If you own a Mac, there’s a good chance you spent quite a bit of money to buy it. If for no other reason than that, you should take care of your computer. Not only will it serve you better over its life, but you could end up getting more for it on the used market if you ever decide to sell your Mac.

In this how-to, we’ll share some tips on how to take care of your Mac. It’s impossible to cover the topic of computer maintenance from every angle, so think of this guide as more of an introduction to some organizational features and apps you may not have known about.

How to clean your Mac’s screen and body

While there are a lot of products you can buy that are specially made to help you with cleaning your computer, I’ve found the simplest approach works best — and it’s the one Apple recommends. To start, all you’ll need is some water in a spray bottle and a clean microfiber cloth. You can use either regular or distilled water. The advantage of the latter is that it’s far less likely to leave any residue on your Mac, particularly on the display. You can buy distilled water at a grocery store or make it yourself with some simple cookware. Either way, it’s more affordable than dedicated cleaning solutions and more versatile. If you don’t already own any microfiber cloths, Amazon sells affordable 24-packs you can get for about $14.

Two other products I’ve found that can make the job easier are Whoosh screen cleaner and a Giottos Rocket Blower. I can’t say enough good things about the latter. It will save you from buying expensive and wasteful cans of compressed air.

As for the process of cleaning your Mac, the most important tip to remember is to start with a clean cloth (that’s part of the reason we recommend buying them in bulk). You’ll save yourself time and frustration this way. Begin by turning off your computer and unplugging it. If you went out and bought a Rocket Blower, use it now to remove any dust. If not, take a dry microfiber cloth and go over your computer. Take special care around the keys, particularly if you own a Mac with a butterfly keyboard.

Next, dampen one side of your cleaning cloth with either water or Whoosh. Never spray any liquid directly on your computer. You’ll have more control this way and you’ll avoid getting any moisture into your Mac’s internals. I always clean the display first since the last thing I want to do is create more work for myself by transferring dirt from some other part of my computer to the screen. The last step is to buff and polish your computer with the dry side of the cloth. Be gentle here as you don’t want to scratch the screen or any other part of That’s it. Your Mac should be looking clean again.

How to organize your hard drive

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

One of the hardest parts of cleaning your Mac’s hard drive is knowing where to start. After all, most of us have apps on our computers we don’t even remember installing in the first place. Thankfully, macOS comes with a tool to help you with that exact issue.

Navigate to the “Storage” section of the “About This Mac” menu and click the “Manage…” option. Here you’ll find a tool that sorts your files into broad categories and offers recommendations on how to free up space on your hard drive. You can use those in combination with the handy “Show in finder” button at the bottom of the interface to quickly navigate your hard drive. No need to search for files manually.

The section dedicated to applications is particularly helpful since you can see the last time you used a program, as well as if it’s no longer supported by the operating system or if it’s outdated thanks to a more recent release.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

You don’t need me to tell you to uninstall programs you don’t use, but what you might not know is that there’s a better way to erase them than simply dragging them to the trash can. A free program called AppCleaner will help you track down any files and folders that would get left behind if you were just to delete an application.

After deleting any apps you don’t need, move to the documents section. The name is somewhat misleading here since you’ll find more than just text files and excel spreadsheets. Documents, in this case, turns out to be the tool’s catch-all term for a variety of files, including ones that take up a large amount of space and DMGs you may have forgotten to dismount. The other sections on the sidebar are self-explanatory. The only other thing I’ll mention is if you’ve been using an iPhone for a while, there’s a good chance you’ll have old iOS backups stored on your computer. You can safely delete those too.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

By this point, your hard drive should be in pretty good shape. If you want to take some additional steps to clean it, there are dedicated apps that can help. I like one called CleanMyMac X. At $51 per year, it’s on the expensive side, but will save you the time and trouble of doing everything I mentioned above (and then some) on your own. It also doubles as a malware removal tool.

