Anyone approaching Thoravej 29 in Copenhagen’s post-industrial, rapidly gentrifying Nordvest neighborhood will encounter buildings in a variety of historic styles. There’s an early-1900s lowrise apartment building faced in traditional Danish detailed red brickwork and, right next door, a completely asynchronous pair of small gable-roofed houses from the early 1800s that could have been airlifted in from a countryside village. The 4-story shell at number 29, built in 1968 using Denmark’s ubiquitous yellow brick, fits right in—despite being the only structure of its era on the block. After all, it’s a building type seen throughout northern Europe: 4 stories high, brick, each floor with a long, continuous row of connected windows. (Originally used for fur auctions, the space was later converted to house labs for the Danish Geological Survey and then offices for municipal use.) But any sense of familiarity ends once a visitor arrives and stands on that same yellow wall brick—this time as part of the sidewalk, like a preview of the innovations in material reuse to be experienced inside. The 4-story shell at Thoravej 29 was built in 1968 using common yellow brick. (Hampus Berndtson) For this is not just any old renovation: pihlmann architects’ redesign of Thoravej 29 is setting new standards for not only how much but also how to dramatically reduce and reuse waste in a renovation—without losing all-important elegance. The existing building covers a total area of roughly 50,000 square feet, with an additional 18,500-square-foot basement. Today it is home to a coworking community of the same name as the address. This includes approximately 175 people from 28 organizations who operate independently but often collaborate across fields that include art, social innovation, politics, democracy, digital innovation, and sustainability. Sections of wall were removed to make ground-floor window openings. (Hampus Berndtson) Chief among these organizations is the building owner, Bikubenfonden (“the Beehive Foundation,” in English), which bought the building in 2021 with plans to move its company headquarters there from its longtime home in central Copenhagen. The foundation’s board invited three architecture studios whose guiding principles aligned with the organization’s focus on tackling society’s most pressing challenges to compete for the building’s redesign. After pairing each studio with a construction company and an engineering firm (to make sure each entry could be built), the board met with each team at three points along the way before accepting final submissions. This was an innovative approach to organizing a competition, meant to reduce the time studios typically end up spending on elaborate, unchosen entries. It had successful results. In the end, the foundation selected pihlmann, which partnered with contractor Hoffmann A/S and engineers ABC Rådgivende Ingeniører for a design that placed a heavy emphasis on reusing the existing building’s own materials. Søren Kaare-Andersen, administrative director of Bikubenfonden, told AN, “Before we started the renovation, we made an active choice to work with sustainability as a guideline, and we made all our decisions with that as the starting point: to use what is available instead of drawing on resources that are already scarce.” The entire back facade is now illuminated by a glass curtain wall that stands a few feet away from the original brick facade. (Hampus Berndtson) As it happened, Søren Pihlmann, principal of pihlmann architects, had been designing with sustainability in mind since his architecture school days. In his own words, “We demolish and build anew more than we use what we already have, and we do it in a way that damages not only our basis of existence but the basis of existence of future generations, especially,” he said during a recent tour given to AN. “Has this harsh reality truly not dawned on us yet?” With this in mind, all the projects he’s helmed thus far share an aesthetic grounded in the visible use of common materials like corrugated metal and plywood and design approaches that tie directly into adaptability and reuse—like making it easy to access technical and plumbing systems (for easier updating when the time comes) and extensive reuse of demolished materials when renovating. Thoravej 29 features both approaches, but the latter stands as its most noteworthy achievement. The project recycled an astounding 95 percent of its own demolition waste, minimizing 90 percent of the material waste and 88 percent of the CO2 emissions of typical new construction. These achievements have hardly gone unnoticed: The building received a DGNB Gold precertification from the Danish Council for Sustainable Building in the fall of 2023 and was named Denmark’s 2024 Building of the Year by the Danish construction trade journal Licitationen. Furniture made from pieces of salvaged material encourage collaboration between the building’s coworking residents. (Hampus Berndtson) “We wanted to create something that might serve as an inspiration for other architects working on not just this building typology but many different ones as well. I decided to look at the project as a closed ecosystem, with the idea being that we couldn’t introduce anything new,” Pihlmann said. To that end, the team saved and reused functional