This week, people are wrong about teleportation. A common science fiction trope, teleportation is the transfer of matter or energy from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them. Widely repeated claims of teleportation have been cropping up since at least 1583, when occultist John Dee supposedly vanished from his home in England and reappeared at the same moment in Prague. The most recent report comes from Gregg Phillips, who was appointed to lead FEMA’s office of response and recovery in December.

On a January episode of the Onward podcast, Phillips said, “I was with my boys one time, and I was telling them I was gonna go to Waffle House…this was in Georgia, and I end up at a Waffle House like 50 miles away from where I was… they said: ‘That’s not possible, you just left here a moment ago.’ But it was possible. It was real.”

Teleportation is fairly common to Phillips. He recounted another instance where he and his car were teleported 40 miles into a ditch near a Baptist Church. “Teleporting is no fun,” Phillips concluded. Phillips, sadly, doesn’t control the teleportation, or he could use it in his work.

Some explanations for people claiming they’ve teleported

There are a number of possible explanation for Phillips’ story that aren’t “he’s nuts” or “he’s lying.” About 10% of people report having had an out-of-body experience, the sensation that one’s consciousness has separated from their physical body. According to research published in The British Medical Journal, OBEs are often linked to a glitch in the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), the part of the brain that integrates sensory information to orient you in space. If the TPJ is disrupted—by exhaustion, stress, or biological causes like epilepsy or migraines—a sensory “misfire” can result, where you no longer feel moored to the physical space your body occupies. It’s not teleportation, but it might feel like teleportation if it happens to you.

There might be a less esoteric explanation for Phillips’ teleportation: “highway hypnosis.” Just about everyone can relate to your mind “checking out” while you’re doing something repetitive; on a long car trip, you suddenly realize you’ve covered 50 miles with no memory of it. “Snapping out of it” can feel like you’ve teleported, as you’re suddenly in a new place without conscious memory of how you arrived there, and could account for the fact that Phillips’ car seems to teleport with him.

Another possible cause: microsleep, a sudden temporary episode of sleep or drowsiness where an individual fails to respond to sensory input and becomes unconscious. Drowsy driving accounts for over 600 fatalities annually in the U.S., and could explain ending up in a ditch in front of a Baptist church with no memory of how he ended up there.

OK, but what if it was teleportation?

None of that takes all of Phillips’ story into account though. He says he left his house then suddenly was 50 miles away, much to the surprise of his family who confirmed that he “just left here a moment ago.” So was it teleportation?

No one can prove a negative, but, like historical claimants John Dee, Gil Perez, Heraldo Vidal, and every other person who has ever said they teleported, there were no reliable witnesses to Phillips’ improbable journeys. No one saw him blink out of existence and no one saw him appear at the Waffle House. There’s no other evidence either, so I feel confident saying that Mr. Phillips is extremely unlikely to have teleported, but let’s explore the possibility.

The one (kind of) exception: quantum teleportation

Teleportation is possible in the quantum world. In the realm of tiny things—atoms, electrons, photons, etc.—the laws of classical physics don’t work. Light can be a particle and a wave, theoretical cats can be alive and dead, and the cause and effect we take for granted are a roll of the dice. It’s a mess, but a mess that allows a limited kind of teleportation.

Quantum teleportation is a method of instantly transmitting information using two “entangled” particles. Measuring one particle immediately determines the state of its partner no matter where it is in space—could be a million miles away, the particle does not care. But there’s a catch: You have to read the result. The data needed to complete the transfer has to be sent via a normal signal, like a radio wave or a fiber-optic cable. Since those signals are capped at the speed of light like everything else, it’s not instant from our point of view.

Scientists have successfully teleported single photon states over distance, but it doesn’t work at a larger scale for a number of reasons. First, there’s the logistics. Here’s how Columbia University theoretical physicist Brian Greene described the problem of teleporting a person from New York to Los Angeles to Science Times:

“We’d have to have a huge number of these entangled particles to bring a human being, and have the human being be co-mingled with this collection of particles that are entangled with the ones in L.A…It’s the huge number problem that gets in the way of doing it.”

The word “huge” isn’t big enough: there are roughly 7 octillion atoms currently calling themselves “Gregg Phillips.” Monitoring the quantum state of each of them would require more computing power than has ever existed on Earth. For context, the best modern science has done is teleporting a single photon state to a satellite over 870 miles away. You can’t scale that up to a 200-pound man.

What, exactly, is Gregg Phillips?

