TurboTax has been my go-to for self-filing taxes for years. It’s good enough for me—and literally millions of other users. TurboTax has quickly become a favorite among users for its easy-to-use self-filing services, along with easy access to assistance from tax professionals. TurboTax has free self-service for qualifying people, and TurboTax Live Assisted, where you file online with tax expert help if needed, and TurboTax Full Service, where a tax expert will do your taxes and review them with you before filing.

To help you figure out the often confusing process of filing taxes, I’ve written a guide on How to Pay Your Taxes Online, and The Best Tax Services. In both, I included TurboTax and similar services to help navigate between the options available for your specific tax needs. WIRED also has TurboTax coupons to save money while you begin the always-annoying task of filing your taxes this year. Canadian customers click here, these coupons are not for you.

Save 10% With TurboTax Service Codes and 2026 Early Filing Offers

Right now, you can get an extra 10% off Federal online tax filings with today’s TurboTax coupons. And best of all, these savings are in addition to the already-applied early-season discount: up to $40 off if you file by March 30.

You can use this TurboTax coupon for 10% off their most popular online tax products, like TurboTax Full Service. This price includes W-2 and 1040, with state returns for an additional fee. With ExpertFull Service, a tax professional will do your taxes for you, which costs a bit more than DIY-ing it, but can save you headaches and messes when it comes to what you owe. Things only get more expensive as tax season approaches, so file now to get the best price of the season.

If a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year, you’ll get even more in savings if you choose Expert Full Service. This service is now a simple flat fee of $150 for new customers, with Federal and State services included. Act soon, because those switching to TurboTax need to file by March 18 for this special discount.

If your taxes are a bit more straightforward, but you still have some questions, TurboTax Expert Assist (Live) offers the best of both worlds, where you file online yourself with tax expert help nearby if you end up needing it. With these TurboTax deals, you’ll get a 10% off TurboTax Live Assisted, with options starting at only $36 and (temporarily) capping out at $150 if you want to fully hand off your taxes. (Like the above service, this discount is for Federal tax products and filing early is the best way to ensure you’re getting the lowest price of the season).

*Price estimates are provided prior to a tax expert starting work on your taxes. Estimates are based on initial information you provide about your tax situation, including forms you upload to assist your expert in preparing your tax return and forms or schedules we think you’ll need to file based on what you tell us about your tax situation. Final price is determined at the time of print or electronic filing and may vary based on your actual tax situation, forms used to prepare your return, and forms or schedules included in your individual return. Prices are subject to change without notice and may impact your final price.

Give a 20% Off TurboTax Discount Code, Get up to $500

To save even more, get a TurboTax referral link, and when your friends use your link, they can get 20% off TurboTax federal products if they’re new customers of the service. As an added bonus, for each friend who files using your link, you’ll get a $25 gift card—you can earn up to a whopping $500 in gift cards (at this point, you’re basically getting another refund in gift cards). Here’s the nitty gritty: friends can receive 20% off the preparation and filing of federal tax return or business federal tax return through a TurboTax Online or TurboTax Live product, through October 31. You’ll get an email with the gift card or charitable donation within 45 days of your friend’s purchase. (Restrictions apply on TurboTax Free Edition, Intuit TurboTax Verified Pro, TurboTax State returns, TurboTax CD/Download products, and other add-on offerings.)

Save up to 20% on TurboTax Business Services

If you’re a small business owner, Expert Assist is probably the best service for you, with qualified tax experts at the ready to help you with any of those tricky filing questions. Right now, if you file your business tax returns with TurboTax, you’ll get 20% off one 2025 personal federal tax return. This type of service is best for those with S-corps and partnerships, and TurboTax will match you with a small business tax expert who knows your industry to maximize your deductions.

In addition to 20% off one personal tax filing offer for business customers, you can also get 10% off Business Expert Full Service and Expert Assist for small business owners. This discount applies to TurboTax federal products only (meaning no state products are included). These massive savings are in addition to early-season discounts.

New Customers Can File For Free in the App

If you’re unhappy with your old service, or just want to switch to TurboTax, you’ll be able to file your own taxes for free if you do it in the TurboTax app by February 28. If you have simple taxes, filing through your phone app is a great way to save big on usual filing fees. And best of all, this applies to Federal and State taxes, including all tax situations. You’ll just need to make sure you didn’t file with TurboTax last year, and this offer only applies to Do It Yourself, not TurboTax Experts, products. To save big and file for free as a new TurboTax customer, you’ll need to make sure you redeem this offer before midnight on February 28.

