“President Trump is trying to downsize the WHO, and the question is whether other high-income nations like those in Europe, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere, pick up some of the slack,” says Vermund. “Will the Gates Foundation, which has been a very generous donor, pick up some? It’s conceivable that others will tide things over until we have a new administration that might be more friendly to the WHO, but I’m dubious that they can pick up the entire chunk of the WHO budget which is paid for by the US.”

And it isn’t just money that the US provides to the WHO, but staff and expertise too. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has seconded a number of staff to the WHO, and I would predict that the Trump administration, with a new CDC director, will call those folks home,” says Vermund. “That would create quite a gap, because WHO funds do not pay for those individuals. So I think you’d have an almost immediate reduction of workforce and removal of critical professionals within the WHO organization.”

According to Gostin, a lot of the money the US provides to the WHO is core mandatory funding, which all members are required to give, but some funds are particularly earmarked for causes in which the US has a vested interest, such as polio eradication, HIV/AIDS, and the process of identifying and controlling disease outbreaks before they spread and reach American shores. Without US funding, Gostin says that these programs wouldn’t completely disappear, but they would be significantly weakened.

“Polio could come surging back,” says Gostin. “Remember we had polio in the wastewater in New York just a couple of years ago, and our kids are not being immunized. And we’ve had other real health scares in the United States, not just Covid-19, which killed more than a million people. We’ve had Zika, and the next health emergency might be just a mutation or two away. Maybe it’s already here in the form of avian influenza, and we’re going to need WHO to help us with that.”

Both Gostin and Vermund fear that withdrawing from the WHO will place the US at the back of the line when it comes to receiving critical information such as pathogen samples and genomic sequencing data, which pharmaceutical companies require to generate effective vaccines. Gostin cites how the US relies on WHO data every year to effectively update the seasonal influenza vaccine, while Vermund explains that financially speaking, it is far more efficient for the US to fund the WHO to help “snuff out” diseases at their source, rather than trying to tackle them when they arrive in the country.

“We spent over $2 billion preparing for Ebola to hit US shores in 2014 and 2015, and since we only had five or six cases, that was very cost-ineffective,” says Vermund. “So that’s a typical example of how when the US goes it alone, it will be very inefficient compared with contributing to a multinational response to control a disease in the country of origin.”

President Donald Trump says he’d be open to his buddies Elon Musk or Larry Ellison buying TikTok.

“Larry, let’s negotiate in front of the media,” Trump said at a press conference with the Oracle co-founder, SoftBank CEO Masa Son, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce a $500 billion artificial intelligence infrastructure investment. “What I’m thinking about saying to somebody is, buy it, and give half to the United States of America. Half, and we’ll give you the permit. And they’ll have a great partner, the United States.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me, Mr. President,” Ellison said.

TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance still has other offers on the table, including from billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty and now, apparently, from YouTube creator MrBeast — whose investor group is receiving legal counsel from a team that includes the brother of Trump’s attorney general pick.

As he was leaving the briefing, a reporter asked Trump if he has TikTok on his phone. “No, but I think I might put it there,” Trump responded. “I think I’ll get it right now.”

Microsoft was once the exclusive provider of data center infrastructure for OpenAI to train and run its AI models. No longer.

Coinciding with the announcement of Stargate, OpenAI’s massive new AI infrastructure deal with SoftBank, Oracle, and others, Microsoft says it has signed a new agreement with OpenAI that gives it “right of first refusal” on new OpenAI cloud computing capacity. That means that, going forward, Microsoft gets first choice over whether to host OpenAI’s AI workloads in the cloud — but if Microsoft can’t meet its needs, OpenAI can go to a rival cloud provider.

“OpenAI recently made a new, large Azure commitment that will continue to support all OpenAI products as well as training,” Microsoft said in a blog post. “To further support OpenAI, Microsoft has approved OpenAI’s ability to build additional capacity, primarily for research and training of models.”

OpenAI has blamed a lack of available compute for delaying its products, and compute capacity has reportedly become a source of tension between the AI company and Microsoft, its close collaborator and major investor. In June, Microsoft, under shareholder pressure, permitted OpenAI to ink a deal with Oracle for additional capacity.

In the blost post, Microsoft reiterated that “key elements” of its longstanding partnership with OpenAI remain in place through 2030, including its access to OpenAI’s IP, revenue sharing arrangements, and exclusivity on OpenAI’s APIs.

That assumes, of course, that OpenAI doesn’t achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI) under the two companies’ agreed-upon definition before then. When OpenAI develops AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits, Microsoft will lose access to the company’s technology, according to a reported agreement between the firms.

OpenAI is said to be considering nullifying the agreement in a possible bid to secure more Microsoft funding.

“The OpenAI API is exclusive to Azure, runs on Azure and is also available through the Azure OpenAI Service,” the blog post reads. “This agreement means customers benefit from having access to leading models on Microsoft platforms and direct from OpenAI.”

