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(Update: Offer is back. Again available to existing customers depositing new funds. Hat tip to reader David.)

Live Oak Bank is an FDIC-insured internet bank that is focused on lending to small businesses. Their personal savings account has a limited-time offer of a $200 bonus if you deposit $20,000+ in new funds into their online savings account by 1/30/26 via this special offer page and keep it there for 60 days. The current interest rate is 3.80% APY. Direct deposit is not required. Valid for both new and existing customers, as long as you are adding new money (lookback date is 1/4/26).

Selected fine print:

New and Existing Customers:

The promotion begins on January 5, 2026.
Only one bonus is available per Tax Identification Number per promotional period.
Only personal savings accounts are eligible for the bonus offer. Checking accounts, certificates of deposit (CD) accounts, and fiduciary accounts (e.g., trusts) are not eligible for this offer.
Opening of a new account will be subject to approval by Live Oak Banking Company in its sole discretion.
A new account must be opened between January 5, 2026 and January 30, 2026 to be eligible.
A new Live Oak Bank personal savings account must be fully funded with at least $20,000 by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on January 30, 2026 to be eligible. If the account is not fully funded by January 30, then it is not eligible for the bonus offer.

All funding of the new personal savings account must consist of funds originating from an external financial institution to qualify; deposits or transfers originating from an existing Live Oak Bank account (personal or business) via internal transfer, CD redemption, check, ACH transfer, wire, or loan proceeds do not qualify for the bonus offer.

Beginning on the date in January 2026 that the new account attains a balance of at least $20,000, if the balance remains equal to or exceeding $20,000 for 60 consecutive days, then the account will be eligible for the bonus if all other conditions are met. If all eligibility criteria are met, the $200 cash bonus will be deposited to your open, eligible account within 45 days following the expiration of the 60-day period.

Your new account must not be closed or restricted at the time of payout in order to receive the bonus. Live Oak Bank reserves the right to withdraw or withhold the bonus offer from any customer, with or without notice, if fraud or other suspicious activity is suspected.

Any promotional amounts received may be subject to taxation.

Existing Customers:
In addition to the other requirements for the bonus offer, existing Live Oak Bank customers must maintain their existing account balances (not including interest accrued but not credited to the account) at or above the end-of-day balance as of January 4, 2026 at 11:59:59 p.m. ET across their existing personal savings in order to be eligible for the bonus offer.

Bonus math. This is a 1% bonus on $20,000 if you keep it there for 60 days, which makes it the equivalent of 6% APY annualized. Bonus will be paid around Day 105 and the account must be open at that time, but you only need to maintain full balance through Day 60. The bonus is on top of the standard interest rate, currently a competitive 3.80% APY as of 1/6/26.

This equivalent of roughly 9.80% total APY over 60 days makes it a solid offer for those with compatible balances looking for short-term place to hold their cash for a few months. Live Oak Bank seems to come and go with the competitiveness of their rates, but it’s nice that this is available to existing customers.

