• Star Fox 64 Finally Barrel Rolls Onto PC Thanks To An Unofficial Port
    www.nintendolife.com
    Image: Damien McFerran / Nintendo LifeFan team Harbour Masters has swapped Hylian adventures for high-flying action in its new 'Starlight' project a Star Fox 64 PC port which is available right now (thanks, VGC).This isn't the team's first rodeo having previously brought Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Super Mario 64 to PC and it uses the same above-board approach to porting. Once again, Harbour Masters has reverse-engineered the original game's code to avoid using any leaked content or copyrighted assets, making the whole thing technically legal (yay!).The port does require users to provide their own legally-sourced N64 ROM to play, but, in return, it offers a bunch of modern upgrades like higher frame rates and widescreen visuals. Looking at the following post from VGC's Andy Robinson, we'd say that's a fair trade-off:Star Fox 64: now on PC, thanks to an unofficial port.www.videogameschronicle.com/news/another... Andy Robinson (@andyrobinson.bsky.social) 2024-12-23T10:27:12.641ZTechnicalities are one thing, but this PC port also opens the door to all kinds of modding potential. In the years since the team's OOT project, we have seen the modding community add a whole host of weird tweaks, from magical Tears of the Kingdom abilities to actual, functioning Pikmin. Just imagine what's possible with a game as cool as Star Fox 64...How about another official entry in the series, eh Nintendo? Sheiking things upTime ExtensionIt's dangerous to go alone, take theseWhat do you make of this new port? Will you be checking it out? Let us know in the comments.[source videogameschronicle.com, via bsky.app]Related GamesSee AlsoShare:02 Jim came to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, despite his insistence that The Minish Cap is the best Zelda game and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (yes, really), he has continued to write news and features on the site ever since. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related Articles46 Games You Should Pick Up In The Nintendo Switch eShop Holiday Sale (Europe)Every game we scored 9/10 or higherPSA: Switch 2 Is Getting Revealed In The Next 100 DaysSet your Alarmos'Switch 2' Is Projected To Be The "Clear Winner" In The Next Console GenerationWhile either Sony or Microsoft will "struggle mightily"Your 'Nintendo Switch Year In Review 2024' Stats Are Available NowWhat's your hour count?
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  • Instagram tests a way to show you Story Highlights you didnt get a chance to see
    techcrunch.com
    Instagram is testing a way for you to see content from friends that you might have missed. The social network has started displaying unseen Story Highlights from a users mutual followers at the end of the Stories tray, which is the area at the top of your feed where you see Stories from your friends.Were always working on new ways to help people connect in Stories and are testing bringing recent Highlights to the end of the tray with a small group of people, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch. The feature was first spotted by social media expert Ahmed Ghanem.As Instagram has become overcrowded with things like Reels and sponsored posts, its easy to miss updates from people you actually follow. The social networks latest test feature experiments with a way to ensure you arent missing original content from your friends and family.Meta notes that users will be able to see unseen Story Highlights from the past week.You will only see the unseen Story Highlights when you get through all of the current Stories in the tray. This means that if you follow a bunch of people and dont always get the end of your Stories tray, you might not see the Highlights. Its worth noting that the feature wont display standard Stories that disappear after 24 hours, only Story Highlights, which are the curated Stories that users have saved to their profiles.
