The EU’s special envoy for industrial AI has told the EU’s top officials to focus on using AI to lift Europe’s slow productivity. Racing to build the best models matters less, he told them. Zoya Sheftalovich reported the story for Politico.

Jim Hagemann Snabe gave the message to the 27 commissioners at a private seminar on 4 September, two Commission officials told Politico. He said AI could help health, farming, transport, defence and factories.

A week earlier, a Commission AI expert gave a similar briefing to the commissioners’ heads of cabinet. The US and China may lead on models and computing power, but Europe can still gain by putting AI to use, according to slides seen by Politico.

The slides gave examples such as easier testing rules for self-driving cars, secure data spaces for personalised medicine and a digital adviser for farmers.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a similar point in her State of the Union speech on 16 September. She said Europe does not need to build frontier AI to get the most value from it.

Snabe, who chairs the supervisory board of Siemens, was appointed in June to advise von der Leyen and tech chief Henna Virkkunen. His appointment drew conflict-of-interest criticism at the time.

A Commission spokesperson, Thomas Regnier, told Politico the talk was about how Europe can get firms to use AI faster.

However, not everyone backs this plan. German MEP Axel Voss said the Commission was too slow to enforce its AI law, and pointed to recent hacks by AI agents, Politico reported.

Others want Europe to build more of its own AI capacity. Earlier this month, former commissioner Margrethe Vestager and economist Philippe Aghion called for Europe to hold 15% of global compute by 2030.

Snabe’s team will study how each sector can use AI until December, then draft new policies near the end of the year, according to Politico. A final report and strategy are expected in early 2027.

Amazon’s next big sale is still a little over a week away, with Prime Big Deal Days officially running on October 6 and 7. Even then, there are still plenty of Bluetooth speaker deals available for the early buyers, and a few of them are already considerably better than I expected.

I went through the early discounts and narrowed them down to five speakers I’d pay attention to right now. There’s a tiny JBL for less than $40, a Flip 7 sitting well below $100, and options from Bose, Ultimate Ears, and Marshall if you have a little more room in the budget.

Note: Amazon prices and discounts can change quickly and may differ between colors.

JBL Go 5 — $39.95 (27% off)

The JBL Go 5 is the easiest recommendation here if all you really want is a small speaker that can disappear into a backpack. Amazon has it at $39.95, which takes $15 off its $54.95 price. It is tiny at just 0.51 pounds, yet JBL still gives it an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. Battery life reaches eight hours, with Playtime Boost squeezing another two hours out of it, and the Go 5 also supports Auracast if you eventually want to connect compatible speakers together.

JBL even added ambient edge lighting this generation, which is one of the upgrades over its predecessors At under $40, this is the one I’d throw into a bag for a trip, keep around the bathroom, or take somewhere I wouldn’t necessarily want to risk a more expensive speaker.

Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 — $51.44 (49% off)

Spending another $11 gets you something bigger. The blue Ultimate Ears Wonderboom 4 has dropped to $51.44 on Amazon, which is one of the better discounts in this entire list. Amazon commonly sells it below its $99.99 MSRP, yet $51.44 remains an unusually low price and sits only a couple of dollars above its previous Prime Day low.

I also like how it’s built for outdoor use with an IP67 rating. It can even float if it falls into water and survive drops from up to five feet. You get up to 14 hours of audio playback on a single full charge. Its 360-degree design makes placement fairly painless, while Outdoor Boost changes the tuning for open spaces and Podcast Mode focuses more heavily on voices. For just over $50, there’s a lot going on here.

Marshall Emberton III — $144 (20% off)

Marshall goes in a different direction from the utilitarian JBL and Bose designs, and the Emberton III is easily the speaker I’d pick if I cared about how the thing looked sitting on a desk or shelf. The Black/Silver Amazon listing has recently hovered around $144, putting it roughly $36 below Marshall’s $179.99 price.

The bigger reason I’d spend the extra money is battery life. Marshall claims more than 32 hours from a charge, comfortably the longest figure among these five speakers, and a 20-minute quick charge can add another six hours. The Emberton III also has an IP67 rating, Bluetooth 5.3 LE, a built-in microphone for calls, and Marshall’s True Stereophonic multidirectional sound. Two 2-inch 10W full-range drivers sit inside, accompanied by passive radiators.

