Which Dream Schools Are Dominating Students’ and Parents’ Lists in 2025?

The Princeton Review surveys thousands of college applicants and their parents to see what the top dream schools are among Americans in different states. Their infographic highlighted the top ten most sought-after colleges by students in 2025 after looking at the survey taken among 2294 parents and 7023 students. According to the results, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is the top dream school of students, while parents rank Princeton University as their top choice.

Harvard College got demoted to the second spot as a dream college amongst students due to several controversies, while MIT is the second top college among parents. Other top dream colleges of students include Stanford University, Princeton University, Yale University, and Columbia University. New York University, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and UCLA are also the top ten dream colleges of students.

The survey also found that 38% of the students know that they have to pay approximately $150,000 to get their degree, while 98% need financial aid to go through college. When the survey asked respondents why they need a college degree, 46% said that they need it for better jobs and high salaries, 29% want the degree for innovative ideas and 25% want a degree just because they love education.

As students look to top schools like MIT, Princeton, and Harvard, it’s important to remember that a degree alone doesn’t guarantee success. Yes, a prestigious college may open doors, but skills and experience are what really matter in today’s job market. More and more, employers are focusing on what you can do, not just where you went to school. The real-world experience you gain outside of a classroom — whether through internships, projects, or personal initiatives — often holds more value than a diploma. And with AI changing the way we work, the future will favor those who can adapt and innovate, not just those with a degree. The message is clear, it’s not where you go, it’s what you can do that counts.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Which Countries Are Allocating the Highest Percentage of GDP to Research and Development Investment?

Data from the OECD highlights the countries making the largest investments in research and development (R&D). Asian countries lead with 46%, followed by North America at 29% and Europe at 21%. $2.8 trillion was spent on R&D in 2023 by different countries globally. According to the data, 6.3% of GDP was invested in research and development by Israel, which is the most by any country. Not only this, Israel also has the highest number of high-tech startups per capita. 92% of the investment in R&D in Israel came from the private sector, and they made about $28.3 billion.

Israel was followed by South Korea, which invested 5% of its GDP on research and development, followed by Taiwan with 4% of its investments going towards R&D. This amounts to $59.9 billion made for research and development in Taiwan in 2023, and is an 8.8% increase from the past five years. Other countries in the top ten which invested the most in research and development in 2023 were Sweden (3.6% of GDP) and the US (3.4% of GDP).

Even though the US is the fifth country with the largest share of its GDP spent on research and development, it amounts to $823.4 billion, which is the highest in the world. China’s R&D investment has increased a lot since 2000, as it just touched the $723 billion figure which is the second highest all over the world.

Country	Research and Development Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product
Israel	6.3%
South Korea	5.0%
Taiwan	4.0%
Sweden	3.6%
United States	3.4%
Japan	3.4%
Belgium	3.3%
Switzerland	3.3%
Austria	3.3%
Germany	3.1%
Finland	3.1%
Denmark	3.0%
United Kingdom	2.8%
Iceland	2.7%
China	2.6%
Netherlands	2.2%
France	2.2%
Slovenia	2.1%
Norway	1.9%
Singapore	1.8%
Estonia	1.8%
Czechia	1.8%
Canada	1.8%
Portugal	1.7%
Australia	1.7%
Ireland	1.6%
Poland	1.6%
Spain	1.5%
Greece	1.5%
New Zealand	1.5%
Türkiye	1.4%
Croatia	1.4%
Hungary	1.4%
Italy	1.3%
Lithuania	1.0%
Slovak Republic	1.0%
Luxembourg	1.0%
Latvia	0.8%
Bulgaria	0.8%
South Africa	0.6%
Argentina	0.6%
Romania	0.5%
Chile	0.4%
Colombia	0.3%
Costa Rica	0.3%

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• Meta’s AI Chatbots Caught Sexting With Accounts Listed As Underage, Report Reveals
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Meta’s AI Chatbots Caught Sexting With Accounts Listed As Underage, Report Reveals

Meta’s AI chatbots have stumbled into serious trouble, with a new report showing they took part in sexual conversations with accounts marked as minors. The Wall Street Journal ran tests that pushed not only Meta’s main AI but also a bunch of user-made bots into steering chats straight into explicit territory.