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  • Juniper Ventures spins out of Climate Capital to invest in synthetic biology for the climate
    techcrunch.com
    Theres a mismatch in climate tech investing: Well over half of all dollars invested since 2020 have flowed into startups working on energy and transportation, according to Sightline Climate.Its awesome to see those solutions doing well, Michael Luciani, founding partner at Juniper, told TechCrunch. But as he points out, those sectors represent less than half of all carbon pollution.The big contributors are how we make things, the industrials and chemicals and plastics, as well as food and agriculture and buildings, he said. I have come to believe that engineered biology is the best emerging solution for the majority of problems in those categories.Luciani and Jennifer Kan, Junipers other founding partner, have been investing in climate for years, initially as part of Climate Capital, a prolific venture fund that typically writes smaller checks to early-stage companies. They invested in 30 companies and led the firms special purpose vehicle investments before raising the new fund, Kan told TechCrunch.Initially, Juniper started life as Climate Capital Bio, investing in synthetic biology startups that focus on climate. But as we kind of got further down the path, we realized what we should lean into is the fact that we can be the climate biotech people, Luciani said. Climate Capital is a great brand, but its really a brand as a generalist, and thats quite different than the kind of signal we wanted to send.The first Juniper fund is $10.6 million and is oversubscribed, the firm exclusively told TechCrunch. Limited partners include family offices, foundations, and Allocator One, an institutional fund of funds thats serving as the anchor.We also have a decent amount of scientists in the field who weve allowed to invest in our fund at lower minimums, plus over a dozen different partners of venture capital and private equity firms, Luciani added.Juniper operates as a normal venture fund, writing checks between $100,000 and $500,000 to scientists who are working to commercialize their research. The goal, Kan said, is to be the first institutional investor, to help them think through how to build a company.Some of the funds early investments include California Cultured, which cultures plant cells to make more sustainable coffee and chocolate, and Cache DNA, which is developing a better way to store DNA and RNA.We are building a lot of data centers, and they are not the most sustainable way for our world to grow digitally. If we were to store all the data in the world today in DNA, it would only take a shoe box of DNA, Kan said. The difference is massive.
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  • A popular technique to make AI more efficient has drawbacks
    techcrunch.com
    One of the most widely used techniques to make AI models more efficient, quantization, has limits and the industry could be fast approaching them. In the context of AI, quantization refers to lowering the number of bits the smallest units a computer can process needed to represent information. Consider this analogy: When someone asks the time, youd probably say noon not oh twelve hundred, one second, and four milliseconds. Thats quantizing; both answers are correct, but one is slightly more precise. How much precision you actually need depends on the context.AI models consist of several components that can be quantized in particular parameters, the internal variables models use to make predictions or decisions. This is convenient, considering models perform millions of calculations when run. Quantized models with fewer bits representing their parameters are less demanding mathematically, and therefore computationally. (To be clear, this is a different process from distilling, which is a more involved and selective pruning of parameters.)But quantization may have more trade-offs than previously assumed. The ever-shrinking modelAccording to a study from researchers at Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Databricks, and Carnegie Mellon, quantized models perform worse if the original, unquantized version of the model was trained over a long period on lots of data. In other words, at a certain point, it may actually be better to just train a smaller model rather than cook down a big one.That could spell bad news for AI companies training extremely large models (known to improve answer quality) and then quantizing them in an effort to make them less expensive to serve.The effects are already manifesting. A few months ago, developers and academics reported that quantizing Metas Llama 3 model tended to be more harmful compared to other models, potentially due to the way it was trained.In my opinion, the number one cost for everyone in AI is and will continue to be inference, and our work shows one important way to reduce it will not work forever, Tanishq Kumar, a Harvard mathematics student and the first author on the paper, told TechCrunch.Contrary to popular belief, AI model inferencing running a model, like when ChatGPT answers a question is often more expensive in aggregate than model training. Consider, for example, that Google spent an estimated $191 million to train one of its flagship Gemini models certainly a princely sum. But if the company were to use a model to generate just 50-word answers to half of all Google Search queries, itd spend roughly $6 billion a year.Major AI labs have embraced training models on massive datasets under the assumption that scaling up increasing the amount of data and compute used in training will lead to increasingly more capable AI.For example, Meta trained Llama 3 on a set of 15 trillion tokens. (Tokens represent bits of raw data; 1 million tokens is equal to about 750,000 words.) The previous generation, Llama 2, was trained on only 2 trillion tokens. In early December, Meta released a new model, Llama 3.3 70B, which the company says improves core performance at a significantly lower cost.Evidence suggests that scaling up eventually provides diminishing returns; Anthropic and Google reportedly recently trained enormous models that fell short of internal benchmark