It is the most expensive pick here. Still, the combination of battery life, ruggedness, and that iconic Marshall design gives it a clear place in this list.

JBL Flip 7 — $119.95 (20% off)

For those looking for a bigger JBL portable speakers, the Flip 7 is the perfect pick. It’s compact enough to carry around without becoming luggage, while giving you considerably more speaker than the tiny Go 5. Amazon currently has the black model at $119.95. JBL rates the Flip 7 for up to 16 hours of playback with Playtime Boost, alongside an IP68 rating that covers water and dust resistance. It is also drop-proof from up to one meter. The newer PushLock system lets you attach interchangeable carrying accessories, and USB-C supports lossless audio when connected to a compatible source.

This makes the Flip 7 the safest all-rounder of these five for me. It has enough battery life and durability for travel, enough output to make sense outdoors, and still occupies very little room in a backpack. At around $120, it sits nicely between the cheaper compact speakers and the more style-driven Marshall.

Beats Pill — $99.95 (33% off)

The Beats Pill has been around in one form or another for years, and the 2024 revival is currently available for under $100. It is currently listed on Amazon as a limited-time deal, with the price sitting at $99.95. Beats claims up to 24 hours from a charge, placing the Pill well ahead of both JBL models above. The USB-C port is useful in both directions too. You can use it for high-resolution lossless audio with a compatible wired source or pull power from the speaker to charge your phone.

Beats also gave the Pill an IP67 rating, a removable lanyard, Apple and Android one-touch pairing, Find My support, and the ability to pair two speakers together in Amplify or Stereo modes. There’s even a microphone for calls and voice assistants. Beats also gave the Pill an IP67 rating, a removable lanyard, Apple and Android one-touch pairing, Find My support, and the ability to pair two speakers together in Amplify or Stereo modes. There’s even a microphone for calls and voice assistants.

A VPN and Tor can both hide your normal public IP address from websites, but they use fundamentally different trust and routing models. A conventional VPN sends covered traffic through one provider-controlled endpoint, while Tor sends traffic through multiple relays so no single ordinary relay normally knows both where the connection originated and which destination it ultimately reaches.

Here, Tor means the Tor network as most people use it through Tor Browser. It does not mean the separate Tor VPN Beta, which the Tor Project currently describes as testing software that should not be relied on for sensitive activity.

VPN vs Tor at a Glance

The easiest way to compare VPN and Tor is to separate routing, trust, browser privacy, and application coverage. Neither option is universally better because they solve overlapping but different privacy problems.

The table shows why “which one hides my IP?” is too narrow a comparison. Both can change the address a destination sees, but the more consequential difference is which parties can observe the user, the route, and the destination.

The Biggest Difference Is Where You Place Trust

A conventional VPN primarily changes the network intermediary you rely on. Your device establishes an encrypted tunnel to a VPN server, and covered traffic exits through that provider’s infrastructure before continuing toward its destination.

Cloudflare’s VPN explanation describes the client-to-server encrypted tunnel and the VPN server’s role as the network endpoint visible to destinations. The useful privacy question is therefore not whether a VPN removes trust, but whether you are comfortable placing that routing role with the VPN operator.

Tor takes a different approach. The Tor Project explains that ordinary Tor traffic passes through multiple relays, with layered encryption and different information available at each position. Its comparison with one-hop proxy services says Tor normally routes traffic through at least three servers before the destination.

For an ordinary web circuit, the first relay is the guard or entry relay. It receives the user’s connection but does not know the final destination. A middle relay connects adjacent parts of the circuit. The exit relay connects to the ordinary public internet but does not receive the user’s original public IP as the source of that exit-side connection.

The Tor client also negotiates separate encryption keys for each hop. The Tor Project’s technical overview of Tor circuits explains that each relay knows only its adjacent hops rather than the complete route.

If you are comparing single-intermediary routing models, the distinction between a proxy and a VPN provides useful context. Tor differs from both by deliberately distributing the route across multiple relays.

