File management may not be the most exciting subject surrounding smartphone ownership but if you use your device for productivity, my goodness, is it ever worth your while to chew over.Your phone, after all, is your on-the-go connection to the world. Its the always-available PC of our modern computing era. And whether your work involves presentations, PDFs, documents, or images, youre bound to find yourself fumbling around with files on your pocket-sized screen sooner or later.With the right tool for the job, though, managing files on your phone doesnt have to be a hassle. Androids got some outstanding file manager options, and best of all? You almost certainly only need one of em a single standout file manager to handle all of your file-wrangling requirements.Read on and see which path makes the most sense for you.The best all-around Android file manager for most business usersFiles by GoogleFirst and foremost, if your Android file needs are fairly simple and straightforward, Files by Google or Google Files, for short is the Android file manager you want.Google Files has come a long way since its inconspicuous 2017 debut. These days, Files is a fully featured file management tool, with all the basics youd expect and some compelling extras all packed into a nicely designed and easy-to-use interface thats compatible with any Android device (even if it typically comes preinstalled only on Pixels).At its core, Google Files makes it painless and almost even pleasant to browse through your phones local storage and find, share, or organize any files youve downloaded or transferred onto the device. The app lets you look through folders or sort items by type (documents, images, videos, and so on) and optionally move sensitive materials into an encrypted and password-protected Safe Folder.It has a spectacular search system, too, including the ability to search for text that appearswithinPDFs, images, and documents on your device. It even offers a convenient way to send any locally stored files directly to Google Drive with a couple quick taps though it doesnt, curiously enough, actually let youbrowseand interact with your Drive storage or connect at all to any non-Google cloud services. If that sort of more robust all-in-one control center for handling both localandremote storage is what youre after, the Android file manager in thenextsection will be more suitable for you.Files by Google lets you browse your phones local storage and perform a variety of actions on folders and files.JR Raphael / IDGGoogle Files can open and now also create compressed archives, too, and it even has a handy built-in option for scanning physical documents on demand and saving em as neatly cropped PDF files.Perhaps most helpful of all is Files integrated system for freeing up storage on your phone: Just tap the apps three-line menu icon, in the upper-right corner, and select Clean to see an ever-evolving set of intelligent suggestions for superfluous files you can safely delete. Files will also show you which apps you havent opened in a while and make it especially easy to uninstall em right then and there.All in all, Google Files is a well-rounded and intuitive file manager that handles all the file management tasks most business users will need on a phone. Its a significant upgrade from the default file managers that come preinstalled on most non-Pixel Android devices, and if you dont have any special requirements or advanced demands, its almost certainly the app for you.Google Files is free.The best advanced Android file managerSolid Explorer File ManagerFor anyone who needs a little more mobile file management oomph, Solid Explorer is the way to go.Solid Explorer has all the same file manipulation basics as Googles Files app but adds in advanced options like the ability to encrypt files and even create password-protected ZIP collections. Its also able to integrate with a wide variety of internet-based storage services including Google Drive, along with Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and your own private servers and then serve as a streamlined interface for managing all of your stuff and transferring data between different locations.Solid Explorer is overflowing with advanced options for manipulating files and working with cloud storage.JR Raphael / IDGSolid Explorer has a clever two-panel interface for fuss-free dragging and dropping between locations, too be they two local folders or a combination of local and cloud-based folders from any connected service. All you have to do is flip your phone sideways or open the app on a wide-screen tablet or foldable device for that setup to appear.Solid Explorers smart two-panel interface allows you to view two folders together and drag and drop files between them.JR Raphael / IDGFrom variable-based batch renaming to folder bookmarking and even support for casting content to a TV or other Google-Cast-compatible display, Solid Explorer is just jam-packed with useful stuff and yet it manages to remain reasonably simple and easy to use. (It also works exceptionally well on a Chromebook, and once youve bought it for your phone, you can install it onto any ChromeOS device without having to pay again.) The apps advanced elements wont be necessary for most people, but if your on-the-go work requires such next-level file management functions, Solid Explorer is the path to pursue.Solid Explorer costs $3 after a free 14-day trial.Beyond Android file managersImportant as they are, of course, Android file managers themselves are just one piece of the puzzle.Googles mobile operating system has some powerful native systems for beaming files between different devices, transferring files from your phone to a computer, and supplementing your phones local storage. With a few minutes of simple setup, you can even create special folders on your phone that automatically sync with matching folders in your favorite cloud storage service and vice-versa.Head over to my Android file management guide next to explore all the ins and outs of managing files on Android including the easiest ways to wirelessly transfer files on the fly.It may not be exciting, exactly, but youd better believe itll make a world of difference.This article was originally published in April 2018 and most recently updated in January 2025.