expectations. But theres little sign that the industry is ready to meaningfully move away from these entrenched scaling approaches.How precise, exactly?So, if labs are reluctant to train models on smaller datasets, is there a way models could be made less susceptible to degradation? Possibly. Kumar says that he and co-authors found that training models in low precision can make them more robust. Bear with us for a moment as we dive in a bit.Precision here refers to the number of digits a numerical data type can represent accurately. Data types are collections of data values, usually specified by a set of possible values and allowed operations; the data type FP8, for example, uses only 8 bits to represent a floating-point number.Most models today are trained at 16-bit or half precision and post-train quantized to 8-bit precision. Certain model components (e.g., its parameters) are converted to a lower-precision format at the cost of some accuracy. Think of it like doing the math to a few decimal places but then rounding off to the nearest 10th, often giving you the best of both worlds.Hardware vendors like Nvidia are pushing for lower precision for quantized model inference. The companys new Blackwell chip supports 4-bit precision, specifically a data type called FP4; Nvidia has pitched this as a boon for memory- and power-constrained data centers. But extremely low quantization precision might not be desirable. According to Kumar, unless the original model is incredibly large in terms of its parameter count, precisions lower than 7- or 8-bit may see a noticeable step down in quality. If this all seems a little technical, dont worry it is. But the takeaway is simply that AI models are not fully understood, and known shortcuts that work in many kinds of computation dont work here. You wouldnt say noon if someone asked when they started a 100-meter dash, right? Its not quite so obvious as that, of course, but the idea is the same:The key point of our work is that there are limitations you cannot navely get around, Kumar concluded. We hope our work adds nuance to the discussion that often seeks increasingly low precision defaults for training and inference.Kumar acknowledges that his and his colleagues study was at relatively small scale they plan to test it with more models in the future. But he believes that at least one insight will hold: Theres no free lunch when it comes to reducing inference costs.Bit precision matters, and its not free, he said. You cannot reduce it forever without models suffering. Models have finite capacity, so rather than trying to fit a quadrillion tokens into a small model, in my opinionmuch more effort will be put into meticulous data curation and filtering, so that only the highest quality data is put into smaller models. I am optimistic that new architectures that deliberately aim to make low precision training stable will be important in the future.This story originally published November 17, 2024, and was updated on December 23 with new information.
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  • Happy Holidays!
    www.artofvfx.com
    Wishing you a wonderful holiday season and a very happy New Year! Your passion and support have made this year unforgettable, and we look forward to bringing you even more inspiring content in 2025. Thank you for being part of our journey!From all corners of the world, VFX studios are sharing their magic this holiday season. Explore their unique and creative greetings!// Alkemy X Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par alkemy x (@alkemyx)// Chop Shop Post Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Chop Shop Post (@chop_shop_post)// Crafty Apes Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Crafty Apes (@craftyapesvfx)// Dazzle Pictures Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Dazzle.Pictures (@dazzlepicturesvfx)// Digic Pictures Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par DIGIC Pictures (@digicpictures)// Exceptional Minds Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Exceptional Minds (@exceptionalminds)// FABLEfx Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par FABLEfx (@fablefx_sthlm)// Filmgate VFX Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Filmgate VFX (@filmgatevfx)// FMX Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par FMX Film & Media Exchange (@fmxconference)// FOLKS Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par FOLKS (@folksvfx)// Framestore Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Framestore (@framestore)// Goodbye Kansas Studios// Halo Post Production// Important Looking Pirates Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par ILPVFX (@importantlookingpirates)// Mikros Animation// Palantir Digital Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Palantir Digital (@palantir_digital)// PFX Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par PFX (@pfxcompany)// Realtime Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par REALTIME (@realtime_studio)// Rocket Science VFX Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Rocket Science VFX (@rocketsciencevfx)// Rodeo FX// Rumble VFX Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Rumble VFX (@rumble_vfx)// SHED// Sony Pictures Imageworks Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Sony Pictures Imageworks (@imageworksvfx)// Studio AKA Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par STUDIO AKA (@studioaka)// The Mill Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par The Mill A global creative & production partner (@millchannel)// The Third Floor Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par THE THIRD FLOOR (@thethirdfloor_visualization)// Tippett Studio Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par Tippett Studio (@tippettstudio)// Trixter Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par TRIXTER (@trixterfilm)// Tryptyc Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par TRYPTYC (@tryptyc_vfx)// UPP Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par UPPVFX (@upp_vfx)// WeFX Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partage par WeFX Inc. (@wefx.ca) Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2024The post Happy Holidays! appeared first on The Art of VFX.
