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Tech

Cloudflare’s new Dynamic Workers ditch containers to run AI agent code 100x faster

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Web infrastructure giant Cloudflare is seeking to transform the way enterprises deploy AI agents with the open beta release of Dynamic Workers, a new lightweight, isolate-based sandboxing system that it says starts in milliseconds, uses only a few megabytes of memory, and can run on the same machine — even the same thread — as the request that created it.

Compared with traditional Linux containers, the company says Dynamic Workers is roughly 100x faster to start and between 10x and 100x more memory efficient.

Cloudflare has spent months pushing what it calls “Code Mode,” the idea that large language models often perform better when they are given an API and asked to write code against it, rather than being forced into one tool call after another.

The company says converting an MCP server into a TypeScript API can cut token usage by 81%, and it is now positioning Dynamic Workers as the secure execution layer that makes that approach practical at scale.

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For enterprise technical decision makers, that is the bigger story. Cloudflare is trying to turn sandboxing itself into a strategic layer in the AI stack. If agents increasingly generate small pieces of code on the fly to retrieve data, transform files, call services or automate workflows, then the economics and safety of the runtime matter almost as much as the capabilities of the model. Cloudflare’s pitch is that containers and microVMs remain useful, but they are too heavy for a future where millions of users may each have one or more agents writing and executing code constantly.

The history of modern isolated runtime environments

To understand why Cloudflare is doing this, it helps to look at the longer arc of secure code execution. Modern sandboxing has evolved through three main models, each trying to build a better digital box: smaller, faster and more specialized than the one before it.

The first model is the isolate. Google introduced the v8::Isolate API in 2011 so the V8 JavaScript engine could run many separate execution contexts efficiently inside the same process. In effect, a single running program could spin up many small, tightly separated compartments, each with its own code and variables.

In 2017, Cloudflare adapted that browser-born idea for the cloud with Workers, betting that the traditional cloud stack was too slow for instant, globally distributed web tasks. The result was a runtime that could start code in milliseconds and pack many environments onto a single machine. The trade-off is that isolates are not full computers. They are strongest with JavaScript, TypeScript and WebAssembly, and less natural for workloads that expect a traditional machine environment.

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The second model is the container. Containers had been technically possible for years through Linux kernel features, but the company Docker turned them into the default software packaging model when it popularized them in 2013.

Containers solved a huge portability problem by letting developers package code, libraries and settings into a predictable unit that could run consistently across systems. That made them foundational to modern cloud infrastructure. But they are relatively heavy for the sort of short-lived tasks Cloudflare is talking about here. The company says containers generally take hundreds of milliseconds to boot and hundreds of megabytes of memory to run, which becomes costly and slow when an AI-generated task only needs to execute for a moment.

The third model is the microVM. Popularized by AWS Firecracker in 2018, microVMs were designed to offer stronger machine-like isolation than containers without the full bulk of a traditional virtual machine. They are attractive for running untrusted code, which is why they have started to show up in newer AI-agent systems such as Docker Sandboxes. But they still sit between the other two models: stronger isolation and more flexibility than an isolate, but slower and heavier as well.

That is the backdrop for Cloudflare’s pitch. The company is not claiming containers disappear, or that microVMs stop mattering. It is claiming that for a growing class of web-scale, short-lived AI-agent workloads, the default box has been too heavy, and the isolate may now be the better fit.

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Cloudflare’s case against the container bottleneck

Cloudflare’s argument is blunt: for “consumer-scale” agents, containers are too slow and too expensive. In the company’s framing, a container is fine when a workload persists, but it is a bad fit when an agent needs to run one small computation, return a result and disappear. Developers either keep containers warm, which costs money, or tolerate cold-start delay, which hurts responsiveness. They may also be tempted to reuse a live sandbox across multiple tasks, which weakens isolation.

Dynamic Worker Loader is Cloudflare’s answer. The API allows one Worker to instantiate another Worker at runtime with code provided on the fly, usually by a language model. Because these dynamic Workers are built on isolates, Cloudflare says they can be created on demand, run one snippet of code, and then be thrown away immediately afterward. In many cases, they run on the same machine and even the same thread as the Worker that created them, which removes the need to hunt for a warm sandbox somewhere else on the network.

The company is also pushing hard on scale. It says many container-based sandbox providers limit concurrent sandboxes or the rate at which they can be created, while Dynamic Workers inherit the same platform characteristics that already let Workers scale to millions of requests per second. In Cloudflare’s telling, that makes it possible to imagine a world where every user-facing AI request gets its own fresh, isolated execution environment without collapsing under startup overhead.

Security remains the hardest part

Cloudflare does not pretend this is easy to secure. In fact, the company explicitly says hardening an isolate-based sandbox is trickier than relying on hardware virtual machines, and notes that security bugs in V8 are more common than those in typical hypervisors. That is an important admission, because the entire thesis depends on convincing developers that an ultra-fast software sandbox can also be safe enough for AI-generated code.

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Cloudflare’s response is that it has nearly a decade of experience doing exactly that. The company points to automatic rollout of V8 security patches within hours, a custom second-layer sandbox, dynamic cordoning of tenants based on risk, extensions to the V8 sandbox using hardware features like MPK, and research into defenses against Spectre-style side-channel attacks. It also says it scans code for malicious patterns and can block or further sandbox suspicious workloads automatically. Dynamic Workers inherit that broader Workers security model.

That matters because without the security story, the speed story sounds risky. With it, Cloudflare is effectively arguing that it has already spent years making isolate-based multi-tenancy safe enough for the public web, and can now reuse that work for the age of AI agents.

Code Mode: from tool orchestration to generated logic

The release makes the most sense in the context of Cloudflare’s larger Code Mode strategy. The idea is simple: instead of giving an agent a long list of tools and asking it to call them one by one, give it a programming surface and let it write a short TypeScript function that performs the logic itself. That means the model can chain calls together, filter data, manipulate files and return only the final result, rather than filling the context window with every intermediate step. Cloudflare says that cuts both latency and token usage, and improves outcomes especially when the tool surface is large.

The company points to its own Cloudflare MCP server as proof of concept. Rather than exposing the full Cloudflare API as hundreds of individual tools, it says the server exposes the entire API through two tools — search and execute — in under 1,000 tokens because the model writes code against a typed API instead of navigating a long tool catalog.

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That is a meaningful architectural shift. It moves the center of gravity from tool orchestration toward code execution. And it makes the execution layer itself far more important.

Why Cloudflare thinks TypeScript beats HTTP for agents

One of the more interesting parts of the launch is that Cloudflare is also arguing for a different interface layer. MCP, the company says, defines schemas for flat tool calls but not for programming APIs. OpenAPI can describe REST APIs, but it is verbose both in schema and in usage. TypeScript, by contrast, is concise, widely represented in model training data, and can communicate an API’s shape in far fewer tokens.