Tips and tricks for keeping a neat Desktop and Finder

Igor Bonifacic

Let’s start with the menu bar. It may not technically be part of the desktop, but a tidy one can go a long way toward making everything else look less cluttered. My recommendation here is to download a $16 app called Bartender. At first glance, it’s a simple program allowing you to hide unwanted menu bar items behind a three dots icon. However, the strength of Bartender is that you get a lot of customization options. For example, you can set a trigger that will automatically move the battery status icon out from hiding when your computer isn’t connected to a power outlet.

While we’re on the subject of the menu bar, take a second to open your Mac’s System Preferences menu and go to the “Users & Groups” section. Now click on the “Login Items” tab at the bottom of the interface and take a look at all the apps that launch when you boot up your system. You can speed up your system by paring this list down to only the programs you use frequently.

When it comes to the desktop itself, the best advice is less is more. Nothing will make your computer look like a cluttered mess more than a busy desktop. Folders and stacks can help, but, for most people, I suspect part of the problem is they use their desktop as a way to quickly and easily find files that are important to them.

If you’ve ever struggled to find a specific file or folder on your computer, try using your Mac’s tagging capabilities instead. Start by opening the Finder preferences menu (“command” + “,”) and click the “Tags” tab. You can use the default ones provided by macOS or make your own. Either way, drag the ones you think you’ll use most often to the favorites areas at the bottom of the preferences window. This will make it so that they’re easily accessible when you want to use them. To append a tag to a file or folder, click on it while holding the ctrl key and select the one you want from the dropdown menu. You can also tag a file while working on it within an app. Keep in mind you can apply multiple tags to a single file or folder. You can even apply them to applications.

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

What makes tags so useful in macOS is that they can appear in the sidebar of the Finder and are easily searchable either directly through the Finder or using Siri. As long as you have a system for organizing your files, even a simple one, you’ll find it easier to keep track of them. As one example, I like to apply an Engadget tag to any files related to my work. I’ll add an “Important” tag if it’s something that’s critical and I want to find quickly.

One tool that can help supercharge your Finder experience is Alfred. It’s effectively a more powerful version of Apple’s Spotlight feature. Among other things, you can use Alfred to find and launch apps quickly. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but once you get a hang of it, Alfred will change how you use your Mac for the better.

How to organize your windows and tabs

Igor Bonifacic / Engadget

If you’ve used both macOS and Windows 10, you’ll know that Apple’s operating system doesn’t come with the best window management tools. You can click and hold on the full-screen icon to tile a window to either the left or right side of your screen, but that’s about it and the feature has always felt less precise than its Windows counterpart.

My suggestion is to download an app that replicates Windows 10’s snapping feature. You have several competing options that more or less offer the same functionality. My go-to is an $8 program called Magnet. If you want a free alternative, check out Rectangle. Another option is BetterSnapTool, which offers more functionality than Magnet but doesn’t have as clean of an interface. All three apps give you far more ways to configure your windows than what you get through the built-in tool in macOS. They also come with shortcut support, which means you can quickly set up your windows and get to work.

Now that it's getting warmer, you might want a Bluetooth speaker to soundtrack your outdoor excursions. Thankfully, Amazon is helping out — it's running a sale on JBL portable speakers with up to 38 percent off. This includes popular models like the Flip 6, which is near an all-time low at $100 ($30 off), as well as the more powerful Charge 5 at $140 ($40 off). You don't typically have to be fussy about colors, either.

The Charge 5 and Flip 6 made our list of the best portable Bluetooth speakers for good reasons. The Flip 6 offers stronger sound quality and durability than you might expect from a speaker its size. The Charge 5, meanwhile, offers bigger sound, a long 20-hour battery life and the option of charging USB-C devices. They'll both have enough power to last you through an early backyard barbecue, and the water resistance to survive an unexpected downpour.

There are alternatives from brands like Anker, Marshall and UE that may sound more to your liking. At these prices, though, JBL may represent the better value regardless of price point.

Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.