components, like plastic window frames that had over a decade more of expected usable life and outdated red floor tiles that they found ways to incorporate in the restrooms. They also repurposed large-scale structural components, like the concrete floor slabs they removed to make double-height spaces and transformed into stairways. And where they took out sections of brick wall to make ground-floor window openings into wide, community-welcoming doorways, they simply flipped them down 90 degrees to serve as sidewalk pavers. Old metal ventilation ducts were compressed into blocks (reminiscent of the late American sculptor John Chamberlain’s work) to support tabletops. Damaged doors were reduced to sawdust, mixed with a biobased resin, and molded into a new solid surface material for the cafe and tea kitchen countertops. On a larger scale, interior spaces were adapted for flexible use to avoid unnecessary structural changes and expand the overall program far beyond the physical footprint. Perhaps most impressive is that despite all this in-your-face reuse of industrial concrete, metal, and sawdust—which could have turned Thoravej 29 into a Brutalist’s Valhalla, lacking any experiential hygge—it actually feels quite good to be there. Entering from the street into the main lobby, a visitor has a first interaction with the interior that is the unheralded, movement-triggered parting of a pair of transparent heavy plastic curtains that make up a sort of momentary vestibule that appears and vanishes for each visitor in turn. The curtains slide back on a track curving toward the doors, which feels something like the love child of a carwash and the beginning of a vaudeville show. The effect is welcoming. Ropes and pulleys attached to the staircase are not functional, rather they are a sculptural art piece by Minae Kim. (Hampus Berndtson) Inside, a wide and dramatic staircase (with an airy cafe to the right and a waiting and reception area to the left) beckons the eye upward to the bright, open spaces above. The metal stair treads are mounted on a single, massive slab of concrete that gives the appearance of having been simply cut on three sides out of the ceiling above then folded down along the fourth side until it hit the floor. An attached set of ropes and pulleys suggests the possibility of folding it back up, but these turn out to be a sculptural art piece by Minae Kim—one of a group of four permanent, location-specific artworks commissioned by Bikubenfonden for the building. In the entrance area and throughout the building, sharp edges are either filed just round enough or kept away from the foot traffic of soft bodies. Cushions soften otherwise hard seating, and a muted color palette of grays, tans, and a buttery pale yellow—chosen to match the yellowed enamel of the building’s original (reused) radiators—allows the eye to rest. Solid walls and curtained glass allow for privacy where you’d expect it, while discrete areas distinguished by furniture groupings are connected via clear sightlines. Through it all flows an abundance of daylight, even on a typically cloudy Danish winter day, reducing electricity use for lighting and helping boost occupant well-being and productivity. This is because the entire back facade is a glass curtain wall. The wall stands a few feet from the original brick facade, which remains in place, though with all windows and large sections of wall removed. The building’s ventilation and other technical stacks, sheathed in shiny aluminum tubes and located for easy access, rise dramatically through this interstitial space. Good natural light reduces electricity use and helps boost occupant well-being and productivity. (Hampus Berndtson) Before Thoravej 29, pihlmann architects was best known for its award-winning House 14a, a high-concept residential renovation-plus-addition project in a Copenhagen suburb that incorporates many of the material and reuse principles seen in Thoravej. Other high-profile initiatives include its reconception of the office and exhibition space of ArtHub Copenhagen, one of the organizations that has since relocated to Thoravej 29, and Kunsthal 44Møn, an experimental art space on the island of Møn, a few hours south of Copenhagen. In line with his growing renown on both the architecture and sustainability scenes, Pihlmann himself was selected by the Danish Architecture Center to curate the Danish Pavilion at the upcoming Biennale Architettura 2025 in Venice. Because of flooding driven by climate change, the pavilion has long needed a renovation—and in response to the selection panel’s question “Can we keep on building the world without building anew?” Pihlmann chose to make the exhibition and the renovation one and the same. It will open when the upgrades are only half complete, and construction will continue throughout the Biennale, allowing the public to witness the building’s internal structures and materials and the actual process of their reuse to fortify and expand the site. Pihlmann said, “I think in architecture, and the building industry in general, we’re all looking for role models who can inspire us to think differently.” By redefining how we build, showing it’s possible to prioritize what we already have, he’s doing just that. Holly McWhorter is a writer, designer, and artist based in Copenhagen and New York City.