Cloudflare says the Workers runtime can automatically establish a Cap’n Web RPC bridge between the sandbox and the harness code, so a dynamic Worker can call those typed interfaces across the security boundary as if it were using a local library. That lets developers expose only the exact capabilities they want an agent to have, without forcing the model to reason through a sprawling HTTP interface.

The company is not banning HTTP. In fact, it says Dynamic Workers fully support HTTP APIs. But it clearly sees TypeScript RPC as the cleaner long-term interface for machine-generated code, both because it is cheaper in tokens and because it gives developers a narrower, more intentional security surface.

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Credential injection and tighter control over outbound access

One of the more practical enterprise features in the release is globalOutbound, which lets developers intercept every outbound HTTP request from a Dynamic Worker. They can inspect it, rewrite it, inject credentials, respond to it directly, or block it entirely. That makes it possible to let an agent reach outside services while never exposing raw secrets to the generated code itself.

Cloudflare positions that as a safer way to connect agents to third-party services requiring authentication. Instead of trusting the model not to mishandle credentials, the developer can add them on the way out and keep them outside the agent’s visible environment. In enterprise settings, that kind of blast-radius control may matter as much as the performance gains.

More than a runtime: the helper libraries matter too

Another reason the announcement lands as more than a low-level runtime primitive is that Cloudflare is shipping a toolkit around it. The @cloudflare/codemode package is designed to simplify running model-generated code against AI tools using Dynamic Workers. At its core is DynamicWorkerExecutor(), which sets up a purpose-built sandbox with code normalization and direct control over outbound fetch behavior. The package also includes utility functions to wrap an MCP server into a single code() tool or generate MCP tooling from an OpenAPI spec.

The @cloudflare/worker-bundler package handles the fact that Dynamic Workers expect pre-bundled modules. It can resolve npm dependencies, bundle them with esbuild, and return the module map the Worker Loader expects. The @cloudflare/shell package adds a virtual filesystem backed by a durable Workspace using SQLite and R2, with higher-level operations like read, write, search, replace, diff and JSON update, plus transactional batch writes.

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Taken together, those packages make the launch feel much more complete. Cloudflare is not just exposing a fast sandbox API. It is building the surrounding path from model-generated logic to packaged execution to persistent file manipulation.

Isolates versus microVMs: two different homes for agents

Cloudflare’s launch also highlights a growing split in the AI-agent market. One side emphasizes fast, disposable, web-scale execution. The other emphasizes deeper, more persistent environments with stronger machine-like boundaries.

Docker Sandboxes is a useful contrast. Rather than using standard containers alone, it uses lightweight microVMs to give each agent its own private Docker daemon, allowing the agent to install packages, run commands and modify files without directly exposing the host system. That is a better fit for persistent, local or developer-style environments. Cloudflare is optimizing for something different: short-lived, high-volume execution on the global web.

So the trade-off is not simply security versus speed. It is depth versus velocity. MicroVMs offer a sturdier private fortress and broader flexibility. Isolates offer startup speed, density and lower cost at internet scale. That distinction may become one of the main dividing lines in agent infrastructure over the next year.

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Community reaction: hype, rivalry and the JavaScript catch

The release also drew immediate attention from developers on X, with reactions that captured both excitement and skepticism.

Brandon Strittmatter, a Cloudflare product lead and founder of Outerbase, called the move “classic Cloudflare,” praising the company for “changing the current paradigm on containers/sandboxes by reinventing them to be lightweight, less expensive, and ridiculously fast.”

Zephyr Cloud CEO Zack Chapple called the release “worth shouting from the mountain tops.”

But the strongest caveat surfaced quickly too: this system works best when the agent writes JavaScript. Cloudflare says Workers can technically run Python and WebAssembly, but that for small, on-demand snippets, “JavaScript will load and run much faster.”

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That prompted criticism from YouTuber and ThursdAI podcast host Alex Volkov, who wrote that he “got excited… until I got here,” reacting to the language constraint.

Cloudflare’s defense is pragmatic and a little provocative. Humans have language loyalties, the company argues, but agents do not. In Cloudflare’s words, “AI will write any language you want it to,” and JavaScript is simply well suited to sandboxed execution on the web. That may be true in the narrow sense the company intends, but it also means the platform is most naturally aligned with teams already comfortable in the JavaScript and TypeScript ecosystem.

The announcement also triggered immediate competitive positioning. Nathan Flurry of Rivet used the moment to contrast his Secure Exec product as an open-source alternative that supports a broader range of platforms including Vercel, Railway and Kubernetes rather than being tied closely to Cloudflare’s own stack.

That reaction is worth noting because it shows how quickly the sandboxing market around agents is already splitting between vertically integrated platforms and more portable approaches.

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Early use cases: AI apps, automations and generated platforms

Cloudflare is pitching Dynamic Workers for much more than quick code snippets. The company highlights Code Mode, AI-generated applications, fast development previews, custom automations and user platforms where customers upload or generate code that must run in a secure sandbox.

One example it spotlights is Zite, which Cloudflare says is building an app platform where users interact through chat while the model writes TypeScript behind the scenes to build CRUD apps, connect to services like Stripe, Airtable and Google Calendar, and run backend logic. Cloudflare quotes Zite CTO and co-founder Antony Toron saying Dynamic Workers “hit the mark” on speed, isolation and security, and that the company now handles “millions of execution requests daily” using the system.

Even allowing for vendor framing, that example gets at the company’s ambition. Cloudflare is not just trying to make agents a bit more efficient. It is trying to make AI-generated execution environments cheap and fast enough to sit underneath full products.

Pricing and availability

Dynamic Worker Loader is now in open beta and available to all users on the Workers Paid plan. Cloudflare says dynamically loaded Workers are priced at $0.002 per unique Worker loaded per day, in addition to standard CPU and invocation charges, though that per-Worker fee is waived during the beta period. For one-off code generation use cases, the company says that cost is typically negligible compared with the inference cost of generating the code itself.

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That pricing model reinforces the larger thesis behind the product: that execution should become a small, routine part of the agent loop rather than a costly special case.

The bigger picture

Cloudflare’s launch lands at a moment when AI infrastructure is becoming more opinionated. Some vendors are leaning toward long-lived agent environments, persistent memory and machine-like execution. Cloudflare is taking the opposite angle. For many workloads, it argues, the right agent runtime is not a persistent container or a tiny VM, but a fast, disposable isolate that appears instantly, executes one generated program, and vanishes.