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Reviews weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.Lately, the vibes have been good for nuclear power. Public support is building, and public and private funding have made the technology more economical in key markets. Theres also a swell of interest from major companies looking to power their data centers.These shifts have been great for existing nuclear plants. Were seeing efforts to boost their power output, extend the lifetime of old reactors, and even reopen facilities that have shut down. Thats good news for climate action, because nuclear power plants produce consistent electricity with very low greenhouse-gas emissions.I covered all these trends in my latest story, which digs into whats next for nuclear power in 2025 and beyond. But as I spoke with experts, one central question kept coming up for me: Will all of this be enough to actually get new reactors built?To zoom in on some of these trends, lets take a look at the US, which has the largest fleet of nuclear reactors in the world (and the oldest, with an average age of over 42 years).In recent years weve seen a steady improvement in public support for nuclear power in the US. Today, around 56% of Americans support more nuclear power, up from 43% in 2020, according to a Pew Research poll.The economic landscape has also shifted in favor of the technology. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 includes tax credits specifically for operating nuclear plants, aimed at keeping them online. Qualifying plants can receive up to $15 per megawatt-hour, provided they meet certain labor requirements. (For context, in 2021, its last full year of operation, Palisades in Michigan generated over 7 million megawatt-hours.)Big Tech has also provided an economic boost for the industrytech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Amazon are all making deals to get in on nuclear.These developments have made existing (or recently closed) nuclear power plants a hot commodity. Plants that might have been candidates for decommissioning just a few years ago are now candidates for license extension. Plants that have already shut down are seeing a potential second chance at life.Theres also the potential to milk more power out of existing facilities through changes called uprates, which basically allow existing facilities to produce more energy by tweaking existing instruments and power generation systems. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved uprates totaling six gigawatts over the past two decades. Thats a small but certainly significant fraction of the roughly 97 gigawatts of nuclear on the grid today.Any reactors kept online, reopened, or ramped up spell good news for emissions. But expanding the nuclear fleet in the US will require not just making the most of existing assets, but building new reactors.Well probably also need new reactors just to maintain the current fleet, since so many reactors are scheduled to be retired in the next couple of decades. Will the enthusiasm for keeping old plants running also translate into building new ones?In much of the world (China being a notable exception), building new nuclear capacity has historically been expensive and slow. Its easy to point at Plant Vogtle in the US: The third and fourth reactors at that facility began construction in 2009. They were originally scheduled to start up in 2016 and 2017, at a cost of around $14 billion. They actually came online in 2023 and 2024, and the total cost of the project was north of $30 billion.Some advanced technology has promised to fix the problems in nuclear power. Small modular reactors could help cut cost and construction times, and next-generation reactors promise safety and efficiency improvements that could translate to cheaper, quicker construction. Realistically, though, getting these first-of-their-kind projects off the ground will still require a lot of money and a sustained commitment to making them happen. The next four years are make or break for advanced nuclear, says Jessica Lovering, cofounder at the Good Energy Collective, a policy research organization that advocates for the use of nuclear energy. There are a few factors that could help the progress weve seen recently in nuclear extend to new builds. For one, public support from the US Department of Energy includes not only tax credits but public loans and grants for demonstration projects, which can be a key stepping stone to commercial plants that generate electricity for the grid.Changes to the regulatory process could also help. The Advance Act, passed in 2024, aims at sprucing up the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in the hopes of making the approval process more efficient (currently, it can take up to five years to complete).If you can see the NRC really start to modernize toward a more efficient, effective, and predictable regulator, it really helps the case for a lot of these commercial projects, because the NRC will no longer be seen as this barrier to innovation, says Patrick White, research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit think tank. We should start to see changes from that legislation this year, though what happens could depend on the Trump administration.The next few years are crucial for next-generation nuclear technology, and how the industry fares between now and the end of the decade could be very telling when it comes to how big a role this technology plays in our longer-term efforts to decarbonize energy.Now read the rest of The SparkRelated readingFor more on whats next for nuclear power, check out my latest story.One key trend Im following is efforts to reopen shuttered nuclear plants. Heres how to do it.Kairos Power is working to build molten-salt-cooled reactors, and we named the company to our list of 10 Climate Tech Companies to watch in 2024.Another thingDevastating wildfires have been ravaging Southern California. Heres a roundup of some key stories about the blazes. Strong winds have continued this week, bringing with them the threat of new fires. Heres a page with live updates on the latest. (Washington Post) Officials are scouring the spot where the deadly Palisades fire started to better understand how it was sparked. (New York Times) Climate change didnt directly start the fires, but global warming did contribute to how intensely they burned and how quickly they spread. (Axios)The LA fires show that controlled burns arent a cure-all when it comes to preventing wildfires. (Heatmap News) Seawater is a last resort when it comes to fighting fires, since its corrosive and can harm the environment when dumped on a blaze. (Wall Street Journal)Keeping up with climateUS emissions cuts stalled last year, despite strong growth in renewables. The cause: After staying flat or falling for two decades, electricity demand is rising. (New York Times)With Donald Trump set to take office in the US next week, many are looking to state governments as a potential seat of climate action. Heres what to look for in states including Texas, California, and Massachusetts. (Inside Climate News)The US could see as many as 80 new gas-fired power plants built by 2030. The surge comes as demand for power from data centers, including those powering AI, is ballooning. (Financial Times)Global sales of EVs and plug-in hybrids were up 25% in 2024 from the year before. China, the worlds largest EV market, is a major engine behind the growth. (Reuters)A massive plant to produce low-emissions steel could be in trouble. Steelmaker SSAB has pulled out of talks on federal funding for a plant in Mississippi. (Canary Media)Some solar panel companies have turned to door-to-door sales. Things arent always so sunny for those involved. (Wired)