Photo by Mauricio Hoyos. All images courtesy of Ralph Ziman, shared with permission Five Years in the Making, an MiG-21 Fighter Jet Gets a Glow-Up from Tens of Millions of Glass Beads April 15, 2025 Kate Mothes “We’re going to make stuff out of beads that is going to take people’s breath away,” says Ralph Ziman in the trailer for “The MiG-21 Project,” a military jet that he and a transcontinental team coated nose to tail in millions upon millions of glass beads. For the past 12 years, the Los Angeles-based artist has examined the impacts of the Cold War Era and the global arms trade through a trilogy titled Weapons of Mass Production, motivated by his upbringing in Apartheid-era South Africa. More than half a decade in the making, “The MiG-21 Project” completes the series. The first installment, “The AK-47 Project,” reimagined the aesthetic of one of the world’s most ubiquitous wartime weapons, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947, by coating dozens of the guns in colorful glass beads. The second project revolved around the Casspir, a heavy-duty Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle (MRAPV) introduced in the 1970s, which was likewise ornamented in vibrant geometric patterns. “The idea was to take these weapons of war and to repurpose them,” Ziman says, flipping the narrative about icons of violence and transforming them instead into symbols of resilience, collaboration, and collectivity. Vehicles and firearms morph into a theater of hope and strength in the face of a terrible 20th-century legacy. Apartheid, which in Afrikaans means “separateness,” is the name assigned by the minority white-ruled Nationalist Party of South Africa to a harsh system of racial segregation that began in 1948. The period lasted until 1991 and was closely linked within the context of international relations to the Cold War as tensions erupted between the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. Spurred by the deterioration of the two countries’ WWII alliance and fears about the spread of Communism into the West, the war began in 1947 and also ended in 1991 when the U.S.S.R. was dissolved. During this time, the Russians produced a fighter jet called the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21. The plane is “the most-produced supersonic fighter aircraft of all time,” Ziman says. “The Russians built 12,500 MiG-21s, and they’re still in use today—just like the Casspir and just like the AK-47s. But it’s one thing to say, hey, I want to bead a MiG, and then the next thing, you’ve got a 48-foot MiG sitting in your studio.” The MiG-21 cockpit “The MiG-21 Project” combines photography and costume design with historical research and time-honored Indigenous craft. The project encompasses not only the jet but a series of cinematic photographs and elaborate Afrofuturist regalia inspired by military flight suits, African tribal textiles, and space travel. Ziman’s team comprises numerous skilled artisans from Zimbabwe and Indigenous Ndebele women from South Africa’s Mpumalanga Province, who are renowned for their beadwork. For the Ndebele, beadwork is a means of expressing cultural identity and rites of passage, taking on powerful political connotations in the 20th century as it became associated with pre-colonial African traditions and identity. Tapping into the lessons of our not-so-distant past, Ziman addresses current conflicts like war and the global arms race, modern colonialism, systemic racism, and white supremacy through the lens of Apartheid. Funds raised throughout the process, part of the mission of the Weapons of Mass Production trilogy as a whole, are being donated to the people of Ukraine in support of the country’s ongoing conflict with Russia. You’ll be able to see the “The MiG-21 Project” later this year in Seattle, where it will be on view from June 21 to January 26, 2026, at the Museum of Flight. Explore more on Ziman’s website. Photo by Mauricio Hoyos Photo by Mauricio Hoyos “Hero Of Cuito Cuanavale,” Inkjet on Moab Entrada paper, 43 x 56 inches Photo by Mauricio Hoyos Detail of the MiG-21 cockpit Photo by Mauricio Hoyos “The Raider and Her MiG-21,” Inkjet on Moab Entrada paper, 43 x 56 inches Photo by Mauricio Hoyos Next article