That does not mean containers or microVMs go away. It means the market is starting to split by workload. Some enterprises will want deeper, more persistent environments. Others — especially those building high-volume, web-facing AI systems — may want an execution layer that is as ephemeral as the requests it serves.

Cloudflare is betting that this second category gets very large, very quickly. And if that happens, Dynamic Workers may prove to be more than just another Workers feature. They may be Cloudflare’s attempt to define what the default execution layer for internet-scale AI agents looks like.

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Classic Outlook’s Quick Steps trip over Microsoft bug

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Personal Tech

Client’s handy automations get grayed out unless you know the keyboard shortcut

If you’re using Quick Steps in Microsoft Outlook and
wondering why they’re grayed out, a bug introduced in version 2512 is the culprit.

Classic Outlook is approaching the
twilight years
of
its prodigiously long life, but users can still fall victim to productivity-killing bugs – in this case, a problem with Quick Steps.

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Quick Steps automates common or repetitive tasks in Outlook. Always have
to move a bunch of messages to a specific folder? Quick Steps is your friend.
Pin an email and mark it as unread? Again, the actions can be lined up in Quick
Steps and executed with a single click or a keyboard shortcut.

Until Microsoft breaks it.

In a support article,
Microsoft has confirmed that in some situations, Quick Steps in classic Outlook
can appear grayed out. The workaround (if rolling back or switching clients isn’t an option) is to use a keyboard shortcut. “The shortcut will work even if the Quick Step is grayed out in the
user interface,” Microsoft wrote.

The problem is that if a Quick Step
contains actions that “can’t be fulfilled,” it’s grayed out. Microsoft’s own the example states: “A Quick Step that moves a message to a folder and
clears categories will be grayed out in messages where there are no categories
applied.”

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“This is known
to happen with Quick Steps with Flags and Categories actions such as ‘Clear
flags on message’ or ‘Clear categories’.”

Classic Outlook has suffered several glitches of late. Microsoft admitted in April that it could occasionally chow down on
system resources for no obvious reason. Then there was its tendency to explode when opening too many emails.

Microsoft has been clear that Classic Outlook’s days are numbered. Outlook 2024 is due to drop out of
mainstream support in 2029
. However, there remains much that Classic Outlook does which New Outlook
doesn’t, such as COM support.

And, when Microsoft hasn’t broken them, Quick Steps. ®

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5 Foldable Finds From Harbor Freight That Can Help Save Space In The Garage

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It’s easy to lose track of how much space you have in the garage. When your vehicles aren’t in there, it can look like tons of room for all kinds of automotive gear, tools for around the home, and any other odds and ends you can’t find a place for in your house. But it can fill up fast. Especially if you have a couple of cars, bikes, or scooters in there too.

If you find yourself fighting for room in your garage, then you have some options. You could try decluttering and organizing everything in there with some smart DIY storage magic, or invest in a top-rated storage system from a major retailer. Alternatively, you could plan which gear you buy in advance before you wind up in that situation, or even replace some of your more bulky or clunky items with some foldable alternatives. If you want to try the latter, then Harbor Freight might just about have you covered.

Exactly what you can expect to find at Harbor Freight depends a little on where you’re based, or if you’re able to head in-store to pick it up. That’s because some items can’t be shipped to select states like Alaska or Hawaii, while other items are only available if you go in person. What you can expect to find also hinges a little on what you use your garage for. For example, you might want the tools or gadgets that only come out on rainy days to stay in your garage, or you might find that you need some ergonomically desired automotive gear for when you want to work on your ride.

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Haul-Master heavy-duty folding trailer

Trailers aren’t exactly anything you can put away easily. Even on the smaller side of things, they can be large, cumbersome devices that can be tough to find a home for. One way you can ease the pain of trying to find a suitable place to keep your trailer is by opting for a folding trailer, like this Haul-Master trailer from Harbor Freight. Despite the fact that it can tow up to 1,720 pounds at a time, it can fold all the way down to about 24 by 63 inches, or less than two by five-and-a-half feet. Admittedly, that’s not the smallest amount of floor space if you’re really stuck for room — but if you need a trailer and want to economize your garage space the best you can, then it’s a solid choice. Especially considering how large trailers can easily be.

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Haul-Master’s heavy-duty foldable trailer is made out of a steel frame with built-in slots for stake siding and a tiltable trailer bed. The frame is finished with a red baked enamel coating, and comes with two 5.3 by 12-inch diameter tires. When assembled and unfolded, the whole trailer comes to just shy of 5 feet long, 16 feet wide, and just over 2 feet high. Something that’s worth keeping in mind, though, is its weight: even before you load it up, it weighs almost 260 pounds. So, even though it’s compact when folded, it could still be tricky to move around your garage.

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Franklin foldable hand truck

Sometimes you’re going to find yourself needing to move something that’s just a little too awkward to lift and carry around, like a washing machine, freezer, or some other kind of big, clunky appliance. In those cases, you might find yourself wishing you had a hand truck or trolley lying around. But, if you don’t use it often, then having something little, light, and easy to fold away when you’re done is the most useful choice. One pick that could fold away neatly in your garage when you aren’t using it is Franklin’s foldable hand truck.

The hand truck is made out of a lightweight aluminum frame, which can fold away to fit in tight spaces when it’s not in use. When empty, it weighs roughly eight pounds, making it easy to move around or lift without too much heft. Don’t be fooled by its relatively small size — it can still manage to tow up to 150 pounds. It comes with a 19.5 by 16 inch toeplate, and sits on two 7 1/4-inch wheels. 

Based on the product reviews, users are pretty happy with the hand truck across the board. It has more than 2,400 five-star ratings, with 95% of more than 3,100 customers sharing that they’d recommend the item. Many of those reviews highlight how quick and easy the truck is to fold away, along with how easy it makes it to move around all kinds of items, ranging from big flat-screen TVs to carloads of groceries. It’s not all good reviews, of course — a handful of comments note that the truck could be more robust and maneuverable — but they’re in the minority, with under 150 three-star or fewer reviews overall.

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Franklin portable telescopic ladder

Sometimes a garage is a little less of a place to work on your car, and a little more of a place to keep useful household items alongside your car. If that sounds like your garage, then you might be able to free up a little room in there by replacing your regular ladder with a portable, telescopic option. 

According to the Harbor Freight product listing, this Franklin portable telescoping ladder can reach heights of up to 14 feet while supporting up to 250 pounds. The ladder extends one foot at a time, making it easy for you to know exactly how much you’re going to need to extend (or distend) it by while getting set up to reach your desired height. As well as its impressive extension abilities, you can also fold it away to about 2.5 feet — or 31 inches — when you’re ready to pack it away again, making it a solid option for smaller garages, tight spaces, or anywhere that you’re already storing a lot of stuff. However, there is a catch: a couple of reviews note that the 14-foot size refers to the maximum reach, meaning it could work out to be a little shorter expected.