What Your ISP, VPN Provider, Tor Relays and Websites Can See

Privacy claims make more sense when you identify the observer instead of asking whether traffic is simply “hidden.”

With a VPN

Your internet service provider still carries the connection to the VPN infrastructure. For traffic actually routed through the VPN, the ISP sees that VPN connection rather than directly carrying each covered connection to its final website.

The VPN operator occupies the next major trust position because traffic reaches its infrastructure before exiting toward internet destinations. A website normally sees the VPN server’s public IP address for traffic leaving through that endpoint.

HTTPS remains a separate protection layer. A VPN tunnel can end at the VPN server while an HTTPS connection remains encrypted between your browser or application and the website.

With Tor

The Tor Project says that when you connect directly to Tor, a local internet provider or other local observer can normally tell that you are communicating with Tor nodes but does not receive the final browsing destination from the normal Tor route. Websites instead see a connection coming from the Tor network rather than from your normal public IP. Tor’s protection overview explains this separation through its multi-hop routing model.

The guard relay sees the incoming client IP because it receives the connection. The exit side knows which ordinary internet destination it connects to. The design goal is that one ordinary relay does not receive both pieces of information as part of normal circuit operation.

This is why statements such as “Tor relays cannot see anything” are inaccurate. Each relay has information required for its role; the protection comes from separating those roles.

A useful follow-up distinction is what your ISP can see with Tor or a VPN, because local-network visibility and destination-side visibility are different parts of the same connection.

Privacy Is Not the Same as Anonymity

Neither VPN routing nor Tor routing prevents you from identifying yourself voluntarily.

If you sign in to an email account connected to your real identity, the service can still associate the session with that account. The same applies if you submit your name, phone number, address, payment details, or other identifying information.

The Tor Project makes this boundary explicit. Its Tor Browser safety guidance says perfect anonymity cannot be guaranteed and explains that signing into a website or supplying personal information identifies you to that service even though Tor may still hide your normal network location.

A conventional VPN has another limitation: its network tunnel does not automatically change the browser environment. Cookies, signed-in sessions, extensions, fonts, screen characteristics, and other browser signals can remain available to websites even when your public IP changes.

IP privacy is therefore only one part of online identifiability.

Tor Browser Adds Protections a VPN Tunnel Does Not

Browser fingerprinting combines observable browser and device characteristics that can help distinguish one browser from others. Signals may include operating-system information, fonts, browser capabilities, extensions, screen characteristics, cookies, and other state.

A VPN tunnel does not standardize those properties. Its primary function is network tunneling and routing.

Tor Browser is designed around a broader browser-privacy model. Tor Project documentation says the browser is modified to prevent or reduce several forms of identifying leakage and to make Tor users look more alike.

The distinction is important enough that the Tor Project strongly recommends against using ordinary browsers as substitutes for Tor Browser. Its current guidance specifically warns about real-IP exposure through DNS or WebRTC, fingerprinting through operating-system details, fonts and plugins, and persistent tracking state such as cookies and cache.

This does not mean Tor Browser makes every user indistinguishable under every circumstance. It means its privacy model includes browser-level defenses that a VPN tunnel by itself does not provide.

The same distinction explains why Tor Browser and private browsing should not be treated as equivalent simply because both can limit some browsing state.

Where Encryption Starts and Stops

Both VPN and Tor comparisons become misleading when “encrypted” is treated as one uninterrupted property from the device to every destination.

VPN encryption

A conventional VPN protects covered traffic inside its tunnel between the VPN client and VPN endpoint. After that point, the application’s own protocol determines what protection continues toward the destination. For ordinary modern web browsing, HTTPS can independently protect the browser-to-website session even though the VPN tunnel itself ends at the VPN server.

Tor and ordinary websites

Tor applies layers of encryption inside its relay circuit, but an ordinary website reached through an exit relay still relies on destination-side encryption such as HTTPS to protect application data on the public-internet side of the route.

The Tor Project’s Tor and HTTPS explanation treats the two protections separately. Tor changes network routing and conceals the user’s normal public IP from the destination, while HTTPS protects data exchanged with an HTTPS website.

