Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to unwind with a cozy Hallmark romance. If you’re a Peacock subscriber, you know full well that the NBCUniversal-owned streamer used to house a whole slew of Hallmark TV shows and movies. The three-year-long contract between the two ended in May 2025, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your fill of small-town love stories, Christmas romances and light-hearted mysteries. 

If you’re pining for that classic Hallmark goodness, I’ve got a tip for you. You can watch everything you’ve been missing to ring in Valentine’s Day right. And you won’t have to pay a dime. Yes, free, gratis, at no cost to you whatsoever.

What’s all the hoopla, you must be wondering. Well, not to be cheeky or anything, but it’s Hoopla, actually.

Fun wordplay aside, Hoopla is the streaming spot where you can find that Hallmark goodness you’ve been missing out on. It’s a digital entertainment platform with all sorts of audiobooks, podcasts, movies, TV shows, music and educational material to keep you engaged. Your local public library provides this cost-free app.

The Hallmark Channel’s entire collection is available here through the platform’s Hallmark Plus BingePass. With this feature, you can borrow premium content for seven days. Get ready to binge all the charming love stories you want. This is the perfect way to catch up if you’re behind on hit shows like Ride and When Calls the Heart. It’s all ad-free with just a single click.

Read more: I Love Hallmark Movies, but This New Netflix Flick Shakes Up the Rom-Com Formula

First, you will need a valid library card and email address to sign up for the Hallmark Plus BingePass on Hoopla. Visit the Hoopla website (or download the mobile app) and follow the steps to create an account. Keep your library card on hand, as you may be asked to provide your card number and PIN. You can sign up for one if you don’t have a library card.

Once you complete the setup process for your Hoopla account, you can start streaming. From there, simply pick the Hallmark Plus BingePass option from the BingePass prompt to watch. Not all libraries support Hoopla, so I recommend checking with your local branch to see if the service is available. If you would rather not rely on the library to scratch that feel-good movie itch, you can try Pluto TV and watch its curated channel, devoted to all things Hallmark.

Want the entire library and don’t mind paying? You can always sign up for Hallmark Plus — the channel’s exclusive streaming platform — for $8 a month or $80 a year. A paid subscription gets you access to Hallmark’s content library along with all-new exclusive original series and movies. Extra perks, as listed on the Hallmark Plus website, include a Hallmark Gold Crown Store coupon, Crown Rewards points, unlimited eCards and exclusive surprises.

GF Securities analyst Jeff Pu reports that Apple may keep iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max pricing unchanged despite rising memory costs, easing concerns that higher RAM prices would automatically push flagship iPhone prices upward.

Pu, in an investment note first reported by MacRumors, states that Apple does not plan to increase prices relative to the iPhone 17 Pro lineup, which currently starts at $1,099 for the Pro and $1,199 for the Pro Max.

Rising memory costs have created pressure across the smartphone industry, as demand for high-bandwidth memory used in AI data centres has driven up prices for RAM and flash storage components.

Pu attributes Apple’s ability to hold pricing steady to aggressive cost-management strategies, including negotiations with key suppliers such as Samsung and SK Hynix, which manufacture memory chips used in iPhones.

He adds that Apple is also seeking more favourable terms for display panels and camera modules, suggesting that broader supply chain optimisation could offset higher semiconductor costs.

The Everett, Washington-based fusion energy startup Helion announced Friday that it has hit a key milestone in its quest for fusion power. Plasmas inside the company’s Polaris prototype reactor have reached 150 million degrees Celsius, three-quarters of the way toward what the company thinks it will need to operate a commercial fusion power plant.

“We’re obviously really excited to be able to get to this place,” David Kirtley, Helion’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch.

Polaris is also operating using deuterium-tritium fuel — a mixture of two hydrogen isotopes — which Kirtley said makes Helion the first fusion company to do so. “We were able to see the fusion power output increase dramatically as expected in the form of heat,” he said.