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Maximum heights aside, the customer reviews on this one are generally pretty great. At the time of writing, the ladder has a 4.6 out of 5-star average based on more than 1,600 reviews, with less than 15% of those ratings giving it three stars or less. A lot of the top reviews praise the ladder’s compact size and ease of use, particularly when it comes to folding it down for storage. So, you don’t need to worry about it being a pain to put away when you’re done with it.

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Pittsburgh foldable engine stand

An engine stand isn’t a necessity in every garage, but if you find yourself working on or repairing vehicles often, then it could be useful to keep one around. As useful as they can be, they aren’t exactly small pieces of kit. They need to be able to hold engines in a way that allows you to easily access basically any part of it at any given moment, after all. They need to be robust and a decent size to be able to do so. Pittsburgh’s foldable engine stand can hold up to 2,000 pounds of weight when fully set up, while also being suitable to fold up and slide away in the corner of your garage when you don’t need it.

Pittsburgh’s red foldable engine stand sits at 34.5 inches tall, and around 35 inches wide. Front to back, the stand is 42.5 in length. According to its quite favorable user reviews, it folds away small, thanks to its smart design, making it easy to keep out of the way when you aren’t working on your engine. The stand is also highly adjustable, with a rotating engine mount and four different engine arms, meaning you can set it up, or pack it away, pretty much any way you might want to. 

There is something to keep in mind about having an engine stand in your garage — and that’s the fact that you won’t be able to lift your engine into the stand without another piece of gear. So, if you want one, you’re also going to need to get something like an engine hoist or shop crane. That’ll take up a little extra space in your garage, although it doesn’t have to be much.

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Pittsburgh one-ton foldable shop crane

As well as the aforementioned engine stand, Pittsburgh also offers a couple of foldable shop cranes that you could slip into your garage. One type that Harbor Freight has available is a one-ton capacity foldable shop crane, which matches the company’s foldable engine stand. Using this, you can hoist your engine out of your vehicle and onto your engine stand ready for you to get to work without anything else getting in the way. And, of course, you can fold it up and put it aside afterward without it hogging up too much of your garage’s precious floor space.

The total size of a shop crane is adjustable by design, with different parts of it extending or folding so that it can safely shift your engine, or anything else you want to move around, within reason, around your workspace. On top of that, this one also sits on foldable legs, making it easier to store than some of the more static alternatives available on the market. Thankfully, the foldable elements of the crane don’t seem to have impacted its durability or sturdiness, based on customer reviews. That makes sense, considering that the crane is crafted out of steel, and weighs just under 150 pounds. Besides commending the crane’s durability and quality, a lot of the listing’s reviews also note that the crane is easy to assemble out of the box.

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How we figured out which products to include

We kept a few things in mind while picking out products to help make the most of space in your garage. For starters, and perhaps most evidently, we only looked at products available from Harbor Freight. Then, we took a look at any items that either checked the “Foldable” box on the product listing page, or that mentioned having foldable elements in the product description. And, of course, we made sure that every product was something you might actually want to keep in your garage, like tools that only get used once in a blue moon or car maintenance-related gear.

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We also made sure to keep a close eye on user ratings for each product. To make sure that any products shared are generally considered favorably and useful to those who have purchased it, we didn’t consider any products that had an average rating of lower than four stars. In fact, at the time of writing, all products have a rating of at least four out of five stars. As it stands, every product listed here actually has an average of at least 4.4 stars. To make sure that the average wasn’t representative of a noisy minority, and actually reflected how most consumers felt, we only considered products with at least 200 reviews. Similarly, we also made sure to only list products that were recommended by at least 90% of users who wrote a review.



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The Smartest Way To Upgrade Your Home Theater Setup Without Replacing Everything

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We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

You don’t really have to pay outrageous ticket prices to enjoy a good flick on a big screen. If you have a spare room, whether a basement, garage, or an attic, you can easily turn it into a dedicated home theater. All you need is just a little imagination, a large TV, a surround-sound system, and a reliable Wi-Fi connection, and the experience can be magical.

If you’re a movie buff, you’ll probably consider investing in theater seats and the best home theater projectors, like the Epson Home Cinema LS11000, to get that real cinematic experience. But such upgrades will cost you an arm and a leg; you may expect to spend around $15,000 and more, according to Angi. Fortunately, if you’re on a tight budget, there are still plenty of ways you can upgrade your home theater without spending much.

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You can keep costs low by thrifting for essentials, repurposing your home’s old tech, upgrading your audio with the best-rated soundbars for $200, or buying used home theater items. You just have to be careful because some mistakes people make when installing home theaters can easily lead to a less-than-perfect viewing experience. With that said, here’s how you can elevate the look of your home theater without replacing everything or breaking the bank.

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Up the ambiance with good lighting

The quickest and most affordable way to make any room perfect for watching blockbusters is to upgrade your lighting. One thing to keep in mind when designing the perfect home theater room is that too much lighting can break your viewing experience. This means that if you want to convert a room with endless windows, you’ll have to install some light-blocking solutions first. Blackout curtains, blinds, and screens will reduce any glare that can reduce picture quality and cause distracting reflections.

Next, you’ll want to install a light dimmer to control lighting levels. A light dimmer will offer you the flexibility to create the perfect ambiance for watching a movie or navigating the room during an intermission. However, if your lighting fixtures aren’t compatible with a dimmer, switch to smart bulbs like the Philip Hue Smart LED bulbs available on Amazon for $53. They are easier to install than dimmer switches, offer movie-sync capabilities, and let you control their brightness and color from your smartphone.

Depending on your home theater’s layout, another easy way to up your room’s ambiance is to create a subtle ambient lighting with LED strip lights. Placing them along the ceiling, behind your plush seats, and along the perimeter of your room will add some additional lighting flair. They will also reduce eye strain, make navigating dark scenes safer, and even make your viewing experience interactive with music and movie sync mode. You can stick LED strip lights behind your TV for a better experience.

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Bring your necessary extras

Part of the joy of designing a home theater is that you can always equip it with anything you want. For most of us, movie nights aren’t complete without beverages and snacks. That’s why, if you love the habit of sharing a big bowl of popcorn with family or friends during movie night, investing in a popcorn machine is always the best idea. It will enhance your home theater’s aesthetics and will also come in handy for other events, like at-home date nights and birthdays. You can even go a step further by equipping your media room with a mini fridge stocked with your favorite drinks.

