It's easy for students to search the web when working on assignments, but Microsoft now wants to teach those students how to spot misinformation and otherwise think critically. In addition to an existing Search Coach, Microsoft is introducing a Search Progress feature in Teams for Education that helps teachers foster healthy online research habits through practice work. Educators can not only require a certain number of sources for an assignment, but check to see that students are searching responsibly — they'll know if pupils are only clicking the first site in the results, or using filters like NewsGuard to check source quality. Students can show their reasoning and work before turning in a project, too.

The Progress tool bolsters Search Coach (shown below), which encourages students using Teams to both search more precisely and watch out for falsehoods. They can limit searches to certain domains (such as .gov or .edu), date ranges and file types. They can even pass queries through fact checking sites to learn if a claim holds up under scrutiny. Bing's safe search is enabled by default, and the results are ad-free. Teachers can also use search trends to refine their lessons.

Search Progress will be available in preview form later in the year. Search Coach is already available in Teams worldwide. Both features will work with over 50 languages, Microsoft says.

Microsoft also wants to improve students' overall reading skills. The company's Reading Coach will be available in the Immersive Readers for Word Online, OneNote, Teams Assignments, Minecraft Education and other platforms, giving students more reading fluency experience both online and in the apps they use. Reading Progress, meanwhile, will add comprehension questions to be sure kids truly understand what they read. Both upgrades will be available later this year.

Here's a pleasant treat from today's Nintendo Direct: the surprise launch of a revamp of the original Metroid Prime for the Switch. The appropriately titled Metroid Prime Remastered boasts much-improved graphics, of course, but it also includes dual-stick controls that are considerably more intuitive. You can use a GameCube-like scheme and other control options, but players used to two decades of console first-person shooters should feel more at home.

The remaster is available now in digital form through the Nintendo eShop for $40. If you prefer a hard copy, you'll have to wait until February 22nd.

This isn't the long-delayed Metroid Prime 4, and there's no word on remasters for the other Prime games. For now, at least, Metroid Dread is the only real way to continue Samus Aran's adventures on the Switch. Look at it this way, though — this is the first time a Metroid FPS has been playable on a handheld console short of some very unofficial GameCube mods. It may do the trick if you want more than a 2D platformer during your daily commute.

The tug of war over Meta's acquisition of Within is over. Meta has completed its purchase of the virtual reality workout app maker, bringing Supernatural and other projects into the metaverse giant's fold. The two didn't elaborate further on their plans, but Within said in October 2021 that it would continue to develop Supernatural exercise content under Meta's Reality Labs wing.

The deal was in doubt for a while. The Federal Trade Commission filed an antitrust suit to block the deal in July 2022, contending that Meta was trying to buy its way into VR dominance by acquiring key developers like Within and Beat Saber creator Beat Games. Meta agreed to delay the acquisition to provide more time. Last week, however, a federal court denied a preliminary injunction to block the merger while the FTC investigated. The commission decided against appealing the loss, but was yet to decide whether or not it would rely on an administrative law judge to stop the union.

The move gives Meta control over one of the most popular VR fitness apps at a crucial moment. Meta is struggling to pivot to the metaverse between steep losses and a lack of clear incentives to spend extensive time in VR. Within gives Meta both a fitness system and a subscription service, albeit one aimed at a relatively niche audience. It also helps Meta compete against a growing wave of headsets that includes PlayStation VR2.

The completion isn't good news for the FTC, however. The Within buyout was an early test of commission chair Lina Khan's crackdown on Big Tech. While there are still other battles to fight, such as the antitrust suit over Microsoft's Activision Blizzard takeover, this suggests the regulator won't have an easy time keeping major companies in check.

You now have a very practical reason to subscribe to Twitter Blue beyond long video uploads and the coveted blue checkmark. As of today, Blue members in the US can post tweets up to 4,000 characters long. You can't currently schedule these posts or save them as drafts, but this could be helpful if you'd rather not write a lengthy multi-tweet thread just to share your thoughts.

Free Twitter users can still reply to and quote these tweets. And yes, Twitter is aware that scrolling through a sea of these lengthy posts could be frustrating. Any tweet longer than 280 characters now hides any extra content beyond a "show more" prompt. Blue normally costs $8 per month, or $84 per year.

This probably won't prompt you to switch from social networks like Facebook or Mastodon, where long posts have been available for a while. However, it could be helpful if you'd like to share the same post across multiple social platforms without having to split it up or write a condensed version.

There's certainly pressure on Twitter to make Blue more appealing. Twitter reportedly only had 180,000 Blue subscribers in the US as of mid-January, and roughly 290,000 worldwide. While the revamped subscription hasn't been available for very long, it needs to be highly attractive to enthusiasts if Elon Musk wants to achieve a goal of generating half of Twitter's revenue from subscriptions.

Netflix's fight against password sharing is expanding in earnest. The company is rolling out paid account sharing in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain after trialing the effort in Latin America. If you live in one of these countries, you'll need to set a primary location to have unfettered access at home. If you have any friends or family who want to share your account, you'll have to subscribe to either the Standard or Premium tier and pay a fee ($8 in Canada and New Zealand, €4 in Portugal and €6 in Spain) for up to two extra users outside of your home.

You can still watch on your phone or sign into the service on a device elsewhere, like a smart TV at a hotel. Netflix also lets you convert a profile into a new account. The company promises to tweak paid sharing based on feedback, and to continue the deployment over the "coming months."

