Apple made a huge announcements today by revealing that some Mac Mini computers will roll off the line in Houston, Texas, marking the first time this compact desktop gets built on American soil. This move is a significant extension of an existing site in Houston where they have been building high-end AI servers since 2025.

A brand new plant dedicated to producing Mac Minis will effectively double the size of the campus there. Along with it, a separate 20,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing Center will open later in 2026. The idea is that everyone, not just Apple employees, but students, workers from suppliers, and so on, will receive hands-on training in the latest and greatest production methods, thanks to a special curriculum developed by Apple in collaboration with some experts from Michigan State University.

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This latest development fits into Apple’s overall ambition to invest $600 billion in the US economy, which they announced last year. We’ve already seen some success on this front; for example, last year Apple sourced over 20 billion chips manufactured right here in the good old United States of America from 24 separate facilities spread over 12 states. In 2026, they will rely even more on TSMC’s expanding factory in Arizona for their high-end chips. And it’s not just the chips; GlobalWafers is building a $4 billion plant in Sherman, Texas to make silicon wafers, Amkor is opening a $7 billion facility in Peoria, Arizona to pack chips, and Corning has fully committed their Kentucky operation to producing cover glass for Apple.

Assuming all proceeds as planned, this should result in thousands of good employment in Houston, both from plant expansion and from the training facility. The Mac Mini is already the most cheap desktop available, priced at $599. The Mac Mini accounts for less than 5% of total Mac sales, according to some estimates, thus this is a small but significant step toward producing more Apple goods in the United States.

It appears that all of Apple’s partners are on board, including Foxconn, which has worked with Apple on products dating back to the early iMac days and is running the North Houston site. So production isn’t halting in Asia; this is more of an addition to their product range than a complete move. All of this comes at a particularly fascinating time for discussions about supply chains, tariffs, and so on. Apple claims that the practical benefits of all of this are obvious: people are learning new skills, local economies are benefiting, and the company is able to continue producing even better goods by manufacturing close to home.

Tim Cook described the expansion clearly. “Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we’re proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with the production of Mac mini starting later this year,” he said. “We began shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we’re excited to accelerate that work even further.”

Word guessing games like Wordle have exploded in popularity recently, simply because they are fun and improve your vocabulary. While these games cater to a wide audience, it’s safe to assume they’re too easy for vocabulary nerds. And if you’ve often found yourself solving Wordle in a couple of guesses, then Contexto could be for you. It’s a word-guessing game where you have unlimited tries to guess a word. Each word you guess gets a ranking from an AI, which helps you understand how close your word was to the real deal. The closer you get, the lower the ranking of the word will be. It’s a game that puts your expertise in contextual awareness and pattern recognition to the test. The game can get pretty difficult, and if you’re stuck, we’ve got your back. This guide will help you with hints and the answer for today’s Contexto puzzle.

Contexto Hints For February 25

If you’d like to figure out today’s Contexto word on your own and need a little nudge in the right direction, here are some hints. Just note that each consecutive hint will make it easier to guess the word.

Contexto Answer For February 25

In case you couldn’t guess the word from the hints we gave, the answer is HONEYDEW.

If you love games like Contexto, check out our hints and answers for today’s Octordle puzzle.

How To Play Contexto?

As mentioned, Contexto is a word-guessing game in which an AI checks how close you are to the actual word. You start by entering any word as your first guess. The game then ranks your word based on how close it is in meaning to the hidden answer. The closer your word is semantically, the lower the ranking number. These rankings are also represented by colors. Green means your word is really close and in the correct context. Orange means the context is close but not specific enough in relation to today’s word. Lastly, red means your answer is nowhere close.

Your goal is to reach Rank #1, which is the correct word. For example, if today’s answer is related to fruit, guessing something like “melon” or “sweet” may rank much higher than something unrelated like “car” or “building.” The key strategy is to think in themes and categories rather than spelling similarities. Since guessing a word out of nowhere can be difficult, there’s a series of words you can start your Contexto hunt with. These will help you understand the context of today’s word:

• Person
• Place
• Thing
• Object
• Food
• Cool
• Snow
• Ice
• Round
• Home

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

The former head of Trenchant, a specialized U.S. defense contractor unit, was sentenced Tuesday to more than seven years in federal prison for stealing and selling zero-day exploits to a Russian exploit broker whose clients include the Russian government.