We’ve reached out to OpenAI and Microsoft for more information and will update this post if we hear back.

TL;DR: H&R Block Tax Software Deluxe + State 2024 for Windows/Mac helps you file your taxes and maximize deductions, and it’s just $39.99 on PC/Mac.

There’s plenty to be excited about when building a business. Filing your taxes is more of a chore. If you want to make the process less stressful and max out your deductions, H&R Block Deluxe can help.

This powerful tax software lets you file both federal and state taxes online with ease. It also comes with free audit support and a massive library of 13,000 tax articles. Through February 11, you can get it for just $39.99 over at TechRepublic Academy.

April might feel a long way off, but April 15 will come around sooner than you think. That’s the last day to file your taxes unless you fancy a big bill. According to the IRS, the process requires 13 hours of work in total — the best part of two whole working days.

H&R Block Deluxe allows you to spend your time on something more productive. Available on PC and Mac, the software shows you how to claim 350 credits and deductions through step-by-step tutorials. That means fewer hours spent reading PDF documents written in legalese.

You also have that huge library of articles for reference, along with FAQs and tips from expert accountants. If you need to pause while preparing your filings, you can easily save your work and start where you left off. Once you have run the numbers, H&R Block Deluxe gives you five federal e-files and unlimited federal prep.

Previously used TurboTax? No problem. You can import all your data to H&R Block Deluxe with a couple of clicks.

It’s easy to see how the software has earned glowing reviews. Earning 5 out of 5 stars on BestBuy and 4.5 on Amazon’s Choice, it shows it’s one of the best tax filing software on the market right now.

Order today to get this H&R Block Tax Software Deluxe + State 2024 for Windows/Mac for just $39.99, saving $20 on the regular price.

Prices and availability are subject to change.

The Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is already shaping up to be a beast of a GPU, given the specs unveiled at CES 2025, but if a new report is correct, it could have been even more of a monster.

A well-regarded rumor miller, HXL, shared a post on the Chinese hardware forum ChipHell that claims to show the PCB for an early prototype RTX 5090, along with some rather eye-watering specs well beyond those for the production model RTX 5090 due out next week.

It was an opportunity too good for Meta to ignore: On January 19, TikTok, one of its biggest social media rivals, was set to go dark across the United States when a new national security law went into effect. In the days and weeks before the ban, as millions of Americans were scrambling to find a suitable alternative to TikTok, Meta found ways to promote Instagram and Facebook as the answer. The tech giant made a flurry of design tweaks, rolled out new features, and ran advertisements that all positioned its platforms—and especially its video product, Reels—as direct competitors to TikTok.

Instagram has scaled back its in-app shopping initiatives in recent years, but on Friday, Meta showed off a new feature that appears to be directly ripped from TikTok Shop, TikTok’s widely successful ecommerce platform. In a promotional video, two shopping creators working for Meta explained how influencers can now “more prominently display” products they are marketing in Reels. Instead of putting an Amazon or Walmart link in the comments, they can add a banner directing viewers to click on the item at the bottom of their videos—just like how it works on TikTok Shop.

Some of Meta’s other efforts were just as pointed. Right before TikTok stopped working for roughly 14 hours on Saturday, some people reported that among the last things they saw on the platform were sponsored posts for Instagram. “Unsurprisingly, as TikTok goes down tonight, Meta is flooding my FYP with ads for Instagram,” one person said in a Bluesky post, referring to TikTok’s AI-powered For You Page feed. “In my last hour of TikTok I saw ads for instagram,” another person said on Threads.

TikTok’s Ad Library, a transparency tool that allows anyone to search what paid campaigns are running on the platform, shows that Meta ran dozens of sponsored videos about Instagram and Reels in January that were collectively viewed by millions of users. But the tool includes data from only a select number of countries—mostly in Europe—and doesn’t cover what ads TikTok users may have seen in the United States. Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

On Facebook, a number of people reported seeing a different promotion appear on their news feeds last week, encouraging them to link their TikTok accounts to their Facebook pages. “Build your social presence across apps by showing your TikTok profile link and follower count on your Facebook Page,” one version of the message read.

Given the timing, “this feels a bit passive aggressive,” one user wrote on X along with a screenshot of the banner. “Facebook is trolling users by suggesting we add our TikTok accounts to our Facebook pages,” joked another person.

The prompt appears to be connected to a feature Meta launched last month that allows users to display their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram handles and follower counts on Facebook. However, the banner that people reported seeing in recent days mentioned only TikTok by name. The feature makes it easier for creators’ followers on other platforms to find and follow them on Facebook.

A plan to build a system of data centers for artificial intelligence has been revealed in a White House press conference, with Masayoshi Son, Sam Altman, and Larry Ellison joining Donald Trump to announce The Stargate Project. Their companies, Softbank, OpenAI, and Oracle (respectively), along with MGX are listed as “initial equity funders” for $500 billion in investments over the next four years, “building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States.”