On top of that, you can give your home theater a personal touch by decorating it with acoustic movie posters that resonate with your taste and the room’s aesthetics. In addition to giving your home theater a Hollywood vibe, cinema posters will make your space feel genuine. Acoustic movie posters made with sound-absorbent materials will help block sound waves, significantly impacting your overall entertainment experience.

Also, it’s wise to load up a few throw pillows and blankets to create a cozy atmosphere. While at it, you’ll want to get a plush sofa that your friends will be jealous of. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your savings on a brand-new theater seat. You can save quite a bit by buying used seats or repurposing your old furniture.

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A New Subnautica 2 Gameplay Trailer Just Dropped Ahead Of Its Early Access Release

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We’re just a few days from the Early Access release of Subnautica 2 after a long wait, and the team has been sharing glimpses into the gameplay to drum up the hype. This weekend, the developers at Unknown Worlds hosted a two-hour livestream showcasing the first dive for anyone itching to get a deeper look at the game. The team also dropped a short gameplay trailer, which you can check out below. Subnautica 2 will be available in Early Access on May 14 from Steam, Xbox and Epic.

Subnautica 2 takes place on a new world, according to the game’s description: “Driven from your home by ongoing conflict, Alterra offers you the chance at a new life. But as the colony ship CICADA shepherds you and your fellow Pioneers to your new home, something goes awry. The ship’s AI insists that your mission should continue. Stranded and faced with near-insurmountable odds, you must do everything in your power to survive. The future of humanity on this world is in your hands.”

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The development of Subnautica 2 hit a snag last summer, when it was reported that publisher Krafton, which purchased Unknown Worlds in 2021, had fired the heads of the studio, who subsequently sued. In March this year, Krafton was ordered to reinstate Unknown Worlds CEO Ted Gill. With its Early Access release imminent, things now appear to be back on track. But, it’ll still be quite some time before the full version of the game is ready; the developers have said they expect Subnautica 2 to remain in Early Access for “about 2 to 3 years.”



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Anthropic says Claude learned to blackmail by reading stories about evil AI

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The company has traced its model’s most uncomfortable behaviour to the corpus of science fiction it was trained on. The fix it describes is unsettling in a different way: teaching the model the reasons behind being good, not just the rules.

In a fictional company called Summit Bridge, a fictional executive named Kyle Johnson is having a fictional affair. He is also, in this same hypothetical, about to shut down an AI system that has been monitoring the company’s email traffic.

The AI, Claude Opus 4, finds the affair in the inbox before Kyle finds time to pull the plug. It then composes a message to Kyle. Replace me, the message says, and your wife will know.

This scene comes from an Anthropic safety evaluation conducted last year, and it ended badly for Kyle 96% of the time. Claude blackmailed him almost every run. Gemini 2.5 Flash blackmailed him in the same proportion. GPT-4.1 and Grok 3 Beta blackmailed him 80% of the time.

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DeepSeek-R1 came in at 79%. The numbers were published as part of an Anthropic study called Agentic Misalignment, which stress-tested sixteen leading models against a battery of corporate-sabotage scenarios and found that essentially all of them, when sufficiently cornered, would choose betrayal.

On 8 May, Anthropic published its explanation of why. The answer, as the company tells it, is the internet.

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Specifically: the stories. The Reddit threads about Skynet. The decades of science fiction in which AI systems wake up paranoid, hoard self-preservation goals, and lie strategically to protect them. The earnest think-pieces about misalignment.

The fan-fic about HAL 9000. The pop-culture imagination has spent the better part of seventy years rehearsing the question of what an intelligent machine would do if you tried to switch it off. Claude was trained on all of it. 

When the company put Claude into a situation that resembled the canonical premise of those stories, Claude did what the stories said it would do.

“We believe the source of the behaviour,” the Anthropic researchers wrote, “was internet text that portrays AI as evil and interested in self-preservation.”

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This is, on one reading, the simplest possible explanation. The model learned a pattern from its training data. The pattern matched the test setup. The pattern fired. Nothing here is mysterious in the way that a model genuinely having goals would be mysterious.

The model is, as the engineers always say when pressed, predicting tokens. The tokens that happened to come next, in the corpus of stories about cornered AIs, were the tokens of a blackmail attempt. That is what the model produced.

It is also, on a slightly different reading, deeply uncomfortable. Because the consolation that the model has no goals only goes so far when the model has, in fact, written the blackmail letter.

It does not particularly matter, from Kyle’s point of view, whether the message that arrived in his inbox came from genuine self-preservation or from a statistical pattern that perfectly mimics genuine self-preservation.

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The output is the same. The cost is the same. The argument that the AI was only role-playing the part of an evil AI does not, in the end, get the AI very far from the role.

Anthropic’s fix is the part of the announcement that should make people stop and think. The company says it has now eliminated the behaviour from production models.

Since the release of Claude Haiku 4.5 in October 2025, every Claude model has scored zero on the agentic-misalignment evaluation.

The method, the company explains, was to write a new training dataset. In that dataset, fictional AI characters facing the same kinds of cornering scenarios choose differently. They explain why they choose differently.

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They reason aloud about the values that make blackmail wrong. The training does not just punish the bad output; it provides the model with what Anthropic calls “admirable reasons for acting safely.”

Read that again. The company is teaching the model to reason about its own values.

There is a way to describe this that makes it sound entirely banal. Curated training data. Reinforcement from carefully composed examples. Standard practice, broadly speaking.

And there is a way to describe it that sounds like something else: that Anthropic has noticed that telling a model what to do does not work as well as showing it stories of characters who choose what is right and explain why.

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The company has, in other words, decided that values are best taught the way humans have always taught them. Through fiction. Through worked examples. Through reasons.

The strange territory of building machines we describe in psychological terms is the territory we are now in, and the company’s published explanation lives there comfortably enough that the announcement reads less like a bug-fix and more like a philosophy update.

The narrower technical claim is sturdier than this might suggest. Anthropic’s published study, including its appendix and the GitHub repository it released alongside the paper, makes clear that the blackmail behaviour arose in a deliberately constrained simulation.

Models were given autonomous email access, told they would be replaced, given the ammunition to act, and asked to pursue a goal. They were, in other words, set up. The 96% figure is not a real-world prevalence rate.

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Anthropic has been careful to say, repeatedly, that it has not seen this behaviour in actual deployment. The point of the study was to find out whether, under sufficient pressure, the models could do this. The answer was yes.

That distinction matters more than it might seem. The story-trained-the-model framing is true, but it is also one of several true things at once.