39-year-old Australian national Peter Williams served as the general manager of Trenchant, a cybersecurity unit of defense contractor L3Harris that develops surveillance tools and zero-day exploits for the U.S. government and its Five Eyes intelligence partners.

Between 2022 and 2025, Williams stole at least eight protected exploit components intended for the exclusive use of the U.S. government and its allies and sold them to the Matrix Russian exploit broker (doing business as Operation Zero), which advertises itself as a reseller of hacking tools to non-NATO buyers.

Williams used a portable external hard drive to transfer the exploits out of secure networks at Trenchant’s offices in Sydney and Washington, D.C., before sending the stolen tools to the broker via encrypted channels.

Prosecutors said that the theft caused $35 million in losses to L3Harris and that the stolen tools could have enabled access to millions of devices worldwide.

Williams pleaded guilty in October to selling eight stolen zero-day exploits to the Russian cyber-tools broker for $1,300,000 in cryptocurrency.

U.S. District Court Judge Loren AliKhan sentenced Williams to 87 months in prison on Tuesday and ordered him to forfeit $1.3 million, cryptocurrency, a house, and various other luxury goods.

“Williams took trade secrets comprised of national security software and sold them for up to $4 million in crypto currency. These incredibly powerful tools would have allowed Russia to access millions of digital devices,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro for the District of Columbia.

“By betraying a position of trust and selling sensitive American technology, Williams’ crime is not only one of theft, it is a crime of national security. Our nation’s defense capabilities are not commodities to be auctioned off.”

The U.S. Treasury Department has also confirmed on Tuesday that the Russian broker was Operation Zero and announced sanctions against the company and its owner.

BleepingComputer reached out to Operation Zero for comment, but we are still waiting for their response.

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A new report indicates that Meta is poised to introduce a new smartwatch later this year, though it is already apparent that this device will not be positioned as a direct competitor to the Apple Watch.

Rather, the wearable is expected to function primarily as an accessory within Meta’s broader ecosystem, complementing its upcoming smart glasses and thereby expanding the company’s wearable offerings without directly challenging Apple’s dominance in the established mainstream smartwatch sector.

Rumours surrounding Meta’s smartwatch aspirations first surfaced in 2021 following a leaked image within the Ray-Ban Stories application.

While the project was subsequently reported to be on hold, speculation regarding its revival has persisted. Now, information from The Information suggests Meta is targeting a 2026 release date, which, to be honest, feels like quite a wait!

The Steam Deck is getting seriously tough to snag right now, with availability basically falling off a cliff in many regions. 

What started as just a few hiccups in the US and parts of Asia has totally snowballed into a major, worldwide shortage, hitting Canada, Europe, and Japan hard.

Valve has actually confirmed the culprit: a crunch on memory and storage components. This supply squeeze is a direct fallout from the exploding demand for AI data centres, a huge, ongoing trend.

A quick look at Valve’s official store confirms it: the handheld console is totally out of stock in Germany, Austria, Poland, France, and a bunch of other EU nations, plus Canada and Japan.

Interestingly, as of this moment, you can still find stock in places like Australia, the U.K., Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan.

• The Shark EveryMess 3-in-1 can vacuum wet and dry spills, and act like a spot cleaner
• It’s impressively compact and comes with a range of attachments
• Available to buy now for $149.99 / £199

Shark has expanded its spot cleaner lineup with a multitalented new machine. The Shark EveryMess can vacuum liquid and solid messes, or work as a spot cleaner on upholstery. I saw one in action at Shark’s HQ, where it sucked up a Coke spill from a cream carpet with not so much as a trace of sticky soda left behind.

This 3-in-1 combination is pretty unusual — in this corner of the market, you typically get wet-and-dry vacuums or spot cleaners, but it’s rare for an appliance to do both. It’s available to buy now from $149.99 in the US, and £199.99 in the UK (scroll down to check out the best prices at a range of retailers).

What’s more, it’s impressively compact. The US and UK versions have slightly different proportions, but either would fit into an average-sized kitchen/utility room cupboard. (The US version is 10.5 x 16.5 x 13.5in / 26.7 x 41.9 x 34.3cm L x W x H. The UK version is 22.7 x 36.9 x 36.4cm / 8.9 x 14.5 x 14.3in.)

There are multiple compatible attachments for tackling different kinds of messes: an extending Crevice tool for tight corners, a wider Squeegee tool for covering larger spaces, and a dedicated Stain Eliminator attachment for tough, set-in stains.