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Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: The Open Rights Group is warning politicians that the UK is leaning far too heavily on US tech companies to run critical systems, and wants the Cybersecurity and Resilience Bill to force a rethink. The digital rights outfit says the bill, which is due to receive its second reading in the House of Commons today, represents a rare opportunity to force the government to confront what it sees as a strategic blind spot: the UK's reliance on companies such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and data analytics biz Palantir for everything from cloud hosting to sensitive public sector systems. "Just as relying on one country for the UK's energy needs would be risky and irresponsible, so is overreliance on US companies to supply the bulk of our digital infrastructure," said James Baker, platform power programme manager at Open Rights Group. He argued that digital infrastructure has become an extension of geopolitical power, and the UK is increasingly vulnerable to decisions taken far beyond Westminster's control.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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HP this week announced the EliteBoard G1a at CES 2026, a Windows computer built into a full-size 93-key desktop keyboard that the company is marketing to businesses where employees use hot desks and need a portable computing environment they can carry between workstations. The device connects to a USB-C monitor for both video output and power delivery over a single cable, and HP includes a USB-to-HDMI adapter for displays that lack USB-C input. Inside runs an AMD Ryzen AI 5 or 7 processor paired with AMD Radeon 800 integrated graphics and an NPU capable of up to 50 TOPS, qualifying it as a Copilot+ PC by Microsoft's standards. The device can be configured with up to 64GB of DDR5 RAM and 2TB of SSD storage. The keyboard weighs between 1.49 and 1.69 pounds depending on configuration and measures 14.1 by 4.7 by 0.7 inches, lighter than most laptops but longer and thicker than some. An optional 32Wh battery offers up to 3.5 hours of unplugged use. The EliteBoard G1a ships in March.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul has signed S4505, a law that requires websites to display warnings claiming that features like algorithmic feeds, push notifications, infinite scroll, like counts, and autoplay cause addiction -- despite, as TechDirt argues, the absence of scientific consensus supporting such claims. State Senator Andrew Gounardes sponsored the legislation. The law's constitutional footing appears precarious. Courts have already rejected nearly identical compelled-speech schemes, most notably in the Texas pornography age-verification case that reached the Supreme Court. The Fifth Circuit, in that case, refused to uphold mandatory health warnings about pornography, ruling that such public health claims were "too contentious and controversial to receive Zauderer scrutiny" -- the legal standard that sometimes permits government-mandated disclosures. The science around social media's purported addictiveness is even more disputed than the pornography research the Fifth Circuit rejected. Hochul's signing statement asserts that studies link increased social media use to anxiety and depression, but researchers in the field note these studies demonstrate correlation rather than causation. Some experts have suggested the causal relationship may run in the opposite direction: teenagers struggling with mental health issues turn to social media for community and coping mechanisms. The law's broad definitions could sweep in far more than major platforms like Facebook and TikTok. News sites, recipe apps, fitness trackers, and email clients could theoretically face enforcement if they employ the targeted features. New York's Attorney General holds sole authority to grant exemptions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Razer today unveiled Project Motoko, a concept pair of over-ear headphones equipped with dual cameras that the gaming peripherals company believes could serve as an alternative to the smart glasses that have proliferated across the wearable AI market. The headphones feature two 4K cameras positioned on the earcups along with near and far field microphones, all powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon chip. Users can point the cameras at objects and ask questions to AI assistants including those from OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and Microsoft. Basic queries run locally on the device while more complex requests require a phone or PC connection. Razer's pitch centers on battery life: the wireless headset has achieved up to 36 hours on a charge during testing, according to the company, compared to the eight hours rated for Meta's second-generation Ray-Ban AI glasses. The company also argues that over-ear headphones offer more privacy since audio responses aren't audible to bystanders. The concept remains unfinished, Bloomberg News cautioned. During a product demonstration, the headset's dual cameras failed occasionally to recognize objects even in a moderately lit room. Razer has not committed to final pricing but indicated the headphones would command a "slight premium" over other high-end headphones and would be available later this year. The company's most expensive current headset costs $400.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Longtime reader joshuark shares a report: As spotted by Bluesky user DodgerFanLA, going to Office.com now greets you with the following helpful explainer: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*" Never has an asterisk been more relevant to me than following the words "your favorite apps now including Copilot." About a decade ago, hardware company Corsair attempted to pivot from its classic logo -- a subtle trio of ship sails -- to a newer, edgier look, a pair of crossed swords that gave off regrettable '2000s tribal tattoo' energy. The rebrand didn't last long: after a fierce outcry from people who correctly thought the new logo sucked, Corsair swapped to a refreshed take on the sail logo, which it's been using ever since. Corsair was established in 1994, and made about $1.4 billion last year -- which I bring up because today Microsoft, a slightly bigger company, has slipped on its own rebranding banana peel. The company is seemingly all but ditching the Office name -- which it introduced four years before Corsair existed, and which drove more than $30 billion in revenue just last quarter -- with a catchy new name: "Microsoft 365 Copilot app." The company had already downplayed the Office name, despite it being perhaps the most universally recognized software in existence, by renaming its cloud version of Word, Powerpoint, etc. Office 365 in 2010, then Microsoft 365 in 2017. Now when you want to open up a Word document, you can get to them by launching the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Intuitive! Should Microsoft just go ahead and rebrand Windows, the only piece of its arsenal more famous than Office, as Copilot, too? I do actually think we're not far off from that happening. Facebook rebranded itself "Meta" when it thought the metaverse would be the next big thing, so it seems just as plausible that Microsoft could name the next version of Windows something like "Windows with Copilot" or just "Windows AI." Copilot is the app for launching the other apps, but it's also a chatbot inside the apps. Any questions? Correction: Office hasn't been renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app." The Verge adds: The confusion comes from Microsoft's own Office.com domain, which for the past year has acted as a way to push businesses and consumers to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This app is a hub app that provides access to Copilot, as well as all the Office apps. Microsoft used to call this app simply Office, before the company rebranded Office to Microsoft 365 in 2022. If you visit Office.com you'll see a big welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and a note from Microsoft that would confuse anyone not following the company's confusing branding: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)..." That mention of "formerly Office" is Microsoft referring to the very old Office app that launched in 2019 as a way to try and convince people to use online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Until a year ago it used to be called the Microsoft 365 app. Microsoft then announced it was rebranding its Microsoft 365 app in November 2024 to a Copilot one, which I and everyone else were very confused at. The new app icon and name -- Microsoft 365 Copilot -- then rolled out on January 15th last year to Windows, iOS, and Android users.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is the tiniest Linux distro I've ever seen  How-To Geek

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