• No shipping needed: 5 last-minute gift ideas you can deliver now
    www.fastcompany.com
    Shipping deadlines? Checkout lines? Traffic? Christmas morning panic? Amateur hourall of them.Whether youre forgetful, inconsiderate, or just plain unorganized, eleventh-hour gifts dont always demand springing for exorbitant shipping fees or, worse, diving between Targets sliding doors mere milliseconds before the store closes.These last-minute gift ideas prove that you can be thoughtful, creative, and budget-conscious, all while appreciating the convenience the 21st century.EntertainmentA subscription or gift card to a popular streaming service is a present that truly keeps on giving. It requires very little effort on your part, and expects very little effort on your recipients part.If, for some reason, youre feeling especially ambitious, you could curate a list of show or movie recommendations based on your giftees unique tastes, or even suggest a virtual watch party to enjoy some streaming time together.Here are a few options to consider:Netflix Digital Gift CardsDisney+ Digital Gift CardsSpotify Digital Gift CardsGamingIf the person youre gifting is a gamer, nothingand I mean nothingsays lovin like some in-game currency or, better yet, credit that can be used toward full games.Just make sure you know their gaming preferences, including the platform or platforms they use to game.Here are some popular platforms to check out:Steam Gift CardsPlayStation Store Gift CardsNintendo eShop Gift CardsXbox Gift CardsOnline LearningEven though schools out for a bit, for the person who loves to learn and explore new ideas, gifting them access to an online course or workshop could be perfect.Platforms offer a wide range of subjects, from photography to coding, cooking to creative writing. They can explore a new passion or develop their existing skills over the break.Your choices include:Udemy Gift Courses (Note: Youll need to select a specific course to gift)Skillshare Gift MembershipMasterClass Gift MembershipSubscription BoxesSometimes, a gift that keeps on giving month after month is the perfect solution. Remember how happy Clark Griswold was when he got that Jelly of the Month subscription? Wait, maybe Im mis-remembering that.Anyhow, From coffee and snacks to books and beauty products, theres a subscription box for almost every hobby. Best of all, its a tangible gift that you can initially give virtually.Theres something for everyone:FabFitFun Gift CardsBirchbox Gift CardsCratejoy (Use this to find a specific box)AudiobooksThere are officially too many podcasts to sift through, so lets all resurrect the tried and true audiobook.Whether a single audiobook or a gift membership to an audiobook service, this is a great gift for someone to enjoy stories while commuting, exercising, or relaxing.Audible might be the biggest name, but its not the only one:Audible Gift OptionsAudiobooks.com Gift OptionsLibro.fm Gift Options
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  • This week we revealed Dezeen's favourite buildings of 2024
    www.dezeen.com
    This week on Dezeen, we looked back at the Dezeen team's favourite buildings of the year and continued our review of 2024.The Dezeen editorial team each picked their one favourite building of 2024, with the selection ranging from a Swiss hospital to a brick workshop in Vietnam.Our 2024 review included the year's top 10 product designsContinuing our review of the best architecture and design of the year, we rounded up the top 10 product designs of 2024.We also looked back at the top US architecture projects, house extensions, books and exhibitions.IKEA is re-releasing 10 vintage productsIn design news, IKEA announced that it is set to re-release some of its most celebrated vintage designs from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.In total, the retailer is reissuing 10 products, including a steel-framed shelf designed by Niels Gammelgaard in 1978 andGillis Lundgren's 1973 Tajt fold-out lounge chair.We interviewed The Brutalist's directorThis week also saw the opening of The Brutalist film, which focuses on the story of a fictional, Bauhaus-trained architect, in US cinemas.In an exclusive interview the film's director, and co-writer, Brady Corbet told Dezeen that "there is no more controversial style of architecture" than brutalism.Elon Musk claimed a transatlantic tunnel could be built for $20 billionElon Musk was back in the news this week, as the tech mogul claimed that The Boring Company could create a tunnel from London to New York for $20 billion.He made the claim in response to reports in the news that a transatlantic tunnel is estimated to cost around $20 trillion.Over 30 skyscrapers in Miami are sinkingIn the US, a report revealed that 35 skyscrapers in the barrier islands ofMiami had been affected by sinking or "subsidence" since 2016.According to the report by the University of Miami, the sinking was "related to construction activities".Dior's Gold House was the most-read project on Dezeen this weekPopular projects featured on Dezeen this week included Dior's Gold House concept store inBangkok, a cuboidal primaryschoolin ruralAustria and a holiday cabin with a hat-shaped roof.This week's lookbook featured bedrooms illuminated by creative lighting solutions.This week on DezeenThis week on Dezeenis our regular roundup of the week's top news stories.Subscribe to our newslettersto be sure you don't miss anything.The post This week we revealed Dezeen's favourite buildings of 2024 appeared first on Dezeen.