News UK challenger bank targets US’s mid-tier banking sector with tech platform Starling Bank expands its banking as a service platform sales operation into the North American market By Karl Flinders, Chief reporter and senior editor EMEA Published: 15 Apr 2025 15:45 Starling Bank has created a US subsidiary where it will target mid-sized banks with its banking software as a service (BaaS) offering. The tech operation of Starling Bank has already won customers in Europe and Australia for its platform, which was originally launched in the UK in 2018 and rebadged as Engine in 2022. Its first BaaS customer was savings fintech Raisin. In 2021, it expanded its BaaS sales operation into continental Europe, and has since launched in Australia. The US operation will be the business’s first overseas subsidiary, with a regional headquarters planned for the US East Coast. It’s not just banks taking up BaaS platforms. Non-banking businesses such as retailers, ecommerce companies and distributors are increasingly looking to offer financial products to their customers. This could be credit, loans or even debit cards. To provide these services, however, they need to be regulated and have access to expensive banking tech, so businesses are instead using financial services offered by banks and fintechs. The application programming interface (API)-driven services are regulated through the bank, which also provides the tech infrastructure. In the past, financial services firms and retail businesses have partnered with banks to offer financial services, whereby they brand the front end, but the banking service, which includes the systems and regulatory approval, is provided by a traditional bank. However, demand for financial services to be embedded into services is has changed this. Read more about Starling Bank According to Starling, the US presents significant opportunities for Engine sales due to the large number of mid-tier banks, community banks and credit unions, “many of which are keen to launch new digital services for their customers”. Starling was founded in 2014, and it received its banking licence in 2016, launching the following year. It was designed by Anne Boden, a banker with an IT background, and aims to use modern technology to make banking as convenient as possible, while enabling customers to benefit from the data they generate in their everyday lives. It reached Unicorn status, a value of over $1bn, by 2021. As a company that leads on tech, with a tech-heavy workforce, the banking-as-a-service model is a natural fit alongside the more traditional services of a bank. “This is a significant step as we take the technology that has enabled Starling’s success in the UK to more financial institutions around the world,” said Raman Bhatia, CEO at Starling Bank. “In Engine, we have a world-class software as a service business that delivers the technology and the expertise that banks need to succeed in the digital age.” According to research from Research and Markets, the global market for BaaS was valued at $29.5bn in 2024, and is projected to reach $74.8bn by 2030, growing 16.8% a year. In The Current Issue: What is the impact of US tariffs on datacentre equipment costs? VMware backup: Key decision points if you migrate away from VMware Download Current Issue The DEI backlash is over – we are talking a full scale revolt – WITsend Sysdig: A new arms race on the evolving battlefield of cloud security – CW Developer Network View All Blogs

Adobe / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNETAdobe has many applications that are relied on by millions of creative professionals, such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro. However, within the suite of apps is a lesser-known app -- Adobe Express. Creatives of all ages, experiences, and needs can use Adobe Express to create visual projects of all complexities, from a simple party invite to a multi-channel marketing campaign for a small business. Even though applications like Canva can accomplish the same goal, Adobe Express's standout feature is that it seamlessly integrates into the rest of Adobe's offerings. Also: The top 20 AI tools of 2025 - and the #1 thing to remember when you use themTo help users better understand how to get started with Adobe Express, what the application can offer users, and the intentional design of the platform, ZDNET spoke to Ian Wang, Adobe Express VP and head of product, in an exclusive interview.  What is Adobe Express?Adobe Express is a platform for creating visual content, including flyers, social media posts (photo and video), documents, webpages, presentations, logos, and more. Users can start from scratch or use one of thousands of templates. Also: Why you should ignore 99% of AI tools - and which four I use every dayThe interface is surprisingly similar to Canva, and getting started is just as simple. This simplicity was an intentional design choice, as Wang shared that the interface is meant to suit people of all different experiences and skills. "Adobe Express was designed to be fast and easy to use for everyone -- whether you're a professional illustrator, a solopreneur with no design experience at all, or a salesperson who urgently needs to level up their deck for a big pitch," said Wang. The interface may look a bit different depending on the use case. For example, Wang said Express for Education is designed to be classroom-safe. On the other hand, customers from large companies have a custom homepage with all of the company's brand assets to help create a project.  