The startup is locked in a race with several other companies that are seeking to commercialize fusion power, potentially unlimited source of clean energy.

That potential has investors rushing to bet on the technology. This week, Inertia Enterprises announced a $450 million Series A round that included Bessemer and GV. In January, Type One Energy told TechCrunch it was in the midst of raising $250 million, while last summer Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $863 million from investors including Google and Nvidia. Helion itself raised $425 million last year from a group that included Sam Altman, Mithril, Lightspeed, and SoftBank.

While most other fusion startups are targeting the early 2030s to put electricity on the grid, Helion has a contract with Microsoft to sell it electricity starting in 2028, though that power would come from a larger commercial reactor called Orion that the company is currently building, not Polaris.

Every fusion startup has its own milestones based on the design of its reactor. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, for example, needs to heat its plasmas to more than 100 million degrees C inside of its tokamak, a doughnut-shaped device that uses powerful magnets to contain the plasma.

Helion’s reactor is different, needing plasmas that are about twice as hot to function as intended. 

The company’s reactor design is what’s called a field-reversed configuration. The inside chamber looks like an hourglass, and at the wide ends, fuel gets injected and turned into plasmas. Magnets then accelerate the plasmas toward each other. When they first merge, they’re around 10 million to 20 million degrees C. Powerful magnets then compress the merged ball further, raising the temperature to 150 million degrees C. It all happens in less than a millisecond.

Instead of extracting energy from the fusion reactions in the form of heat, Helion uses the fusion reaction’s own magnetic field to generate electricity. Each pulse will push back against the reactor’s own magnets, inducing electrical current that can be harvested. By harvesting electricity directly from the fusion reactions, the company hopes to be more efficient than its competitors.

Over the last year, Kirtley said that Helion had refined some of the circuits in the reactor to boost how much electricity they recover.

While the company uses deuterium-tritium fuel today, down the road it plans to use deuterium-helium-3. Most fusion companies plan to use deuterium-tritium and extract energy as heat. Helion’s fuel choice, deuterium-helium-3, produces more charged particles, which push forcefully against the magnetic fields that confine the plasma, making it better suited for Helion’s approach of generating electricity directly.

Helion’s ultimate goal is to produce plasmas that hit 200 million degrees C, far higher than other companies’ targets, a function of its reactor design and fuel choice. “We believe that at 200 million degrees, that’s where you get into that optimal sweet spot of where you want to operate a power plant,” Kirtley said.

When asked whether Helion had reached scientific breakeven — the point where a fusion reaction generates more energy than it requires to start it — Kirtley demurred. “We focus on the electricity piece, making electricity, rather than the pure scientific milestones.”

Helium-3 is common on the Moon, but not here on Earth, so Helion must make its own fuel. To start, it’ll fuse deuterium nuclei to produce the first batches. In regular operation, while the main source of power will be deuterium-helium-3 fusion, some of the reactions will still be deuterium-on-deuterium, which will produce helium-3 that the company will purify and reuse.

Work is already underway to refine the fuel cycle. “It’s been a pleasant surprise in that a lot of that technology has been easier to do than maybe we expected,” Kirtley said. Helion has been able to produce helium-3 “at very high efficiencies in terms of both throughput and purity,” he added.

While Helion is currently the only fusion startup using helium-3 in its fuel, Kirtley said he thinks other companies will in the future, hinting that he’d be open to selling it to them. “Other folks — as they come along and recognize that they want to do this approach of direct electricity recovery and see the efficiency gains from it — will want to be using helium-3 fuel as well,” he said.

Alongside its experiments with Polaris, Helion is also building Orion, a 50-megawatt fusion reactor it needs to fulfill its Microsoft contract “Our ultimate goal is not to build and deliver Polaris,” Kirtley said. “That’s a step along the way towards scaled power plants.”

Microsoft has fixed a known issue causing its Family Safety parental control service to block Windows users from launching Google Chrome and other web browsers.