That’s the logistical problem. There’s a larger conceptual/philosophical question to teleportation. In quantum teleportation, the original particle is destroyed to complete the transfer. The quantum state is read, transmitted, and reconstructed elsewhere, but the source is gone. So who (or what) really arrives at the Waffle House?

A Fema spokesperson responded to the controversy to CNN, saying, “This is so silly it’s barely worth acknowledging,” but the question of who is actually running FEMA’s disaster response is not silly, because if Gregg Phillips really did teleport, whatever is currently running FEMA’s disaster response is not Gregg Phillips. A collection of atoms that look and talk like Gregg Phillips appeared at a Waffle House, while actual Gregg Phillips blinked out of existence back on the highway.

It’s the end of an (albeit short) era: OpenAI is reportedly shutting down Sora, the company’s once-viral AI video generation app. The Wall Street Journal was the first to break the story, and reports that the company is shuttering the app as part of a grander plan to streamline OpenAI ahead of a potential IPO (initial public offering) later this year.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed the news first with company staff on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal says. It seems the move goes beyond just shutting down the Sora app itself: In addition to axing a developer-version of Sora, Altman reportedly told staff that OpenAI would not incorporate its AI video models in other company products going forward, including ChatGPT.

Sora’s official X account posted to confirm the news:

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The brief history of Sora

OpenAI only launched Sora in October of last year, and in that short period of time, the app helped propel AI-generated slop across social media feeds, including Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Sora is far from the only tool people use to make to AI video content, but it offered an easy solution for generating hyper-realistic short-form video content. If you encountered AI versions of the types of videos you tend to scroll past on social media, chances are it came from Sora.

Sora also made it possible to generate “Cameos,” or make videos with the likeness of real people. The company was adamant its privacy and security policies were significant enough to ensure it wouldn’t be used for ill, but the potential for deepfakes was so great, it seemed like a pandora’s box waiting to be opened.

Still, Sora gained some legitimacy in the eyes of traditional media, too: In a perplexing move, Disney partnered with OpenAI to let users generate videos featuring over 200 Disney characters. You might assume OpenAI paid for that integration, but on the contrary, Disney made an equity investment of $1 billion into the company. (That is not a typo.) But with Sora’s sunsetting, Disney officially exited the deal on Tuesday.

Is this the end of AI videos for OpenAI?

This announcement has implications beyond Sora the app. If OpenAI largely abandons AI video generation in general, it will be exiting a tight race amongst competition from companies like Google (Veo) and ByteDance (Seedance). The Sora app uses OpenAI’s Sora video model, which the company announced two years ago. Back then, OpenAI’s concept video scared the bejeezus out of me; since then, the AI video market has only exploded. While Sora might’ve been the go-to for short-form nonsense, there’s plenty of other AI slop across the internet being made with other tools—some of which is getting extremely difficult to discern from reality.

OpenAI seems to have a difference focus going forward. The company previously announced a new “super app” that combines its web browser (Atlas), ChatGPT, and Codex coding app into one program. I guess Sora didn’t fit into that equation.

(Disclosure: Lifehacker’s parent company, Ziff Davis, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

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Nvidia might be courting controversy with its recent DLSS 5 tech, but the company’s GPUs are still pretty powerful devices for running your games. If you have an RTX card in your desktop or laptop, you might be able to get even better performance out of it than you’re already seeing. Here are some of my favorite hacks to optimize your Nvidia GPU. 

Enable DLSS to boost your frame rates (or disable to save on performance)

Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (or DLSS) is actually a suite of features collectively aimed at improving the resolution and frame rate of your games. Some of this involves rendering lower-resolution frames and using machine learning to upscale them, while the more recent DLSS 4 and 4.5 models can generate intermediate frames between traditionally rendered ones. In most cases, this means a smoother frame rate, at a lower computational cost.

Of course, DLSS doesn’t come at zero computational cost, and that trade-off might not be worth it for you. Competitive online games or fast-paced action shooters often benefit from smoother frame rates, but some games are perfectly fine at 60 fps or so. In some games, you can turn off DLSS specifically, or you might find a more simplified toggle between Performance and Quality modes. It’s worth experimenting with these settings to see whether your prefer higher visual fidelity, or smoother frame rates.

I should also briefly discuss DLSS 5, which isn’t currently available, but is expected to arrive on newer Nvidia GPUs later in 2026. This is the first version of DLSS demoed that substantially alters the content of what appears on screen. Nvidia insists that developers are in control of how it makes games look, though many developers aren’t exactly thrilled about it. When DLSS 5 eventually drops, you might want to explore disabling it just to see whether it affects the aesthetics of the game, on top of any performance changes.