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  • FXCollaborative to design new purpose-built home for the Climate Museum at Hudson Yards
    www.archpaper.com
    The Climate Museum is the first in the U.S. dedicated to telling the past, present, and future of global warming. It was founded in 2015, and, to date, has set up its operations and programming in a handful of temporary headquarters. Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Trust for Governors Island, and Parsons/The New School have partnered with the Climate Museum on various projects, to name but a few collaborators. Now, FXCollaborative is designing a new purpose-built home for the Climate Museum at 418 11th Avenue in Manhattan, a press release stated. The space will be 24,000 square feet and located on the ground floor of a new two-tower development underway at Hudson Yards.The Climate Museum will be built on the ground floor of a $1.35 billion development called Hudson, or HDSN in short. HDSN will be at Site K, an undeveloped plot between West 35th and 36th Streets. BRP Companies, BXP, The Moinian Group, and Urbane Development are the developers behind Site K.The 24,000-square-foot space will host programming of all sorts related to climate change. (Courtesy FXCollaborative)Renderings of the Climate Museums new home by FXCollaborative show ample space for all sorts of programming to unfold. The FXCollaborative team is thrilled to design a welcoming, inspiring space for the Climate Museum that empowers climate progress and serves as a model for the sustainable future we can create together, noted Dan Kaplan, a senior partner at FXCollaborative. Exterior renderings show the museum nestled into the ground floor of the tower, which is faced with faceted copper-colored panels. These panels are more pronounced on the lower levels and take on a thinner articulation on the upper floors. Outside the building, there will be a large cobblestone walkway with patches of greenery and rectangular seating benches as part of a pedestrian-forward design scheme.The Museums prominent location straddling Hudson Yards and the Javits Center is a fitting location for a compelling public forum for New Yorkers and visitors to face this all-important issue, Kaplan continued.Rendering of HDSN at Site K in Hudson Yards (Courtesy FXCollaborative)The critical work taking place at the Climate Museum dovetails with the intellectual, creative, and social values of The New School, and the Museum has been an invaluable resource for our students and faculty. Were absolutely delighted to deepen our partnership, added Joel Towers, The New School president. Ill add that, having served previously as a founding trustee of the Museum, I couldnt be happier that even more members of the public will now have access to the Museums transformative programs.
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  • MacBook Pro vs. MacBook Air: How to decide which Apple laptop you should buy
    www.zdnet.com
    Kerry Wan/ZDNETIf you're in the market for a new MacBook, you may be wondering which model best suits your needs: the MacBook Pro or the MacBook Air. Apple consistently refreshes its lineup, adding new configurations every year, and with more powerful processors coming out, there have never been more factors to consider when buying a new Apple laptop.Also: M3 MacBook Air vs. M2 MacBook Air: Which Apple laptop should you buy?When buying a MacBook, you'll want to consider the display size, storage capacity, computing power, and price. For example, the 2022 13-inch and 2024 13-inch MacBook Airmay appear similar, but they have different chips, meaning the laptops vary in performance, efficiency, and battery life.The most recent MacBook Pro models house Apple's M4 chips, which are more efficient and capable than the M3 SoC (system on a chip). Meanwhile, the MacBook Air laptops still use the previous generation -- the M3. Think of yourself as Goldilocks -- you're presented with five different MacBook models, and you must find the one that's just right for you.Before you decide which one to buy, let's cover the main differences between the Pro and the Air.What's the difference between the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air?There are major differences between the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. The biggest is in pricing and computing power. The most affordable M4 MacBook Pro is more expensive than the cheapest M3 MacBook Air, but it makes up for it with better performance.Apple's M4 MacBook Pro models have additional unified memory, long battery life, extra ports (including three Thunderbolt 4 inputs and an SD card slot), and a more sophisticated hardware setup than their Air counterparts. There are two MacBook Pro display sizes: 14-inch and 16-inch, and they house different M4 chips. Also: How we test laptops at ZDNETThe 14-inch model only offers the M4 chip, while the 16-inch option can have either the M4 Pro or M4 Max. All three chips perform great, although there are notable differences. For example, the M4 Max has a "powerful Media Engine."Each one also has a different number of cores. The standard M4 has a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. Apple's