Spotify announced a round of price increases on Thursday, and said the changes will affect customers in the US, Latvia and Estonia. The music streaming giant is raising the monthly rates on its premium subscriptions, which take effect immediately for new subscribers but will be implemented for current customers in February. Spotify last bumped up pricing in the US in the summer of 2024.
The Premium Individual subscription is going from $12 to $13 per month, Premium Duo is increasing from $17 to $19, and a Premium Family plan is climbing from $20 to $22. If you already have a Spotify Premium subscription, you will receive an email from the company outlining the cost update to your bill.
Rumors of another US price hike began circulating in November 2025 after Spotify rolled out an increase for subscribers in Europe, Latin America and other international regions. The latest price update follows the company’s launch of music videos within the app for US listeners in December.
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Verizon’s network is experiencing technical issues that are impacting calls and wireless data. Verizon customers on X have reported seeing “SOS” rather than the traditional network bars on their smartphones, and even the network provider’s own status page struggled to load, likely due to the number of customers trying to access it.
Based on the experience of Verizon users on Engadget’s staff, the services that are impacted appear to be calls and wireless data. Text messages continue to be delivered normally, at least for some users. On DownDetector, reports of a Verizon outage started growing around 12PM ET and numbered in the hundreds of thousands at their peak.
DownDetector also shows spikes in outage reports on competing networks like AT&T and T-Mobile, but in terms of magnitude, they’re much smaller than the issue Verizon is facing. For example, Verizon peaked at 181,769 reports, while AT&T’s was just 1,769 reports. The difference between the two is great enough that those AT&T reports could be from people trying to contact Verizon customers and thinking that their personal network was the problem.
In a post on the cell provider’s news account on X, Verizon acknowledged the issues with its network. “We are aware of an issue impacting wireless voice and data services for some customers,” Verizon wrote. “Our engineers are engaged and are working to identify and solve the issue quickly. We understand how important reliable connectivity is and apologize for the inconvenience.”
Based on DownDetector’s map of outage reports, issues with Verizon’s network appear to be concentrated in major cities in the eastern United States. The majority of reports appear to be coming out of Boston, New York and Washington DC, though the map also shows growing hot spots in Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
At 2:14PM ET, Verizon shared on X that its engineering teams “remain fully deployed” to work on fixing the outage. The company didn’t share when the issue would resolved or how many of its customers are currently impacted. Reports on DownDetector have dropped since their peak at 12:43PM ET, but thousands of Verizon customers are still noticing issues with the service.
As of 3:09PM ET, Verizon has yet to share more information about the recovery of the company’s cell network. Some Verizon customers on X have noticed their cell service returning, but it’s not clear if this means the network’s technical issues have been fixed.
At 4:06PM ET, nearly two hours since the company’s last statement, at least one member of Engadget’s staff reports their service has been restored. The connectivity issues are still affecting Verizon customers, however. DownDetector received over 55,000 outage reports as recently as 3:47PM ET.
Verizon posted at 4:12PM ET that work continues on addressing the outage, but the issue hasn’t been completely fixed. According to the company, its team is “on the ground actively working to fix today’s service issue that is impacting some customers.”
As of 4:52PM ET, the Verizon’s network has been experiencing issues for around four hours, making today’s outage nearly as long as the last major outage the company had in 2024. Like that 2024 outage, Verizon has yet to share what exactly is causing the issues with its network. Without out an official update, it’s safe to assume the company is still working on a fix.
At 5:41PM ET, DownDetector latest tally still shows over 46,000 people reporting issues with Verizon’s network. Based on the platform’s map, the same cities are filing the bulk of the outage reports, though reporting appears more diffuse than before as news of the outage has spread across the country.
At 6:20PM ET, the situation was much the same. Tens of thousands of users (including Engadget editors) still don’t have proper service, and Verizon had not updated its customers since 4:12PM ET. There are intermittent reports of service coming back and then failing again but seemingly no true fix has been deployed.
At 10:20PM ET, Verizon has announced that the outage has been resolved and has encouraged subscribers still having issues to restart their devices to reconnect to the network. The company also said that it will provide account credits to affected customers.