Family Safety helps parents monitor their children’s activity and provides screen time management, app controls, communication monitoring, content filtering, location tracking, and activity reports.

Microsoft acknowledged the bug in late June 2025 after widespread reports that users were unable to launch Google Chrome on their PCs or experienced the web browser randomly crashing on devices running Windows 10 22H2 and Windows 11 22H2 or later.

As explained at the time, the issue is caused by Family Safety’s web filtering tool, which prompts children to ask their parents for approval to use other browsers. However, the bug also causes Family Safety to block new versions of previously approved web browsers, inadvertently preventing them from launching or causing them to shut down unexpectedly.

“The blocking behavior continues to work, however, when a browser updates to a new version, the latest version of the browser cannot be blocked until we add it to the block list. Microsoft is currently adding the latest versions of Chrome and other browsers to the block list,” the company notes on the Windows release health dashboard.

“As Microsoft continues to update the block list, we’ve received reports of a new issue affecting Google Chrome and some browsers. When children try to open these browsers, they shut down unexpectedly.”

Service‑side fix pushed in early February

This week, Microsoft confirmed that it addressed the issue with a service‑side fix earlier this month, nearly eight months after first receiving reports of web browsers shutting down unexpectedly.

Affected users are advised to connect their devices to the Internet to receive the fix, which should address the bug and prevent similar problems in the future.

“This issue has been resolved through a service‑side fix. The rollout began early February 2026 and should reach all affected devices over the coming weeks,” Microsoft said. “If your device presented this symptom, please let it connect to the internet to receive the resolution. No other action is required.”

Those who can’t get online to receive the fix are advised to turn on the ‘Activity reporting’ feature under Windows settings in Microsoft Family Safety, which will allow parents to receive approval requests as expected and allowlist newer browser versions.

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Sony’s State of Play on Thursday had some surprises, including the remaster of Metal Gear Solid 4. Finishing up the show were two announcements for the God of War franchise that no one saw coming. 

The first reveal was done by TC Carson, the voice actor for Kratos in the original God of War games released on the PS2 and PS3. Carson announced that the first three God of War games will be remade. The God of War Greek trilogy remakes are still in early development by Santa Monica Studio, and more details about the games will come in the future, so it’s safe to say fans still have plenty of time to wait before they’re released. 

Following the news of the trilogy remake, the final surprise was the release of a new God of War game, albeit in a game format that’s new to the series. God of War: Sons of Sparta is a 2D action platformer that tells the story of Kratos’ youth as he trains to be a Spartan warrior with his brother Deimos. Developed by Mega Cat Studios (makers of the side-scrolling Five Nights at Freddy’s: Into The Pit) with a story written by Santa Monica Studio, young Kratos will have to learn to use his spear, shield and divine artifacts to defeat his enemies.

Since Kratos doesn’t have his traditional Blades of Chaos or Leviathan Axe in this new game, he’ll rely on a classic Spartan spear that can still do plenty of damage and be customized. Changing out the spear tip will add extra offensive stats or status effects to the weapon, such as poison or burn, while spear grips add a finishing move to his combos. The spear tails add a new special attack that Kratos can unleash. 

With his shield, Kratos can deflect or parry attacks from enemies. His shield can also be upgraded to make parrying easier to reduce the damage Kratos receives when evading. The Gifts of Olympus are divine artifacts Kratos can equip that can unleash punishing projectiles or their own melee combo. Kratos can also equip accessories called Gouri to improve his offense, defense or even help find secret treasure. 

God of War: Sons of Sparta was made available in the PlayStation Store following the reveal on Thursday. The standard edition costs $30 while the deluxe edition costs $40 and includes multiple in-game items, a PlayStation Network avatar, a digital artbook and soundtrack. 

These announcements, along with the news of a God of War TV series coming to Amazon, are all part of the celebration for the God of War 20th anniversary. 