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  • Hat-shaped metal roof shelters Hee House by Studio Ellsinger
    www.dezeen.com
    Local practice Studio Ellsinger has topped a small holiday cabin on Sweden's west coast with a hat-shaped aluminium roof to "trigger curiosity" and offer protection from its wild surroundings.Called Hee House after its location near the beach at Heestrand, the cabin was designed as a second home for a young family willing to experiment with a design that would make the most of its small plot.Studio Ellsinger has created a small cabin in SwedenWhile the cabin measures just seven metres by seven metres, it is designed to "grow upwards" from its tiny footprint with a steep-pitched roof and gables clad in untreated aluminium sheeting to protect it from wind and rain.The cabin's clients wanted a house that would follow similar design principles to the founders of Studio Ellsinger's own house, Villa Ellsinger, an aluminium-clad structure that teeters above rocks on skinny stilts in southwest Sweden.Hee House is topped with a hat-shaped aluminium roof"Our house aimed to leave the ground and its surroundings as untouched as possible, as well as triggering curiosity," said studio co-founder Mikael Ellsinger."The clients had bought a very rural and wild plot on the west coast of Sweden, and they wanted a similar approach," he continued. "This resulted in a home with a tiny footprint where the spaces were allowed to grow upwards, making it possible to fit a lot of surprises in a very small building."The seven-metre roof creates a spacious living area with a loftInside, the cabin's seven-metre-high roof creates a large living space, which is divided by a loft on one side. This level includes a children's sleeping area, a sofa bed and a workspace that can be screened off with a large curtain.On the ground floor, the living and kitchen area is open to the ceiling with large windows looking out over the pines. An oversized bookshelf, which acts as a room divider and support for the loft above, frames a custom-built wood-burning stove.Read: Littow Architectes creates collection of off-grid cabins on Helsinki archipelagoThe roof is composed of two parts, with one narrow and high section and one wide and low, giving it a hat-like appearance and creating a cantilevered canopy that provides protection from sun and rain.To avoid detracting from the cabin's ceiling with beams or bracing, Studio Ellsinger put the roof loads into a horizontal glue-laminated timber (glulam) frame that sits on top of the exterior walls.Hee House's kitchen features red tiles that contrast the untreated pine"One of the challenges was to solve the steep roof construction without any beams that normally stop the outer walls from falling out," added Ellsinger."This was solved with a giant glulam frame that lies on top of the outer walls and that is visible from the outside."The front door and loft windows have circular openingsHee House's interiors are clad in untreated pine, bringing simplicity and warmth to the cabin, while contrasting red tiles cover the floors of the kitchen. All the furniture including its sofas and tables and chairs were custom-made for the cabin.The cabin's loft windows and its front door are punched with circular "prisms", a maritime reference added by the architect as a nod to the cabin's seaside location."On the old sailing ships, they used glass prisms in the deck to spread light before electricity. The prisms in the door are the same sort that spreads light into the otherwise dark entrance hall," said Ellsinger.A bookcase frames a wood-burning stoveBased in Gothenburg, Studio Ellsinger was founded in 2010 by husband and wife duo Mikael and Fanny Ellsinger. Their first project was Villa Ellsinger, the couple's own home, which was completed in 2017.Other cabins that have recently been featured on Dezeen include a group of off-grid structures in the Helsinki archipelago and a concrete dwelling with a steep gabled roof in Mexico.The photography is by Christopher Hunt.The post Hat-shaped metal roof shelters Hee House by Studio Ellsinger appeared first on Dezeen.
