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      Taxes and fees not included: T-Mobile’s latest price lock is nearly meaningless

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 19:00

    T-Mobile is making another long-term price guarantee, but wireless users will rightfully be skeptical since T-Mobile refused to honor a previously offered lifetime price lock and continues to fight a lawsuit filed by customers who were harmed by that broken promise. Moreover, the new plans that come with a price guarantee will have extra fees that can be raised at any time.

    T-Mobile today announced new plans with more hotspot data and a five-year price guarantee, saying that "T-Mobile and Metro customers can rest assured that the price of their talk, text and data stays the same for five whole years, from the time they sign up." The promise applies to the T-Mobile "Experience More" and "Experience Beyond" plans that will be offered starting tomorrow. The plans cost $85 or $100 for a single line after the autopay discount, which requires a debit card or bank account.

    The price-lock promise also applies to four new Metro by T-Mobile plans that launch on Thursday. T-Mobile's announcement came three weeks after Verizon announced a three-year price lock.

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      Harvard sues to block government funding cuts

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 18:28

    On Monday, Harvard University filed a lawsuit that it hopes will end the federal government's hold on over $2 billion of research funds destined for the university's faculty. The suit claims that the government's demands for input on Harvard's hiring and admissions violate the university's First Amendment rights, and that the funding freeze hasn't followed the procedures laid out in federal law.

    Earlier in April, the government sent a letter to Harvard demanding various changes, from altering university governance to enforcing a completely undefined "viewpoint diversity" on hiring and admissions. Failing to agree, the government suggested, would place the financial relationship between the government and Harvard at risk. Harvard responded with a strongly worded refusal and, by the end of the day, saw the government put over $2 billion in research funding on hold. Harvard was not told how long the hold would last or what exactly was needed to lift it.

    The lawsuit seeks to reverse the hold. Harvard argues that there are two reasons the court should restore the flow of research money.

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      Man buys racetrack, ends up launching the Netflix of grassroots motorsports

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 18:14

    In 2019, Garrett Mitchell was already an Internet success. His YouTube channel, Cleetus McFarland , had over a million followers . If you perused the channel at that time, you would’ve found a range of grassroots motorsports videos with the type of vehicular shenanigans that earn truckloads of views. Some of those older videos include " BLEW BY A COP AT 120+mph! OOPS! ," " THERE'S A T-REX ON THE TRACK! ," and " Manual Transmission With Paddle Shifters!?! ."

    Those videos made Mitchell, aka Cleetus McFarland, a known personality among automotive enthusiasts. But the YouTuber wanted more financial independence beyond the Google platform and firms willing to sponsor his channel.

    “… after my YouTube was growing and some of my antics [were] getting videos de-monetized, I realized I needed a playground,” Mitchell told Ars Technica in an email.

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      12-year-old Doom 2 challenge map finally beaten after six-hour, 23K-demon grind

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 16:31

    Over 12 years ago, a reclusive DoomWorld forum member going by the handle Okuplok released what he called "a slaughter map" for Doom 2 . Packed to the gills with 23,211 enemies (often in extremely claustrophobic corridors), the level quickly gained a reputation in the classic Doom player community as being one of the hardest ever constructed .

    That reputation didn't stop classic FPS streamer Coincident , who has been grinding away at the "Okuplok slaughter map" in some form or another for years. And over the weekend, Coincident became the first player to defeat every enemy and complete the map in a single segment during a livestreamed marathon run that clocked in at just over six hours.

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      You can play the Unreal-powered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion remaster today

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 16:17

    The worst-kept secret in the gaming industry in 2025 is no longer a secret: Bethesda Game Studios' 2006 RPG The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been remastered, and that remaster has already been released on all supported platforms today.

    A livestream featuring developer sound bites and gameplay footage ran on Twitch and YouTube today, making it all official after years of leaks.

    Oblivion was the immediate precursor to The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim , which became one of the most popular games of all time—but Oblivion was pretty popular in its time, too, and it was the first game in the franchise that would end up feeling at all modern by today's standards. (I personally will always love The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind , though.)