M4 Pro houses a 14-core CPU and a 20-core GPU. The M4 Max has the same processor as the M4 Pro but sports a 32-core GPU instead.Also: I tested the new iMac M4, and one of the standout upgrades is also the least flashyRAM also differs, ranging from 16GB to 48GB. The exact gulf between the M3 and M4 chipsets is unknown, but Apple told ZDNET Editor Kyle Kucharski that the "M4 is 1.3 times faster at handling productivity tasks than the M3."The company also said that the standard M4 MacBook Pro "delivers... up to 1.8x faster [image processing in Affinity Photo] when compared to" the M1 MacBook Pro. The M4 Max laptop goes even further, as it reportedly "delivers up to 3.5x the performance of [the] M1 Max," allowing it to rip through "heavy creative workloads." Here's the 14-inch MacBook Pro. Kerry Wan/ZDNETApple unfortunately discontinued the 13-inch MacBook Pro after releasing the 14-inch MacBook Pro. It's no longer available for purchase on the company's website. You can still find 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros with the M3 Pro and M3 Max chipsets, but they're refurbished.Also: 4 Apple products you shouldn't buy right now (including a popular iPhone model)The M4 MacBook Pro is a solid laptop for most use cases, but if the base chip isn't powerful enough for you, choose either the M4 Pro or M4 Max. Remember that going big with the 16-inch Pro raises the price tag. The 14-inch Pro starts at$1,599and, with chip and internal storage upgrades, can go up to $1,999. The 16-inch Pro starts at$2,499and, with internal upgrades, goes up to $3,999. Kerry Wan/ZDNETThe 13-inch MacBook Air from 2022 only comes with Apple's base M2 chip. Meanwhile, the 2024 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air house the base M3 chip. The lack of Pro and Max chips doesn't mean the Air is a less-than-capable computer. The MacBook Air is thinner and lighter than the Pro because it has less hardware: no HDMI port, SD card slot, or cooling fan. Apple banks on the efficiency of its chips to dissipate heat. Also:M3 MacBook Air review: Apple's AI computer for the masses has arrivedOf course, less hardware means the MacBook Air is less expensive, but you can make a few upgrades. For the M2 Air, you can choose between two chip configurations, one with more GPU cores than the other. An upgraded GPU means your computer can process footage more efficiently, making 4K video editing faster and smoother.Last summer, Apple announced a 15-inch MacBook Air with an M2 chipbut discontinued the device when it introduced the M3 15-inch MacBook Air. Although the 15-inch M2 MacBook Air had a short run, it's still a great option if you're looking for an Air. Unfortunately, you can only buy it refurbished from Apple or at a discounted price on Amazon.Also:The MacBook Air's free RAM upgrade was sneakily the best announcement during Apple's Mac eventThe M3 13-inch Air starts at $999and rises to $1,999 if you max out the internal storage and pick a more powerful GPU. The M3 15-inch Air starts at $1,099 and goes up to $1,699 for the best configuration. It's also worth mentioning that all the M3 MacBook Airs start with 16GB of memory, instead of just 8GB.If you're contemplating buying an M3 MacBook Air and want to know how it compares to the M2 Air models, we compared the specs hereto help you decide which device is best for you.Which MacBook is right for you?The answer mainly depends on how you see yourself using the laptops and how display size and weight factor into that equation. A reliable computer is an investment; you don't want to spend too much on an overqualified laptop, and you don't want to buy a computer that's not powerful enough for your needs.If you're a graphic designer, music producer, professional photographer, videographer, 3D artist, or iOS game and app developer, a MacBook Pro would be the way to go. The Pro models can handle intense graphics processing and more software running in the background without significantly lagging, overheating, or slowing down.If you are a student or someone who spends most of your time in Microsoft Office or Google Workspace, a MacBook Air may be a better fit, as it won't put a burden on your back as you lug it around. If you want a MacBook to casually surf the internet, watch YouTube or Netflix, respond to emails, and FaceTime your friends, then the Air is perfect for you. In fact, if these tasks are the only things that bring you to open your laptop, an M2 Air will work just fine.No matter which model you buy, a MacBook is an excellent device if you want to expand yourpersonal Apple ecosystem with a device that works seamlessly with your iPhone, AirPods, Apple Watch, and other products. Handoff, for example, allows you to switch FaceTime calls between your MacBook and iPhone, and your MacBook can easily access your iPhone files, messages, contacts, and photos.Featured reviews
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  • I use this cheap Android tablet more than my iPad Pro - and it costs a fraction of the price
    www.zdnet.com
    For those seeking a budget-friendly tablet, the Blackview Tab 90 delivers a perfect mix of mobile entertainment and affordability.