File for $0 With TurboTax Free Edition

As mentioned above, users can file for free with TurboTax free edition. Around 37% of taxpayers qualify. Simple Form 1040 returns only (no schedules except for Earned Income Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Student Loan Interest, and Schedule 1-A). While this may not be the blanket service for every type of tax filer, this works for those with simple finances, so do a little research and see if TurboTax free edition may be right for you to save big instead of spending big. TurboTax free edition includes $0 to file for Federal taxes and $0 for State taxes. This service is ideal for simple uploads, like W-2’s, where all you’ll need to do is import, upload, or snap a photo of your W–2 and TurboTax will autofill your info for you, saving you time and potential headaches.

There are other ways to save too, with TurboTax discount codes for military members. As a thank you, military members can file their own taxes and get both their federal and state taxes done for free returns only (no schedules, except for EITC, CTC, student loan interest, and Schedule 1-A).

Other Free TurboTax Tools for Tax Season

In addition to the differing plans for individuals’ needs, TurboTax also has other helpful resources for this tax season, including a Tax Refund Calculator, where you can estimate your 2026 return by answering questions about your life and income. Similarly, TurboTax also offers a Tax Bracket Calculator to help you estimate your 2025 taxable income. All you need to do is enter your tax year filing status and taxable income to calculate your estimated tax rate.

With TurboTax, you start for free and pay only when you file—plus you get 100% accurate calculations, guaranteed. That’s not all with the guarantees either. TurboTax ensures a “Maximum Refund Guarantee,” meaning if you get a larger refund or less taxes due from another tax preparation method, they’ll refund the applicable TurboTax federal and/or state purchase price paid. You can also get quick answers for any tax questions from AI-Powered Intuit Assist, and for the lazy filers among us (myself included), you can upload or snap a photo of your W-2 and the info will be autofilled for you.

Is There a Service Code for TurboTax?

TurboTax service codes are unique codes, usually issued by customer support for specific situations; these will require you to input the code into the “I have a service code” field before payment. These single-use codes are for any technical or billing issues you may have during the tax filing process.

Even if you don’t have a service code, don’t fret—there are still tons of ways to get TurboTax coupons, including a discount of 10% when you file before Tax Day (April 15). Plus, you can get 20% off TurboTax referral codes if you use a friend’s invite link, and if you send your link to a friend and they purchase an online TurboTax product, you’ll receive e-gift cards of up to $500 as a reward from TurboTax. Save on federal and business tax filings by following here for limited-time offers throughout the 2026 tax season.

American manufacturer of medical devices, UFP Technologies, has disclosed that a cybersecurity incident has compromised its IT systems and data.

UFP Technologies is a publicly traded medical engineering and manufacturing company that produces a broad range of devices and components used in surgery, wound care, implants, orthopedic applications, and healthcare wearables.

The company employs 4,300 people, has an annual revenue of $600 million, and a market cap of $1.86 billion, according to recent data.

In a filing submitted yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), UFP Technologies disclosed that it detected suspicious activity on its IT systems on February 14.

The firm immediately deployed isolation and remediation measures and engaged external cybersecurity advisors to help with the investigation.

Preliminary results of the investigation indicate that the threat has been removed, but the hacker was able to steal data from compromised systems.

“Through the Company’s efforts, the Company believes that the third party responsible for this cybersecurity incident has been removed from the Company’s IT systems, and the Company’s ability to access information impacted by this incident has been restored in all material respects,” reads the SEC filing.

“The incident appears to have impacted many but not all of the Company’s IT systems and affected functions such as billing and label making for customer deliveries. Certain Company or Company-related data appear to have been stolen or destroyed.”

The data destruction note suggests a ransomware or wiper attack, although the nature of the malware remains unclear.

BleepingComputer has contacted UFP Technologies to ask about the attack and whether it involved data encryption/ransom payment demands, but a comment wasn’t immediately available.

At the time of publishing, no ransomware group has publicly claimed the attack on UFP Technologies.

UFP Technologies mentioned that, at this time, it has not determined whether personal information has been exfiltrated. If confirmed at a later time, notifications will be sent to impacted individuals as required by law.

The company stated that, despite the cybersecurity incident, its primary IT systems remain operational. Based on current evidence and assessments, UFP Technologies states it is unlikely that the incident will have a material impact on its operations or financials.