Both T-Mobile and AT&T have confirmed that their own networks are unaffected by the issues facing their competitor. In a post on X, T-Mobile shared that its network is “operating normally and as expected.” Meanwhile, AT&T says that for any of its customers experiencing issues, “it’s not us…it’s the other guys.”
Update, January 14, 7:25PM ET: This article was published as a developing story and was updated multiple times over a period of around seven hours. These updates were additive, and noted with a timestamp within the article. As of writing, Verizon is still down for tens of thousands of users and the company’s support team has not issued an update on the stituation in over three hours. Happy Wednesday!
Update January 14, 10:39PM ET: This story has been updated to add Verizon’s latest update that the outage has been resolved.
When I talk to users looking to make this leap, the first thing I want to discuss is the desktop environment. After all, I’d rather not send Windows users to a distribution that uses GNOME, hyprland, i3, or any other DE that in no way resembles Windows.
Recently, I stumbled upon a distribution called VailuxOS that uses KDE Plasma to create a somewhat Windows-esque desktop that would make any user of a Microsoft OS feel right at home.
VailuxOS is based on Debian, so it starts out with a rock-solid base that brings stability Windows can only dream of. This open-source operating system is easy to install, offers the latest applications, has access to the APT repositories, does not collect any information, offers containerized apps (via Flatpak) for enhanced security, and doesn’t overwhelm new users with its Linux-ness.
After installation (which was absolutely painless), the first thing that struck me was that the developers created a KDE Plasma layout that resembles Windows 11, complete with the desktop menu near the center of the panel.
Upon clicking that menu, I saw that they’ve also kept the number of preinstalled apps to a minimum. That’s fine because all you have to do is open KDE Discover to install any apps you need. Even better, the developers have enabled Flatpak support by default in Discover. As well, they’ve included Snap, but did not enable it by default.
This desktop layout should look instantly familiar to Windows users.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
Windows users will also be happy to see the Computer icon on the desktop, which opens the file manager to their Home directory. Speaking of which, right-click a folder in your home directory, click Properties, go to the Share tab, and VailuxOS will walk you through setting up a shared folder for your network.
This little GUI makes setting up Samba much easier.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
One thing I really appreciate about this setup is that it gives you a GUI for setting your Samba password. Many other distributions neglect that step, leaving users to wonder why they can’t access their shares.
One minor setback
When I booted VailuxOS (after installation), I was automatically logged into my account. One of the first things I did was attempt to run an update, but it wouldn’t accept my password.
I attempted to change the password with the passwd command, but it still wouldn’t accept the password. I know I typed the password correctly, so I had to solve this little problem. It took me a minute, but I realized VailuxOS set the default keyboard to German, which means that although I assumed I was typing my password correctly, I was not.
The quick fix was to add the US English keyboard, and all was well.
Oops, wrong keyboard layout.
Jack Wallen/ZDNET
If you do install VailuxOS, check your default keyboard by right-clicking the four-loop icon in the system tray.
Performance
I did my usual performance test by installing Ollama and then downloading and using the llama3.2r LLM. This is only a 2GB model. The reason I opted for that model is qwen3-coder requires a minimum of 17.7GB of memory, and I only allotted 10GB for my virtual machine. Even so, llama3.2 is a solid local model.
I then hit Ollama with some typical queries and found that it responded at a reasonable rate. This certainly isn’t the fastest I’ve experienced, but it’s far from the slowest.
I then asked it to write a Python program that accepts user input and writes it to a file named input.txt. I was surprised to see that Ollama very quickly spit out the program.
Conclusion
The only issue I had with VailuxOS was the initial keyboard layout, and that could have been a mis-click by me during installation. Other than that, I found VailuxOS to be one of the better Windows-like Linux distributions I’ve tried so far.
If you’re looking to migrate from Windows and your target is Linux, I would highly recommend you give VailuxOS a try. Although it might not be my first recommendation (that title belongs to Zorin OS), it’s very solidly in my top five.
