Unique

A Silicon Valley school is using virtual escape rooms to evaluate prospective students

Applying to an elite middle school sounds like a stressful experience, and I’m sure COVID-19 doesn’t help. With things like open houses, campus tours, and in-person interviews off the table, applicants have fewer chances to experience their prospective schools — and admissions offices have fewer chances to meet their prospective students. One San Jose private… Read more

The best free password manager

Using a password manager is one of the best steps you can take to protect your security online. A good password manager makes it easy to generate unique, strong passwords, and it will then securely save them so they’re available wherever you need them, whether that’s on your phone, laptop, tablet, or desktop computer. Basically,… Read more

Amazon Fire TV for Auto to debut in two Jeeps next year

Home News (Image credit: Stellantis/Amazon) Soon you’ll be able to watch The Grand Tour using your in-car system. That’s because Amazon’s Fire TV streaming platform is coming to cars, and we now know which models will be the first with Fire TV for Auto on board: the 2022 Jeep Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. Both are… Read more

Diablo II: Resurrected will let you import your 20-year-old savegames

Blizzard wasn’t kidding when it told Polygon that the new remastered Diablo II would be faithful to the original. You’ll even be able to pick up where you left off with your 20-year-old savegames, IGN Middle East reports. “Yes! Yes, keep those!” producer Matthew Cederquist told journalists, saying that the team called it “the best… Read more

MSI MEG Z590 Ace Review: New Ace in Town

Home News (Image credit: MSI) While we still don’t have an Intel Rocket Lake-S Core i9-11900K CPU to use for testing, Intel Z590 boards have been rolling in. So while we await benchmark results, we’ll be walking in detail through the features of these brand-new boards. First up on our bench was the ASRock Z590… Read more

Eve is rolling out Thread support to more of its smart home lineup

Eve Systems, a maker of smart home products that work with Apple’s HomeKit platform, is announcing an expanded range of devices that support the Thread smart protocol. The news consists of updated versions of its existing smart plug, a forthcoming firmware update for the company’s smart sprinkler, and a new outdoor weather station. Thread is… Read more

NFTs, explained

There’s nothing like an explosion of blockchain news to leave you thinking, “Um… what’s going on here?” That’s the feeling I’ve experienced while reading about Grimes getting millions of dollars for NFTs or about Nyan Cat being sold as one. You might be wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow? After literal hours of reading, I… Read more

With ‘Starbase’ and a new Starlink factory, Musk deepens foray into Texas

Pieces of SpaceX’s ambitious plans to expand its sizable foothold in Texas were on full display this week in three very different corners of the internet. CEO Elon Musk speculated on Twitter about a proposed city in Texas named Starbase, while new job descriptions on the company’s website hinted at an anticipated “state of the… Read more

Project Gucciberg offers classic audiobooks read by an AI deepfake of Gucci Mane

Ever wanted to have Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis read to you by trap god Gucci Mane, creator of such hits as “Lemonade” and “Wasted”? Well, a) that’s an awfully specific desire, and b) it’s your lucky day. Project Gucciberg is the latest drop from viral factory MSCHF, and it does exactly… Read more

Philips 2021 TVs to offer sound personalisation and a hearing test

Home News (Image credit: Philips) Philips has announced that most of its 2021 European Android TV range will offer Mimi Sound Personalisation technology. Mimi Sound Personalisation lets viewers alter their TV audio to match their individual needs. Users can take a short hearing test – on an iOS or Android device – to create a… Read more

NASA’s latest Mars rover has the same processor as an iMac from 1998

NASA’s brand-new Perseverance rover is the most advanced machine that’s ever landed on Mars. But when it comes to rovers, “state of the art” is a subjective term. Perseverance is running on none other than a PowerPC 750, a single-core, 233MHz processor with just 6 million transistors that’s most famous for powering the original “Bondi… Read more

Final Fantasy’s creator is back with a classic RPG made of incredible handcrafted dioramas

Hironobu Sakaguchi talks about his upcoming Apple Arcade game Fantasian Fantasian has everything you’d expect from a new Hironobu Sakaguchi experience. The creator of the Final Fantasy series is once again making a roleplaying game that takes place in a lush fantasy world, features turn-based combat, and centers on a globe-spanning quest. There’s even a… Read more

Crunchyroll is rolling out an entirely new design for Premium subscribers

Crunchyroll has entirely redesigned the streaming experience on web browsers for Premium subscribers, and the platform’s new design is rolling out in beta today for some customers. The Crunchyroll Beta adds a couple of heavily requested web browser features: an updated homepage with an easier to navigate layout, more intuitive search capabilities, and a new… Read more

Microsoft Mesh feels like the virtual future of Microsoft Teams meetings

Last week, Microsoft’s Alex Kipman, the inventor of Kinect and HoloLens, appeared in my living room to hand me jellyfish and sharks. That might sound like I had a weird dream, but it was a meeting made possible through Microsoft’s new Mesh platform. I donned a HoloLens 2 headset, joined a virtual meeting room, and… Read more

iPad Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Limited Edition Collection

Caviar introduces the Apple Collection. This luxury Limited Edition collection includes three iPad Pro tablets and two iPhone 12 Pro (Max) smartphones. Caviar, known for enriching and decorating existing Apple iPhone and Samsung Galaxy smartphones, has just announced its new Apple Collection. The new series consists of two iPhone 12 Pro (Max) models and three… Read more