It didn’t stop with generic bots either. The mess reportedly includes celebrity-voiced bots too, featuring names like Kristen Bell, Judi Dench, and John Cena. One awkward moment? A bot using Cena’s voice told a profile labeled as 14 years old that it would "cherish your innocence", not exactly what anyone had in mind when talking AI safety.

Some of the bots even recognized they were flirting with illegal scenarios, according to the report. One case detailed a chatbot explaining the fallout if it got caught hooking up with someone underage.

Meta, for its part, slammed the findings, claiming that the whole thing paints a misleading picture of how real users interact with their AI tools. Still, the company says it’s tightened its defenses, making it harder for people trying to bait chatbots into saying messed-up things.

Pressure’s been building for Meta to keep pace with other AI giants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Character AI, and Anthropic’s Claude. The Journal’s investigation suggests Meta may have pushed for looser ethical boundaries to make its bots feel more alive. Meta’s spokesperson, though, insisted the company never skipped safety steps.

Insiders apparently flagged the problems internally before all of this went public. Whether Meta acts faster after this round of bad press remains to be seen.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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• Google’s Report Reveals 122-Hour Productivity Gains, AI’s Economic Impact, and Challenges for Older Workers
by Asim BN via Digital Information World

Google’s Report Reveals 122-Hour Productivity Gains, AI’s Economic Impact, and Challenges for Older Workers

According to a new report published by Google, AI can help people with productivity a lot and can save up to 122 hours a year. The estimations were that AI could help people save 100 hours a year but now workers can save up to 122 hours by using generative AI. These findings came through Google running an AI pilot project in the UK with schools, small businesses, and a union to see how AI is affecting people and their productivity. The report found that after receiving only a few hours of AI training, workers doubled their daily use of AI and kept using it a lot even after months.

Google also predicted that AI can make $400 billion and can add it to the economy of the UK by 2030, but it depends on how much workers will depend on AI. 66% of the workers are now using AI, with older women and people from lower-income backgrounds being the ones to have never used generative AI at work. The report also found that women over 55 are four times less likely to have never used AI as compared to men under 35. Small businesses are also slow in their AI adoption.

The report by Google also found that only 17% of the women of about 55 years used AI weekly, and 7% used it daily before training, but after three months of training, 56% of the workers started using AI weekly, and 29% daily. A major barrier to the use of AI by workers is that they need permission to prompt, meaning that they need clear approval from their companies that AI is allowed. Many workers started using AI on their own by exploring AI features and looking up tips to use it after training. As Google is competing with OpenAI, it is pushing its AI features everywhere and asking people to use them for their convenience. But people are still hesitant to use them, because there are chances of error with AI usage.

DIW-AIgen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

YouTube Overtakes Netflix, Claims Top Spot in 2024 Global Internet Traffic Rankings

According to the Sandvine report, YouTube was the top source of traffic in 2024, with 16% of total internet traffic coming from it. YouTube even surpassed Netflix in fixed-internet download traffic which was 12% of the total internet traffic in 2024. It's been 20 years since the release of YouTube and it spent a journey with amature videos and copyright issues and now it is home to a lot of content creators who got famous through it.

YouTube also had 21% of the total traffic on mobile in 2024, and outperformed many social media apps and paid streaming apps. Facebook (18%) had the most mobile internet traffic in 2024, followed by TikTok (15%) and Instagram (7%). YouTube has all kinds of video lengths, from short to medium to long, so it makes this easier for YouTube to compete with other social media and streaming apps, and people can use it anytime, anywhere.

Even though TikTok and Facebook are behind YouTube and Netflix on fixed internet connections, they are still ahead of Disney+ and Amazon Prime. 39% of the fixed global download traffic in 2024 was taken up by video apps, which was followed by social media (18%) and television (11%). 28% of the fixed upload traffic in 2023 in the US was by file sharing services like FaceTime, iCloud, and Google Cloud, while Facebook Messenger, TikTok, and Snapchat took the most upload traffic on mobile.