Onion services use a different path

An onion service does not use the same public-internet exit pattern. The Tor Project’s onion-service documentation explains that both the client and service establish Tor circuits and meet through a rendezvous point, while onion-service traffic is encrypted between the client and onion host.

A `.onion` service is therefore not simply an ordinary website viewed through a Tor exit. The service connection remains inside Tor rather than emerging through a public exit relay to reach an ordinary public web server.

Tor Distributes Trust, but It Still Has Limits

Tor’s distributed design prevents one ordinary relay from simply receiving the complete source-and-destination relationship, but that is not the same as protection against every possible observer.

The Tor Project explicitly documents traffic-correlation and timing attacks as a remaining limitation. An observer capable of seeing both the user’s side of a connection and the relevant destination or exit side may compare timing patterns. Tor’s documentation on remaining attacks states that Tor does not defend against an observer that can see both ends of the communication channel.

That limitation does not make the relay architecture meaningless. It defines the threat model. Tor still prevents ordinary single relays, destination websites, and local network observers from automatically receiving the complete source-to-destination relationship.

Tor can also lose anonymity through application behavior rather than a break in onion routing. The Tor Project notes that circuits may carry multiple TCP connections, so mixing anonymous and identifying traffic or using applications carelessly can create additional correlation risks.

The more detailed architecture behind Tor guards, middle relays, exit nodes, and onion routing explains why these protections and limitations follow from the network design.

VPN vs Tor for Speed and Everyday Compatibility

A VPN and Tor both alter the normal network path, but they do so differently.

A conventional VPN generally sends covered traffic through one VPN endpoint before forwarding it toward the destination. Real performance depends on factors such as server location, congestion, protocol, route quality, device limits, and the underlying internet connection. If a VPN is unusually slow, VPN slowdown diagnosis works best by comparing the same connection with the VPN off and on before changing several settings at once.

Tor routes traffic through multiple volunteer relays. The Tor Project says Tor Browser can sometimes feel slower because traffic passes through relays in different locations and performance depends on network load and latency. It also notes that users may not always notice a meaningful speed difference.

The distinction matters most for workloads that are sensitive to latency. Interactive voice, video, gaming, and similar applications may react more strongly to additional delay than ordinary page loading, although actual results depend on route and network conditions.

Application coverage also differs. Many VPN clients are designed to route broad device traffic according to their routing policy. Tor Browser is configured for safe web browsing through Tor by default. Core Tor can be used by other compatible applications, but the Tor Project says it has not researched safe anonymity configurations for every program and recommends Tor Browser for normal browsing.

Tor should therefore not be reduced to “a slower VPN.” Its extra relays and application constraints follow from a different privacy architecture.

Should You Use a VPN and Tor Together?

Not by default.

Combining two privacy technologies does not automatically create stronger privacy. It changes which parties occupy different positions in the connection, introduces additional configuration, and can create new failure modes.

The Tor Project’s current Tor Browser known-issues guidance says VPNs tend to interfere with Tor and does not recommend using VPN and Tor together unless the user is advanced and understands how to configure both without compromising privacy.

There is therefore no general rule that stacking the technologies provides “double anonymity.” Whether a combined design changes privacy in a useful way depends on the exact routing arrangement, threat model, VPN operator, and configuration.

This comparison does not provide VPN-over-Tor or Tor-over-VPN configuration instructions. Those designs require a more specific threat model than the general comparison here.

Bottom Line

VPN and Tor overlap in one visible result: either can cause a normal website to see an address other than your ordinary public IP. Their privacy architectures are otherwise substantially different.

A conventional VPN gives you an encrypted path to one VPN endpoint and asks you to trust the operator occupying that position. Tor distributes route knowledge across multiple relays and, when used through Tor Browser, adds browser-level privacy defenses that a VPN tunnel alone does not provide. The useful choice depends on your threat model, application needs, tolerance for latency, and whether concentrating or distributing network trust better matches the problem you are trying to solve.

How Apple’s entry into the foldable market could boost its biggest rival.

The iPhone Duo has sparked more interest in foldable phones

Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images

Phone makers should give foldables more attention

Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images

My job is to translate
dry and unrelenting code
into a user interface of surpassing beauty.
With my mouse, I roll one pixel after another
up the vast anthill of the internet.