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      Google Messages can now blur unwanted nudes, remind people not to send them

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 15:51 • 1 minute

    Google announced last year that it would deploy safety tools in Google Messages to help users avoid unwanted nudes by automatically blurring the content. Now, that feature is finally beginning to roll out. Spicy image-blurring may be enabled by default on some devices, but others will need to turn it on manually. If you don't see the option yet, don't fret. Sensitive Content Warnings will arrive on most of the world's Android phones soon enough.

    If you're an adult using an unrestricted phone, Sensitive Content Warnings will be disabled by default. For teenagers using unsupervised phones, the feature is enabled but can be disabled in the Messages settings. On supervised kids' phones, the feature is enabled and cannot be disabled on-device. Only the Family Link administrator can do that. For everyone else, the settings are available in the Messages app settings under Protection and Safety.

    To make the feature sufficiently private, all the detection happens on the device. As a result, there was some consternation among Android users when the necessary components began rolling out over the last few months. For people who carefully control the software installed on their mobile devices, the sudden appearance of a package called SafetyCore was an affront to the sanctity of their phones. While you can remove the app (it's listed under "Android System SafetyCore"), it doesn't take up much space and won't be active unless you enable Sensitive Content Warnings.

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      FTC sues Uber over difficulty of canceling subscriptions, “false” claims

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 13:23

    The US Federal Trade Commission has sued ride-hailing app Uber, saying it made “false or misleading” claims about its subscription service, in the latest sign that Donald Trump’s administration is embracing an aggressive stance against Big Tech groups.

    The regulator alleged the company’s Uber One service failed to deliver promised savings and proved difficult to “cancel anytime” as promised, according to a complaint filed in a California court on Monday.

    “Americans are tired of getting signed up for unwanted subscriptions that seem impossible to cancel,” said FTC chair Andrew Ferguson. “Uber not only deceived consumers about their subscriptions, but also made it unreasonably difficult for customers to cancel.”

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      2025 Chevrolet Blazer EV SS first drive: A big ride and handling upgrade

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 13:00 • 1 minute

    Chevrolet provided flights from Washington to Charlotte and accommodation so Ars could drive the Blazer EV SS. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

    CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Before letting us loose on the freshly laid tarmac of Ten Tenths Motor Club, Chevrolet was at pains to tell us that the new Blazer SS "is not a track car." Sure, there's a "competitive mode" to the suite of electronic settings and the fastest 0–60 mph time of any SS-badged Chevy to date. The upgrades have been focused on making the Blazer EV "stop, go, and turn" better, and you don't need to be driving hard to appreciate the benefits.

    The Blazer EV had a rocky start. When we first drove it at the end of 2023, it felt a little unfinished , and a few days later unreliable software stranded another journalist and led to a nationwide stop-sale on the then-new EV. By last March, the software was fixed and the Blazer EV was back on sale , now cheaper than before.

    Watts new?

    While other Blazer EVs are available with front- or rear-wheel powertrains or with a smaller battery pack, the SS only comes with all-wheel drive and the larger 102 kWh battery pack. Nominal power output is 515 hp (384 kW) and 450 lb-ft (610 Nm), which jumps to 615 hp (458 kW) and 650 lb-ft (880 Nm) if you engage the "Wide Open Watts" mode.

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      Tuesday Telescope: A rare glimpse of one of the smallest known moons

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 4 days ago - 12:00

    I'll bet you don't spend a ton of time thinking about Deimos, the smaller of the two Martian moons, which is named after the Ancient Greek god that personified dread.

    And who could blame you? Of the two Martian moons, Phobos gets more attention, including as a possible waystation for human missions to Mars. Phobos is larger than Deimos, with a radius of 11 km, and closer to the Martian surface, a little more than 9,000 km away.

    By contrast, Deimos is tiny, with a radius of 6 km, and quite a bit further out, more than 23,000 km from the surface. It is so small that, on the surface of Mars, Deimos would only appear about as bright in the night sky as Venus does from Earth.

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