When it comes to headphone design, Master & Dynamic has carved out a niche. The company’s signature look of metal and leather, immediately set it apart from the competition when the wired MH40 debuted in 2014. M&D followed up with a wireless version in 2019, giving its non-ANC (active noise canceling) over-ear headphones a modern update. Now the company is back with a second-generation wireless model, touting improvements to audio, battery and more. The third iteration of the MH40 is undoubtedly an improvement on the last, but are the company’s design chops enough to overcome the lack of features compared to similarly priced alternatives?

Design

One element that has always set Master & Dynamic apart from the competition is its design. From those first MH40 headphones, the company has relied on aluminum construction instead of plastic for several products. What’s more, it blends the metal with other premium materials like canvas and leather. For the second-generation MH40 Wireless, the company has stayed true to its roots, right down to the vintage, aviator-inspired look.

Alongside the aluminum body, a coated canvas-wrapped headband is color matched to removable lambskin leather ear pads. With all of those high-end materials, the MH40 weighs 280 grams – 30 grams more than Sony’s WH-1000XM5. Still, the extra heft isn’t a burden, these feel lightweight, comfy, and the cushiony ear pads keep you from feeling the outer rim of the ear cups.

Like the previous version, the on-board controls reside on the right ear cup. A three-button array is positioned near the headband hinge, giving you controls for calls, music, voice assistant and volume (including a mute button). The dual-function power/pairing button sits on the outer edge alongside the USB-C port and a multi-color pairing/battery life indicator. I’ll always advocate for physical controls over a touch panel, mostly because they’re more reliable. That’s certainly the case here, as I was easily able to execute multiple presses on the center button for skipping tracks.

Software and features

Billy Steele/Engadget

The M&D Connect app is the companion software for the MH40. Here, battery level is the most prominently displayed item, along with a note if your headphones are up to date firmware-wise. A tap on the gear icon reveals options for sound, controls and “about device.” Inside the sound menu, Master & Dynamic gives you four EQ presets: bass boost, bass cut, podcast (mids and vocals) and audiophile (mids and highs). By default, there’s no equalizer setting selected and the app will remember which one you picked so you don’t have to select it each time you activate the so-called E-Preset EQ. You can also enable Sidetone on the sound menu, allowing you to hear some of your own voice during calls. This comes in handy as it keeps you from feeling the need to speak loudly to hear yourself through the passive noise isolation.

While Sidetone is a nice feature, you can only activate it in the app, which means before a call (or more likely, during the first few seconds of one) you’ll have to swipe over to the sound menu to turn it on. I realize the MH40 doesn’t have ANC so there’s not a dedicated button that selects a noise-canceling mode. But perhaps there could be an option to reassign the long press on the center button, from summoning a voice assistant, to triggering Sidetone.

On the controls menu, the app gives you the option of renaming the device from M&D MH40W and changing the automatic shut-off timer from the default 30 minutes (one hour, three hours and never are the other options). From this screen you can also trigger a factory reset.

Sound quality

Billy Steele/Engadget

After testing several Master & Dynamics’ products over the years, it’s clear the company has a knack for warm, natural sound that’s devoid of any heavy-handed tuning. Across genres, there’s no over-reliance on bombastic bass or painfully brilliant highs. That continues on the second-gen MH40 Wireless where there’s ample low-end tone when a track demands it, like Mike Shinoda’s remix of Deftones’ “Passenger.” But the bass is a complement to everything else, and the default EQ works well across the sonic spectrum.

Master & Dynamic swapped out the drivers on the previous version for 40mm titanium units that it says produce “clearer highs and richer lows.” Indeed, the treble is punchy throughout a range of musical styles, and the bass can be as thick and thumping as a song requires. Other headphones may offer low boom, but it blends better with the mids and highs on the MH40, making the even the deepest bass on RTJ4 more pleasant to listen to.

There’s great attention to detail in the sound profile of the MH40 too, and again, it’s apparent across different types of music. However, this is most evident with genres like bluegrass and jazz – multi-instrumental arrangements with interwoven sections emphasizing different players at different times. It’s not quite on the level of what Bowers & Wilkins manages with its latest headphones, which are some of the best-sounding I’ve reviewed. But Master & Dynamic does a solid job with the subtle nuances of sound, from pick noise on a mandolin to the percussive thumps of an upright bass.