You know that annoying moment when you step outside on a sunny day, pull out your phone, and suddenly can’t see a single thing on the screen? You’re squinting, cranking the brightness slider all the way to the max, and watching your battery percentage nosedive in real-time. It’s a struggle we all deal with. Well, a team of researchers over in South Korea might have just fixed that for good, and they managed to do it without turning our sleek phones into bulky bricks.
A group from KAIST, led by Professor Seunghyup Yoo, just published some pretty massive findings in Nature Communications. Basically, they have figured out a way to make OLED screens—the kind found in most high-end phones and TVs these days—significantly brighter. And the best part? They didn’t have to sacrifice that ultra-thin, flat look that we all love.
Here is the thing about current OLEDs
They are actually kind of inefficient. We love them because the colors pop and the blacks are super deep, but there is a hidden flaw. Apparently, nearly 80% of the light these screens generate never actually makes it to your eyes. It gets trapped inside the display layers, bouncing around and eventually just turning into heat. That is why your phone gets hot when you are watching high-res videos, and it’s a huge waste of battery power.
Phone displayUnsplash
In the past, engineers tried to fix this by slapping tiny lenses on top of the pixels to help the light escape. Think of it like putting a magnifying glass over a lightbulb. It works, but it has issues. The lenses either made the screen too thick (nobody wants a bumpy TV) or they messed with the picture quality by blurring the pixels together.
The KAIST team took a completely different approach. Instead of treating the light source like some infinite, theoretical thing, they redesigned the screen structure based on the actual, finite size of real pixels. They created this new “near-planar” structure that acts like those old bulky lenses but stays incredibly thin. It effectively guides the light straight out toward you without letting it spread sideways and muddy up the picture.
For us regular users, this is huge
It means future phones could be twice as bright without using any extra battery power. Or, flip that around: you could keep the same brightness you have now but use way less energy, meaning your phone might actually last through a whole day of heavy use. Plus, since trapped light causes heat and heat kills electronics, these new screens should last longer before degrading or getting that dreaded “burn-in.”
Phone displayUnsplash
The researchers are also saying this tech isn’t just for today’s OLEDs. It could work with next-gen stuff like quantum dots too. It feels like we are finally moving past the era of choosing between a battery that lasts or a screen we can actually see.
Shazam has published its annual Fast Forward list, and an accompanying Apple Music playlist. The list takes a look ahead at some of the most exciting music artists who are being discovered through the song identification tool. 2026’s list features more than 60 music artists who are poised to have a breakthrough year.
Here is how Apple describes this year’s playlist:
Every day, Shazam gets millions of requests from users around the world who are curious about the artist behind a song. These requests come from all over-TikTok videos, car commercials, overhearing something in the wild-which makes it a powerful tool for predicting tomorrow’s heavy hitters. For 2026, we’ve assembled a playlist featuring over 60 artists-based on Shazam data and reviewed by our editors-that are poised to have a breakthrough year. From K-pop group CORTIS to Alabama country crooner Kashus Culpepper to Irish rock band Florence Road, it’s a remarkably diverse group of artists hailing from all corners of the globe. Have a listen and add the ones you love to your library before the world catches on.
Some well-known music artists, including Benson Boone, Ice Spice, and Ayra Starr, were featured in Shazam’s previous Fast Forward lists.
Apple acquired Shazam in 2018, and the tool is deeply integrated across its platforms.
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple’s Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
…
Apple’s iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth…
In a statement shared with CNBC today, Apple confirmed that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri that is slated to launch later this year.
“After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users,” the statement…
Apple today introduced a new Apple Creator Studio bundle that offers access to six creative apps, as well as exclusive AI features and content, as part of a single subscription. In the U.S., pricing is set at $12.99 per month or $129 per year.
Here are the six apps included with an Apple Creator Studio subscription:Final Cut Pro on the Mac and iPad
Logic Pro on the Mac and iPad
Pixelmator…
Apple today seeded the second beta of iOS 26.3, nearly a month after the first beta. So far, the update includes a couple of new features for iPhones.
iOS 15.3 through iOS 18.3 were all released in late January over the years, so it is thereby likely that iOS 26.3 will be released towards the end of this month as well. The update is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer.
