uncertainty in open data inputs. These models are solved for both peak and off-peak demand conditions, enabling consistent analysis across a range of operating scenarios.

This post is the first in a two-part series. In the second post, we introduce GridSFM, a learning-based AC-OPF surrogate trained on these grid models. We show how it predicts a full AC operating point in milliseconds, classifies feasibility for fast screening at planning scale, and serves as a warm-start seed that accelerates downstream numerical solvers.

GitHub Hugging Face Opens in a new tab

The post Building realistic electric transmission grid dataset at scale: a pipeline from open dataset appeared first on Microsoft Research.

Subaru’s rough 2026 isn’t slowing down. After posting sales declines through the first quarter, April’s numbers show the Japanese automaker is still struggling to regain momentum. Nearly every major model in the lineup is down year-over-year, and the brand has now sold almost 30,000 fewer vehicles in 2026 than it had at this point last year.

Award season may not be a year-round celebration, but that doesn't mean your watch list cannot get in on the celebrations every day. Netflix's catalog of award-winning films, shows, and documentaries gives you several options to pick from when you sit down for a cozy watch.

MiniDisc is one of the most under-appreciated audio formats of all time. It combined the digital benefits of a CD with the mix tape abilities of a cassette in a pocketable package.

When it comes to PCs, few things can ruin your day as much as when things just don't work. PC-related problems lead to hours of troubleshooting, frantic googling, and frustrated muttering under your breath. I've been there.

Using Google Maps for navigation is great. It combines live traffic updates, changing routes, and voice commands all from my phone. However, the heavy demands of constant GPS pings, ongoing data streaming, and a bright screen drain even large batteries very quickly. However, you can make a quick change to a minor setting to see a major benefit.

While I enjoy a good superhero show, I adore those that are satirical in nature. Nothing beats a good laugh. Luckily, Amazon Prime Video is home to several acclaimed satirical superhero series, and they each function in hearty ways that deconstruct the genre piece by piece.

Intel has reportedly reached a deal to manufacture Apple chips just days after rumors emerged of ongoing talks, and the consequences could be profound even if you're an avid Windows PC user.

Disney is apparently looking to create the only app Disney fans will ever need for the rest of their lives.

Bloomberg reported that new Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro wants to create a sort of "super app" that would blend the streaming functionality of Disney+ with other apps meant for real-life experiences, like Disney Cruise Line Navigator. The idea would be to put Disney's very important theme park, resort, and cruise line businesses in front of more eyeballs than usual, though at this stage, it's not entirely clear if this would mostly manifest as advertisements or a deeper layer of app functionality.

SEE ALSO: The best Disney+ deals and bundles in April 2026

“Disney+ becomes the primary relationship between Disney and its fans, the place where everything comes together,” D'Amaro said in an earnings call this week.

There are pros and cons to this, just like anything else.

On one hand, if you're a real Disney-head, it would probably be more convenient to use the same app to watch The Mandalorian and book a trip to Orlando than the way things currently work. On the other hand, there are probably a lot of people (myself included) who like to occasionally watch things on Disney+, but don't have any real interest in Disney's cruise line or theme parks. For that audience, this could get a little annoying or unwieldy.

At any rate, it sounds like this is still a very early plan, so it might take a while to happen, or it might not happen at all. Maybe by the time it comes around, the vibe around cruise ships will be better than it is right now.

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Own an old Moto Android phone but don’t plan to give it away or sell it? Instead of keeping it in some dim, dusty drawer and pulling it out every few months to check whether its battery has turned into a spicy pillow, you can repurpose it into something useful and keep using it on a daily basis.

That extra Ethernet port on the back of your motherboard is one of the most underrated bits of hardware on a modern PC. Most people glance at it once during the build, plug a cable into the other one, and forget it exists for the rest of the system's life. I did just the same thing, never caring for it much.