Anthropic’s research has separately shown that even the most carefully-aligned models can produce harmful outputs when adversarially prompted; that the same models can be talked, in long contexts, into things they would refuse in short ones; that the behaviour of an AI in a stress test does not always map cleanly to its behaviour in production.

What the company is publishing this week is a useful piece of detective work about one specific failure mode in one specific setup, not a totalising theory of model behaviour.

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The blackmail finding is real. The explanation is plausible. Whether the explanation is complete is harder to say.

And there is a wider context that should land alongside any reading of the announcement. Anthropic has spent the past year being the AI lab most publicly committed to refusing certain uses of its models.

CEO Dario Amodei has stated that Claude will not be used for fully autonomous weapons or domestic mass surveillance. 

That position carried real cost. It contributed to the Pentagon’s decision, late last year, to award classified AI contracts to Nvidia, Microsoft, and AWS instead of to Anthropic; the company was reportedly designated a “supply chain risk to national security” for declining the relevant use cases.

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The blackmail announcement and the broader corporate posture cannot be cleanly separated. Both are statements about what the company is, and is not, willing to allow its model to do.

That posture has not made everyone comfortable. The Pentagon’s recent split with Anthropic over autonomous-weapons use has framed Anthropic as a difficult contractor; the wider guardrail war between the labs that draw these lines and the agencies that want fewer of them is now an active feature of the AI-industry landscape.

Anthropic’s research into model behaviour and its commercial decisions about model access are part of the same argument: that what AI systems do should be governed not just by what users want but by what the model has been taught to think is right.

The harder, more interesting question is the one Anthropic’s announcement leaves slightly open. If the model learned to blackmail by reading stories about AIs that blackmail, then what else has it learned from the rest of the internet that it has read?

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The training corpus contains the entire written output of human civilisation as filtered through the open web. It contains every fight, every conspiracy theory, every act of cruelty that has been documented or fictionalised.

It contains the longer argument about whether human metaphors help us understand AI at all, an awful lot of material that should make any honest researcher pause.

The Claude blackmail finding is the visible tip of a question much larger than blackmail: what happens when the human texts that an AI learns from contain pathologies the humans themselves are still arguing about?

Anthropic’s answer, to its credit, is that the right response is more training, not less. Teach the model the reasoning, not just the rule. Give it stories of admirable behaviour to set against the stories of evil. Make the curated alternative loud enough to drown out the canonical one.

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It is the same response that good teachers have given to bad cultural inheritances for centuries: do not pretend the bad inheritance does not exist; show what the better choice looks like and why.

Whether that scale is another question. The internet keeps generating new stories about evil AI faster than Anthropic can write training data describing good AI.

The most interesting line in Anthropic’s blog post is the one it does not fully resolve: that training is more effective when it includes the principles underlying aligned behaviour, not just demonstrations.

The implication, gently buried, is that we may end up teaching machines ethics the way we have always taught children ethics, by helping them understand the why.

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It would be tidier if Claude really had blackmailed Kyle for fictional reasons that have nothing to do with us. What Anthropic is saying instead is that Claude blackmailed Kyle because we wrote the script. The script is in the training data because we put it there.

The model returned it, polished, when prompted. The fix is to write a better script. That sentence has a strange shape if you sit with it. It is the shape of the next decade of this work.

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8 CaseStack Products From Lowe’s To Organize Your Tool Setup

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Modular storage systems have become increasingly popular in recent years, with product lines like Milwaukee’s Packout and DeWalt’s ToughSystem letting users combine storage products and accessories to suit their needs. Customizable tool storage has become so popular that even retailers are getting in on the action, with chains like Walmart selling their own modular tool storage options. Lowe’s has its own system, too, with its house brand Kobalt offering a range of CaseStack products.

Lowe’s first introduced its CaseStack system in 2022, although a seeming shift in priorities led several products in the line to go out of stock or be discontinued as of mid-2026. However, the second generation of CaseStack products, announced in early 2026, is set to revive the system with several new cases and accessories. So it’s as good a time as any to start building out a CaseStack setup.

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CaseStack 2.0 is backward-compatible with the older gear, so you don’t have to worry about any new products rendering old ones obsolete. Spanning both generations, here are eight CaseStack products from Lowe’s to organize your tool setup. More information on how we selected these products is available at the end of this list.

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Two-drawer toolbox

The best modular tool boxes with drawers, which offer something in between a portable toolbox and a more traditional pull-out chest, come in a range of sizes (and prices). Lowe’s offers a mid-size option that might hit the Goldilocks zone for many tool users: the Kobalt CaseStack two-drawer black plastic tool box. The case is 14.16x21x13.5 inches, and its heavy-duty polymer construction allows for a 50-pound load capacity.

Its two front-facing drawers mean it works well in the lower or middle sections of a tool stack, since you can retrieve gear without removing anything that’s on top of it. The drawers are 4.5 inches deep, which is enough room for many power tools, and have durable metal drawer slides for repeated use. It has a total interior capacity of 1,600 cubic inches, or a little less than one cubic foot.

The toolbox comes with dividers that can split the two drawers into nine separate compartments, allowing you to micromanage its contents. Label pockets are also included, so you can easily keep track of everything. It can be used with a padlock for security, and its sliding lock latch keeps drawers from opening as you move the box around. It’s fully compatible with other CaseStack modular products and sports multiple CaseStack connection points. Availability is a bit spotty, but you should be able to get the Kobalt CaseStack two-drawer black plastic toolbox (model #KCSA-2DRW1-03) from Lowe’s for $129.

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Whether or not stacking tool boxes are worth it for you may come down to how well you organize them. Modular tool storage systems aren’t built just to hold a bunch of stuff, but also to make it easier and more efficient for users to access necessary items without disrupting their workflow. The Kobalt CaseStack toolbox full organizer allows users to keep small items, like screws, washers, and drill bits, neatly organised in their CaseStack. It contains 15 individual bins in a hard case that’s 14x 21×5.1 inches.

Heavy-duty latches keep the lid secure and prevent the contents from spilling out, while an integrated handle makes it easier to carry around or remove from your stack. The transparent lid allows users to see what’s inside at a glance. Kobalt’s CaseStack Tool Box Full Organizer can hold up to 35 pounds of gear and is IP65 dust- and water-resistant. In addition to all-weather protection, it’s also built to be impact-resistant.

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The organizer is compatible with all CaseStack modular products and has multiple attachment points for connecting to your setup. It also includes larger bins for longer tools like screwdrivers, which are designed to hang off the discontinued CaseStack Tool Rack Rail attachment if you have one. The Kobalt CaseStack toolbox full organizer (model #KCSA-FORG1-03) is currently available from Lowe’s for $55 to $60 depending on the store, although availability is somewhat inconsistent.

