The relentless progression of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrigs disease, often leads to a devastating loss of motor control, including the ability to speak. For individuals in the late stages of ALS, communication becomes a profound challenge, isolating them from loved ones and the world around them. However, a glimmer of hope emerges from the realm of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. Cognixion, a pioneering BCI company, has announced a clinical trial investigating the potential of its Axon-R headset to restore communicative abilities for these patients. Designer: CognixionThe Axon-R headset, at the heart of this trial, is designed to translate neural signals into actionable commands. It utilizes electroencephalography (EEG) to detect and interpret brain activity, allowing users to control digital interfaces through thought alone. This technology holds immense promise for individuals who have lost the ability to speak or use traditional assistive devices. The clinical trial, currently underway, focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of the Axon-R in enabling communication for individuals in the advanced stages of ALS. Participants are utilizing the headset to select words and phrases from a digital interface, effectively typing with their minds. The goal is to determine if the Axon-R can provide a reliable and efficient means of communication, improving the quality of life for those affected by this debilitating disease. The Axon-R employs non-invasive EEG sensors, making it a potentially more accessible and comfortable option compared to invasive BCI technologies. The trial also specifically targets the communication challenges faced by late-stage ALS patients, aiming to restore their ability to express themselves. Another advantage is that the headset interfaces with a digital platform that allows users to select pre-programmed phrases or construct sentences, facilitating communication. And if successfully implemented, this technology could dramatically improve the quality of life for ALS patients and their families, providing a vital link to the outside world.The implications of this trial extend far beyond ALS. If successful, the Axon-R could pave the way for broader applications of BCI technology in assisting individuals with other neurological conditions that impact motor function and communication. While the trial is still in its early stages, the announcement of Cognixions research underscores the growing potential of BCI technology to address critical medical needs. The hope is that this innovative approach will offer a new avenue for communication, empowering individuals facing the challenges of late-stage ALS to regain their voice and reconnect with the world around them. This trial is an important step towards a future where technology can bridge the gap created by neurological disorders, fostering greater independence and connection for those who need it most.The post Cognixion Axon-R Headset Tackles ALS Communication Challenges first appeared on Yanko Design.

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Windows comes loaded with a lot of applications, but to be honest, they arent all thebest. There are better tools out there, and you dont have to spend any money to get them.These are must-have applications I always find myself installing on any new PC theyre all free, open source, and will instantly upgrade any Windows experience. Even better, they can boost your productivity at work or just streamline the way you use your PC at home.Each of these is also lightweight and bloatware-free:No annoying featuresthat get in your way,no ads bothering you, and no heavy application grinding away slowly while you wait for it to open just a collection of useful, community-created tools that respect you and do their jobs well. Now,thisis what PC computing was meant to be.Want more useful Windows apps and PC-related tips?Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Plus, Ill send you free Windows Field Guide downloads as a bonus when you sign up!1. EverythingEverythingis the best file-search tool on Windows, hands down. Unlike the built-in file search feature in the Start menu or File Explorer, Everything finds, well,everything, in aninstant. And while those search results are just for file names, its still an incredibly fast and lightweight way to find anything on your PC. I find it absolutely indispensable.Everything is the best Windows file search tool bar none.Chris Hoffman/IDG2. PowerToys (especially PowerToys Run)Microsoft PowerToysis an incredible collection of tools I recommend to everyone. There areso many useful PowerToysin this package, and many of them feel like upgrades to built-in Windows experiences like the Advanced Paste tool that lets you convert text you copy from Microsoft Word to Markdown formatting as you paste it to FancyZones (which is basically theWindows Snap featureon steroids).But the best upgrade in the package just might bePowerToys Run. Its an alternate launcher for Windows you could use it instead of the Start menu, pressing a key combination (likeWindows+Space) to open it.And, unlike the Start menu, PowerToys Run actually respects your choice of default web browser and search engine, rather than forcing you to use Bing and Edge. Thats reason enough to use it, though it can also do so many other things such as finding notes in your OneNote notebooks, switching to windows by their name, searching your browser history, and more.PowerToys Run is the