According to a statement from OpenAI, “Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI” are the initial tech partners, with a buildout “currently underway” starting in Texas as other sites across the country are evaluated. It also says that “Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system.”

Separately, Microsoft announced an update to its partnership with OpenAI, saying that the key elements of their deal remain in place through 2030, covering “our access to OpenAI’s IP, our revenue sharing arrangements and our exclusivity on OpenAI’s APIs all continuing forward.”

In a press conference announcing the project, which has been rumored since early last year, Son and Altman spoke directly to Trump, insisting that the project only happened because of his election victory.

With data centers expected to consume as much as 12% of electricity in the U.S. by 2028, it’s no surprise that tech companies are looking for power no matter the source, whether it be nuclear, renewables, or something else entirely. But solar produces a very different type of electric current from a nuclear plant, and integrating various power sources can be challenging.

“We’ve got about 90 gigawatts [of data centers] globally in 2023, and that’s going to increase to over 185 gigawatts by 2028, so it’s only just around the corner,” Gary Lawrence, CEO of Amperesand, told TechCrunch.

Today’s equipment, the transformers that convert power from one format to another, are up to the task, but Amperesand is betting that its technology can do it better and more efficiently.

At its core, Amperesand’s technology replaces the iron cores that define old transformers with silicon carbide. Existing transformers follow the same basic design that has worked well for over a century, but they have their shortcomings. For one, they aren’t good at regulating surges and dips in voltage or frequency. Plus, they have to be tailored to the specific format of electricity they’re looking to transform.

Solid-state transformers made with silicon carbide promise to change that. “The solid-state transformer platform is multi-port by design, it’s modular,” said Brian Dow, Amperesand’s new chief product officer. 

“We can make different AC phases, AC to AC, AC to DC. You can natively integrate DC sources like photovoltaic [solar] and batteries. You can integrate with turbines, small modular reactors. And you can basically seamlessly transition between them, so if the grid has an issue, you can back up but also you can come back online.” 

Amperesand is in the process of raising a Series A round after it landed a $12.5 million seed round last year, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. “We’ve just kicked off a Series A, and it’s moving really quickly,” said Phil Inagaki, managing partner at Temasek’s Xora Innovations. The company is targeting EV charging and grid applications in addition to data centers, and the solid-state nature of the technology makes it easier to control with software. It demonstrated a 6 megawatt transformer last year.

Xora incubated Amperesand, and Inagaki led the company through its initial formation. Recently, with some funding and a firm strategy in place, he handed the reins to a new leadership team, including Lawrence, Dow, and Tommy Joyner, the company’s new chief technology officer. 

The Singapore-based startup is also in the process of opening an office here in the U.S. to be closer to the massive market and to tap local talent. Dow and Joyner, for example, both did stints at Tesla and Generac.

“The U.S. is still where there’s amazing talent that we can capture,” Inagaki said. “We have some in Singapore, but we won’t be able to scale that quickly. So definitely, that talent angle was a big factor.”

We all know that Microsoft makes some of the best digital tools for business. But signing up for multiple subscriptions is not super appealing when you’re trying to stick to a strict budget.

The solution? Grab the All-in-One Microsoft Office Pro 2021 and Windows 11 Pro Bundle. This deal includes lifetime licenses for both products, and you can get it today for only $54.97 via TechRepublic Academy.

A few years ago, Microsoft tried to get everyone to sign up for Office 365. This cloud-based service is only available as a subscription. This is great for reducing startup costs, but it can be expensive in the long run.

In contrast, Microsoft Office Pro 2021 for Windows is available on a lifetime license with a one-time purchase. That means lifetime access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Teams, Publisher and Access — including future updates. That means you can craft documents, analyze data, create amazing presentations and much more.

With this bundle, you also get Windows 11 Pro. This version of the desktop OS comes with a raft of useful business features, particularly regarding security and device management. These include BitLocker device encryption, better remote desktop options and group policy settings.

Put together, Microsoft Office Pro 2021 and Windows 11 Pro make quite an upgrade for any professional workflow. The former received a review score of 4.5 out of 5 stars from PCMag, and the latter has 4.4 stars on Amazon.

Get The All-in-One Microsoft Office Pro 2021 for Windows: Lifetime License + Windows 11 Pro bundle for just $54.97 (reg. $418) through Feb. 2, 2025.

Prices and availability are subject to change.

• Microsoft is testing AI-powered search for Windows 11 on Copilot+ PCs.
• The new feature lets users find local files using casual language.
• Microsoft is also testing AI-powered ‘Click to Do’ rewriting tools.

Microsoft is testing an AI-powered search feature for Windows 11 that promises to end the days of organizing and naming your files well to find them later. Currently only available to testers with Copilot+ PCs, this new search tool uses semantic indexing to locate files with a conversational twist.

So, instead of wracking your brain for precise filenames, you can now type casual queries like, “Where’s that presentation I made last week?” With any luck, the AI will find it.