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  • Dubai to be transformed into pedestrian-friendly city with two-kilometre elevated walkway
    www.dezeen.com
    Dubai ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has approved the Dubai Walk masterplan to add 6,500 kilometres of pedestrian walkways to the city, including an elevated air-conditioned looped path.Aiming to transform Dubai into a pedestrian-friendly city by 2040, the masterplan will include a network of continuous paths designed to prioritise accessibility, safety and comfortable walking experiences.Visualisations shared on X of the Dubai Walk masterplan show a ringed path named The Future Loop, which will feature 30,000 square metres of air-conditioned space and 30,000 square metres of shaded outdoor space for year-round walking. .. 3300 .. 110 - " " pic.twitter.com/XjPI2ZuFHy HH Sheikh Mohammed (@HHShkMohd) December 7, 2024A masterplan to add 6,500 kilometres of walkways to Dubai has been approvedSpanning two kilometres, the elevated walkway will connect the Museum of the Future, Dubai World Trade Centre, Emirates Towers, Dubai International Financial Centre, and nearby metro stations.The masterplan aims to build 3,300 kilometres of new paths and renovate 2,300 kilometres of existing walkways by 2040. An additional 900 kilometres of walkways will be constructed in the following years.Cultural spaces in the city will be linked by public transport and cycling routes and 110 bridges and underpasses will also be built, aiming to improve connectivity and the quality of the built environment.Read: Dubai to convert 64-kilometre-long highway into "human-centric" Green SpineThe Dubai Walk masterplan aligns with the Dubai's Quality of Life Strategy 2033 and its 20-minute city goal for 2040, which plans to give 80 per cent of residents access to essential amenities in a 20-minute commute."Dubai is a city of the future, committed to creating a healthy and happy urban environment," said Al Maktoum."The Dubai Walk masterplan promotes active lifestyles and provides exercise opportunities for all, making walking a central part of our culture and daily lives," he continued."This vision will position Dubai as one of the world's healthiest and most sustainable cities."Elsewhere in Dubai, architecture studio Urb unveiled plans to convert a 64-kilometre-long arterial road into a green highway and Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning studioRCR Arquitectes revealed its design for the Muraba Veil skyscraper.The top photo is byPhoto by David Rodrigo via UnsplashThe post Dubai to be transformed into pedestrian-friendly city with two-kilometre elevated walkway appeared first on Dezeen.
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  • Dell Latitude 14 7455 review: A portable laptop powered by Snapdragon X
    www.creativebloq.com
    The portable laptop powered by the Snapdragon X delivers AI features and a long-lasting battery life
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  • This 14-inch MacBook Pro just fell to $1,299, an all-time low price
    appleinsider.com
    In an exclusive holiday blowout deal, Apple Authorized Reseller B&H has dropped the price of a closeout M3 MacBook Pro 14-inch to just $1,299 when equipped with 16GB RAM.Get a 14-inch MacBook Pro for $1,299 just in time for the holidays.Save $500 on the M3 14-inch MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage when you shop through the special pricing links in this post* from a laptop or desktop computer.Buy for $1,299 Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
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  • Grab Apple's M3 15-inch MacBook Air with 24GB RAM, 1TB for $1,699 ($200 off)
    appleinsider.com
    Packed with upgrades, Apple's M3 15-inch MacBook Air is $200 off and eligible for free 2-day shipping for easy holiday gift-giving.Grab an exclusive discount on this M3 MacBook Air.This 2024 15-inch MacBook Air in the elegant Midnight colorway features an upgrade to 24GB of unified memory and 1TB of storage. Best of all, it's discounted to $1,699 when you shop at B&H Photo using the exclusive pricing links in this post on a laptop or desktop.Get the MacBook Air deal Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
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  • Holiday coupon: save up to $300 on every 14" & 16" MacBook Pro M4
    appleinsider.com
    A holiday discount code knocks up to $300 off every single 2024 MacBook Pro equipped with Apple's M4, M4 Pro or M4 Max chip. Learn more about how you can save on your next laptop purchase.Save up to $300 on every M4 MacBook Pro model.Apple's latest MacBook Pro comes in a variety of configurations and price points but AppleInsider readers can save on every set of specs with promo code APINSIDER at Apple Authorized Retailer Adorama.Use code APINSIDER Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums
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  • Googles counteroffer to the government trying to break it up is unbundling Android apps
    www.theverge.com
    The Department of Justices list of solutions for fixing Googles illegal antitrust behavior and restoring competition in the search engine market started with forcing the company to sell Chrome, and late Friday night, Google responded with a list of its own (included below). Instead of breaking off Chrome, Android, or Google Play as the DOJs filing considers, Googles proposed fixes aim at the payments it makes to companies like Apple and Mozilla for exclusive, prioritized placement of its services, its licensing deals with companies that make Android phones, and contracts with wireless carriers. They dont address a DOJ suggestion about possibly forcing Google to share its valuable search data with other companies to help their products catch up.RelatedAccording to Googles lawyers, the ruling pointed to arrangements with Apple and Mozilla for their browsers, the companies that make Android phones, and wireless carriers. Google regulatory VP Lee-Anne Mulholland writes on the company blog, This was a decision about our search distribution contracts, so our proposed remedies are directed to that. For three years, its proposal would block Google from signing deals that link licenses for Chrome, Search, and its Android app store, Google Play, with placement or preinstallation of its other apps, including Chrome, Google Assistant, or the Gemini AI assistant. It would also still allow Google to pay for default search placement in browsers but allow for multiple deals across different platforms or browsing modes and require the ability to revisit the deals at least once a year.While the company still plans to appeal Judge Amit Mehtas ruling that said, Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly, first, it says it will submit a revised proposal on March 7th, ahead of a two-week trial over the issue in April.RelatedGoogles empire is under siege