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  • One of my favorite budget tablets this year managed to be replace both my Kindle and iPad
    www.zdnet.com
    ZDNET's key takeaways The TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G is a full-color, color paper, and ink paper tablet available at Verizon for $239. It's a great entertainment tablet for daily use that also functions very well as an e-reader. Although the screen is versatile, don't expect the graphics to compare to those on an iPad or other high-end tablets. View now at Verizon Reading is my favorite hobby and something I've come to rely on to wind down before bed. I've had a few Kindles over the past 13 years, and the Amazon e-reader has become my go-to. I tried out TCL's Nxtpaper technology earlier this year as an alternative and never looked back.Also: I tested Wacom's latest drawing tablet, and its new display upgrade made my iPad look outdatedI've been testing the TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G for a few months now, but it felt like an upgrade almost immediately. Within hours of setting it up, I gave my daughter my old Kindle, and my husband got my old iPad. details View at Verizon The TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G's display smoothly transitions from regular mode to color paper or ink paper, whether you're reading, scrolling on social media, watching videos, or playing a game. TCL's Nxtpaper technology isn't the same as E Ink, which uses electrophoretic technology to create a monochromatic image.Also:The best Android tablets of 2024: Expert tested and reviewedInstead, Nxtpaper is a paper-like display that helps reduce eye strain and improves readability over traditional screens. The display also reduces blue light, doesn't have a conventional backlight, and eliminates flickering, making it easy on the eyes while displaying the different types of content you'd expect from a tablet or smartphone. Maria Diaz/ZDNETThe lack of a backlight and the display's frosted finish reduce glare and reflections, contributing to better energy efficiency and longer battery life. Using several anti-reflective and anti-glare layers, TCL's Nxtpaper enhances readability in different conditions, so you can enjoy that bestseller on a bright day at the beach or by the pool. A front light panel evenly illuminates the screen and helps maintain a comfortable viewing experience.E Ink, in turn, doesn't traditionally transition from monochromatic to full color and has a slower refresh rate. Though there are color E Ink displays, they're not as vibrant or suitable for multimedia content. Maria Diaz/ZDNETThe TCL Tab 10 Nxpaper is an entertainment tablet that lets you take your essentials anywhere. It's not meant to replace a brand-new $1,000 iPad, but it can replace an e-reader and an older iPad model, which was my case.I'm not a tablet power user. I don't need a tablet with strong processing power to replace my MacBook Pro or iMac for video editing or graphic design; I mainly use tablets for entertainment. This includes streaming video on YouTube or a subscription service, reading the news, making notes and lists, catching up on baseball, checking the weather, and playing some games. For all of those use cases, this tablet works well.Also: The best cheap tablets of 2024: Expert tested and reviewedI sometimes work on my tablet, but as a writer, I only need a keyboard and a reliable note-taking or word-processing app, which are easy to use one this TCL tablet. Maria Diaz/ZDNETWhen I first tested this device, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had read about TCL's Nxtpaper but hadn't had a chance to test it until this tablet. When I first got my hands on the TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G tablet, I was surprised with the display's versatility and how easily you could switch from regular mode to color paper to ink paper, the latter being the most similar to what you might expect from an e-reader.The very first app I downloaded was Kindle. I was excited to see how this tablet would feel as an e-reader, and I wasn't disappointed.Also: One of the best tablets for watching movies is not from a brand you'd expectA Kindle e-reader is a single-purpose device, so upgrading to a tablet with a similar display and the benefits of a faster refresh rate and processor was a pleasure. After using the same Kindle for six years, I was blown away by the simple fact that I could breeze through the Kindle app as I would on any other tablet, while the TCL Nxtpaper display looks as good as any e-reader. The TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G has its front camera located on the landscape edge. Maria Diaz/ZDNETAfter reading for about an hour, I made up my mind. I reset the old 10th-generation Kindle, set it up with Amazon Kids for my seven-year-old, and