AdobeUnique featuresAs part of the Adobe ecosystem, Express integrates seamlessly with other Adobe tools, including the latest features from Firefly, Adobe's generative AI suite of tools, offering high-quality, commercially safe capabilities that users trust. "We use our Firefly generative AI to help customers resize an image or video or remove an unwanted image instantly," said Wang. "With Express, you can leverage AI to easily generate video captions or translate text into just about any language -- without needing copyrighting or linguistic expertise."Also: Why Adobe Firefly might be the only AI image tool that actually mattersA unique Firefly application Wang shared was the free feature that creates custom coloring pages for kids with simple text prompts, showing the versatility of tasks the tool can help different types of users accomplish.   Screenshot by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNETAdobe Express will soon also support non-Adobe generative AI models from competitors such as Google, Runway, and Black Forest Labs, so users can access different models depending on requirements and preferences. Also: Adobe Photoshop is getting its first AI agent - here's what it can do for youBeyond AI, integrations with Adobe products allow easy access to other Adobe assets, such as fonts, music, and sound libraries used in alternative apps. Lastly, integrations between Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, and other apps make it easy to hand off projects and templates for quick edits or easy sharing."Thanks to seamless integrations with Adobe apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects, creators can use Express to do everything from make quick edits to create beyond their area of expertise," said Wang. Hands-onUntil I recently attended Adobe Summit and got to sit down with Wang, I wasn't super familiar with what the application had to offer. After learning more about the platform, I decided to try it myself. For context, I am a regular Premiere Pro and Lightroom user for video and photo editing. However, for visual content creation, such as flyers, menus, or social media posts, I typically use Canva. When I first saw the Express interface, I was impressed with how intuitive it was compared to some of the more advanced tools Adobe offers, such as Premiere Pro or Photoshop, which require a learning curve. With Adobe Express, everything is neatly labeled, with plenty of templates readily available, even if you don't know exactly where to start. It was no more difficult to use than Canva despite having the extra Adobe bells and whistles. Also: How Apple, Google, and Microsoft can save us from AI deepfakesOnce you select a template you like, it is easy to customize all the different elements. A simple click of an object gives you an array of options to help edit or replace. A left-hand bar has options labeled that you can use to add elements to your project. I like how the generative AI offerings are all grouped in a tab label that lets you generate a photo, text effect, and, what I found the most helpful, a template.  With the generate a template feature, you can select the project you want to create (a poster, Instagram square post, card, and more), type in a brief description, and even upload an image as a reference. This final option is helpful because tweaking the template to meet your vision can be challenging.  Screenshot by Sabrina Ortiz/ZDNETHow to get startedThere is a growing momentum around Adobe Express, with millions of monthly users and 50% quarter-over-quarter growth in the number of paying businesses onboarded. The tool is available in different tiers, including a free option. The free tier is meant for individuals with basic content creation needs and can work with limited generative AI credits, which power the generative AI features and assets. The Premium tier gives users access to premium templates and assets, and more generative AI features, and costs $9.99 per month, comparable to Canva Pro's $12.99 monthly cost. Adobe offers a free 30-day trial if you are unsure of the technology or have a big project coming up. There's also a Teams membership tier of $4.99 per person with a two-seat minimum. Artificial Intelligence

Content creators considering diversifying their platforms in 2025, Twitch may be one of the most compelling choices.