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The daily New York Times Mini Crossword can be solved in a minute or so, while the newspaper’s iconic original crossword puzzle might take hours. Now, puzzlers who want an in-between diversion can try a new puzzle from the Times, introduced this week — the Midi Crossword puzzle. (And CNET readers can get daily answers for five Times puzzles — Wordle, Connections, Strands, Connections: Sports Edition and the Mini Crossword.)

New York Times Games subscribers can play the Midi in the New York Times Games app for iOS and Android devices, or on mobile or desktop web. It’s online-only, not in the print newspaper. 

“We’re really leaning into the digital-first nature of the puzzle,” NYT Games Puzzle Editor Ian Livengood said in a Times article about the new puzzle. “About once a week, the puzzle will have a visual effect — an extra flourish when you start or after you solve. This could be a cool animation or colorful shading.”

As the name “Midi” suggests, this is a mid-sized crossword puzzle. Where the Mini Crossword usually only has 5 Across and 5 Down clues, the Midi is usually a 9-by-9 puzzle, sometimes as long as 11-by-11.

“If you feel like the Mini is not enough but the Daily is too much, this will be the perfect puzzle for you,” Livengood said.

Each Midi Crossword has a theme that hints at the topics of the clues and answers. Unlike the other puzzles, Livengood says the Midi might occasionally have two-letter words and repeating answers.

I tried the Midi Crossword

I tried Wednesday’s Midi Crossword and solved it in just over 3 minutes. That’s much longer than I spend on the Mini Crossword, but much faster than the original New York Times crossword puzzle takes me. 

I thought most of the clues were pretty simple, and the few tricky ones filled themselves in once I moved from Across to Down.

If you’re a New York Times Games subscriber, this is a nice addition to your daily puzzle stable. It tests your mind a bit more than the Mini, but you can also solve it while watching TV or waiting for someone to text you back.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a fun one. I started mentally connecting the purple category answers right away. Movie-goers and TV watchers, this is a good puzzle for you. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Meet the new boss.

Green group hint: SNL star.

Blue group hint: WNBA player.

Purple group hint: They’re not real.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Coaching decisions.

Green group: Will Ferrell sports movies.

Blue group: Associated with Diana Taurasi.

Purple group: Fictional coaches.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is coaching decisions. The four answers are extend, fire, hire and promote.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is Will Ferrell sports movies. The four answers are Blades of Glory, Kicking & Screaming, Semi-Pro and Talladega Nights.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Diana Taurasi. The four answers are Connecticut, Phoenix, six golds and White Mamba.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is fictional coaches. The four answers are Bombay, Buttermaker, Dale and Lasso.

Way, way back in the days when men wore beards and wide-lapelled suits in exotic colors, only NASA had access to photovoltaics and ‘solar’ meant solar thermal. In those days of appropriate technology, it was thought that the ultimate in thermal mass was a phase-change material– a salt or wax that in melting and re-freezing could hold far more heat than plain rock or water, which were more often used. Well, now that it’s the 21st century, we’ve got something even better. As Ars Technica reports about a recent paper in Science Magazine, Molecular Solar Thermal (MOST) energy storage can blow that old stuff right out of the water.

Molecular energy storage? That’s where the sunburn comes in. A sunburn occurs because proteins in your skin are denatured– kinked, twisted, and knocked out of shape– by ultraviolet light. The researchers realized that those kinky proteins are pretty energetic: like a spring, they’re storing energy in their distorted structure. Even better, certain chemicals, like the pyrimidone in the study, don’t ‘relax’ the way a phase change material does. It’s not a matter of warming up and giving up the energy stored in the molecular structure when cooling down– the energy needs coaxed out, in this case by an acidic solution.

That poses problems for a closed-loop system, since you’d be continuously diluting the pyrimidone with heat-releasing acid and neutralizing base. On the other hand, 1.65 MJ/kg of energy storage is nothing to sneeze at, especially when you’re collecting it with nothing more technically advanced than a fluid running through clear tubing. Conveniently enough, researchers found a way to make this stuff liquid at room temperature.

Comparing the heat in this MOST storage material to electrical potential in a battery is a case of apples and oranges, but in terms of pure energy density the pyrimidone cooked up for the paper is in the same range as Li-Ion batteries. There is some self-discharge, in that the altered “dewar” state of the pyrimidone decays naturally, but with a half-life of upto 481 days, you could imagine storing up a tankful UV-altered pyrimidone all year round to provide your winter’s heat.