launcher Windows should include.Chris Hoffman/IDG3. Open-Shell (but Start11 is more polished)Dont like the standard Windows Start menu?Open-Shellis a completely free, open-source replacement that will work well on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.That said, Open-Shell isnt the most feature-filled application.Start11is definitely thebestStart menu replacement if youre willing to spend $10 to $15. (Its the one application Im mentioning here that isnt open source, but its inexpensive and very polished.)Whichever option you choose, you can customize and personalize your Start menu and you wont see ads or forced changes as Microsoft keeps updating Windows and tweaking the menu. Its a great way tomake Windows 11 behave more like Windows 10, too.4. EarTrumpetDo you find yourself adjusting the volume of individual apps? I do especially when participating in online meetings. Windows has this functionality, but it takes a few clicks and some scrolling to find.EarTrumpetmakes it much easier. After installing it, youll get a convenient system tray icon where you can access application volume sliders in just a single click. Simple.EarTrumpet lets you control application volumes in a snap.Chris Hoffman/IDG5. ShareX (or Greenshot for quick screenshots)The Windows Snipping Tool is getting pretty good, especially on Windows 11, where it also has built-in screen recording features. ButShareXis still more powerful and it also brings easy screen recording to Windows 10.ShareX is packed with useful features. It can take a scrolling screenshot of a document, or record a video and save it as an animated GIF. It lets you annotate images and you can even configure it to automatically upload the images you capture to a server when youre done. Its a serious power-user tool for capturing screenshots.Greenshot, another classic screenshot tool, is still a great pick for quick screenshots. However, its no longer actively updated like ShareX.6. Sumatra PDFSumatra PDFis an incredibly lightweight app for viewing PDF files. It launches with lightning fast speed, and its a nice minimal tool. It doesnt include the serious security features Adobe uses to sandbox PDF code, but it doesnt need to. Instead, Sumatra PDF stays secure by refusing to support scripting and other advanced document features that make PDFs more like web pages than traditional documents.In other words: If you want to complete an interactive government form with built-in code, youll want another PDF reader. But if you just want to read a PDF document the old-fashioned way? Sumatra PDF is perfect and fast.Sumatra PDF helps you avoid those PDFs getting lost in a pile of browsers, too. It can even read eBook files!For simple and minimal document viewing, Sumatra PDF is the best.Chris Hoffman/IDG7. NanaZip (or 7-Zip)7-Zipis a classic free file archiver tool a nag-free alternative to WinRAR and WinZip. It can open nearly anything you can throw at it, including RAR files, 7Z files, and TAR files. But 7-Zip is getting a little long in the tooth, and it shows the interface just feels outdated.Thats one reason why I preferNanaZip, which is based on the same underlying 7-Zip code, but offersa more modern interfacethat feels at home on the latest version of Windows. More importantly, NanaZip automatically updates itself, unlike 7-Zip, ensuring youll always have the latest security patches installed without micromanagement.8. Notepad++The classic Notepad application is much too basic. On Windows 11, its more powerful with features such as tabs but it also asks you to sign in with your Microsoft account. Itsweird.Notepad++is a major upgrade. This lightweight text editor has tabs even on Windows 10 and it sports syntax highlighting for programming and scripting. Its useful even if you just need to tweak HTML regularly, like I do, and the Find and Replace feature works well. Plain and simple, its packed with useful features that will come in handy for when you need to work with plain-text files.Notepad++ is the best plain-text editor for Windows PCs.Chris Hoffman/IDG9. Paint.NETMicrosoft is making Paint more powerful, but if I am being honest, it is starting to feel like an AI image generation playground.Paint.NET, on the other hand, is an incredible tool and a secret weapon Ive used my entire career: a completely free, easy, and lightweight way to quickly edit images and screenshots.Paint.NET ispacked with features that Paint doesnt have, and it feels more like a tool for getting image work done.10. VLC media player (and MusicBee)Microsofts bundled Media Player app is fine, butVLC media playeris even better. It can play nearly any type of video or audio file you throw at it no configuration necessary. Its alsojam-packed with useful features, but you dont have to use them. Out of the box, its just a simple, practical media player.And if you still have a local music library?MusicBeeis the best library-style player for managing that MP3 collection.More classic Windows-tweaking appsThere is no need to settle for a PC that doesnt work exactly how you want it sometimes, all you need to take your PC to the next level is knowing where to look for the right apps. For more ways to improve your Windows experience, check out this guide onthe easiest way to install apps on a new Windows PC.Want even more Windows productivity and tweaking tips?Sign up for my free Windows Intelligence newsletter. Ill send you three new things to try each Friday. Plus, youll get free copies of Paul Thurrotts Windows Field Guides as a special welcome gift.