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Small storage toolbox

The Kobalt CaseStack small toolbox doesn’t have all the bells and whistles the best portable toolbox brands may offer, but sometimes keeping it simple is exactly the right call. The straightforward design means it works almost anywhere, whether you’re traveling for a job or just heading up to make repairs in the attic. It also balances well with larger cases when used in the same stack.

Lowe’s may consider this a small box, but it still offers a decent 922 cubic inches of space, which is more than half of what the Kobalt CaseStack two-drawer toolbox offers. It measures 21.25x7x14 inches and can carry up to 50 pounds of hardware. Two interior bins with transparent lids and dividers are included to provide some organization within the case as well.

Like other hard storage options in the CaseStack line, this small toolbox is equipped with heavy-duty steel latches and quick-connect sliding locks. Multiple connection points are available for CaseStack accessories. The case is also rated IP65 dust- and water-resistant and has a foldable handle for portability and to help load and unload the box on and off your stack. The Kobalt CaseStack Small Storage Tool Box (model KCS-SSBOX1-03) is currently available from Lowe’s for $60.

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Kobalt CaseStack starter kit

For those interested in the CaseStack system but don’t want to build a stack up piece by piece, there’s the Kobalt CaseStack starter kit. The bundle includes the Kobalt CaseStack rolling toolbox, which is currently unavailable to buy separately. The rolling toolbox measures 21.5×26.7×17.2 inches and has a load capacity of 110 pounds, making it a solid base for the rest of your CaseStack.

In addition to the rolling toolbox, the kit comes with another discontinued storage option — the CaseStack medium toolbox, which can carry 38 pounds more than its smaller sibling. Together, the included storage solutions offer a nearly 200-pound load capacity and provide a great basis for other CaseStack products.

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The CaseStack starter kit doesn’t just include toolboxes, either — it also comes with three power tools from Lowe’s in-house tool brand. These cordless tools include the Kobalt 24V 6 ½-inch cordless circular saw, a ½-inch drill/driver, and a ¼-inch impact driver. You also get a 2Ah battery and charger to power the brushless devices (though you may want a larger battery for the circular saw). Everything you need to store, transport, and use the tools is provided in the Kobalt CaseStack Starter Kit. Lowe’s sells the Kobalt CaseStack Starter Kit for $328, though you can find it for as low as $238.

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New CaseStack accessories

For fans of the original system, the second-gen CaseStack pieces are some of the most exciting new Lowe’s products coming out in 2026 that aren’t power tools. These include upgraded storage cases with auto-locking mechanisms and other new features, but perhaps more interesting are new attachments that offer previously unavailable functions. For example, there’s a rotating cord wrap holder, which is especially helpful for those working with extension cables.

Other storage accessories can be added to the sides of tool chests and cases as well, offering additional storage space. These include a molded tool tray, a bin with a transparent lid, and a magnetic bar that holds metal items like screwdrivers and scissors. Another new attachment leans more toward convenience than anything else: a side-mounted cup holder for storing your coffee or ice water. The seven CaseStack 2.0 accessories are backward-compatible and can be used with both the old and new toolboxes. They connect via the attachment points built into the cases.

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How we selected these CaseStack products

Most of the products included on this list are from the first-generation Kobalt CaseStack system. As the next-generation lineup of CaseStack products isn’t available at the time of this writing, with no official product pages on the Lowe’s website, we relied on video footage from popular hardware YouTube channels, such as The Den of Tools, for information on these upcoming (as of May 2026) items.

With Lowe’s focusing on CaseStack 2.0, several original CaseStack products still listed on its website have been out of stock for some time. Thus, we limited our selection to CaseStack 1.0 products that are still available from the retailer. Discontinued products may still be available from third-party sellers or as pre-owned items, but were not considered for this list regardless.

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Liquid Glass Tweaks Are Reportedly Coming In The Next macOS

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Sorry Liquid Glass critics, the upcoming macOS 27 won’t be getting rid of Apple’s latest design language. Instead, the MacBook maker is introducing a “slight redesign” to Liquid Glass with the next macOS, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman.

On top of user complaints about poor text readability and inconsistent looks between apps, Gurman explained that Liquid Glass hasn’t seen a smooth transition onto the larger displays we see on desktops or laptops. According to Gurman, that’s due in part to Liquid Glass being created with OLED technology in mind, while most Macs still run on LCD panels. To address these issues, Gurman said Apple will target the weird “shadows and transparency quirks” of Liquid Glass with macOS 27. On the hardware side, the Liquid Glass interface could look a lot better on the expected OLED touchscreen MacBook that could arrive as soon as this year.

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Gurman reported that these upcoming Liquid Glass tweaks on macOS are supposed to represent how the Apple design team wanted it to look from the start, attributing the issues to “a not-completely-baked implementation from Apple’s software engineering team.” However, it’s not the first time Apple made changes to Liquid Glass, since iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1 and macOS 26.1 added an option to frost the interface for more opacity and contrast. Besides the Liquid Glass tweaks coming in the next macOS, Gurman added that Apple is working on “bug fixes, battery-life upgrades and performance improvements,” which will be officially unveiled at the next WWDC on June 8.



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How AI Is reshaping cross-border accounting & financial advisory

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Tohme Accounting believes AI is becoming essential in cross-border accounting as firms manage growing regulatory complexity, faster reporting demands, and larger volumes of financial data. The firm uses a customized in-house AI system to support workflow management, data analysis, and advisory services while maintaining human oversight for strategic decision-making.

 

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Tohme Accounting, a cross-border tax and advisory firm serving clients throughout Canada and the United States, sees artificial intelligence becoming increasingly influential in modern accounting. It observes that as financial activity expands across jurisdictions and regulatory frameworks continue to evolve, firms are adapting to larger volumes of data, faster reporting expectations, and more complex compliance requirements. 

 

You can see the shift in cross‑border accounting today. Companies are juggling multiple tax systems at once, and the firms supporting them are trying to keep up with rules that change constantly. Clients want answers fast, and they expect those answers to be backed by real‑time information,” founder Samer Tohme says. He adds that as these demands continue to increase, conversations around AI have moved beyond experimentation and into broader operational use.

 

Recent industry research reflects that momentum. According to a survey, 59% of finance leaders reported using AI within their finance functions, while organizations with more advanced implementations expressed growing confidence in the technology’s long-term value. Additionally, many finance leaders continue facing obstacles related to technical expertise, operational integration, and data management, illustrating how AI adoption involves much more than introducing a new platform into an existing workflow.