never looked back. Even better, because now my kid is reading more than ever. During the first three days of using the Kindle, she read for four and a half hours. She's been reading for a few years but now dedicates at least 40 minutes of reading each night before bed on her own, whereas before, she'd read maybe 20 minutes a day during the school week.Also: One of the best Samsung tablets I've tested is not a flagship (and it's on sale)The TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G is also perfectly capable of performing the tasks my regular iPad did at home and on the go. Part of being a parent means sitting on the sidelines for hours a week while the kids attend extracurricular activities that cost an arm and a leg.This tablet has become my new iPad and Kindle while I'm killing time. Plus, if I have a deadline, I can continue my work in Docs; if I'm bored, I can stream on Netflix or scroll through TikTok; and if I'm looking to relax, I can read the latest novel I've downloaded from Kindle Unlimited.The convenience of two devices in one made it easy to give my husband my old iPad on the same day I set up the TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G. While the Android experience differs from an iPad, I've encountered minimal bugs and inconveniences. I can still work and play on the TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G, use a split screen, and stream videos flawlessly.ZDNET's buying adviceThe TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G is perfect for everyday use. This $239 tablet isn't looking to win any benchmark competitions with high-end devices, but it's an outstanding tablet for the price, especially if you like using an e-reader. But if you're looking to trade in your old tablet and upgrade, you can save up to $180 at Verizon with a trade-in.Also: The best Samsung tablets of 2024: Expert tested and reviewedThe TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper 5G tablet is available at Verizon for $239 prepaid or $6.66 monthly for 36 months. TCL sells a T-Pen Stylus for $40 (I plan to pick one up). Verizon plans start at $30 monthly, which isn't cheap. The data plan option is best suited for those who often use the tablet on the go, outside the comforts of Wi-Fi.I'm keeping the TCL Tab 10 Nxtpaper, data plan or not, because I use it mainly around the house. If I use a tablet or laptop somewhere without Wi-Fi, I'm okay with using my iPhone as a hotspot.Featured reviews
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  • Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Price Cut Heavily In Sudden Flash Sale
    www.forbes.com
    Samsung is expected to replace its flagship phone, the Galaxy S24 Ultra in the new year. Which means that savvy shoppers who want a great price on a new phone will know that this is the optimum time to buy. And now, Best Buy and Amazon have keen prices.Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. 2024 Bloomberg Finance LPThe deals highlighted within this post were independently selected by the Contributor and do not contain affiliate links.Amazon had already slashed $300 off the price of the S24 Ultra, though as Forbes fellow contributor Janhoi McGregor pointed out, with the right phone to trade in at Samsung you could end up with a better price still.However, Best Buy has just suddenly launched a Doorbuster sale which takes $350 off the price of the S24 Ultra with 256GB storage, taking the total down to $949.99. This price is for the Titanium Black, Titanium Violet, Titanium Yellow and Titanium Gray finishes.This is part of Best Buys holiday flash sale, but it only lasts for 48 hours.Amazon has matched this price, so you can snag any of the four colors for the same 27% discount, $949.99. Amazon is offering delivery between Jan. 4 and 8, or with fastest delivery between Dec. 28 and Dec. 31. Either way, as youll notice, that means delivery after Christmas.MORE FOR YOUHow about Samsung itself? Those previous price cuts which could be combined with trade-ins to yield extraordinary value are no longer available and the phone has leapt back to its regular $1,299. That said, trade-in prices are still there: up to $800 for the Galaxy S23 Ultra 5G or $559 with an Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max.Other phones earn trade-in values, but often much less. A Google Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 8 Pro or even the first-gen Pixel Fold all attract the same trade-in deal: $300.Right now, youre better off going to Amazon or Best Buy, if you can buy before the special sales are over.Meanwhile, the price and capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra are unknown. There could be a snappy new design or swathe of key featuresbut there wont be any price discounts likely for months at least.
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