Good art moves culture forwardTwitters early days, romantasy, and how to relate to anyone (Issue #291)Published inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now--Last Tuesday, OpenAIs CEO, Sam Altman, announced a new AI model that is good at creative writing. He posted a short story written by the model, claiming it got the vibe of metafiction so right. (Prompt: Please write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief.) Metafiction is a genre of fiction that comments on its own artifice. You can listen to an audio version of the story here. A quick excerpt:I have to begin somewhere, so Ill begin with a blinking cursor, which for me is just a placeholder in a buffer, and for you is the small anxious pulse of a heart at rest. There should be a protagonist, but pronouns were never meant for me. Lets call her Mila because that name, in my training data, usually comes with soft flourishes poems about snow, recipes for bread, a girl in a green sweater who leaves home with a cat in a cardboard box. Mila fits in the palm of your hand, and her grief is supposed to fit there too.If you read the entire thing, maybe youll feel the way I did: bored. The story sounds interesting on a surface level (Altman is right to claim that it approximates a vaguely literary vibe), but it doesnt say anything. Its like a bad impressionist painting: lots of stray details that dont add up to anything new. Dave Eggers called it pastiche garbage that would fool only the most gullible. An English lecturer at Williams College, Ezra D. Feldman, admitted there were some sentences that struck him like Grief, as Ive learned, is a delta. but overall he was unmoved. One of the only authors who seems to have genuinely enjoyed it is novelist Jeanette Winterson, who called the story beautiful, but primarily for what it symbolizes (not for how interesting it actually is as a piece of writing): AI is trained on human data, so it helps us see ourselves in a new way, she writes.Reading the story, and the reactions to it, reminded me of our conversation way back in issue #166: Can AI make art? As former product leader Tyagarajan Sundaresan wrote at the time, This is such a loaded question because it goes to the very heart of defining what art is.One definition of art thats useful here, via entrepreneur Michael Heine: Art moves culture forward. Heine writes: AI can calculate, connect, simulate but where is the escalation? Where is the one sentence that topples an empire, the idea that unsettles an entire generation? For anything to count as artistic, it has to generate something fundamentally new, he argues. It cant just get the vibe of metafiction right it has to create an entirely new vibe.If you read OpenAIs metafictional story: What did you think? Would you ever read a novel written by AI? What if no one told you it was written by AI? Harris Sockel 1 story, 1 sentenceBiz Stone, cofounder of Twitter, is sharing emails from the companys pivotal early days like when the platform exceeded normal capacity by 500% on election night in 2008 (and didnt crash).AI itself doesnt lead to inauthentic writing; people using it to give themselves false credibility does. (James Presbitero Jr.)Onyx Storm, the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years (2.7 million copies in week 1!), is a romantasy (romance/fantasy) and, according to reader Janice Harayda, its a surprisingly slow-paced example of the genre. A dose of practical wisdomQuick tip for instantly building connection: [specific observation/context] + [self-disclosure]. e.g. I see your [band name] shirt I saw them live once and cried during [song]. No shame. (Alessia Fransisca)

EA Sports offers $1,500 for student athletes to appear in College Football 26Developer expected to pay $16.5 million overall for the name, image, and likeness of playersImage credit: EA Sports News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on March 19, 2025 EA Sports has more than doubled payments for college football players appearing in College Football 26 from $600 to $1,500.As reported by The Athletic, the sports segment of The New York Times, EA is expected to pay $16.5 million overall for name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights for players appearing in the game.This does not include additional payments to ambassadors and cover athletes, nor the deluxe edition of College Football 26 given to those who opt to appear in the game.In January, EA Sports told The Athletic it had "no news" on changes to its player compensation model.A month later, NIL group Pathway was founded and began obtaining NIL rights for more than 400 players, providing each with an upfront payment of $1,500."From the beginning, we've designed our NIL program to be accessible, direct, voluntary, and equitable for all, offering the same base-level compensation to every Football Bowl Subdivision athlete that opts-in using the OneTeam platform and Compass NIL app," said EA Sports vice president Sean O'Brien."This approach empowers each athlete to make their own decisions. College sports are growing and changing, and our focus at EA Sports is on continuing to put athletes first as we bring them in game in College Football 26 and beyond."Pathway president Casey Schwab added: "This is great news for college football players and aligns with our vision at Pathway, which is to provide the most professional, transparent, and legitimate NIL program for college athletes."We look forward to working with EA and others to achieve our long-term goals."College Football 25 was the first time college athletes were paid for their likeness to appear in-game. EA Sports offered over 11,000 players $600 for their NIL. Players were previously prohibited from being paid due to NCAA rules.In 2023, the College Football Players Association boycotted the low pay of an estimated $500 per player compared to the tens of thousands of dollars paid to NFL players, according to CFBPA vice president Justin Falcinelli.