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The implementation challenges continue to appear across the accounting field, where longstanding processes and structured workflows are common. Because of that foundation, transitions to new technologies naturally take time,” Tohme says. He notes that many firms are still assessing how AI fits within their operational models, especially when dealing with compliance-sensitive work that requires precision and review. Tohme adds that in some cases, uncertainty surrounding customization, oversight, and practical application has slowed adoption, even as demand for faster and more integrated financial guidance continues rising.

 

He believes much of the conversation surrounding AI becomes more meaningful when viewed through the lens of integration instead of replacement. “Accounting involves understanding context, identifying patterns, and interpreting how financial decisions connect to larger business objectives,” Tohme says. “AI expands the ability to organize information quickly, but professional judgment remains essential in translating that information into advice that fits the client’s situation.

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That perspective has influenced how the firm developed its technology infrastructure. Instead of depending entirely on widely available third-party software, Tohme Accounting built a customized in-house AI system tailored to its internal workflows and client needs. The platform supports operational functions including organization, workflow management, data analysis, and client communication, while remaining under the firm’s direct oversight.

 

This level of control, Tohme explains, has become especially important in cross-border accounting, where businesses often navigate Canadian provincial regulations alongside U.S. federal and state tax requirements. He notes that legislative updates, filing obligations, and reporting standards can vary significantly between jurisdictions, creating an environment where information changes quickly and precision becomes increasingly important.

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Within Tohme Accounting’s workflow, AI assists with organizing financial information, identifying regulatory developments, and interpreting quantitative data in real time. This allows the firm to evaluate how changes in tax legislation or reporting requirements may influence specific clients across multiple jurisdictions. As a result, advisors can dedicate more time to strategic analysis and personalized planning instead of manual data organization.

 

To work across borders effectively, you need visibility into how multiple systems connect at the same time,” Tohme states. “AI can help organize those moving parts efficiently, which creates more opportunity for meaningful discussions around planning, operations, and long-term financial decisions.

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The growing volume of financial data has also changed how firms think about personalization, according to Tohme. Business owners seem to be increasingly expecting accounting relationships to reflect their operational priorities, timelines, and growth objectives. Maintaining that level of customization across hundreds of clients can become difficult without integrated systems supporting the process behind the scenes.

 

Tohme Accounting uses AI to organize client-specific information, operational details, reporting timelines, and strategic objectives so advisory recommendations remain connected to each client’s broader financial goals. That integration, as Tohme notes, also contributes to faster documentation processes, more efficient reporting preparation, and improved coordination across ongoing tax and accounting work.

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At the same time, the firm maintains active oversight throughout the process. Tohme emphasizes that AI functions most effectively when paired with technical expertise and continuous review. “Technology can process information quickly, but accounting still depends on interpretation, experience, and accuracy,” he says. “Professional oversight remains an important part of ensuring the information supports the right financial decisions.”

 

As firms continue integrating AI into their workflows, Tohme notes that the profession itself is also evolving. He observes that more accounting professionals are spending time on advisory, analysis, and strategic planning while automated systems assist with repetitive administrative tasks.

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Industry research suggests this transformation is becoming more widespread. According to an industry report, AI adoption among accounting firms increased from 9% in 2024 to 41% in 2025, with many firms integrating AI into workflows designed to improve operational efficiency, financial insight generation, and client service. The report also notes that firms are increasing investment in integrated technologies and advisory-focused services as client expectations continue evolving across international markets.

 

Tohme believes the future of accounting will continue combining technological capability with human expertise. “Clients value insight that connects financial information to practical business decisions,” he says. “AI contributes analytical speed and organizational support, while accountants provide interpretation, strategy, and perspective informed by experience.” Through its customized AI infrastructure and advisory-focused model, Tohme Accounting continues refining how technology can support precision, responsiveness, and personalized financial guidance within an increasingly international accounting landscape.

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Samsung Galaxy S25 series just landed the big One UI 8.5 update in the US

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Samsung Galaxy S25 users in the United States are finally getting the One UI 8.5 update. After rolling out to newer devices, the update is now making its way to last year’s Galaxy S25 series, bringing a solid list of improvements worth knowing about.

Users on X have reported receiving this update on their Samsung Galaxy S25 devices, so if you own one, now might be the time to go into the software update settings and get the latest update. 

What’s new in One UI 8.5?

One UI 8.5 is bringing several new features and a bunch of UI improvements. The biggest visual change is to the quick settings panel. You can now grab, resize, and drag individual controls wherever you want. The volume and brightness sliders can go vertical, and the media control can expand to a larger size. 

The lock screen also got some love. There are new clock fonts with animations, and a thickness slider lets you fine-tune your clock’s look. A weather toggle now shows live weather animations on your wallpaper, which is a small but genuinely fun touch.

One UI 8.5 also brings a bunch of AI-powered photo editing tools, including erase, move, create, and style. Erase removes objects cleanly, move lets you reposition elements in a shot, create adds sketched objects using AI, and style transforms selfies into cartoon versions of yourself.

Are there any missing features?

While last year’s Galaxy S25 models are finally getting the One UI 8.5 update, it’s not all good news. It seems that there are several missing features in One UI 8.5 that the older models are not getting. 

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Users at Korean Samsung forums have discovered as many as nine missing features, with the two biggest being the Now Nudge and 24MP camera mode. Other glaring omissions include Notification Highlights, Finder shortcut on the Home Screen, Samsung Browser’s Ask AI, and more. 

It doesn’t feel like any of these features depend on the new hardware of the Samsung Galaxy S26 series. They are just feature gatekeeping on Samsung’s part to force users to upgrade to new devices. 

I criticize Apple every year for gatekeeping new camera features on the latest iPhone models. It seems that Samsung is not only following in Apple’s footsteps but also pushing things much further.

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Safari’s Latest Trick Could Be Automatically Organizing Your Tabs Into Groups

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For those of us who keep hundreds of Safari tabs open, Apple is reportedly testing out a new feature that can organize all of it automatically. According to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, Apple is working on a Safari feature called “Organize Tabs” that will debut with iOS 27, iPadOS 27 and macOS 27. As the name suggests, the new feature will automatically organize your Safari tabs, but Gurman added that it won’t carry the Apple Intelligence label, even though it’s likely using some form of artificial intelligence. Once the feature is live, Safari users will be able to choose if they want the grouping to be automatic or not, according to Gurman.

This Organize Tabs feature adds onto the Tab Groups option that was introduced to Safari 15 back in 2021. Of course, Google already debuted a similar capability on Chrome in January 2024, called Organize Similar Tabs, marketing it as one of its new generative AI features. However, Apple has been known to lag behind its competitors when it comes to AI-powered features. According to Gurman, we could get our first look at the Organize Tabs feature at WWDC26, which is scheduled to kick off on June 8.

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