Since MS Office is so ubiquitous throughout the business world, it’s almost impossible to get along without some version of it. The problem is that many of the versions can be quite pricey. Fortunately, you can now get an affordable package of the seven most iconic MS Office programs, while Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows is available for the low one-time purchase price of $34.97 through Feb. 2, 2025.

What’s included

MS Office 2019 offers a multitude of features for greater functionality. Users will have the ability to create, edit and organize spreadsheets, documents, presentations, databases, email and more. This bundle includes lifetime access to the 2019 versions of Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, and One Note.

Some of the newer additions to Office 2019 include new capabilities for analysis in Excel and new tools for presentations in PowerPoint, plus updated features for managing contacts and emails in Outlook. You also get free customer service.

As soon as you’ve completed your purchase, your license keys and download links will be emailed to you instantly. So you will be able to install the programs and begin using them immediately.

This is a one-time purchase that allows you to install the programs on one Windows computer to use at home, work or on the road. That means you must be sure to save the license key because you will have to uninstall it before you can install it on a different computer.

Get Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2019 for Windows for the low one-time purchase price of $34.97 (reg. $229) during this limited time price drop.

Prices and availability are subject to change.

• Apple Intelligence has been opt in since it debuted in Oct. 2024, but the next iOS will automatically turn it on.
• The change is set to rollout with iOS 18.3, iPadOS 18.3, and macOS Sequoia 15.3
• Anyone can still turn it off in Settings, if you like.

Whether you’ve been waiting for Genmoji, Image Playground, or Notification Summaries – and the ability to turn these on or off on a per-app basis – the next version of iOS and macOS for your Apple Intelligence capable iPhone or Mac will toss you right into the deep end.

As spotted by 9to5Mac in the latest developers’ betas of iOS 18.3 and macOS Sequoia 15.3, the latest version of the operating system will automatically enable Apple Intelligence.

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, who ran the dark web marketplace Silk Road under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Ulbricht has been serving a life sentence without parole since 2015, when he was convicted of multiple charges, including the distribution of narcotics.

The Silk Road marketplace, which was only accessible through the Tor network, became one of the most prevalent early commercial uses of Bitcoin. Buyers and sellers traded in illicit drugs, forged passports, and more.

In the intervening years, Ulbricht became a cause celebrè for a certain segment of the right-wing, particularly in the crypto crowd that embraced Trump last year. To his supporters, Ulbricht’s life sentence is unusually punitive. Similar offenses have garnered much more lenient sentences — for instance, Blake Benthall, who operated Silk Road 2.0, was sentenced to time served and three years of probation. Ulbricht’s lieutenant, Thomas Clark, also known as “Variety Jones,” was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year.

Although the criminal offenses were nonviolent in nature, the judge who sentenced Ulbricht took into account multiple deaths attributable to drugs bought through the Silk Road.

Throughout his trial, Ulbricht denied that he had committed the crimes at issue. Because law enforcement had arrested him with his laptop open, they had access to all his files, which included the code of the website, private messages between him and employees of the Silk Road, and a diary whose entries corresponded to OKCupid messages tied to Ross Ulbricht’s real identity.

OpenAI says that it will team up with Japanese conglomerate SoftBank and with Oracle, along with others, to build multiple data centers for AI in the U.S.

The joint venture, called The Stargate Project, will begin with a large data center project in Texas and eventually expand to other states. The companies expect to commit $100 billion to Stargate initially and pour up to $500 billion into the venture over the next four years.

They promise it will create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs and “secure American leadership in AI.”

“The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to [build] new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States,” OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank said in a joint statement. “This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.”

The companies made the announcement during a press conference at the White House on Tuesday, where President Donald Trump spoke about plans for investment in U.S. infrastructure. SoftBank chief Masayoshi Son, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison were in attendance.

Microsoft is also involved in Stargate as a tech partner. So are Arm and Nvidia. Middle East AI fund MGX will join SoftBank in its investment; MGX’s first public deal was an investment in OpenAI.

SoftBank, OpenAI, and Oracle are also listed as “initial equity investors” in Stargate.

“SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility,” the statement continued. “Masayoshi Son will be the chairman [of Stargate] […] As part of Stargate, Oracle, Nvidia, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system.”

The data centers could house chips designed by OpenAI someday. The company is said to be aggressively building out a team of chip designers and engineers, and working with semiconductor firms Broadcom and TSMC to create an AI chip for running models that could arrive as soon as 2026.

SoftBank is already an investor in OpenAI, having reportedly committed $500 million toward the AI startup’s last funding round and an additional $1.5 billion to allow OpenAI staff to sell shares in a tender offer. Oracle, meanwhile, has an ongoing deal with OpenAI to supply AI computing resources.

Softbank also earlier pledged to invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. Son and Trump have had a close working relationship since 2016, during Trump’s first term, when Son announced that SoftBank would invest $50 billion in U.S. startups and create 50,000 jobs.

