Focused search for science

just now (543+ words) The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go laptop drops to just $160. Cyber Monday and Black Friday laptop deals are mostly over, but those still looking will appreciate this next entry. Even after the sales, buyers can score a $170 discount for the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go at Best Buy, marking over half off the price and bringing it down to just $160. Samsung released the Chromebook Go as its slimmest and lightest laptop yet. This deal is for the 128GB storage configuration, while it also sports a 14-inch screen, 4GB of RAM, and an Intel Celeron CPU. To be sure, it's definitely a laptop that's meant to be more budget-friendly than some, though it isn't going to offer anything too impressive from a performance standpoint. Still, it's not a bad pick for casual users, those surfing the web and streaming movies, or those who are performing…...

5+ min ago (916+ words) Stable but lightweight construction that stays flat on a desk Strong switches and chunky dials feel great Lightweight enough to quickly set up and take down No analog levers for fine throttle control PC only, not compatible with Xbox or PlayStation I got my hands on a prototype of the Foxtrot back in the summer of this year with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. A few months later, and I'm sitting down at my own desk with the real thing for a proper Honeycomb Aeronautical Foxtrot Aviation Stick review. TL;DR: It's still just as brilliant as it was back then. My previous impression of Honeycomb was that of a brand appealing to a more serious flight simulation crowd with its Alpha Yoke and Bravo Throttle, and I've always been drawn more towards a flight stick rather than a yoke. Enter the…...

5+ min ago (953+ words) Windows 10 expiry exposes widespread technical debt risks The much discussed Windows 10 end-of-support deadline finally passed in October. There was, and still is, a big push to generate awareness around the need to upgrade devices still running on Windows 10, which are now susceptible to security risks. But it seems even if organizations weren't aware of end-of-support deadlines (which they should be), they do seem to be aware of the many issues and risks technical debt poses. A recent survey of CIOs, compliance managers, and IT heads revealed an overwhelming nine in ten face Windows technical debt in some form. That means they are accruing a variety of operational, performance and compliance risks from maintaining outdated systems. Notably, half of the leaders surveyed said they had experienced system downtime that was linked to technical debt. Despite this, there seems to be a…...

5+ min ago (244+ words) The final triple-A game release of the year, Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, was just released. Our Nathan Birch reviewed the game for the Nintendo Switch 2, but the game is also available for the original Nintendo Switch. Indeed, as you might remember, it was initially announced for the previous Switch during Nintendo's E3 2017 Spotlight, just a few months after that console's debut. It famously had a troubled development phase, as Nintendo had originally picked Bandai Namco instead of Retro Studios to make the game. The project wasn't going well, which led to Metroid Prime 4: Beyond being rebooted and handed back to Retro Studios, resulting in an inevitable significant delay. Even though the Austin-based studio eventually launched the game well after the debut of the Switch 2, Nintendo still kept its promise to release the game on the original Switch, too. That's great news even…...

5+ min ago (1281+ words) Spotify's annual Wrapped feature just dropped, giving listeners a fun, personalized summary of their listening habits. It has gained immense popularity over the years, and as a result, many companies have seized the opportunity to create similar year-in-review experiences, offering users a recap of their habits, preferences, or interactions from the past year. Here are some platforms and websites that mimic the Spotify Wrapped concept. This year's update features new badges for listeners to showcase. For instance, the "Trendsetter" badge is given to those who listened to trending albums early, while the "Headliner" badge honors fans who rank among the top percentage of an artist's listeners. There are also new shareable cards designed with a "music festival" theme, tailored specifically for each listener. Previously, Amazon Music's equivalent of Spotify Wrapped was "My Year in Review," a playlist featuring 50 to 100 of…...

8+ min ago (290+ words) Recent advances in soft materials and AI are opening up new ways to interact with technology. Human skin can sense subtle patterns of pressure, timing, and movement, but most digital devices only register simple taps and swipes. This difference has led researchers to explore new touch-based technologies." They have tested sensor-filled gloves, wearable bands that track small pressure changes, and thin surfaces that create precise vibrations. While these ideas show promise, many are still too rigid, limited in the gestures they detect, or unable to provide meaningful, nuanced feedback." One big challenge is that digital text relies on ASCII, a standardized code of 128 characters that includes letters, numbers, punctuation, and control symbols. Translating this full range into tactile signals is difficult because each character must be represented in a way that can be accurately felt, distinguished, and interpreted through touch…...

15+ min ago (261+ words) I've been writing about video games, television and movies for Forbes for over 10 years, and you may have seen my reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. I cover all manner of console and PC games, but if it's about looting or shooting, I'm definitely there. If I'm watching something, it's usually science fiction, horror or superheroic. I'm also a regular on IGN's Fireteam Chat podcast and have published five sci-fi novels. "Five Nights At Freddy's 2' Has The Largest Rotten Tomatoes Critic-Audience Score Divide Ever It remains to be seen how Five Nights at Freddy's 2 will perform at the weekend box office, but what we do know is what critics think, and what fans think. Even if the film is being declared as objectively terrible by many, audiences who care enough to show up do not agree in the least. So…...

19+ min ago (1135+ words) Meta has signed multi-year licensing deals with CNN, Fox News, and USA Today to integrate real-time reporting into Meta AI, reversing its 2024 retreat from news. In a sharp reversal of its retreat from news content, Meta has signed multi-year licensing agreements with a roster of major publishers, including CNN, Fox News, and USA Today. The deal, announced Friday, will integrate real-time reporting into Meta AI, positioning the social giant as a paying partner just as the industry's war against data scraping escalates. This strategic pivot arrives at a defining "split screen" moment for the media sector. On the same day Meta confirmed its partnerships, The New York Times filed a copyright lawsuit against Perplexity AI, accusing the startup of "freeriding" on its journalism. A local-first browser extension that centralizes your prompts and chains across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, AI Studio,…...

22+ min ago (297+ words) 2025 is shaping up to be the year of Gemini 3. Google's newest flagship model hasn't just caught up with OpenAI " many developers argue it has leapfrogged GPT-4 in the areas that matter most: reasoning, multimodality, and real-world performance. At AilonTech, we've been closely following the shift" and this one is big. " A True Leap in Reasoning Gemini 3 doesn't just predict text " it thinks. Developers are reporting major improvements in: "Gemini 3 doesn't just write code " it understands the intent behind the architecture." This qualitative jump is why many experts are calling it a quantum leap, not an incremental upgrade. " Why OpenAI Is Feeling the Pressure Gemini 3 supports an effectively infinite context window for most workflows. Entire codebases, legal docs, long-form datasets " all in one prompt. Google is embedding Gemini 3 into: This is an OS-level intelligence layer, not just a chatbot. Check X…...

23+ min ago (1100+ words) Researchers demonstrate that quantum annealers, while not perfectly thermal, reliably approximate the behaviour of systems at a specific temperature, allowing for accurate benchmarking and improved use in exploring complex physical problems. https://quantumzeitgeist.com/wp-content/uploads/Image_fx-43-8.jpg Quantum annealers represent a promising new avenue for investigating complex magnetic systems, but a fundamental question regarding their operation has remained unanswered: do they truly sample from the expected thermal distribution? George Grattan, Pratik Sathe, and Cristiano Nisoli, from Los Alamos National Laboratory and D-Wave Quantum Inc., now present a comprehensive experimental investigation into this critical issue, rigorously testing the assumption that these machines produce results governed by standard thermal statistics. Their work spans a vast range of system sizes and operating conditions, revealing a consistent, previously unrecognised offset in the effective temperature of the annealer, and a discrepancy between the measured output and the device's physical temperature....