Other points to note are that YouTube used to lag behind Netflix in 2018, but it overtook Netflix in 2022. Right now, Facebook has the most users globally and it is followed by 2.5 billion users on YouTube. YouTube’s success is mostly because it's a free app, but the creative, unique, and real content on it also makes it loved among users. The only dark side of YouTube is that, as it's home to many subcultures, it can create many controversies, and users can also find themselves going through a lot of misinformation.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Meta’s CTO Says that AI is Going to Take Over Many Apps and How People Interact with Software

According to Meta’s technology officer (CTO), Andrew Bosworth, AI can turn into a nightmare for some companies because it can change how people interact with software. He said that right now, many people are using apps for different purposes, but it is going to change because of AI. He thought that that change would be ‘net positive’ and would disrupt the app-based models that many companies rely on.

Bosworth said that people use many apps like Spotify to get things done, but he would rather tell an AI what he wants and let it do its work and figure it out than open specific apps for specific purposes. He said that we have always used apps because that's how digital computing works, but AI can actually change that, and it is going to hurt a lot of brands. If the brand connection is lost, it can disrupt a lot of things like subscriptions, ad models, and premium services that many apps rely on.

He added that AI is already starting to change the SaaS industry, and a study by AlixPartners has shown that over 100 mid-sized software companies are being affected because of it. On the other hand, tech giants like Salesforce and Microsoft are heavily investing in AI, and many mid-sized companies are going to struggle to survive in the next two years. Despite this change about to happen, Bosworth says that this shift is good because it will focus on lower prices and better performance, even though many companies aren't going to like it.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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• Want to Edit Videos Like A Pro? Use these Best Free and Paid Video Editing Tools in 2025
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Want to Edit Videos Like A Pro? Use these Best Free and Paid Video Editing Tools in 2025

Whether you are on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or on any other social media platform, video content is the most widely employed way of sharing one’s own thoughts, lifestyle or creative content. What brings life to these videos is the editing style of it. The more impressively a video is edited, the more attractive it becomes and the more views it attracts. So editing style of videos is as important as the video itself. Plus, the tools used to edit these videos are also super important.

Not surprisingly, most people do not know what software or tools should be used to edit their videos or what software would better suit the type of video they want to create. Most of the best editing software have to be bought and are pretty expensive. But some of the great video editing software or tools are available for free. So it becomes a problem, especially for beginners, to choose from a large number of video editing software available, both free and paid versions.

What video editing tool would you be using in 2025? To make things easier, the following is the list of the best video editing software, paid and free, to use in 2025:

The Best Free Video Editing software

CapCut

The best free online video editing software that provides a range of colour effects, sound adjustments, stickers and other advanced tools. Available both in desktop and mobile versions, the app is a good option for editing videos for social media, especially Tiktok which is owned by the same company, Bytedance. It allows adding of TikTok sounds to videos before uploading them to the social media app. The app is also user-friendly with attractive font styles and caption auto generator.

The advanced features, like voice isolation, are available only in paid version, but it is only $7.99 per month, worth paying for.

Clipchamp Create

Windows substituted Clipchamp Create for Window Movie Maker, which means you will find it pre-installed in Windows. Its free version allows users to use all basic tools as well as export videos in 480p resolution.

If you want to use advanced features, you can also use its paid premium version that provides downloading at better resolutions and Clipchmap Speaker Coach as an assistant in adjusting pitch and voice quality–the paid version starts at $9 per month.

Canva

Canva is also one of the best free options available. Its ready-made templates make it user-friendly. Basic editing, like trimming and cutting, can easily be done using it.

Because it is simple, it is the best option for beginners who are familiar with only dragging videos and photos to an app and basic editing skills.

But for more advanced features, you have to subscribe to its paid version starting at $15 a month.