The Information previously reported that OpenAI was negotiating with Oracle to lease an entire data center in Abilene, Texas — a data center that could could reach nearly a gigawatt of electricity by mid-2026. (A gigawatt is enough to power roughly 750,000 small homes.) Data center startup Crusoe Energy was said to be involved in the project, which was estimated to cost around $3.4 billion.

That Abilene site will be Stargate’s first site, and OpenAI says that Stargate is “evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as [it finalizes] definitive agreements.”

It’s unclear what connection, if any, Stargate has to a rumored partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI to spin up a $100 billion supercomputer. TechCrunch has reached out to OpenAI for additional information.

Last year, The Information reported that Microsoft and OpenAI would build a series of data centers for AI beginning in five stages over the next several years, culminating in Stargate: a 5-gigawatt facility spanning several hundred acres of land. Stargate was expected to take between five and six years to complete, according to The Information. In the lead-up to its completion, Microsoft had reportedly planned to launch a smaller-scope data center for OpenAI around 2026.

A number of tech leaders have called for the U.S. to up its investment in data centers, particularly as the AI industry continues to grow at an explosive pace. AI systems require enormous server banks to develop and run at scale.

Goldman Sachs estimates that AI will represent about 19% of data center power demand by 2028. 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.

Microsoft, which recently announced it is on track to spend $80 billion on AI data centers, said in a recent blog post that the company’s success depends on “new partnerships founded on large-scale infrastructure investments.” In an interview with Bloomberg, Altman said that he believes it is urgent that what he perceives as barriers to building additional data center infrastructure in the U.S. be cleared.

“The thing I really deeply agree with [President Trump] on is, it is wild how difficult it has become to build things in the United States,” Altman said in that interview. “Power plants, data centers, any of that kind of stuff. I understand how bureaucratic cruft builds up, but it’s not helpful to the country in general.”

Massive data center projects have vocal critics who say that data centers often create fewer jobs than promised and tend to have severe environmental impacts. Data centers are typically water hungry, placing a strain on regions with insufficient water resources, and their high power requirements have forced some utilities to lean heavily on fossil fuels.

Those concerns don’t appear to be slowing investments any. Per a McKinsey report, capital spending on procurement and installation of mechanical and electrical systems for data centers could eclipse $250 billion in the next five years.

In January, Trump announced that Hussain Sajwani, an Emirati billionaire businessman who founded the property development giant DAMAC Properties, will invest $20 billion in new data centers across the U.S. Industry insiders have expressed skepticism of the deal’s concreteness, however.

TL;DR: Microsoft Visio Professional 2021 for Windows is a professional diagramming tool that helps you visualize data and structures, and it’s now $19.97 (reg. $250) through Feb. 2, 2025.

As your business grows, so does the complexity of your processes and structures. Sometimes, the best way to figure out a particular task, issue or concept is by building a diagram. And that is exactly what Microsoft Visio Professional 2021 was made for.

This powerful software helps you visualize data and workflows faster, with user-friendly controls and a vast library of templates. Through November 21, you can get a lifetime license on Windows for only $19.97 (reg. $250).

Research tells us that the human brain can process images in just 13 milliseconds. That’s way faster than you could ever explain the same information in text. Considering the time you could save communicating with diagrams, you might see the potential to increase efficiency in your business.

The only tricky part is compiling the visual content in the first place. If you’re not a designer, it can feel like a painstaking process.

Rated 4.9/5 stars by verified purchasers, Visio Professional 2021 is the ultimate shortcut. This diagramming tool makes it super easy to show rather than tell. You don’t even need design chops to use it efficiently.

Features

The software offers a content library containing over 250,000 premade shapes, stencils, and templates, helping you build a wide variety of diagrams. Visio Pro supports flowcharts, mind maps, org charts, reporting structures, floor plans, fishbone diagrams, SWOT analysis, network diagrams, and more. Its dynamic design makes it applicable to a wide range of businesses and industries.

You can also upload Excel data sets to automatically generate org charts and use your finger or a pen to arrange diagrams on touchscreen devices.

With this deal, you get access to a digital download complete with a lifetime license on one device.

Order Microsoft Visio Professional 2021 for Windows today for $19.97, which is 92% off the full price — only until Feb. 2, 2025.

Prices and availability are subject to change.

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games, and Marc’s Wordle today page for the original viral word game.

From the campaign trail, President Donald Trump was consistent: He would “end the electric vehicle mandate.” So it’s no surprise the phrase popped up in an executive order he signed on Monday, just hours after being sworn into office.

Here’s the catch: The US has never had an EV mandate, or any sort of law or regulation requiring American buyers to go electric. Instead, the previous administration tried to create a series of carrots and sticks designed to make electric vehicles more appealing to both the manufacturers who make them and the people who buy them. An executive order issued yesterday attempts to undo all that.

But it’s complicated. Experts say the effects of the order aren’t clear and will likely take a while to iron out. The electric vehicle parts of the order seem more about messaging than immediate practical effects. “A lot of it is signaling the administration’s intent,” says Timothy Johnson, a professor of energy and environment at the Duke Nicholas School of the Environment. “It’s unclear what the administration will be able to do immediately.”