The streaming pioneer isn't shy about its rationale. As it has argued in the past, Netflix claims account sharing is hurting its bottom line. The 100 million-plus households sharing accounts are "impacting [Netflix's] ability" to invest in new content, according to product director Chengyi Long. In theory, paid sharing improves the company's revenue without forcing affected users to pay full price for a completely separate account.

It's not clear how new regions will take to the policy. Many rival services don't have account sharing restrictions, and some sharers may be averse to paying anything to use someone else's access. While we wouldn't expect users to switch services in droves, there may be some who simply forego Netflix altogether to avoid paying a fee.

Months after a successful vote, Apple Store employees in Glasgow have become the company's first retail workers to form a union in the UK. Apple and the trade union GMB Scotland have signed a collective bargaining agreement that theoretically gives staff at the Buchanan Street store more clout when pushing for improved working conditions.

The Glasgow employees voted to unionize in November. They sought better pay, increased wage transparency and improved shift scheduling. Union negotiators characterized talks with Apple as positive, but it took several months before workers cast ballots.

GMB organizer John Slaven calls the union vote "historic." In a statement to The Herald, Apple says it's one of the "highest paying" retail brands in Scotland, and offers "industry-leading benefits" to employees. Apple raised starting wages for store workers last year in response to mounting labor action, but it also faces formal complaints over alleged union busting tactics.

These aren't the first Apple retail employees to create unions. In addition to teams in Europe, some stores in the US voted to unionize last year. The Glasgow move adds to the momentum, however, and may help other UK store workers pursuing their own unionization efforts.

It wouldn't be February without a peek at Google's next mobile OS. Sure enough, the company has released the first Android 14 developer preview (DP1) to help app creators target the new platform. This time around, the initial priorities are accessibility, battery life and security. You can scale fonts to a much larger size (200 percent versus the earlier 130 percent), and smarter scaling makes text more readable. It's easier to set preferred languages for apps, and developers can be more accommodating to people who speak gendered languages like French.

Android 14 DP1 also includes some under-the-hood improvements that can make the most of your battery and screen. There are tighter controls on alarms, foreground tasks and internal broadcasts, all of which can reduce power consumption. It should also be easier to build apps for foldable phones and tablets, so you may see software that makes better use of your hardware's visual real estate.

And yes, Android 14 can block users from sideloading very old apps. Google will require that apps target at least Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), as some malware is written for older versions to avoid a permissions system introduced in 2015. This won't prevent you from running apps that are already installed when you upgrade the OS, and you can use command line instructions to force installations. However, you may have to look for alternatives if there's an ancient app you'd hate to give up.

This first preview is available through the desktop Android emulator as well as the Pixel 4a, Pixel 5 and newer Google phones. The first Android 14 beta should arrive in April, and Google expects "platform stability" (read: release candidates) in June. As always, the developer previews don't represent the sum total of what the new platform will bring. We'd expect Google to reveal more conspicuous changes at its I/O conference in the spring.

If it seems like everyone is rushing to develop an alternative to ChatGPT, you're not wrong. Chinese online commerce heavyweight Alibaba has confirmed to CNBC that it's working on its equivalent to OpenAI's hit AI chatbot. The company isn't detailing features or offering a release schedule, but says it has been developing generative AI since 2017 and is in the middle of internal testing.

The reveal comes as multiple tech giants have introduced rivals to or spinoffs of ChatGPT this week. Google unveiled Bard, while China's Baidu said it was testing "Ernie Bot." Microsoft, meanwhile, launched a redesigned Bing that uses a "much more powerful" language model built with OpenAI's help. The text-generating AI is considered particularly useful for search, where it can provide detailed responses to very specific questions.

Alibaba hasn't said how it would put the AI to work. However, the company is a powerhouse in online shopping and has its fingers in numerous other fields ranging from cloud computing through to finance. A counterpart to ChatGPT could be useful in many of these categories, and might help Alibaba challenge Baidu and other Chinese firms hoping to wield AI as a competitive advantage.

Are you considering the OnePlus 11, but want something to sweeten the deal? You're getting what you wish for. Amazon is offering a free $100 gift card if you pre-order the phone in any color or configuration by February 12th. That could be helpful for buying the Buds Pro 2 ($180), a case or other accessories you may need.

The OnePlus 11 is, in some ways, a return to form for the brand. For just under $700, you're getting a fast, long-lasting phone with a vivid display and speedy 100W charging. The cameras are improved over its predecessor, too. Combine this with four years of major OS updates and you're getting a phone that can easily compete against some more expensive phones.

You're still getting what you pay for. While the OnePlus 11 is faster than the Pixel 7, its cameras aren't on par. There's no wireless charging, and you can't get more than 256GB of storage. If you mainly care about performance and battery life, though, OnePlus' device is difficult to beat at this price point — particularly if you aren't keen on importing phones like the Xiaomi 13 Pro.

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Microsoft's use of AI on the web will extend beyond smarter Bing searches. The company is updating its Edge browser with an "AI-powered copilot" that assists with everyday tasks. Integration with the new Bing can help you get the key takeaways from a document, compare content and even draft posts (such as on LinkedIn) with a specific tone.

Both Bing and the updated Edge are based around a new AI model, Prometheus, built with the help of OpenAI. While it draws some lessons from the popular ChatGPT conversational AI, it's billed as more powerful and optimized for search. Microsoft also claims it's a "responsible" platform where protections against abuse and errors exist at every level.

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