Below,…
Elon Musk today expressed concern about Apple and Google partnering on a more personalized version of Siri powered by Google’s generative AI platform Gemini.
“This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that [they] also have Android and Chrome,” wrote Musk, in a post on X.
Musk serves as CEO of xAI, the company behind Gemini competitor Grok.
It is unlikely…
Apple and Google today announced that Google Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but a range of future Apple Intelligence features.
“Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google’s Gemini models and cloud technology,” the companies said, in a statement. “These…
iOS 26.3 will likely be released to the public later this month, but it appears that Apple is preparing to push out another software update in the interim.
Apple’s software engineers have started testing iOS 26.2.1, according to the MacRumors visitor logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. The update will likely be released at some point this week or next week.
On Sunday, Google removed some of its AI Overviews health summaries after a Guardian investigation found people were being put at risk by false and misleading information. The removals came after the newspaper found that Google’s generative AI feature delivered inaccurate health information at the top of search results, potentially leading seriously ill patients to mistakenly conclude they are in good health.
Google disabled specific queries, such as “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” after experts contacted by The Guardian flagged the results as dangerous. The report also highlighted a critical error regarding pancreatic cancer: The AI suggested patients avoid high-fat foods, a recommendation that contradicts standard medical guidance to maintain weight and could jeopardize patient health. Despite these findings, Google only deactivated the summaries for the liver test queries, leaving other potentially harmful answers accessible.
The investigation revealed that searching for liver test norms generated raw data tables (listing specific enzymes like ALT, AST, and alkaline phosphatase) that lacked essential context. The AI feature also failed to adjust these figures for patient demographics such as age, sex, and ethnicity. Experts warned that because the AI model’s definition of “normal” often differed from actual medical standards, patients with serious liver conditions might mistakenly believe they are healthy and skip necessary follow-up care.
Vanessa Hebditch, director of communications and policy at the British Liver Trust, told The Guardian that a liver function test is a collection of different blood tests and that understanding the results “is complex and involves a lot more than comparing a set of numbers.” She added that the AI Overviews fail to warn that someone can get normal results for these tests when they have serious liver disease and need further medical care. “This false reassurance could be very harmful,” she said.
Google declined to comment on the specific removals to The Guardian. A company spokesperson told The Verge that Google invests in the quality of AI Overviews, particularly for health topics, and that “the vast majority provide accurate information.” The spokesperson added that the company’s internal team of clinicians reviewed what was shared and “found that in many instances, the information was not inaccurate and was also supported by high-quality websites.”
A major new review by the Cochrane collaboration — an independent network of researchers — evaluated 73 randomized controlled trials involving about 5,000 people with depression and found that exercise matched the effectiveness of both pharmacological treatments and psychological therapies.
The biological mechanisms overlap considerably with antidepressants. “Exercise can help improve neurotransmitter function, like serotonin as well as dopamine and endorphins,” said Dr. Stephen Mateka, medical director of psychiatry at Inspira Health. Dr. Nicholas Fabiano of the University of Ottawa added that exercise triggers the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, which he calls “Miracle-Gro for the brain.”
Exercise has been adopted as a first-line treatment in depression guidelines globally, though Fabiano noted it remains underutilized. The meta-analysis found that combining aerobic exercise and resistance training appeared more effective than aerobic exercise alone, and that 13 to 36 workouts led to improvements in depressive symptoms. Light to moderate exercise proved as beneficial as vigorous workouts, at least initially.
A leaker has revealed more details about the Galaxy S26’s new 24MP shooting mode.
The mode will apparently avoid image quality issues seen in the Expert RAW app’s 24MP mode.
It’s believed 24MP shots will take roughly three seconds to process, but offer noticeably better image quality than 12MP snaps.
Twitter tipster Ice Universe posted more apparent information about this shooting mode, corroborating reports that it needs to be enabled in the Camera Assistant app first. Once you’ve turned on this feature, it’ll be available as an option in the Galaxy S26’s default camera app.