In the meantime, automakers will continue to make and sell electric vehicles, and consumers will continue to be able to buy them. Some stricter emissions standards kick in in late 2026, and it usually takes manufacturers some five years to plan and build a car, which means autos following those forthcoming emissions regulations should be built and sold.

US and global automakers have already backed off some of their more ambitious EV-related promises, but electrics are still coming. The long-term future of the US auto industry is far from clear. Other governments are still pursuing EV-friendly policies, and critics warn they’ll look increasingly toward China’s auto industry to get them through the transition.

One thing that is clear for the future of EVs in the United States: There will be lawsuits.

Reports Incoming

Monday’s executive order demands US agencies take a look at their rules related to EVs and determine whether they’re “unduly burdensome” and interfere with consumer choice. Those agencies are supposed to write up those findings into reports, which are due in 30 days.

From there, the bureaucracy starts grinding, says Kathy Harris, who directs the clean vehicles program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “If an agency wants to repeal a regulation, they need to go through the public process,” she says. That means publishing new proposed rules, taking public comments, going back and forth with the industry, and then publishing those comments. Lots of paperwork sits between the Trump administration and the final nixing of any EV-related programs.

The clearest way for the White House to loosen rules requiring automakers to make more EVs will be to target vehicle fuel efficiency and tailpipe standards. These require manufacturers to reach certain levels of gas efficiency across all the cars they make in the coming years and to cap the pollutants released. One of the easier ways automakers can hit those goals is to sell more electric vehicles, which don’t use gas or emit tailpipe pollutants at all. Last time Trump was in office, it took more than three years for his administration to replace Obama-era fuel efficiency standards. This time around, agencies might be more efficient and succeed in changing the rules more quickly, says Harris. Still, the process could take months and months.

A Delaware judge has sanctioned Sheryl Sandberg, Meta’s former COO and board member, for allegedly deleting emails related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.

The decision arises from a case Meta shareholders brought against Sandberg and another former Meta board member, Jeff Zients, late last year. The plaintiffs alleged that Sandberg and Zients used personal email accounts to communicate about issues relating to a 2018 shareholder lawsuit that accused Facebook leaders of violating the law — and their fiduciary duties — in failing to protect users’ privacy.

Plaintiffs also alleged that Sandberg and Zients deleted emails from their personal inboxes despite being instructed not to do so by a court. In a decision Tuesday, the Delaware judge overseeing the case found the accusations to be convincing.

“The defendants disclosed Sandberg’s personal Gmail account, maintained under a pseudonym, that she used to ‘communicate about matters potentially relevant to the claims and defenses in this action,’” the judge’s decision reads. “Counsel’s failure to give a straight answer in Sandberg’s interrogatory responses or when answering plaintiffs’ questions supports an inference that Sandberg was not using an auto-delete function but rather picking and choosing which emails to delete.”

In sanctioning Sandberg, the judge raised the legal standard for Sandberg’s affirmative defense, the defense based on facts other than those in support of the plaintiff’s claim. Now, Sandberg must prove her defense by “clear and convincing” evidence — not merely a “preponderance” of evidence, a burden that’s easier to clear.

The judge has also awarded plaintiffs certain expenses.

At the root of the courtroom battle are allegations that Meta officials violated a 2012 FTC order under which the company agreed to stop collecting and sharing Facebook users’ personal data without their consent. Facebook allegedly later sold the data to commercial partners, including political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, and allegedly removed disclosures from privacy settings that were required under the FTC’s order.

In 2019, Meta agreed to pay the FTC $5 billion to settle charges that the company violated the 2012 order. The company has also paid penalties from regulators in Europe.

As cybercrime has grown over the past few years, the demand for ethical hackers has reached a new height. These security specialists are paid to break into corporate networks and systems to expose vulnerabilities, thereby finding what needs to be patched up and protected. It’s a lucrative career, and whether you’re looking for ways to protect your business or add another revenue stream, learning ethical hacking could be a smart move.

Another smart move would be to get started with The All-in-One Super-Sized Ethical Hacking Bundle. This 18-course bundle gives you a beginner-to-intermediate education in ethical hacking and it’s on sale now for just $34.97 through December 8.

What’s included

This massive bundle includes courses from some of the web’s top instructors, including Gabriel Avramescu (4.4/5-star instructor rating), Atul Tiwari (4.2/5-star rating) and Amit Huddar. Through these courses, you’ll get a beginner-friendly education to ethical hacking, learning some of today’s most important tools and technologies that help ethical hackers do their jobs.

When you’re starting out, you’ll cover the basics of ethical hacking, learning how to hack websites and systems before delving into more complicated projects. Through the hands-on courses, you’ll get real-world experience of how to fend off and protect against real cyberattacks, giving you the confidence to do it in a corporate environment, too. From Burp Suite and BitNinja to Kali Linux, Metasploit and more, you’ll discover the necessary tools to succeed as an ethical hacker.

Protect your business from an onslaught of cybercrime and potential losses. Right now, you can get The All-in-One Super-Sized Ethical Hacking Bundle for just $34.97 for a limited time.

Prices and availability are subject to change.