It’s not perfect. Right now you get about 20 “charge cycles” before the molecules break down, but then, if you’re using this for seasonal load-spreading, a two-decade service life is nothing to shake a stick at. It’s only collecting energy from the UV range of the spectrum, which is a tiny fraction of the energy from our sun. The quantum efficiency of the molecule is rather poor as well– it takes a lot of photons to get a dewar transition.

With solar photovaltaics being as cheap as they are, thermal builds are few and far between– even solar water heaters are powered by PV these days. Of course if you’re somewhere that doesn’t get much sun, you could always go for wind power instead.

Thanks to [zit] for the tip! If you’ve seen a bright idea in the wild, or have one yourself, our tips line is open rain or shine.

Salesforce pulled out all the stops to convince investors that the AI revolution won’t be its death when it announced fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

Salesforce reported a solid quarter of $10.7 billion in revenue, up 13% year-over-year. For the year, it reported $41.5 billion in revenue, up 10% over the previous year, with both results boosted by its $8 billion acquisition of data management company Informatica last May.

Net income landed at $7.46 billion, and the company offered strong guidance for the year ahead, projecting revenue of $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion — a 10% to 11% increase. It also said its “remaining performance obligation,” or RPO, is over $72 billion. That’s a figure that shows revenue under contact that has not yet been delivered or recognized as earned revenue.

The numbers, though, could only do so much. Software-as-a-service stocks, with Salesforce as their poster child, have been getting hammered lately. Investors fear the rise of AI agents will undermine these companies, making their per-employee-seat business models obsolete. The situation has been dubbed the “SaaSpocalypse.”

The concept hung so heavily in the air during the earnings call that CEO Marc Benioff mentioned the term at least six times.

“You’ve heard about the SaaSpocalypse? And it isn’t our first. We’ve had a few of them,” he said, later adding, “If there is a SaaSpocalypse, it may be eaten by the Sasquatch because there are a lot of companies using a lot of SaaS because it just got better with agents.”

In an attempt to convince the world of its continued health, Salesforce threw everything and the kitchen sink into this earnings report. The company increased its dividend by nearly 6% to $0.44 per share. It launched a new $50 billion share buyback program. That’s always a favorite with shareholders because it both creates a sturdy buyer of shares and reduces the number of shares in circulation (which can boost the stock price).

The company also revamped the earnings call itself. It was part podcast, part infomercial, and part normal Q&A with a few questions from Wall Street analysts.

Instead of running through the numbers, Benioff interviewed three Salesforce customers on camera to testify to their love of its new agentic options: the CEO of home appliance company SharkNinja; the CEO of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts; and, just to hammer the point, the CEO of SaaStr, the software industry conference and media company. We’ll truncate the interviews to the shortest summary: They all love Salesforce’s AI agent products.

Salesforce also introduced a new metric for its agentic products: agentic work units (“AWU”). The idea here is that rather than simply counting “tokens” — the standard unit of AI processing volume — AWU attempts to measure something more meaningful: whether an agent actually completed a task, like writing to a record, rather than just generating text. (Salesforce logged 19 trillion tokens last quarter, which sounds like a lot but really is not in the AI world.)

“You can ask it a question and it can write you a poem, but that’s not really all that valuable in the enterprise world,” Salesforce president and CMO Patrick Stokes said on the call. So AWU is intended to measure when the agent writes to a record or does some other verifiable task.

On top of that, Salesforce also presented its own architectural vision of the coming world of agents. It shows SaaS software like itself owning most of the tech stack, with the AI model makers on the bottom as unseen, interchangeable, and commoditized work engines.

This was a direct counter to one of the causes of a SaaSpocalypse sell-off earlier this month, after OpenAI released its enterprise agent, Frontier. OpenAI’s architectural vision shows OpenAI owning most of the stack, with systems-of-record SaaS providers (the databases and business-software platforms where companies store their core data) on the bottom as the unseen engines.

And if all that wasn’t enough to influence investors: Benioff was dressed in a black leather jacket, echoing the signature look of the CEO clearly crushing it in the AI world: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Tesla or Toyota
Answer: CAR

4A clue: What the “M” of BMX stands for
Answer: MOTO

5A clue: Leafy lunch
Answer: SALAD

6A clue: Weighing device
Answer: SCALE

7A clue: “To be,” in Latin
Answer: ESSE

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Pepsi and Coke
Answer: COLAS

2D clue: Dickens’s “___ of Two Cities”
Answer: ATALE

3D clue: Took to another floor, as the [circled letters]
Answer: RODE

4D clue: Apple computers
Answer: MACS

5D clue: Dir. from San Francisco to Santa Monica
Answer: SSE