My dream is to translate
the visions of the holy ones
into a communication protocol
of universal wonderment.
I want to launch shreds of light into the air
to fall like a layer of diamonds
on the endless mountains of the Web.

Don’t imagine these dreams are limited
by the LANs of the software lab.
Between here and the ultimate
unlimited interface of my aspirations
lives a dazzling darkness,
wide as the universe and thin as a hair.

With repeated exposure, the brain adapts to nicotine’s presence. Receptors become less responsive, and so the brain compensates by increasing the number of nicotine receptors, contributing to dependence. Activation of these receptors also influences the release of other neurotransmitters, including dopamine, which plays an important role in reward and reinforcement.

A common claim within wellness communities is that nicotine is a cognitive enhancer that improves focus and productivity. While there are some studies indicating that nicotine may temporarily enhance attention, vigilance, reaction time, and some types of memory, the results are mixed.

If any benefit does exist, the research suggests that this may only be the case for people with mild cognitive impairment. For healthy individuals, it doesn’t appear to offer any boost and may even worsen cognitive operation among higher-performing people.

In addition, many of these studies include people already dependent on nicotine. When these regular users stop consuming nicotine, they’re likely to experience irritability, anxiety, restlessness, and impaired attention. Reintroducing nicotine often relieves these symptoms, making it difficult to determine whether any improvements reflect true cognitive enhancement or are simply the reversal of withdrawal symptoms.

Wellness influencers also promote nicotine as a tool for managing stress and improving mood. Nicotine does activate reward pathways in the brain, which can create a sense of pleasure and wellbeing—temporarily.

Long-term users of nicotine often find that the substance makes stress and anxiety harder to manage. Research consistently shows that people who quit smoking experience reductions in anxiety, depression, and stress, along with improvements in mood and overall quality of life over time. In fact, long-term discontinuation of nicotine use is associated with better mental health.

But the most ambitious claims emerging from the pro-nicotine wellness movement suggest that nicotine protects against Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and other forms age-related cognitive decline. Or further, that nicotine slows biological aging and promotes longevity.

There’s some kernels of research underneath these claims, such as laboratory studies showing that nicotine can affect cellular pathways related to oxidative stress and animal studies suggesting effects on inflammation and other mechanisms linked to aging and disease. However, such findings have not translated into anything that indicates nicotine promotes healthy aging, extends lifespan or prevents age-related disease in humans.

Welcome to the latest edition of Power Play! From now until the midterms, senior writer Molly Taft will be sharing their thoughts every Sunday on this political season’s hottest issue: data centers. We welcome reader comments, and will be answering questions from the comments section in future editions.

The post-lunchtime Climate Week panel featuring tech executives working on AI and data centers was only about a minute into the discussion when a man stood up a few rows over from me in the audience and started yelling.

“The idea that we can keep running on fracked gas is a lie!” he exclaimed as security tackled him.

The panel tried to get back to business after the protester was removed—only to be interrupted again when another person stood up. That’s how things proceeded for the next 10 minutes as protesters with the group Extinction Rebellion NYC staggered interruptions, yelling about various harms of AI over the speakers onstage, who tried valiantly to continue their conversation.

For nearly a decade, Extinction Rebellion groups have used public protest to draw attention to the climate emergency, staging disruptions at corporate-friendly events like this one at Climate Week. Usually, these types of interruptions draw polite silences or subtle eyerolls from panelists waiting for them to stop.

But this experience seemed particularly frustrating to these panelists. Cully Cavness, the cofounder and president of data center infrastructure company Crusoe, confessed to the session’s moderator that he was still thinking about the interruption several minutes after security had taken the last protester out.

I get why they were on edge. The protest at the panel was a microcosm of the tough couple of months for data center defenders, with public opinion at rock-bottom levels and moratoriums popping up in red and blue states. It’s understandable why tech folks would be tense.

Cavness, at one point, said that he assumed most of the protesters probably didn’t even live near a data center and didn’t understand the benefits they could bring to the local tax base. Emerald AI’s Varun Sivaram forged ahead talking about how data centers could become “good citizens,” to work on the grid to lower bills and bring more clean energy online.