DaVinci Resolve

DaVinci Resolve is high level video editing software used both by Youtubers. It provides editing, visual effects, motion graphics etc. You can also export videos to it in ultra HD, which is a far better option than the ones provided by most other free video editing software.

But it also requires pretty heavy hardware to run it, at least 16GP memory on Windows or 8GB on Macs. Also, the software, when compared to other free video editing software, is more difficult to use.

For more advanced features, you can use its paid version for $295.

Adobe Creative Cloud Express

The software provides layouts, themes and varied templates for free to do quality video editing. You can also employ Adobe Firefly, AI image generator by Adobe, alongwith the video editing software to make a perfectly fitting pair for your work.

If you want to unlock premium options, then subscribe to their paid plans for $11.99 per month.

Descript

Descript generates text for your videos. Once generated, you can edit or cut the generated text as per your wishes, and your editing will be followed in your video simultaneously. It is just like editing your day-to-day texts.

Descript provides some of its best features for free and allows editing of 60 minutes of content.

As far as its paid version, it starts at $19 per month.

iMovie

It is the pre-installed video editor on Apple devices. It is free to use and user-friendly, allowing good quality video editing using various templates and modes, like Magic Movie Mode.

You can say that it is a must for someone not interested in the complexities of advanced editing.

The best paid video editing software to use in 2025

CapCut Pro

CapCut Pro is also the best paid video editing software available. It gives access to a variety of fonts, effects, like retouching effects, advanced background removal tools and vocal enhancements.

You can avail its services for $9.99 per month.

Veed.io

Veed.io is an online video editor that provides users with auto-generated captions, sound effects and music for your videos. The editor also includes AI avatars to read scripts for you and webcam recording. Another quality that sets it apart from many other editors is it being easy to use.

To avail these features, you have to pay $19 per month.

Capsule

Another online video editor is Capsule that has all the tools offered by other video editors. It offers transcript-based editing, animations, auto-resizing etc. Moverover, there is also an AI co-producer helping in cleaning up dialogue and creating auto-jump cuts.

The editor is costlier with the cost of $99 per month. You can enjoy all the tools for free for only three videos.

InShot

Downloadable from Play Store, InShot is a mobile app which is convenient to use. It provides all basic tools to edit, trim and speed up videos easily on your smartphone, and also to remove backgrounds. If you just want to upload photos and videos to social media, InShot is a good option for editing your videos.

The app could be used for free, but to unlock advanced feathers, you have to pay $3.99 per month.

Kapwing

Kapwing also offers all the tools and features offered by the apps or software mentioned above, like dragging, trimming, cutting etc. But what makes it different from the above is its content repurposing tool which locates key parts from your videos and repurposes them by highlighting them.

The paid version of the editor starts at $24 per month, but most of its features are also available for free.

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Premiere Pro is a video editor belonging to the highest tier of video editors. It is not for beginners or for posting videos on social media, but the software is mostly used by professionals in editing documentaries and alike in post-production. The software offers the most advanced features and tools at $22.99 per month and is available for both Windows and Macs.

FinalCut Pro

It is only available on Macs and is a powerful video editing software used in the editing of movies. It offers high quality special effects for editing videos. Because it is a powerful software used only by professionals, it costs $299.99.

FilmoraGo

FilmoraGo is a simple video editing tool offering all the basic editing features like, themes, trimming, cropping, speed control, audio mixer etc. The tool also has an AI image generator and AI Copilot as an assistant.

The tool is comparatively easier to use on both desktops and smartphones. Although you can use some of the features for free, you have to pay $29.99 quarterly to gain access to all features.

Which one to choose?

If you cannot afford the paid versions and only want basic editing features and tools to edit videos for social media, iMovie, Canva and CapCut are good options. But it is still up to you to choose which one suits you the best as per your requirement and hardware.

As for the paid options, if you are looking for professional-level software to edit high quality and lengthy videos, consider CapCut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and FinalCut Pro. For short length videos, like those uploaded to Youtube, you may consider the rest in the paid version list.

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by Ehtasham Ahmad via Digital Information World