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Gizmodo
40 minutes ago
- Gizmodo
Best Buy Is Basically Giving Away a 14-Inch HP Chromebook for Nothing, Now Almost 60% Off
The tech giant's just dropped a huge sale on these highly rated Chromebooks that normally sell for $329. Think of what $139 will buy you in a tech or electronics store, and usually you go to the little stuff — go elbows-deep in that bargain DVD bin, or grab a (small) portable hard drive, or maybe a printer — but the ink refills will catch up to you soon enough. But right now at Best Buy, $139 will get you a new 14-inch HP Chromebook which normally sells for $329. Don't worry, it's not a refurbished or scratch-and-dent floor model from some obscure brand you've never heard of — this is a brand-new HP Chromebook with an Intel Celeron N4500 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of built-in storage, Intel UHD Graphics, and more than enough features and perks to far outstrip this crazy-low $139 sale price, which is nearly 60% off. See at Best Buy Everything You Need A good Chromebook like this one from HP can provide you with everything you need for getting things done and having a little fun and relaxation while you're at it. This one has WiFi 6 and a Bluetooth 5.3 wireless card for rapid-response browsing or streaming, and the HP True Vision HD camera is perfect for video calls or conferencing. The 14-inch screen is full HD with a 1366 x 768 resolution — 1 million pixels of great picture and vibrant color, powered by Intel UHD Graphics that delivers 4K video content and gaming at 720p. The dual speakers have been given a serious tuning and testing process at the factory so they come out of the box ready to deliver rich, immersive sound. All of the streaming and gaming potential might have you thinking you'll wear out the battery life in no time, but the HP Chromebook is designed for all-day use, and even a quick 45 minute charge will bring it from 0 to 50% thanks to HP's Fast Charge tech. The Power of Google The Chrome OS system that gives the Chromebooks their name was designed for simplicity, speed, and safety. All of your productivity apps are easily launched without having to search for them in a nest of folders, but if you're really needing to find an app or a file in a hurry, the Google Everything Button is your single-stroke search engine. The HP Chromebook comes with built-in virus protection which automatically updates itself to battle the newest malware and other threats, and as you would expect from a Chromebook, it's conveniently thin and compact and light — only 3.35 pounds — for work or play on the go. But best of all, it's somehow available for just $139 at Best Buy after their $190-off (almost 60% off) sale. See at Best Buy
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Trump's Tariffs Expected to Drag Down the Global Economy
President Trump's trade war is expected to slow growth in the world's leading economies, including the United States, this year and in the years to come, unless world leaders can resolve their differences over trade. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development slashed its outlook for global output to 2.9 percent this year, from 3.3 percent in 2024, the organization said in its economic report released on Tuesday. Economic growth in the United States is expected to be particularly weak, the organization said, rising 1.6 percent this year, a drop from the 2.2 percent projected in March, and 1.5 percent in 2026, down from its previous estimate of 1.6 percent. The U.S. economy grew 2.8 percent in 2024. 'Through to the end of 2024, the global economy showed real resilience,' said Mathias Cormann, the organization's secretary general. 'But the global economic environment has become significantly more challenging since.' In the first three months of the year, economic growth in the countries monitored by the organization, which is based in Paris, 'dropped abruptly' to 0.1 percent from the last three months of 2024, which is 'the slowest rate of growth since the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic some five years ago,' Mr. Cormann said. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has imposed tariffs, then halted them for several weeks, then reinstated some, in the hopes of winning new trade deals with countries ranging from once-close allies like Canada, Mexico and the European Union, as well as longtime rivals like China. The lack of certainty coming from that on-again, off-again strategy, combined with frequent changes in how high the tariffs will eventually be, has roiled markets and disrupted the flow of goods and services around the world. From January to March, many companies rushed goods to the United States, hoping to avoid the higher tariffs, many of which are now set to take effect in July. Even if the Trump administration increases tariffs on most of America's trading partners by just 10 percent, it would shave off 1.6 percent of economic growth in the country over two years, the report said. Growth on a global scale would contract nearly a full percentage point in the same time span. Further pressure is coming from the need for leading economies, such as those in the European Union, to increase military spending while also investing in the transition to a green economy, the report said. The economies of the 20 countries using the common euro currency are projected to grow to 1 percent in 2025 and 1.2 percent in 2026, in line with the O.E.C.D. forecast from March. China's economy is expected to see 4.7 percent growth this year, and 4.3 percent in 2026, down 0.1 percent from the organization's spring projection. Economists in the organization urged countries to reach agreements on trade and to increase investment to revive economic growth. 'Our key recommendation, to all governments, is to engage with each other to address issues in a global trading system cooperatively,' Mr. Cormann said.
Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
What Video Games Can Teach Us About Global Connectivity
Could a common gaming challenge lead to more web connectivity for all? California drivers are a different breed. Especially if they've ever lived in Los Angeles. Maneuvering through L.A.'s congested streets is not for the faint of heart. It requires eternal vigilance and a willingness to be aggressive. When that light switches to yellow, you don't slow down. You go, hopefully making it through before it flashes red. Yet even the most strident of California motorists knows that white-knuckling it through endless stop and go mayhem will only take you so far. You need a layup from technology if you want to combat bumper-to-bumper traffic and actually get to your destination on time. Personally, I like Maps for its simple interface. It's my go-to when nothing's on the line and I can take my sweet time to get to my destination. But when the chips are down, when I need to say, get from south O.C. to Century City for a 7 AM meeting, I bring in the big guns: Waze. The navigation app leverages machine learning and crowdsourced intelligence, specifically other drivers' GPS data, to plot the fastest route in real-time. When a hazard or accident forces cars to slow down, Waze takes note. It then reroutes you through side streets, back alleys, maybe even a mysterious cobblestone bridge through the Shire to reach your destination. Now, unless you're some directional wizard, you would've never dreamed of trying these detours on your own. That's the magic of dynamic routing, a boon that's gotten me out of more traffic pickles than I can count. But imagine if you had a different, yet related problem. Due to where you live, an underserved/emerging market, your WIFI is slow. We're talking interminably slow. Web pages take ages to load. Zoom calls keep dropping or freezing. All this endless lagging hurts your business. After all, time is money. What if you could use a similar solution to solve this second challenge: real-time rerouting. Only this time, instead of moving your car, you're moving data, millions of packets of it, through a clogged internet highway. This is what a company called ExitLag set out to do. How? By combining AI technology pioneered through … video gaming. 'Honestly, we didn't set out to solve the world's internet inequality problem,' said Lucas Stolze, ExitLag's CEO when I sat down with him. 'Our business model initially began with a simple yet urgent issue: gamers hate lag.' He's onto something. In fast-paced online games, milliseconds matter. A poor connection can cost you the winning shot in a multi-person sports match. These virtual nailbiter games mirror the competitive flavor of the physical variety. Often spread out across the world, players rely on split-second timing to make shots or passes. Even a minor latency spike can result in 'input delay,' meaning a command is executed too late, disrupting synchronization between devices, players, and ultimately, outcomes. 'We built a solution to address this common gaming challenge,' said Stolze. 'Our platform uses real-time traffic optimization and AI-powered predictive routing to secure the most optimal path through the web—just like Waze finds the quickest route through city traffic.' Core to ExitLag's model is one central difference: Rather than relying on default internet routing, which can be chaotic and outdated, ExitLag acts autonomously. Using intelligence at scale, AI charts its own connectivity course, capitalizing on a network of local servers and cloud integrations to move data based on dynamic conditions as they develop. 'Though we initially created this to help gamers, it now has much wider societal implications,' said Stolze. To grok the underlying technology, it's helpful to imagine the internet as a vast freeway system, not unlike the 405. At any given moment, billions of devices are trying to move data across it. This leads to bottlenecks, especially if and when network disruptions and server outages exacerbate flow. ExitLag employs AI to seek out the best route to counter such obstacles. If one path is blocked, AI doesn't have to idle like a Prius stuck in the carpool lane at 5 PM. It can resort to multipath routing, algorithms capable of transporting data to several routes at once. Whenever one path isn't viable, yet another might be, slashing lag time. Again, this is all automatic, the function of computers talking to each other with little to no direct human intervention. As discussed, a slow internet connection is frustrating for gamers. But connectivity stakes can be more drastic for underserved communities. They might even be life or death. Many suffer from unstable internet connections in developing countries like Vietnam or the Philippines, even in rural parts of America. The usual culprits behind connectivity hindrance tend to be outdated infrastructure and limited fiber cables. Knowing this, imagine you're the head of a Sub-Saharan Africa hospital. One day an 8-year-old girl is rushed to your operating room suffering from a ruptured appendix. Without immediate surgery she may go septic and die. Unfortunately, your facility lacks a specialist surgeon at this precise moment. In the past you've relied on remote surgery, connecting you to a world-class pediatric medical center in Philadelphia. In order to successfully accomplish robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery via high-precision instruments controlled over the internet you need an ultra-low-latency connection. This is because every micro-adjustment of a robotic arm must translate in real time. Without such consistent transmission, your young patient could very well die. Smart multipath routing systems can save the child by tapping into cloud networks from the likes of Amazon and pairing it with local infrastructure. It all comes together by building a kind of internet scaffolding to patch connectivity gaps. ExitLag isn't alone in using AI to mitigate connectivity challenges, especially in the remote medical care space. Proximie, a cloud-based software platform, also utilizes AI and video compression to enable real-time telepresence, even in limited bandwidth environments. Access to fast, lag-free connectivity is no longer some nicety. Increasingly, it's becoming a must-have in our complex society. Being locked out of the internet, even for nanoseconds at a time, can set back people and businesses. By applying machine learning to a real, daily frustration it's clear to see how AI can boost more than productivity. It can serve as a bridge, offering the underserved unprecedented web access, and in the process, enable greater equality. A true game changer, it speaks to technology's real promise: imagining a brighter future for everyone to move through.
