Over the past several days, reports had surfaced indicating that Spotify was rolling out a 'QR code verification' method, where the app would prompt members on its Family Plan to verify they lived with the plan manager by scanning a QR code. This code appears on the plan manager's phone, which the plan member then needs to scan with their own phone, according to Spotify's support documentation. Plan members have seven days to complete the QR code after getting a notification, which means they could be out of luck if they live outside the home and aren't planning a return visit anytime soon. If the verification window is missed, they won't be able to join another Family or Duo plan for 12 months, but would instead have to shift to an individual plan that they pay for themselves. The move is meant to boost subscriptions to Spotify's profitable Premium plans, rather than allowing adult children or friends who live apart from gaming the system to get a cheaper plan by splitting a Family Plan subscription....

I test a slew of devices every year, but it's rare that a category truly surprises me. I entered the world of digital wall calendars expecting to hate them, and I walked away their biggest fan. If you've been curious about getting one for yourself, now is the perfect time: Just about all of my picks are on sale. If you're unfamiliar, a digital wall calendar is a physical device that syncs all of your digital calendars onto its screen. No more grabbing your phone to check when the next appointment is or scribbling out plans that fell through. It's great for couples and families who juggle multiple schedules and want to see them all in one place, on a screen the entire family can access. But these devices don't stop there. All my picks also act as an overall family hub, managing chores, meal plans, and more to make life a little easier. It's the smartest device in my kitchen, though it isn't a true smart-home device. Here's a collection of the best digital wall calendars I've tried and their sale prices for Amazon Prime Big Deal Days 2026. You can also check out my guide for more details, and don't miss all our deal roundups this season....

For the wealthy families who manage their own money through a family office, the math right now is simple, according to Djoann Fal, a family office advisor and investor at the private wealth platform Atlas Capital in San Francisco. A family office might want to put money into something like green energy for the long haul. But in the current environment, if a fund manager offers a deal that could triple an investor's money over three years, and another deal could triple it in three months, the choice is easy. As Fal put it: If they have one deal that has the chance to make them 3x in three years, and another deal that could make them 3x in one quarter, 'they're just going to invest in the AI deal that does 3x in three months.' It isn't surprising that family offices want in on the action, given that everything around AI is so hot right now, from valuations to pricing to the potential for returns. A bigger shift is that they no longer necessarily want to invest the traditional way, through a venture capital fund manager. Instead, family offices are increasingly buying existing shares in a private company from existing shareholders, or making direct deals on their own. Both approaches get them exposure to the hottest companies without having to hand over control of their money to a fund manager for a decade....

GPT-5.6 comes in three variants: Sol (considered its workhorse), Terra (a more intermediate option), and Luna (its budget-friendly option). These models expand what users can do across a variety of fields ' with the company promising powerful capabilities in enterprise work, coding, and even scientific research. CEO Sam Altman has promised that his company's newest models are orders of magnitude more efficient and cost-effective than previous versions, recently telling CNBC that Sol is 54% more token efficient when it comes to AI coding tasks. Indeed, much hubbub has been made about the model's cyber capabilities, as the Trump administration previously sought to restrict its rollout, ostensibly due to fears of how the model could be misused. GPT-5.6 supports defensive activities, including threat modeling, code review and patching, and blue teaming (simulating an attack on your own systems to find weaknesses before real hackers do). OpenAI also released a new tool called ChatGPT Work, which ' just as it sounds ' is designed as a workplace companion for enterprise teams, running on desktop, web, and mobile, that can help with daily clerical tasks, like drafting documents, spreadsheets, and presentations....