“Careful what you wish for,” Sivaram cautioned the now-absent protesters near the end of the session, warning that depriving communities of data centers could deprive them of good actors to help transform the grid.

Lots of folks might take the opportunity, as the protesters did, to yell at a data center executive if given the chance. But unlike the Extinction Rebellion NYC members, climate change almost certainly wouldn’t be the first thing on their minds. Data centers were a hot topic at Climate Week, but it’s also a self-selecting event where people care about one particular issue.

Local concerns—the kind Sivaram and Cavness seemed to be responding to—have dominated the larger national conversation around data center dissent. Poll after poll show that climate is one of the last data center-related environmental concerns on the list for many voters behind water, energy use (and its impact on bills), and local air and noise pollution. Even some climate folks—notably investors—see the state of the atmosphere as a backseat issue. “Climate Week could basically be ‘AI and data center week,” cofounder and managing partner at VoLo Earth told the Wall Street Journal. “It’s all about energy, and most of us as climate investors, myself included, are focused on the energy system.”

During Climate Week, I also caught up with William Lawrence, who is currently locked in a tight race for Michigan’s 7th congressional district. Lawrence knows the climate crisis well—he’s one of the original founders of the Sunrise Movement climate activist group. He’s also made data center opposition, as well as opposition to AI, a cornerstone of his pitch to voters, which helped him win a tough Democratic primary.

Don’t take the health or DNA test results as absolute truth, however. “This can lead to a false sense of security or false alarms,” says veterinarian Amanda Chambers. Forward your results to your veterinarian and always follow up by scheduling a visit to the vet if your pet is marked as a carrier for any genetic disease.

What the Results Can—and Can’t—Tell You

After chatting with Richardson, I’ve found that these are the major areas of limitation with at-home DNA test kits:

• Results depend on the size/diversity of the genetic database
• Most kits test known markers only—not full genomes
• Feline data is less developed
• Misinterpretation of results can lead to unnecessary concern

Wisdom Panel claims its cat breed results are over 98 percent accurate and its dog tests are over 99 percent accurate. However, there’s a huge disparity between the three kits I tested on my cats, particularly in breed ancestry. One problem with the vast disparity in results is that the three companies use different sample sizes and metrics to identify breeds.

But the biggest issue for cat owners taking these at-home DNA tests is that you can’t really identify most cats’ breeds the way you can with dogs. Unless your cat is a purebred, about 95 percent of cats don’t belong to a recognized breed. Cats’ genetic backgrounds are muddied—they’re just similar mixes with different physical characteristics, so the tests only show the breed(s) they share the most markers with. Basically, these tests for cats aren’t able to reliably tell us about breed composition, just similarity to other breeds’ traits in the company’s data pool.

From my research, it seems the breed identification part of these tests is more accurate for dogs, as dog DNA is so much more diversified. Breeds have been clearly defined after centuries of diversification, and dog DNA mutates quickly, with genes changing after just a few generations. Cats are not much different from their Egyptian ancestors.

Interestingly, in a 2023 CBS report, the news organization sent dog and human DNA to different at-home test companies and received varying results, with the dog’s DNA ranging from 65 to only 29 percent German Shepherd. The human DNA results were attributed to a bulldog, border collie, and cane corso mix.

In summation, unfortunately, there isn’t a single catchall way to determine a pet’s genetic makeup or ancestry. Humans like categories, and breeds are essentially human constructs based on how a dog or cat looks. The genetic part of the test is fun, but take it with a grain of salt—especially with cats.

Photograph: Molly Higgins

A Note on At-Home Allergy Testing Kits

I recently tested both of my cats for allergies and intolerances using a similar at-home test kit, the 5Strands Pet Food & Environmental Intolerance Test, for $100. For this, you only need to send a fur sample in the mail to a lab; results were sent to my inbox within seven days. The report showed that both of my cats had strong intolerances to common ingredients in their diet, such as various types of fish and chicken meal. This sent me into a panic about my cats’ health and (dis)comfort.

After further research, I learned that hair/fur samples are not an accurate way to measure allergies and intolerances. Studies show that kits claiming to provide these results perform no better than chance and often produce inconsistent or false results.