When it comes to calls, the new MH40 offers a better overall experience than its predecessor, but there’s still room for improvement. The new microphone setup does a solid job with constant background noise. It doesn’t pick up things like white noise machines and clothes dryers. The headphones aren’t great with louder distractions and it picks those up in greater detail if you’ve got Sidetone active.

Battery life

Billy Steele/Engadget

Master & Dynamic promises up to 30 hours of battery life on the new MH40. That’s up from 18 hours on the first wireless version of the headphones, but it's not any longer than most ANC models. Audio-Technica's best non-ANC model lasts up to 50 hours, for example. There’s also a quick-charge feature that will give you up to six hours of use in 15 minutes. During my testing, I managed to hit the stated time before having to plug them in, but I didn’t go beyond. That’s doing a mix of music, podcasts and calls (with Sidetone) at around 75 percent volume and leaving the headphones off overnight a few times.

The competition

In terms of non-ANC headphones, one of my favorite options is Audio-Technica’s ATH-M50xBT2. Like the MH40, this is a second-generation model with notable improvements over the M50xBT. Multi-point Bluetooth pairing, built-in Alexa and a low latency mode were added on top of the company’s blend of warm audio tone with a really comfy set of cans. Plus, they’re currently on sale for $179 – $20 less than the original price and less than half of what you’ll pay for the new MH40.

If you’re looking for noise canceling headphones, Master & Dynamic sells the MW75 with a more modern design than the company’s other over- and on-ear products. Adaptive ANC is powered by a set of four microphones and there are three noise-canceling modes to choose from. The MW75 is also equipped with wear detection to help you extend that 28-hour listening time (with ANC on). However, these headphones are a whopping $599, only surpassed by Bowers & Wilkins’ Px8 for the most expensive headphones I’ve tested recently.

For the best wireless headphones currently available, you’ll want to consider Sony’s WH-1000XM5. Simply put, no other company comes close to what Sony offers on its flagship set in terms of mixing features, sound quality and ANC performance. While they’re pricey at $398, you get more for that investment. Plus, we’ve seen the M5 on sale for as low as $279.

Wrap-up

What features are you willing to give up for headphones with standout looks and good sound? That’s really what you have to consider with the MH40. There’s no denying this second-gen model is an upgrade from the first wireless version. All of the things the company says it improved hold true, from the sound quality to the battery life and microphone performance. Had the company done so without boosting the price, I could make a strong argument for the new MH40. But at $399, there are flagship noise-canceling headphones from other companies that simply offer too much when compared to M&D’s latest. Unless, of course, the main thing that matters to you is a deft hand with product design.

Back in February, TikTok revealed that it was testing a feature that will give you a way to reset the recommendations that pop up on your For You page. Now, the ByteDance-owned app is rolling out this "refresh" option to all users, so you can get rid of video recommendations that no longer feel relevant. If you enable it, the For You feed will look as if you've only just signed up for an account, and TikTok's algorithm will start surfacing content based on your newer interactions on the app. 

To give your feed a reset, head over to TikTok's Settings and Privacy menu, then scroll down until you find Content preferences. There, you'll find a new option that says "Refresh your For You feed." Take note that it's all what the new feature does — it won't change any of your settings or unfollow accounts you've previously followed. 

In addition to the new "refresh" feature, TikTok has also updated its efforts to reduce repetitive patterns of content that could be harmful. The app has been doing this for quite some time and has been applying limits to videos that don't exactly violate its policies but might have an effect on your viewing experience. Examples include videos that feature sadness or extreme dieting and exercise. Now, if its systems detect a repetition in those types of themes within a set of videos, it actively substitutes some of them with videos about a different topic. That way, it can further limit your exposure to content that could contain certain triggers.

These are but the latest updates TikTok has rolled out in a bid to improve its algorithm, which has been the subject of investigations and has been at the center of discussions on whether the app should be banned. TikTok's critics even call its user experience (as enabled by its algorithm) manipulative, designed to keep you glued to the app. 