Home Tariffs Temporarily Lifted on Certain Smartphones, Laptops and Chips: A Reprieve for US Electronics Industry News Tariffs Temporarily Lifted on Certain Smartphones, Laptops and Chips: A Reprieve for US Electronics Industry 4 min read Published: April 15, 2025 Key Takeaways The Trump Administration temporarily rolls back planned tariffs on certain electronics from China. Beneficiaries are major electronic brands like Apple that rely heavily on Chinese manufacturing. The decision reduces the threat of price hikes and could mean price stability for the time being on items such as iPhones. Good news from the US seems to be in short supply these days. But some good news did drop last week with the announcement by US Customs and Border Protection that US tariffs are temporarily being lifted on electronics coming out of China. Tariffs seem to be the only thing on every politician’s lips these days, whether it’s the Trump Administration imposing punitive tariffs on other countries or others retaliating with their own tariffs. ‘Trade war’ has been frequently uttered by the media. The White House’s U-Turn is (Hopefully) The Consumer’s Gain China was the worst hit, with tariffs as high as 145%, which would have meant laptops surging in price by as much as 45%. A new iPhone would have set you back well over $2K.  This would have been a serious problem for Apple, whose iPhone manufacturing plants are nearly all based in China, with 80% of the iOS devices coming from there going to the US. But the White House’s decision to quietly and temporarily pause most of the China tariffs hopefully means that when you buy your next iPhone in the next few months, you won’t have to take out a bank loan.  That said, if you plan on buying things like motherboards, you should know that China is still being charged a 20% tariff on those. The tariff exemptions don’t cover everything. The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, went to great pains to stress that the tariff relief was only temporary, with new separate tariffs likely coming in a few months.  Nobody will be fooled, though, by the decision to relax the tariffs. By imposing sky high prices, Washington DC more or less made the cost of electronics prohibitive.  Some companies, such as Nintendo, were already raising prices by 10% in anticipation of the tariffs coming down the line. What Was Not on the Exemption List is More Telling Than What Was on it The tariff exemptions took effect retroactively on April 5th at 12.01 am. A huge list of electronics now spared from the executioner’s axe was issued, all with vague-sounding HS numbers (Harmonized Tariff Schedules). But what those corresponded to was telling, especially if we think back to the tech CEOs that contributed to the inauguration fund and/or campaign. A variety of them donated $1M apiece – Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman, to name four – who will now benefit from much-needed electronic components being exempt from China tariffs. Some of the biggest, most notable electronics included in the reprieve were smartphones, semiconductor devices, integrated circuits, LED lights, and flat panel displays. And many, many more. In other words, the backbone of the worldwide electronics industry, producing devices needed the world over. But saying that, what was not included in the exemption list was startling – laptop cases, motherboards, and PSUs. So some price hikes may still be coming if these components are still hit by the tariffs. Some Are Unhappy About the China Tariffs Decision As usual, though, when one side celebrates a win, the loser glowers and starts complaining. In this scenario, the losers are US-based businesses such as Apple. These manufacturers have already spent a small fortune moving their operations back to the US. Apple was committed to a $500 billion investment plan to bring some of its manufacturing back to the US from China. Similarly, Nvidia plans to do the same with a domestic production chain. But with China’s tariff bill now down to 10%, those US manufacturers have suddenly got a serious competitor again in the rear-view mirror. Big Tech Gets a Reprieve – But Will They Drop Their Prices Now? Now that tech companies like Acer will no longer be looking down the barrel of the tariff gun, will they drop their prices again? That’s the real test. Companies are usually loath to drop prices once they’ve raised them. But with tariff relief potentially only for a few months, companies like Apple may have to start investing in more diverse supply chains. The uncertainty in the months ahead may intensify the pressure on these companies, not alleviate it. Mark O'Neill is a tech journalist and editor with 20+ years of experience. He first cut his teeth at MakeUseOf.com, where he rose to become the managing editor for eight years, developing a site from 9,000 monthly subscribers to 500,000+ a month. Over the years, he has covered many subjects, such as reviewing