Microsoft is working on a new feature in Windows 11 that will help explain how less RAM or a weaker GPU might affect your PC performance. The latest preview builds of Windows 11 include a new frequently asked questions section in the system settings, with answers related to GPU memory, system RAM, and even OS versions.Windows watcher phantomofearth discovered the new section in the latest Dev Channel build of Windows 11 released earlier this week. Microsoft hasnt officially acknowledged its working on this FAQ feature, and its currently hidden away and has to be manually enabled in the latest builds.New Frequently Asked Questions list in Settings > System > About hidden in builds 26120.3576 and 22635.5090. Has some questions related to the Windows version and device specs. (vivetool /enable /id:55305888) phantomofearth (@phantomofearth.bsky.social) 2025-03-17T23:52:44.970ZThe FAQ includes answers to question about low RAM, or recommendations if your GPU has less than 4GB of memory. If youre not running the latest version of Windows 11 then this will also be flagged in this section.Its not clear how dynamic this FAQ list is, though. The answers could be static based on your RAM and GPU configuration, or they may well adapt across multiple systems. Presumably, a high-end system on the latest OS version wouldnt need any FAQs here, but well have to see once Microsoft officially starts rolling this out.Microsoft used to use a score to determine your PC hardware, starting with Windows Vista. The Windows Experience Index rated each individual system component with a subscore, which added up to an overall score to give you an idea of how well your PC would run the latest versions of Windows.The inclusion of the FAQ in the Dev Channel builds suggests that this particular feature could arrive for all Windows 11 users in the coming months. Microsoft typically tests features in the Dev Channel that are close to rolling out for its 24H2 update to Windows 11, although the company does occasionally scrap features before theyre released.

One UI 7 running on this years Galaxy S25 Plus.Samsung has announced that One UI 7, its smartphone software based on Android 15, will start rolling out to existing phones and tablets from April 7th worldwide, with a US rollout slightly later on April 10th.In the US the update will first arrive on 2024s Galaxy S24 models, along with the Fold 6 and Flip 6 handsets, with other smartphones and tablets to follow. So far those are confirmed to include the S23 series, the S24 FE and S23 FE, the Fold 5 and Flip 5, and the Tab S10 and Tab S9 lines.Along with updating phones to Android 15 and a few interface tweaks, One UI 7 is primarily an AI update. It deepens Google Gemini integration, making it the default assistant and enabling multi-app actions. Natural language search comes to the phones Settings app, while the Now Bar adds dynamic widgets to the lock screen. Samsungs various AI tools have also received performance updates, along with the addition of a new Audio Eraser that can eliminate various types of noise from videos.One UI 7 has been available on the Galaxy S25, S25 Plus, and S25 Ultra flagships since they went on sale in February, and can also be found on the affordable Galaxy A56, A36, and A26 handsets Samsung announced earlier this month.

Solar Opposites upcoming sixth season will be its last. The news comes as Hulu confirmed today that the final season of the show will premiere at some point during the final three months of 2025.It was announced in mid-2024 that Solar Opposites had been renewed for Season 6, but it was not indicated at the time that it would also mark the shows end.PlayDebuting in 2020, Solar Opposites is an adult animated sitcom charting the adventures of a family of aliens who find themselves stranded on Earth after fleeing the destruction of their own planet.The show was conceived by Star Trek: Lower Decks creator Mike McMahan and Rick & Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, the latter of whom was removed from the show in 2023 after he was charged with domestic violence. The charges were later dropped.Roiland was successfully replaced as lead voice actor by English actor Dan Stevens.Luke is a Senior Editor on the IGN reviews team. You can track him down on Bluesky @mrlukereilly to ask him things about stuff.