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The leaker claims that this 24MP shooting mode will differ from the Expert RAW app’s 24MP option in terms of execution. More specifically, the new 24MP mode might avoid current 24MP issues like over-sharpening and purple fringing when shooting backlit scenes or faces. Ice Universe explains that it’ll take roughly three seconds for the image to be processed, but claims that the final picture is “clearly better” than a conventional 12MP shot.
The leaker later added that this processing takes place in the background, but that there was no lag when hitting the shutter key. They also explained that the mode supports continuous shooting, so you can grab multiple 24MP shots in quick succession.
In any event, previous leaks suggest that this shooting mode will work in both Photo and Portrait modes. Ice also claims that this is a Galaxy S26-exclusive feature, so you might be out of luck if you’ve got an older Galaxy phone.
A 24MP shooting mode should offer a great compromise between conventional 12MP photos and 50MP full-resolution shots. More specifically, this mode should capture more details than a 12MP snap due to the increased resolution, but it should be faster and offer a smaller file size than a 50MP snap. We’re therefore happy Samsung is embracing this feature in the default camera app.
News of this apparent 24MP shooting mode also comes as rivals OPPO and realme embrace high-resolution photo capture by default. I recently used the realme GT8 Pro, and it’s capable of dynamically adjusting image capture resolution. For example, the device can shoot at 50MP or ~26MP in broad daylight, and then automatically switch to 12MP photo capture at night for brighter, cleaner images. So I hope Samsung offers a similarly dynamic image capture option down the line.
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Following an investigation by the Guardian that found Google AI Overviews offering misleading information in response to certain health-related queries, the company appears to have removed the AI Overviews for some of those queries.
For example, the Guardian initially reported that when users asked “what is the normal range for liver blood tests,” they would be presented with numbers that did not account for factors such as nationality, sex, ethnicity, or age, potentially leading them to think their results were healthy when they were not.
Now, the Guardian says AI Overviews have been removed from the results for “what is the normal range for liver blood tests” and “what is the normal range for liver function tests.” However, it found that variations on those queries, such as “lft reference range” or “lft test reference range,” could still lead to AI-generated summaries.
When I tried those queries this morning — several hours after the Guardian published its story — none of them resulted in seeing AI Overviews, though Google still gave me the option to ask the same query in AI Mode. In several cases, the top result was actually the Guardian article about the removal.
A Google spokesperson told the Guardian that the company does not “comment on individual removals within Search,” but that it works to “make broad improvements.” The spokesperson also said that an internal team of clinicians reviewed the queries highlighted by the Guardian and found “in many instances, the information was not inaccurate and was also supported by high quality websites.”
Vanessa Hebditch, the director of communications and policy at the British Liver Trust, told the Guardian that the removal is “excellent news,” but added, “Our bigger concern with all this is that it is nit-picking a single search result and Google can just shut off the AI Overviews for that but it’s not tackling the bigger issue of AI Overviews for health.”
TL;DR: Upgrade to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro for $9.97 and give your PC a faster, more secure, and more modern experience at the lowest price ever, ending soon (reg. $199).
Before you start shopping for a new computer, it’s worth trying the simplest fix first: upgrading your operating system. Windows 11 Pro brings modern performance, productivity tools, and security upgrades to existing PCs, and right now it’s available at its lowest price ever.
Give your dusty old PC a serious makeover with a Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license. It ushers in a whole new way to use your laptop. Enjoy a seamless interface and brand-new features to streamline your workflow, including a more powerful search experience, improved voice typing, snap layouts, and seamless redocking.
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If you’re paying a subscription for an AI model, you can cancel it with this upgrade. Windows 11 Pro puts Copilot right on your desktop, making it your personal AI-powered assistant.
Using your PC as your primary work computer? You’ll appreciate access to tools like Microsoft Teams, Azure HD, Windows Sandbox, and BitLocker device encryption. If you prefer to use your computer for gaming, you’ll love DirectX 12 Ultimate, which delivers incredible graphics that take your games to the next level.
No matter what you do on your computer, you can rest easy knowing Windows 11 Pro offers serious cybersecurity upgrades. You can secure your device with biometric logins, encrypted authentication, and enhanced antivirus protection.
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