It's no secret that the service has been under intense scrutiny over the past few years, so it also doesn't come as a surprise that TikTok has been making an effort to demystify its algorithm and give you more control over the content you see. They will certainly give TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew more positive talking points when he tries to make authorities see the app in a positive light on March 23rd. Chew will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that day and is expected to discuss the app's privacy and data security, as well as its impact on kids and ties to China. 

The following episode discusses Star Trek: Picard, Season Three, Episode Five, “Imposters.”

Efficient storytelling is not a strength you can traditionally attribute to Star Trek: Picard, which has often felt padded. Each of its three seasons have felt like one or two made-for-TV-movies' worth of story stretched thin to ten near-hour long episodes. Nowhere is this more evident than in this season’s fifth episode, where five minutes of plot is expanded to a full episode. Here, Team Picard learns that Starfleet has been infiltrated by super-Changelings before teaming up with Team Worffi. Oh, and Beverley, who has been in relatively close contact with him for most of his life, has finally noticed that Something Is Up With Her Son. But even that fairly slender advance in the plot has to take a back seat to the main centerpiece of the episode: The moment when Picard stands face-to-face with [CHARACTER].

The power of [CHARACTER’S] return is all held in the moment that they step into camera focus, such is the extent of the surprise. After all, there are textual and meta-textual reasons why you wouldn’t expect to see them popping up in any Star Trek, let alone this one. For a start, their plot was done after they – for right or wrong reasons – betrayed the Enterprise crew in [TNG EPISODE]. And, of course, [ACTOR] had been expected to make the transition to Deep Space Nine, but turned the role down. In fact, esteemed Trek wiki Memory Alpha suggested they were even offered a role in Voyager, either as a regular or as a guest star, and similarly turned it down. If there’s any person who you’d think was never coming back to any Star Trek, it would be [ACTOR]. And not even I, much as you keep telling me I’m a cynical hater expressing these opinions to milk your hate-clicks, was immune to the initial flush of emotion seeing them in a Starfleet uniform again.

Unfortunately, the main confrontation between Picard and [CHARACTER] is dulled by both the needlessness of it all, and its execution. The pair talk about their “faith” in “institutions” or the lack of such, and why this is or is not a good thing, but I don’t feel any of this. Part of it is the streaming era-Trek problem of telling us things rather than showing, so we have these gestures toward a grander theme that are never properly explored on screen. But it’s also because many of these themes were already well-explored on Deep Space Nine, even if the execution there was always a little hamfisted. After all, while there was every sense that we should side with the Maquis – don't forget that they were the little people tossed aside by the grand machinations of empires with no care of the lives that were directly impacted. But this is Star Trek, and so whatever the problem, whatever the grand conundrum at hand, the answer is pretty much always Starfleet.

Picard’s obsession with continuity for the sake of itself does little more than remind us of older, better Treks. I might as well add, because it’s been on my mind for years at this point, that there’s a YouTube clip from the DS9 episode “For The Uniform” describing Sisko as a “badass.” Specifically because he carries through a threat to sterilize a planet to inflict petty revenge on Commander Eddington, who he felt betrayed Starfleet to go support the Maquis. This is the Star Trek problem in a nutshell: Sisko’s in the wrong here, but the show can never quite allow us to stop sympathizing with our hero because he’s our hero. Picard, this year, has behaved pretty illogically, and recklessly, and yet because he’s our hero too, the show can’t quite question his actions in anything more than a single line of sassy dialog from Riker.

I don’t consider myself pharisaical in my approach to continuity, and I do think that it can be a benefit to storytelling rather than a burden. But Picard’s use of golden-era Trek deep cuts often takes me out of the show as I wonder how this tracks in any way logically. Picard himself even says as much, asking how in the hell [CHARACTER] wound up back in a Starfleet uniform. She explains the “arduous” process taken to get back into the fleet, but I couldn’t help but interrogate this further. Imagine if a mid-level officer in the US Navy put a major aircraft carrier in any degree of jeopardy to cover their own defection to an (ostensibly) enemy terror group? Do you think any military organization worth its salt would allow that same person to serve in active, regular duty again? And if anyone says “but Tom Paris…” bear in mind that he was a) a Nepo Baby, b) Wasn’t with the Maquis for very long and c) Wasn’t expected to serve once he’d done his time assisting Voyager during its short trip into the badlands. 