Apple CEO Tim Cook has given a rare personal interview in which he recounts how Apple Watch fall detection saved his father's life, and recommends where to eat in San Francisco.While in London, Tim Cook (left) also had a pint with "Slow Horses" star Jack LowdenDuring his December 2024 visit to the UK where he showed King Charles around Apple Battersea, Tim Cook also recorded an interview on the food podcast, "Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware." In it, he mostly answered familiar questions about Apple, but he was also unusually candid about his personal life.One moment that touched on both his personal and professional life was when he was asked about Apple Watch. Specifically, the hosts wanted to know whether he had ever had a medical alert on his own Watch. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Japenese studio IGArchitects, led byMasato Igarashi,has completed a home on a narrow plot in Tokyo. Titled Building Frame of the House, the scheme was designed for a married couple who sought a home that supported their busy work-from-home schedules while feeling each others company.Image credit: Ooki JinguImage credit: Ooki JinguAs a result, the home is designed with large airy volumes that form connections and interactions between interior and exterior spaces. This led to the idea of the house of frame which is strong but flexible, where it allows a liberty way of living, Igarashi says.Image credit: Ooki JinguImage credit: Ooki JinguThe home provides 645 square feet of space across seven floors. The north wall of the building is skewed to create a space that connects to an adjacent vacant site. On the internal side of the wall, the heights and depth of each floor change throughout the building, while openings in the structure allow natural light and ventilation through th...

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With the unveiling of the Nintendo Switch 2 rumoured to be at hand, a new leak has popped up that might give us an idea of the horsepower under the hood of the new console. In a post on the Famiboards forums, user Zachy claims to have discovered the compute speed of the Nintendo Switch 2s hardware.According to Zachy, the Switchs GPU will be able to hit a clock speed of 561 MHz, which would roughly translate to around 1.71 TFLOPS (a measurement of how many floating point operations hardware can complete in a second). This is for when the Switch 2 is used in handheld mode. Docked mode, on the other hand, will offer a considerable power boost, doubling the clock speed up to 1000 MHz, coming in at around 3.1 TFLOPS.For context, the Nintendo Switch 2 is rumoured to be running on an Nvidia Tegra 239 SoC, which is considerably less powerful than the last few generations of desktop processors and GPUs. On the other hand, the hardware is still a considerable upgrade over the original Switch. While these numbers do give us a useful look at the potential power behind the hardware, it is worth noting that real-world use cases for the power tends to be different.Going by the relatively lower power of the hardware in the upcoming Switch 2, it looks like the previously-rumoured image upscaling in the console will see quite a bit of use when it is launched. These previous leaks have indicated that the Switch 2 will be equipped with a neural net for AI-based image upscaling, which will allow lower-resolution visuals to be rendered at 1080p or even 4K without losing too much in fidelity or clarity.The Switch 2 reveal rumoured to take place later today is slated to be a showcase of the new consoles hardware, with no games being present during the presentation. Rumours of the presentation happening today came about thanks to reliable industry insider Nate the Hate on a podcast hosted last week.Among the rumours about the Nintendo Switch 2 that have been making the rounds for quite some time is a picture of the new consoles dock, which indicates that, owing to higher voltage requirements, the new console will be incompatible with the original Switchs charger. The console will also seemingly have a new mounting mechanism for its JoyCon controllers, complete with a new trigger-styled button to slide the JoyCons off.Weve also gotten a look at what the logo for the Switch 2 will look like, being quite similar to the original Switch logo, with the addition of a giant 2 to signify that it is definitely new console hardware.On the software front, while Nintendo has been quiet about the console in that regard as well, rumours have indicated that heavy hitters like the upcoming Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater will be making their way to the Switch 2. Ubisoft is also rumoured to be working on bringing a host of its games to the new console.