At Sony’s State of Play yesterday, developer Nomada Studio revealed a DLC prequel to its gorgeous and award-winning puzzle platformer Neva. Entitled simply Neva: Prologue, it tells the story of how Alba and her wolf companion Neva met, while introducing new gameplay mechanics, locales and challenges.

“In Neva: Prologue, players follow Alba as she chases a trail of white butterflies deep into the corrupted swamps, only to discover a frightened wolf cub, lost and alone,” Nomada writes. “To survive, Alba must earn the cub’s trust and guide them both through the blighted wetlands and the dark forces that stalk them.”

The developer adds that Neva: Prologue is designed to be experienced after completing the main game. It adds three new locations, “each featuring unique gameplay mechanics, alongside new enemies and intense boss encounters.” Completionists will also get five hidden challenge flowers.

In her review of the original game, Engadget’s Jessica Conditt found Neva “faultless” thanks to the exquisite swordplay and intuitive platforming action, along with the “stunning” world composed of “lush forests, sun-drenched valleys, soaring mountains and twisting cave systems.” Neva: Prologue will released as a standalone DLC on February 19.

The AI giant announced a revenue run rate of $14bn – up from $0 three years ago, and $9bn two months ago.

Anthropic announced a $30bn Series G funding round led by Coatue Management and Singapore’s GIC at a post-money valuation of $380bn. The raise more than doubles its valuation from the last round it announced in September.

The Series G was co-led by D E Shaw Ventures; Dragoneer; Founders Fund; Iconiq; and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX, an AI investment firm with close ties to the United Arab Emirates political class. MGX recently took 15pc ownership of TikTok’s US venture and funded xAI in a $20bn Series E round shortly before it was acquired by SpaceX.

Several other big-name investors took part in the round, including Accel; Bessemer Venture Partners; Black Rock; Fidelity Management and Research Company; Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives; Lightspeed Venture Partners; Qatar Investment Authority; and Sequoia Capital, among others.

While Anthropic did not provide details on individual commitments from investors, Bloomberg reported last month that lead investors GIC and Coatue will commit around $1.5bn, and Iconiq around $1bn.

The Series G also includes portions of the previously announced $15bn in commitments from Microsoft and Nvidia, Anthropic said.

The company wants to use the funds to fuel frontier research in AI, develop products and expand its infrastructure. Claude is currently the only frontier AI model available on the three largest cloud platforms, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

The round comes as the AI giant hit a revenue run rate of $14bn – up from $0 three years ago, and around $9bn two months ago.

Anthropic has established itself as the go-to choice for enterprise coding in a market littered with choices ranging from OpenAI to Microsoft’s Copilot.

According to the company, the number of customers spending more than $100,000 annually on Claude has growth seven times in the past year, while more than 500 spend more than $1m on an annualised basis.

Claude Code’s revenue rate alone has grown to more than $2.5bn, more than doubling in value since the beginning of the year. The company launched ‘Cowork’ in January, a product entirely made by Claude Code, designed to be a simpler version of its predecessor. The launch garnered generally positive reactions from users.

Meanwhile, Claude for Healthcare was launched shortly after rival OpenAI released its iteration of a privacy-preserving tool for medical queries.

“Whether it is entrepreneurs, start-ups, or the world’s largest enterprises, the message from our customers is the same – Claude is increasingly becoming critical to how businesses work,” said Krishna Rao, Anthropic’s chief financial officer.

“This fundraising reflects the incredible demand we are seeing from these customers, and we will use this investment to continue building the enterprise-grade products and models they have come to depend on.”

The company also launched its latest AI model, the Opus 4.6, earlier this month. The model, according to the company, can manage categories of real-world work, generate documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

Artificial Analysis testing places Opus 4.6 at the top of the chart for running better than OpenAI’s GPT 5.2 while being cheaper.

OpenAI is reportedly in talks to raise as much as $100bn for a $750bn valuation. The company is currently valued at $500bn. Its revenue run rate exceeded past $20bn by the end of 2025.

Both OpenAI and Anthropic said they are interested in filing for initial public offerings (IPO).

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