And then [Character] dies in a set-up to implicate the Titan, and you wonder if death will be doled out so cheaply in the rest of the series. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve had whole seasons of Picard structured around saying farewell to long-running characters.

There’s not much to say about this week’s b and c-stories because they feel so derivative and shallow. Worf and Raffi’s plan to smoke out the villains with a fake-out sniper that’s instantly foiled feels pulled from an early-noughties thriller. The fact it was counter-foiled by a fake-out death on Worf’s part felt thin too, there’s no way you’d bring back Michael Dorn just to off him so cheaply. And on a similar theme, Jack is yet another streaming-era Trek character with the Jason Bourne disease; troubled by visions of a secret past that keeps going into a phaser-fu fugue state whenever placed in danger. A storyline so stale it was already covered with mold when this very series did it with Dahj and Soji in its first season. I haven’t seen any episode after the next one, so I genuinely don’t know how this particular plotline is going to resolve itself. But I’ve seen those threads on Reddit, and if it’s true, I’m really going to sigh myself in two if we’re doing this same stuff yet-a-bloody-gain.

Speaking as a parent, if my kid coughs more than twice in their sleep in quick succession, I’ll just stick my head into their bedroom door to check if they’re okay. If I was the chief medical officer on a starship that spent more than a decade at the far reaches of known space investigating weird stuff, I reckon I might have a tricorder or two at hand. And if my kid stopped being able to sleep, was troubled with dangerous visions and his eyes started to glow red in moments of emotional or physical turmoil, I reckon I wouldn’t keep it to myself until he reached adulthood. In fact, I might even have thought to take them to a hospital or biobed myself just, you know, to be on the safe side. Just a thought, Beverley.

NASA and Axiom Space have revealed what Artemis III astronauts will wear when they walk on the Moon. The Artemis III mission is currently slated for December 2025. It’ll be the first crewed lunar landing since Apollo 17 touched down in 1972, and it’s poised to include the first woman and first person of color to walk on the Moon.

Axiom Space

The new spacesuit accommodates a wider range of body types. It's also more flexible than past suits, featuring lights and even an HD camera. The design can even handle the extreme cold of permanently shadowed areas on the Moon. If you’re disappointed not to see the iconic white of NASA’s older spacesuits, don’t worry – this is just the early prototype. The final version will likely be all-white when worn by NASA astronauts on the Moon’s surface.

– Mat Smith

The Morning After isn’t just a newsletter – it’s also a daily podcast. Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here.

The biggest stories you might have missed

Next-generation Zipline P2 Zip drone comes with an adorable ‘droid’ sidekick

PS Plus Extra and Premium games for March include the PS5 Uncharted collection

Kia's EV9 electric SUV features three rows of seats and a striking design

BMW confirms the i5 Sedan will be its first all-electric 5 Series vehicle

T-Mobile is buying Ryan Reynolds-backed Mint Mobile

For up to $1.35 billion.

T-Mobile has announced an agreement to buy Mint Mobile's parent company, Ka’ena, for $1.35 billion in cash and stock. Mint has run on T-Mobile since its inception as a mobile virtual network operator. The deal is all the more intriguing thanks to its celebrity rep, Ryan Reynolds, who is believed to own between 20 and 25 percent of Mint. He'll stay on in his creative role as Mint spokesperson. Mint was founded in 2015 and spun out from Ultra in late 2019.

Continue reading.

BMW's new Panoramic Vision adds a full-width display on EV windscreens

Expect it to roll out on models from 2025.

With its new Panoramic Vision display, BMW wants to bring that important HUD data to eye level. The company has announced a heads-up display that spans the entire width of the windscreen to give drivers and passengers all the necessary information without having to take eyes off the road. As the driver, you can choose what you want to see across the Panoramic Vision display, including speed, time, and current song playing.