html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"Zibra AI has released a new free edition of ZibraVDB for Unreal Engine.The plugin makes it possible to import, play back and render data in .zibravdb format inside the game engine, and comes with four free smoke and fire effects.A new AI-based technology for compressing and playing back volumetric effectsLaunched commercially last year, ZibraVDB is a new AI-based technology for compressing volumetric data in OpenVDB format.It enables users to compress VDB files, like effects created in software like Houdini or EmberGen, then decompress and render them at runtime inside Unreal Engine.That enables users both game developers and VFX and virtual production studios to render much more complex effects than would previously have been possible in real time.According to Zibra AI, ZibraVDB can compress VDB files up to 100x, and render them twice as fast as Unreals native SVT system, introduced in Unreal Engine 5.3.New free Unreal Engine plugin comes with four free stock explosion and tornado effectsThe new free Unreal Engine plugin doesnt include the compression system itself, but it does make it possible to test the quality of the results it generates.To do that, you can download four free smoke and fire effects three explosions and a fire tornado compressed into .zibravdb format, and use it to import them into UE5 for rendering.There are no license restrictions on the assets, so once youve tested them, you can also use them as stock assets for future projects.Price and system requirementsThe free edition of ZibraVDB for Unreal Engine is compatible with Unreal Engine 5.3+. It is available via Epic Games Fab online marketplace under Fabs Standard license, which permits use in commercial projects.The full commercial version of ZibraVDB is available subscription-only, with individual subscriptions priced at $29/month or $299/year, and studio subscriptions priced on enquiry.Download the free edition of ZibraVDB for Unreal EngineDownload four free stock smoke and fire effects for use with the free edition(Requires registering your contact details on the Zibra AI website)Read more about ZibraVDB on Zibra AIs websiteHave your say on this story by following CG Channel on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter). As well as being able to comment on stories, followers of our social media accounts can see videos we dont post on the site itself, including making-ofs for the latest VFX movies, animations, games cinematics and motion graphics projects.

Botika, a started focused on AI-generated fashion models, has raised $8 million and launched its new mobile iOS app.Read More

Soul Assembly cuts 15% of workforce"This step was necessary to position the company for future success during a challenging time for the gaming industry," says CEO David SolariImage credit: Ubisoft/Soul Assembly News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Jan. 16, 2025 Just Dance VR developer Soul Assembly has laid off 15% of its staff.As reported by UploadVR, employees across its QA, marketing, and animation departments have been affected."This decision was taken to ensure the studio is aligned with the requirements of our upcoming projects," said Soul Assembly CEO David Solari. "We are providing support to the affected team members as they transition to new opportunities and thank them for their contributions."This step was necessary to position the company for future success during a challenging time for the gaming industry."Employees affected have been sharing the news on LinkedIn, including 3D artist Kristina Jonaityte, QA technician Simon Kent, QA team lead Jamie Keys, and senior character artist Jonathan Pearmain."It seems I've once again been caught in the ups and downs of the industry," wrote Pearmin. "I've been made redundant, effective from the end of this week."Based in Leamington Spa, Soul Assembly was formed in 2022 after being spun out of Pixel Toys. As of 2023, the studio has over 70 employees.It has developed titles including Drop Dead: The Cabin, Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister, and Last Stand.

VR studio Soul Assembly has laid off 15 percent of its workforce.Studio CEO David Solari confirmed the news in a statement to UploadVR. "We can confirm a reduction in our team by 15 percent. This decision was taken to ensure the studio is aligned with the requirements of our upcoming projects," he wrote."We are providing support to the affected team members as they transition to new opportunities and thank them for their contributions. This step was necessary to position the company for future success during a challenging time for the gaming industry.Soul Assembly recently partnered with Ubisoft to work on Just Dance VR and has released a litany of other VR titles including Warhammer 40,000: Battle Sister and Drop Dead: The Cabin.Last year, it launched spatial puzzler Soul Spire exclusively for Apple Vision Pro.The layoffs at Soul Assembly come months after UK-based VR studio nDreams announced it would be cutting up to 17.5 percent of roles to renew its "strategic focus."Analysts believe the consumer VR industry has entered a "challenging period." Consumer VR market researched published by Omdia in December 2024 indicated that headset sales had declined by 10 percent year-over-year to 6.9 million units.Omdia senior principle analyst George Jijiashvili said the market is expected to decline further in 2025."The consumer VR market continues to face significant challenges, with several indicators highlighting a lack of momentum and adoption," wrote Jijiashvili on Game Developer last year."The highly anticipated Apple Vision Pro debut has failed to deliver the resurgence the industry hoped for, with limited developer enthusiasm and fading momentum ten months post-launch. Meanwhile, Metas recent entry-level Quest 3S has yet to spark a notable sales boost."Omdia and Game Developer are sibling companies under InformaTechTarget.