Another twist in the tariff saga: Smartphones, laptops and other consumer electronics may not see soaring prices due to tariffs after all, at least for the time being.

Late Friday, the Trump administration exempted such products from the reciprocal tariffs it had imposed earlier, including the 125% fees levied on imports from China, where many tech and electronics products are manufactured.

A notice to shippers posted late Friday by US Customs and Border Protection included a list of tariff codes for product categories that won’t be subject to the fees. Code 8471 covers computers, laptops, disc drives and automatic data processing, Reuters reported. Flat panel displays, memory chips and semiconductors will also sidestep the tariff fees, the news outlet said.

Industry observers had feared massive price hikes on tech and other gear as a result of tariffs, and concerns had prompted some consumers to rush to buy iPhones and other products. Apple Store employees saw an uptick in foot traffic last weekend, with one worker telling Bloomberg that the surge felt like the holiday shopping season.

It’s unclear whether the exemption will stay in place, however, with both Bloomberg and The New York Times reporting that different tariff fees may end up affecting electronics equipment down the line.

What this means for you

If your head’s spinning over all the back-and-forth tariff developments, you’re definitely not alone. What does it mean for the prices you’ll see when crossing things off your shopping list? The short answer is: Don’t be surprised if you wind up paying more for at least some goods and services. For details, you can check out our Tariffs Explained piece.

And before this latest news, we asked CNET experts to give us their best predictions and advice when it comes to shopping for tech products like laptops, phones, TVs and more. See their responses in our Buy or Wait guide.

Although a CNET survey showed that some people are rushing to buy tech gear before anticipated price rises, experts caution against busting out the credit card. If you already had your eye on a particular product and you’d set aside the money for it, buying now, or during an upcoming sale, could help you save money. It could also help you breathe a little easier. But again, be wary of taking on debt. Find out more here.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a real puzzler. Even once I solved it, I had to get the spangram before I knew what the heck was connecting all the answers, and even then, it took me a minute. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story. 

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Orange door hinge

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Sounds like a hue.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints, but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

• HELP, HELL, THEY, HEEL, SEAT, POSE, PLAT, PILE, COPE, COLE, ROLE, SHELF, LOAD, POLL, GREY

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you’ve got all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

• FLEW, QUEEN, HELLO, PILOT, HEIGHT, PLAQUE, SPREAD (The colors they rhyme with are blue, green, yellow, violet, white, black and red.)

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is COLORRHYMES. To find it, start with the C that’s four letters down on the far left and wind up, then down and over.

Reddit has expanded a partnership with Google to use the tech giant’s Gemini tool and tap artificial intelligence for Reddit Answers. Google is helping Reddit manage information from 100,000 online communities and more than 400 million weekly active users, making their online conversations more searchable for Reddit Answers, Google said on Wednesday. 

It could mean faster and more accurate search in addition to summaries, follow-up questions and the ability to have an AI conversation about the content, not unlike what users of AI chatbot services such as ChatGPT would expect.

Reddit unveiled Answers in late 2024, telling its users that it would be easier to search for content from Reddit — more often than not, answers to questions — without the need to go to Google and use its search function. Reddit already had a $60 million deal with Google to help train generative AI models on its content.

The company has also been expanding its translation services across its communities with the help of AI.

Reddit’s unique position in tech and AI

Although Reddit’s AI efforts may be much more visible to people lately, the company has been positioning itself with the technology for a while, said Rowan Curran, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.

«Reddit’s AI efforts have been ongoing for a number of years across a number of fronts,» Curran said. «For example, they were one of the early companies to develop their own model for code generation and assistance to support Reddit’s developers.»

While the company is getting some outside assistance with AI, it’s also attractive to companies such as Google and OpenAI because of how much content it owns and generates. 

«Reddit’s position as both a provider as well as a well of information puts them in a somewhat unique position to attempt to capitalize heavily both on the ingestion and preparation of data for AI use cases, as well as the serving of answers and information created from that data,» he said.

Reddit’s position as an ongoing generator of deeply human discussion is something that shouldn’t be lost in the rush to implement AI, says author Christine Lagorio, who wrote about the company in her book We Are the Nerds: The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet’s Culture Laboratory.

«I certainly hope it doesn’t diminish Reddit’s strength, which is increasingly its ecosystem of real human answers to real human questions, a welcome contrast from the rest of the increasingly artificial (and artificial-sounding, and artificial-looking) web,» Lagorio said.