Continue reading.

Samsung explains its 'fake' Moon photos

The company says its AI enhances details, but critics claim it's adding info that wasn't there.

Samsung shared a deeper explanation of its Moon photo detection system it has used since the Galaxy S21. The phone detects when you're taking a clear photo of the Moon at 25X zoom or above and captures multiple frames. It then uses a neural network to enhance the detail, using a high-resolution reference image for comparison. It’s that latter part that’s rankling folks. So are the images you’re taking fake? Well, Samsung is using the actual shot as a baseline, but the phone is producing photos that don't represent what you get through the lens. The company appears to be aware of this, too, as it says it's refining Scene Optimizer to "reduce any potential confusion" between taking photos of the actual Moon and augmented images of it.

Continue reading.

The 'BlackBerry' trailer looks funnier than you'd expect

The rise and fall of the keyboard-toting smartphone business.

When we learned that a BlackBerry movie was in the works, no-one thought it would be a comedic feature. But judging from the trailer it should have a lighter touch than films like The Social Network and Steve Jobs. The BlackBerry movie stars Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, Goon) and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Glenn Howerton as Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the former co-CEOs of the Canadian firm Research in Motion.

Continue reading.

Samsung’s $450 Galaxy A54 has a bright 1,000-nit display

And looks more like a flagship phone.

Axiom Space

It’s that quiet moment between Samsung launching its Galaxy S flagships and its other flagships that just happen to fold. So it's the perfect time to update its midrange A series and add to the chaos. While no major shakeups are coming from the Galaxy A53 to the A54, there are some notable changes, including a redesign more closely aligned to the premium Galaxy S family, with metal detail on the cameras, which now jut out from the back independently of each other. The screen is also 20 percent brighter, topping out at 1,000 nits. The A54 will be available to pre-order on March 30th before launching on April 6th for $450 – the same price as last year’s model.

Continue reading.

Baidu, China's search engine giant, has unveiled its answer to OpenAI's ChatGPT service. It's the latest version of the company's ERNIE (Enhanced Representation through Knowledge Integration) Bot that it has been developing over the past decade and was first launched back in 2019. In a press event, Baidu CEO Robin Li said this version of ERNIE Bot has capabilities close to GPT-4, the latest iteration of OpenAI's large language model released just a couple of days ago. 

The chatbot apparently has 550 billion facts in its knowledge graph, but they're mostly focused on the Chinese market. So while it will be able to list Chinese idioms for you, it may not be able to answer as many questions for certain subjects outside the region. ERNIE Bot has the capability to answer a user with audio responses in different Chinese dialects, though, and it can also generate images and videos out of Chinese text.

During its demo at the event, the chatbot was able to summarize a Chinese sci-fi novel and give suggestions on how to continue writing the book if it were to be expanded. It was also able to name the actors in its film adaptation, compare their heights and conclude who was taller between the two of them. In another demo, it was able to suggest names for a high-tech service company catering to small and mid-size enterprise, write slogans for it and even generate a newsletter with a specified word count.

Li said that 650 companies have already signed up to use ERNIE Bot's technology, but he also admitted that it's not ready for a public debut. Baidu has merely unveiled it early due to market demand brought about by ChatGPT's meteoric rise in popularity. For now, the Chinese tech giant will only grant access to those who've already received invites, though more companies can apply for the ability to embed the chatbot into their products via Baidu's cloud platform.

Microsoft launched its ChatGPT-powered version of Bing last month in a limited beta, and it promptly brought a bunch of new viewers and some respect to the beleaguered search engine. Now, it appears that Microsoft has opened up the new Bing to nearly everyone who wants to use it, as Windows Central has noticed. While the signup page still says "join the waiting list," all you have to do is sign in to get instant access — a trick that worked for myself and a colleague. 

Microsoft has yet to confirm the change, but we may learn more at an event it's holding today called "Reinventing productivity with AI," as spotted by TechCrunch. The company is supposed to be introducing AI-powered tools for its Microsoft 365 suite and SalesForce rival Dynamic 365, but it may announce Bing changes as well.

Yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that the new Bing has been powered by the GPT-4 engine for the last five weeks, well before OpenAI unveiled it two days ago. OpenAI's latest language model (LLM) has taken the tech world by storm with its ability to handle both text and images. Some of its feats include passing simulated exams like the Bar and LSAT with a score "around the top 10 percent of test takers," and outperforming other LLMs in a variety of benchmark tests. 

Bing gives users a taste of GPT-4 without the need to pay for it or be a developer. The new search engine got off to be a bit of a shaky start, though, as up to 10 million users signed up to test it. Some were able to “jailbreak” the chatbot, making it spew false information and essentially gaslight users. That forced Microsoft to limit conversations, but it has subsequently removed some of those limits after strengthening the search engine's "guardrails."

Microsoft was an early backer of the company behind ChatGPT, Open AI, and strengthened that commitment in 2021 with $2 billion dollar investment. Early this year, it expanded the pact further with a "multibillion dollar" investment that includes new supercomputers to accelerate OpenAI's research. 

Microsoft has announced that Minecraft is coming to Chromebooks and is available to try right away via an Early Access version. The game will include "cross-device play with friends, access to Minecraft Marketplace, and the ability to play on Realms," according to developer Mojang.

It will require a decently equipped Chromebook with specific processors, 4GB of RAM and 1GB of storage, as detailed here. Those requirements may frustrate some potential users, considering that Chromebooks are widely used in schools and that Minecraft is played by a lot of kids.

"Early access means that in this first stage, only selected Chromebook devices that meet the minimum requirements will get the option to buy Minecraft, so you’ll have to check the Google Play Store to see if Minecraft is available for you," according to the blog post. "This isn’t because we want to single out some of our players as special (we love you all equally!) – it’s so we can test the game’s performance before we make it available to more players."

The "early access" part also means that users will have to put up with some bugs, even though they'll be paying for it. "We still expect that there may be some bugs, and that’s where we’ll need your help," the company wrote. "If you come across any goat-eating frogs, milkable squids, or disco dancing Ender dragons, then please let us know!"

Until now, it's only been possible to play Minecraft on Chromebooks using the Education Edition or a java version. The Chromebook + Android bundle us $20 USD, the Android-only version is $7, and an upgrade from Android the Chromebook is $13. Existing Minecraft worlds won't transfer to the Chromebook version, and you'll need a Microsoft account to play. 

There's no word on when the final version will arrive, or if the minimum requirements will change. In any case, if you don't see the Early Access version the Google Play store, it likely means your Chromebook isn't compatible. 

Google will no longer sell its Glass AR smart glasses for enterprise starting on March 15th, and it will only support the device until September 15th this year. The tech giant has posted those details with a notice that says "Thank you for over a decade of innovation and partnership" on the official Glass website, as first reported by 9to5Google. This marks the end for the company's augmented reality wearable, which had its beginnings as a consumer product that piqued early adopters' interest but never quite captured the market. 

Around four years after it first became available, Google launched a rebooted version of the Glass for enterprise, targeting businesses whose workers could use augmented reality's help to accomplish their tasks. It was designed to be more comfortable to wear and with the ability to "withstand the rigors of work environments." It also had a bigger display, a foldable design and a speedier processor. Then, in 2019, Google released the Glass Enterprise Edition 2 eyewear, which looked mostly the same as its predecessor but came with more powerful hardware and software. 

Google says existing units will continue working after September 15th, but it will no longer roll out any software updates after that. The company will also only replace devices until that date, and the pre-installed Meet on Glass app — Google's videoconferencing service on the eyewear — might stop working anytime after September 15th, as well. 

Last year, Google started testing its next-gen augmented reality glasses that it teased during its I/O developer conference. It's not quite clear if those glasses will ever be released, but company spokesperson Patrick Seybold told The Verge that Google remains "deeply committed to AR" and that it's "been building AR into many [of its] products."