Use DLAA for anti-aliasing in games you don’t use DLSS with

Nvidia’s Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing (or DLAA) is in a similar family to DLSS features, but comes at the problem from the opposite angle. Anti-aliasing is a cornerstone bit of graphical technology that helps prevent the “stair-stepping” effect that can occur when rendering angled or curved lines. Where DLSS renders lower-resolution images and upscales them, DLAA takes full-resolution frames and uses machine learning to clean them up to produce smoother lines, without as much of a computational lift.

In general, DLAA and DLSS are mutually exclusive. If you have DLSS enabled, you can’t use DLAA and vice versa. There are other anti-aliasing methods you might find buried in your game’s settings, and most of the older ones don’t rely on machine learning. But this is one area where using machine learning techniques can provide a tangible benefit without altering the creative design of your games.

Disable ray-tracing to increase your frame rates

Another of Nvidia’s marquee features, real-time ray tracing, is an incredibly powerful tool to get photorealistic lighting and shadows. This is the same method that CGI workflows have been using for decades in movies to get realistic images, but it requires so much processing power that it’s only become feasible for games in recent years.

That massive computational cost also means that, unless you’re running a game on exceptionally overpowered hardware, you’ll probably notice a frame rate drop in exchange for reflective puddles. Again, this will come down to personal preference, but if you’re finding that you’re struggling to get smooth motion in your games, consider turning off any ray tracing features in your game’s settings.

Tune your GPU to prioritize either performance or battery life

Overclocking your GPU is a common way to get a little performance boost, but if done the wrong way, it can potentially damage your hardware. So, Nvidia offers an official way to do it that’s designed to minimize that risk. In the official Nvidia app, head to the System tab, and enable “Automatic Tuning.” This will let you get some extra speed out of your GPU, while still staying within your graphics card’s warranty.

However, you might also want to consider under-clocking your GPU. For this, you’ll need third-party tools like MSI’s Afterburner. Rather than running your GPU faster than its default, you can set it to run slightly slower. Why on earth would you want to do that, though? Well, in many cases, you often won’t notice much of a difference in performance from a GPU that’s running 5% slower. But for that trade-off, you can make your system run quieter and, on a gaming laptop, get longer battery life.

Pick up a monitor that supports G-Sync

Most gaming-focused monitors (and many that aren’t) support Nvidia’s G-Sync, but if you haven’t double-checked yours, it’s worth looking into. G-Sync is Nvidia’s version of variable refresh rate (or VRR) tech that reduces screen-tearing. This is an effect that can happen when the number of frames being rendered by your GPU don’t perfectly sync up with the frame rate of your display. Tools like G-Sync allow your GPU to vary the number of frames sent to your monitor each second, to avoid accidentally sending half-frames.

There are plenty of great G-Sync compatible monitors out there, from budget-friendly models like this one from LG, to some higher-end models like this one from Alienware. You can usually find G-Sync listed among the top-line specs for monitors while shopping, but if you’re not sure about your current display, find its model number and search for its specs online. If your monitor doesn’t officially support G-Sync, but does support AMD’s competing FreeSync, it’s sometimes possible to still get G-Sync working for you too.

Enable G-Sync Pulsar for even better motion clarity

This one is much more rare, but if you have one of a handful of compatible monitors, then Nvidia’s newer G-Sync Pulsar feature can get you even better motion clarity. This new tech pulses the backlight on a supported monitor at a variable frequency to render motion more clearly. Nvidia claims it’s the equivalent of, effectively, a 1,000Hz refresh rate.

That’s a bit of a bold claim, and at a certain point it might be impossible for the human eye to tell the difference anyway. That said, if you have a monitor that supports it, you may as well turn the feature on to maximize the motion clarity in your games.

Enable Reflex to reduce input latency

When you’re playing a competitive online game, there are a lot of steps between when you click a button, and when the game registers what you’ve done. And that delay can mean the difference between clicking heads and getting your own head clicked. That’s where Nvidia’s Reflex tech can help. 

This feature tightens the pipeline between your mouse clicks, your GPU, and your CPU, shaving milliseconds off your input latency. That might not sound like a lot, but it can make a difference. Most online games operate on a tick rate (meaning how often per second the game’s state is updated) of around 60-64Hz. That means the game is checking your position, aim, and inputs every 15-17 milliseconds or so. If your input latency is over 20ms, that can mean you’re essentially missing a “turn” or two in the game, just waiting for your input to register. Reflex can shave that down.