hardware and software for both Windows PCs and MacOS, and even dipping his toes into Linux now and then to keep life interesting. His past writing credits include PC World, XDA, Android Authority, and Teramind. With all of his work, Mark has a clear game plan to educate readers on the subject and make them better informed. He also tests these systems in his personal time, building automated systems and making sure that what he says is accurate and that it works. This commitment to excellence has made Mark a trusted voice in whatever he writes. Although he likes to use a Mac as his primary machine, Mark also uses a Windows PC and a Linux laptop loaded with Ubuntu. If he doesn't know something, he researches it and makes himself an authority on the topic. Check out Mark's LinkedIn profile and his website at markoneill.org View all articles by Mark O'Neill Our editorial process The Tech Report editorial policy is centered on providing helpful, accurate content that offers real value to our readers. We only work with experienced writers who have specific knowledge in the topics they cover, including latest developments in technology, online privacy, cryptocurrencies, software, and more. Our editorial policy ensures that each topic is researched and curated by our in-house editors. We maintain rigorous journalistic standards, and every article is 100% written by real authors. More from News View all View all

In context: Astronomers have been observing the wheel-shaped nebula NGC 1514 for over three centuries. In 1790, William Herschel described it as the first deep-sky object that looked cloudy. Unlike star clusters, he couldn't distinguish individual stars within it. Thanks to the Webb telescope, scientists are now studying the nebula in greater detail, leading to a better understanding of the interstellar cloud. On Monday, NASA released stunning images of the NGC 1514 nebula, showcasing the most vivid depiction of its dual rings ever captured. The Webb telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) provided the high-resolution composite, offering a clearer view than those from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), which only showed the rings in fuzzy detail. (See side-by-side image below.) Astronomers have studied NGC 1514 since the 1700s, but in 2010, scientist Mike Ressler captured the nebula in the highest detail available at the time with WISE. He notes that the Webb images surpass those earlier captures, allowing him and his colleagues to study the nebula in greater detail. The improved clarity helps the researchers draw more accurate conclusions about the nebula's formation. "Before Webb, we weren't able to detect most of this material, let alone observe it so clearly," said Ressler. "With MIRI's data, we can now comprehensively examine the turbulent nature of this nebula." The equidistant rings, made up of clumps of dust, give the nebula its distinct three-dimensional shape, resembling a wheel or tire. While NASA describes it as an hourglass shape, that interpretation isn't immediately apparent. A pinkish cloud closer to the center reveals holes "punched" through it by faster-moving material ejected from a dying star. Researchers note that NGC 1514's rings have formed over the past 4,000 years and will continue evolving for many millennia. The bright "star" at the center is actually two stars. David Jones, a senior scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics in the Canary Islands, proved that the NGC 1514 system is binary in 2017. The stars appear as one due to their close nine-year orbit, causing prominent diffraction spikes. One of the stars was once many times more massive than our Sun, but over thousands of years, it shed its mass to form the nebula, eventually becoming a white dwarf. // Related Stories "As it evolved, it puffed up, throwing off layers of gas and dust in a very slow, dense stellar wind," said Jones. "Once the star's outer layers were expelled, only its hot, compact core remained. As a white dwarf star, its winds both sped up and weakened, which might have swept up material into thin shells." The researchers found that NGC 1514 is missing some elements typically found in nebulae – most notably, carbon. Specifically, it lacks polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a complex form of carbon commonly seen in similar formations. They suspect these molecules didn't have time to form, possibly because the binary stars' elongated orbit acted like a blender, disrupting the ejected material. However, the Webb telescope did detect oxygen in the dust, concentrated around the edges of the holes in the pinkish cloud. Another bright star appears to the lower left of the central binary, but it isn't part of the system. The NGC 1514 nebula sits roughly 1,500 light-years from Earth, while this third prominent object lies much closer. Its relative dimness underscores just how luminous the nebula's binary stars are by comparison.

In a post on Microsoft’s Support blog, the company warns that typing in a recent version of classic Outlook can lead to high CPU usage. The issue could cause CPU usage to spike by up to 50%, and the company recommends switching to the Microsoft 365 Apps update channel as a temporary workaround. The problems occur when composing an email in Version 2406 (Build 17726.20126) on the Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, or Insider Channels. Affected users report CPU usage increases between 20% and 50%, which can also raise power consumption. Microsoft says the Outlook team is investigating and will provide further updates as they become available. Recommended Videos Microsoft also suggests a workaround that involves switching to the Semi-Annual Channel, where the issue has not been detected. The affected users say that possible solutions, such as turning off add-ins, graphics acceleration, and spell-check, did not fix the problem. The software giant provides a guide with the necessary steps to switch to a different channel to avoid these problems. You can also use the registry command to switch to the Semi-Annual Channel by opening the Command prompt window as an administrator > paste reg add HKLMSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftoffice16.0commonofficeupdate /v updatebranch /t REG_SZ /d SemiAnnual > press Enter> add the registry key > choose File > Office Account > Update Options > Update Now. Once you complete these steps, the process should begin. Related Even high-end systems aren’t immune. Some users with Intel Core i9-14900HX processors report CPU temperatures hitting 95 degrees Celsius, with nothing more than a ‘New Message’ window open. These reports go back as far as November of last year, but we hope a permanent solution is found soon since an overheated CPU can cause all sorts of issues, such as crashes and freezes. These problems can be devastating when working on important projects since you risk losing your work unless you create a backup. Editors’ Recommendations

The Meta Platforms CEO testified that his company had legitimate business reasons for acquiring Instagram more than a decade ago.

Uncanny animation Google adds Veo 2 video generation to Gemini app Video generation starts rolling out today for Gemini Advanced subscribers. Ryan Whitwam – Apr 15, 2025 3:43 pm | 0 Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Google has announced that yet another AI model is coming to Gemini, but this time, it's more than a chatbot. The company's Veo 2 video generator is rolling out to the Gemini app and website, giving paying customers a chance to create short video clips with Google's allegedly state-of-the-art video model. Veo 2 works like other video generators, including OpenAI's Sora—you input text describing the video you want, and a Google data center churns through tokens until it has an animation. Google claims that Veo 2 was designed to have a solid grasp of real-world physics, particularly the way humans move. Google's examples do look good, but presumably that's why they were chosen. Prompt: Aerial shot of a grassy cliff onto a sandy beach where waves crash against the shore, a prominent sea stack rises from the ocean near the beach, bathed in the warm, golden light of either sunrise or sunset, capturing the serene beauty of the Pacific coastline. Veo 2 will be available in the model drop down, but Google does note it's still considering ways to integrate this feature and that the location could therefore change. However, it's probably not there at all just yet. Google is starting the rollout today, but it could take several weeks before all Gemini Advanced subscribers get access to Veo 2. Gemini features can take a surprisingly long time to arrive for the bulk of users—for example, it took about a month for Google to make Gemini Live video available to everyone after announcing its release. When Veo 2 does pop up in your Gemini app, you can provide it with as much detail as you want, which Google says will ensure you have fine control over the eventual video. Veo 2 is currently limited to 8 seconds of 720p video, which you can download as a standard MP4 file. Video generation uses even more processing than your average generative AI feature, so Google has implemented a monthly limit. However, it hasn't confirmed what that limit is, saying only that users will be notified as they approach it. Prompt: An animated shot of a tiny mouse with oversized glasses, reading a book by the light of a glowing mushroom in a cozy forest den. If you don't want to wait for Veo 2 in the Gemini app, there's a way you can play with it early. Google's new video generator has also been added to Whisk, a Google Labs experiment announced late last year. Whisk allows you to generate images using both text prompts and example images. Starting today, Whisk has an "animate" option, which uses Veo 2 to turn your still creations into 8-second video clips. Interestingly, Google lists a 100-video monthly limit for Whisk, which could mean the same ceiling on Veo 2 usage in Gemini. Even with the ability to refine the starting image and style, we haven't been overly impressed with Veo 2. So you might run through that allotment in search of what you want. The video above was supposed to show a mysterious stone monolith on Mars, the rendering of which seems good enough. But we asked to see the Martian moon Phobos crash down on the monolith and turn it to dust. The "moon" just bounces past and goes poof to reveal the same monolith. At least insofar as planetary bodies go, Veo 2's understanding of physics could stand to improve. Google says it worked hard to ensure Veo 2 is safe and won't generate anything illegal or inflammatory. The generated videos are also marked with a SynthID digital watermark to label them as AI-generated. Although, Veo 2 probably isn't at the point that its output will be confused with reality just yet. Ryan Whitwam Senior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam Senior Technology Reporter Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he's written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards. 0 Comments