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  • Google DeepMind Introduces FACTS Grounding: A New AI Benchmark for Evaluating Factuality in Long-Form LLM Response
    www.marktechpost.com
    Despite the transformative potential of large language models (LLMs), these models face significant challenges in generating contextually accurate responses faithful to the provided input. Ensuring factuality in LLM outputs is particularly critical in tasks requiring responses grounded in lengthy, complex documents, which form the basis for advancing their applications in research, education, and industry.One major challenge in LLM development is their tendency to produce inaccurate or hallucinated content. This issue arises when models generate plausible-sounding text that is not supported by the input data. Such inaccuracies can have severe consequences, including the spread of misinformation and decreased trust in AI systems. Addressing this problem requires comprehensive benchmarks that evaluate the fidelity of LLM outputs to ensure that the generated text aligns strictly with the context provided in a prompt.Existing solutions to factuality challenges involve supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning. These methods aim to optimize LLMs to adhere more closely to factual content, albeit with limitations. Another approach leverages inference-time strategies like advanced prompting and model state interpretability to reduce inaccuracies. However, these techniques often result in trade-offs, compromising qualities such as creativity and response diversity. Consequently, there remains a need for a robust and scalable framework to systematically evaluate and enhance LLMs factuality without sacrificing other attributes.Researchers from Google DeepMind, Google Research, Google Cloud, and Kaggle introduced the FACTS Grounding Leaderboard to address these gaps. This benchmark is specifically designed to measure LLMs ability to generate responses fully grounded in extensive input contexts. The dataset includes user requests paired with source documents of up to 32,000 tokens, demanding responses that are factually correct and adhere strictly to the input context. The leaderboard is hosted on Kaggle and includes public and private data splits, encouraging broad participation while maintaining dataset integrity.The methodology underlying the FACTS Grounding benchmark involves a two-stage evaluation process. First, responses are screened for eligibility, disqualifying those failing to address user requests adequately. Eligible responses are then evaluated for factuality using multiple automated judge models, including Gemini 1.5 Pro, GPT-4o, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. These models are prompted with optimized templates, ensuring high alignment with human judgment. For instance, the evaluation process uses span-level analysis to validate each claim in the response, with scores aggregated across multiple models to minimize bias. Further, the benchmark incorporates measures to prevent gaming of the scoring system, such as requiring comprehensive responses that directly address user queries.The FACTS Grounding Leaderboard revealed diverse performance results across tested models, showcasing the benchmarks rigor in evaluating factuality. Among the models evaluated, Gemini 1.5 Flash achieved an impressive factuality score of 85.8% in the public dataset, while Gemini 1.5 Pro and GPT-4o followed closely with scores of 84.9% and 83.6%, respectively. On the private dataset, Gemini 1.5 Pro outperformed others with a score of 90.7%. The disqualification of ineligible responses reduced scores by 1% to 5%, emphasizing the importance of robust filtering mechanisms. These results highlight the benchmarks ability to differentiate performance and promote transparency in model evaluation.The FACTS Grounding Leaderboard fills a critical gap in evaluating LLMs by focusing on long-form response generation. Unlike benchmarks emphasizing narrow use cases, such as short-form factuality or summarization, this benchmark addresses a broader spectrum of tasks, including fact-finding, document analysis, and information synthesis. By maintaining high evaluation standards and actively updating the leaderboard with new models, the initiative provides an essential tool for advancing the factual accuracy of LLMs.The research teams efforts underscore the importance of rigorous evaluation frameworks in overcoming the challenges associated with LLM-generated content. The FACTS Grounding benchmark provides a systematic approach to measuring factuality and fosters innovation in developing more reliable and accurate AI systems. This work sets a new standard for evaluating LLMs and inspires further advancements in artificial intelligence.Check out the Paper and Technical Details. All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,dont forget to follow us onTwitter and join ourTelegram Channel andLinkedIn Group. Dont Forget to join our60k+ ML SubReddit. Nikhil+ postsNikhil is an intern consultant at Marktechpost. He is pursuing an integrated dual degree in Materials at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Nikhil is an AI/ML enthusiast who is always researching applications in fields like biomaterials and biomedical science. With a strong background in Material Science, he is exploring new advancements and creating opportunities to contribute. [Download] Evaluation of Large Language Model Vulnerabilities Report (Promoted)
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