You’ll find the option in the input setting for most games under “Nvidia Reflex Low Latency.” Here, you can choose between “Off,” “On,” or “On + Boost” (though usually you can just go for “On + Boost” unless you’re facing some niche technical problem).

Enable Video Super Resolution for better streaming video

We tend to think of GPUs as mostly being aimed at gaming graphics, but regular old streaming video can benefit from some of Nvidia’s special features too. For example, RTX Video Super Resolution (or VSR) can upscale video from sites like YouTube, Netflix, or Twitch. To turn it on, head to your Nvidia Control Panel or the Nvidia app and look for “Super Resolution” under the Video tab in Settings.

This feature is particularly useful when you’re watching older or lower-resolution video, particularly 720p or lower. For higher-resolution, 1080p streaming video and up, you might not notice much of a difference, because those videos are already pretty high quality, but it can be a nice boost for lower-quality stuff. Keep in mind the usual caveats with machine learning-powered upscaling, though. It’s never perfect, and if you want to avoid artifacts or get the most accurate source image, you might want to disable this feature instead. But it’s a good hack for bumping the sharpness of lower-resolution media.

Use the Broadcast app to improve your streaming setup

If you stream online, or even if you just spend a lot of time in Zoom meetings, the Nvidia Broadcast app can potentially help clean up your audio and video feeds. In one of the better use-cases for machine learning, this app has a suite of tools that can help eliminate background noise your microphone picks up, cut out the background from your webcam, or clean up your video.

Some of the app’s features are a bit more, let’s say, ambitious than just cleaning things up, though. The “Eye Contact” feature, for example, will artificially make you appear as though you’re looking directly into the camera, even when you’re not. That can be more off-putting than helpful, so maybe don’t turn that particular feature on.

Update your drivers to make sure your games run smoothly

When it comes to solving technical problems, updating your drivers is right up there with “turn it off and on again.” Even if nothing is broken, though, it’s a good idea to check for new drivers any time you download a new game, or one of your favorites gets a big update.

Often, after a major game gets a new release or update, the Nvidia app will have updated drivers specifically tailored for it. These usually include bug fixes for specific games, as well as updates to the DLSS models that are trained on individual titles. Around the time of writing, for example, Nvidia is touting updates for Crimson Desert and the PC release of Death Stranding 2. If you haven’t checked for driver updates in a while, especially if you’re trying to play something new, make sure to hit that check for update button.

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As part of an early Amazon Big Spring Sale deal, you can get the Apple iPad (11th Gen, 2025) with wifi and cellular capability for $651 (originally $799)–its lowest price ever, according to price trackers. Available in four colors, this capable tablet won a PCMag Best of the Year Award in 2025.

The Apple iPad (11th Gen, 2025) comes with 512GB storage and has many of the same specs as its predecessor, with the main difference being a new processor. It has a 5-core CPU A16 for faster performance, and while it doesn’t come equipped with Apple’s AI tools, it handles everyday tasks like web browsing, streaming media, and playing games with ease–better than most competitors in its class. That said, if you want more advanced processing power, you’ll want to upgrade to the pricier iPad Air or iPad Pro, which are also on sale right now. 

Design-wise, this iPad is similar to the 2022 model, which is typical for Apple’s 11-inch tablets, complete with Touch ID (not Face ID), requiring a fingerprint to unlock. It has a 2,360-by-1,640 resolution, a pixel density of 264ppi, and a 60Hz refresh rate. Compared to the older model, the screen is slightly larger (11 inches vs 10.9 inches), and uses a Liquid Retina display with an LED-backlit panel reaching up to 500 nits of brightness, though it can still show some glare outdoors. Battery life is around 10 hours when using a wifi connection and 9 hours over cellular. The tablet supports Wi-Fi 6 (but not Wi-Fi 6E) as well as Bluetooth 5.3, sub-6GHz 5G, gigabit LTE, and GPS.

It has a 12MP rear camera with an f/1.8 aperture, up to 5x digital zoom, 4K video recording, and support for Apple’s Smart HDR 4 processing. The cameras far outperform cheap or similarly priced tablets from other brands. While this isn’t Apple’s most advanced tablet, it hits the sweet spot in most areas, making it the one that “most people should buy,” according to PCMag, especially at just $651.20. That said, if you need a more powerful processor, a higher-end display, Wi-Fi 6E, or Apple Intelligence features, you may want to upgrade to the iPad Air, which is also 18% off ahead of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale.