Apple has the finances to buy just about anything, but with TikTok there are more reasons than money that mean it won't buy the social media platform.TikTok on a smartphoneFor a company that has so much success, Apple is far from immune to failure and sometimes repeated failures. For whatever reason, Apple seems incapable of launching a social media platform, despite trying, so buying one should be a possibility.Right now TikTok isn't exactly up for sale to the highest bidder, but it's close - as long as that bidder is America. No question, if Apple wanted to buy TikTok, it could even though Bloomberg estimates on Sunday that it would cost up to $60 billion. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

After a series of 13 robberies at different Apple Stores in the London area, police made several arrests. Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania man has been jailed for an Apple gift card "draining scam."Manchester Arndale Apple StoreThe latest in an occasional AppleInsider series, looking at the world of Apple-related crime. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Whenever Netflix raises its prices which seems to happen roughly as often as Ben Affleck falls in love with an A-list celebrity the company always gives the same reason. It needs the extra money, you see, in order to keep investing in the kind of programming and product its 302 million subscribers demand. Thats how the standard monthly price of ad-free Netflix jumped from $7.99 to $17.99 over the course of the last 13 years, including a $2.50 jump just announced during the companys recent earnings report. Theres still a $7.99 monthly plan, of course, but that one includes ads and its a dollar more expensive than it was a week ago.But lets be real with each other. You want to know why Netflix keeps raising its prices? Because it can. Because Netflix won. The rest of the streaming industry is competing ferociously over a finite pool of money, dealing with carriage disputes because of dwindling subscriber numbers, and panicking over the future of TV. Netflix is the future of TV.Over the last couple of years in particular, Netflix has gone from a solid streaming service to a practically unavoidable, virtually uncancellable part of mainstream culture. It has developed a slate of hit originals Stranger Things, Wednesday, Squid Game, The Night Agent if were being really generous that give it at least something approximating HBO-style appointment TV. It has proven, through things like the Paul / Tyson fight and the Tom Brady roast, that it can manufacture cultural events more or less out of nothing. It pulled off a day of NFL games without a hitch and spent billions of dollars to get WWEs Monday Night Raw, one of cables biggest ongoing hits, onto the platform. And underneath it all, it has built a massive library of reality shows, cooking competitions, and the other filler TV that makes up most of our TV viewership.Netflix has gone from a solid streaming service to a practically unavoidable, virtually uncancellable part of mainstream cultureNow, for the price of your Netflix subscription, you get a bunch of expensive movies, high-end TV shows, sports, and low-budget reality programs all in one place. You dont want it all, but you pay for it anyway. That, my friends, is called a cable bundle. And its still the best business the entertainment industry has ever devised.The average price of a basic cable subscription in 2006, the year before Netflix started streaming content over the internet, was between $40 and $50. People watched something like four hours of TV a day, which meant they probably watched about an hour of ads every single day. Today, services like YouTube TV and Comcasts new sports and news bundle are $70 or more and only provide live programming. Meanwhile, Netflix subscribers watch two hours of the service every day, across all those categories, and are paying as little as a tenth of the price. Many of them see no ads at all. Think of the savings!Netflix sure sees it that way. Greg Peters, the companys co-CEO, said on this weeks earnings call that hes optimistic about Netflixs long-term monetization opportunity. We earn, right now, only 6 percent of the revenue opportunity in the countries and segments that we currently serve, he said. And as long as we continue to deliver on improving the variety, the quality of our TV and film slate, we gradually expand the offering with newer content types, we believe well be able to increase that share progressively every year.Translation: Netflix is coming for your entire entertainment diet. And your entire entertainment budget.As it looks at price increases, Peters also said, Netflix considers signals like engagement, retention, and acquisition. All that amounts to one simple question: do you keep using Netflix when the price goes up? The answer, so far, has almost always been yes. And so the prices keep going up. Its really just that simple. Its clear to Netflix that it could charge more maybe a lot more and hardly anybody would leave. So of course its going to push the limits.The other way to understand the specifics of the pricing strategy is that Netflix would very much like you to have that ad-supported plan. The company has said repeatedly that it makes more money on the combination of a smaller monthly fee and advertising than it does from the larger subscription price alone. A large percentage of new subscribers are choosing ads about 55 percent in the latest quarter and Netflix is beginning to test exactly how much its existing subscribers will pay to keep their Netflix ad-free. Its no accident that the ad-free price just jumped two and a half times as much as the base price did. And remember: even if we all switch to the ads plans, the prices might still go up. Cable TV is expensive and filled with ads, after all, and Netflix sure likes that business model.Netflix would very much like you to have that ad-supported planNetflix continues to signal that its ambitions are only growing, too. Ted Sarandos, the companys other co-CEO, indicated on this weeks earnings call that the company is more open to live sports than ever, after the success of the Christmas NFL games and the Paul / Tyson fight. The company is increasingly getting into video games, too, which accounts for another huge chunk of many peoples entertainment budget. Netflix is even starting to borrow tactics from YouTube and TikTok, bringing creators like Ms. Rachel onto the platform.Reed Hastings, Netflixs co-founder and former CEO, famously said that Netflixs main competitor is sleep. Sleeps still a pretty powerful market force, to be fair. And YouTube continues to be an even more dominant force in peoples video-viewing experience. But Netflix has ascended above practically everybody else even its ostensible competitors are now licensing their shows to Netflix because thats where the viewers are, and where the culture is.The streaming wars have been messy, and theyre certainly not over, but Netflix already won. The only question left is exactly how rich the spoils of victory will be. And you better believe Netflix is going to find out.

Heres the scene: Im wearing Metas latest Ray-Ban glasses with a new feature called Live AI, which can answer questions about the world around you. Im preparing for a four-hour road trip to my in-laws for the Christmas holiday. Im preplanning the next days breakfast because Im 99.9 percent certain I will have no brain cells to concoct an edible one at 5AM. I dont even know if I have anything to make a meal with. I open the fridge door and say, Hey Meta, start Live AI. Suddenly, John Cenas voice is in my ear telling me that a Live AI session has begun.What breakfast can I make with the ingredients in my fridge? I ask.The inside is a sad sight with month-old Thanksgiving leftovers, a carton of eggs, soda, condiments, a tub of Greek yogurt, and a big jug of maple syrup. Meta-AI-as-John-Cena replies that I can make a variety of breakfast dishes, such as scrambled eggs, omelets, or yogurt parfaits.RelatedTo be clear, there is not a single fresh fruit with which to make a parfait. The egg carton has two eggs in it. My spouse put an empty milk carton back in the fridge, meaning scrambled eggs and omelets are also out. My stomach rumbles, reminding me I skipped lunch. I bail on the breakfast idea and instead open the freezer door and ask what kind of dinner I can make with the ingredients inside. Its mostly a bunch of frozen pizzas, an assortment of frozen veggies, and hamburger buns. Im told, frozen meals, stir-fries, and casseroles.I decide to order in for dinner. Itll be a drive-through breakfast on the road.This is the issue with Live AI. More often than not, I dont know when to use it. When I do, the answers I get are too obvious to be helpful. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeThe pitch for Live AI is it allows you to speak to an AI assistant as you would a friend. While its similar in function to the glasses multimodal AI feature, you dont have to constantly prompt the AI. It (supposedly) knows when youre talking to it. You can also string together multiple queries and follow-up questions. If youre in a cooking class and something looks a bit off, youd flag the instructor and theyd look at the mess in your pan and tell you what you did wrong and how to fix it. This is kind of meant to be a version of that but with an incorporeal AI that lives in your glasses. It sees what you see and can help you out in real time.Its a cool concept. But I was stumped when it came time to use Live AI without guardrails. Whenever a question pops into my head, I automatically reach for my phone. Thats what Ive been trained to do for over 10 years. The first and biggest hurdle to using Live AI was remembering it was an option.Damn, I wouldve never thought of reading a book on my TBR list. Screenshot: MetaThe second problem was knowing when Live AI might be more useful than a quick Google search. Meta suggested I try scenarios involving fashion and cooking. I already told you how my cooking queries went. So, I asked the AI what color combinations I should try with a set of multicolored pastel press-on nails. The AI suggested a combination of pastel colors would complement the pink nails nicely. I asked which of the books on my shelf I should read. The AI reminded me it doesnt have personal preferences or opinions but that I should read a book that interests [me] or one that [Ive] been meaning to read for a while. Dissatisfied, I asked which of the books was most highly acclaimed. It suggested I look that up online. I tried a few more scenarios and was left wondering: why would I ever talk to AI if all it does is restate the obvious and tell me to Google things myself?The most useful experience I had with Live AI was when I asked it how to zhuzh up my home office. At first, I got another milquetoast answer add artwork, plants, and rearrange the furniture to create a more cozy atmosphere. Annoyed, I asked it what type of artwork would look good. Again, it told me that a variety of artwork could look good depending on [my] personal style. Had I considered adding posters, prints, or paintings that reflected my interests or hobbies? I wanted to scream, but instead, I asked what style of poster would look good based on what was currently in the room. To that, I got my first somewhat useful answer: a colorful and playful poster with a fun design or cute character that would complement the stuffed animals in the room. I asked for artists to look into. It suggested Lisa Congdon, Camille Rose Garcia, and Jen Corace for their playful and whimsical styles.1/4Journey with me as I figure out how to ask Meta AI the right questions to get the answer I wanted.1/4Journey with me as I figure out how to ask Meta AI the right questions to get the answer I wanted.And herein lies the biggest recurring problem I have with AI: you have to know how to ask the right questions to get the answer you want.I couldve saved myself some grief if Id just told Meta AI, I want to hang artwork in my room. Based on whats currently here, what artists should I look into? This skill comes naturally to some folks. My spouse is a whiz at prompting AI. But for the rest of us, its a skill that has to be learned and few people right now are teaching us AI noobs how to rewire our brains to best make use of this tech. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The VergeAfter Googling the artists Meta AI suggested, I was left back at square one. I liked their art, but none of them felt like my style. I relayed the experience to my best friend, who rolled her eyes and promptly sent me three artists on Instagram. I loved all of them. In a chiding voice, she said I shouldve just asked her and not bothered with a bot. Because, unlike Meta AI, she said, she actually knows me.Live AI has other issues outside of the philosophical ones. It struggles to differentiate when youre talking to it versus someone else in the room. At one point, it straight up lied and said itd witnessed me feed my cat when I hadnt. (Itd been confused by my spouse saying theyd fed the kitties.) It also only works in 30-minute windows before the battery runs out. That means you have to be intentional in how you use it a hard thing to do when there are few obvious use cases.Im not against Live AI. The overarching vision is for all of us to be like Tony Stark, wearing cool glasses with their own little Jarvises in them. When youre being hand-held through controlled demos, that future feels both inevitable and magical. Its just that the fantasy starts to crack when youre left to explore on your own. And once that happens, nine out of 10 times, youre going to reach for your phone.

As of now, the Chinese-based TikTok app remains unavailable in the United States App Store on iPhone, as the company failed to sell itself to a US owner, before last weeks ban came into effect. However, there is apparently ongoing negotiations to get TikTok under new ownership, which would give it a path back to the App Store. No deal is close to being finalized, yet, though.NPR is reporting that the White House is directly involved in talks that would see Oracle and a group of outside investors take control of TikTok. Current owner ByteDance would retain a minority stake.Notably, it seems this deal would see TikToks global operations fall under predominantly US ownership, rather than TikTok bifurcating into separate US-based and non-US businesses.Oracle is already intimately familiar with TikTok and has shown prior interest in partnership. The cloud giant already provides fundamental web infrastructure for TikToks backend, and four years ago under the previous Trump presidency was in talks for a TikTok takeover in a partnership with Walmart.Working out the details of the financials is one major roadblock. TikTok is said to be seeking a valuation in the hundreds of billions of dollars, a hefty sum that almost no company can raise the capital for on its own. Trump has previously indicated that the government itself may take a stake, making TikTok a partially nationalised entity. However, its unclear whether that is currently a serious proposition. Regardless, heres the state of play right now. For US users of the popular social media shot-form video app, if the app is already downloaded on your phone, iPhone or Android, the app is currently working as normal. However, as it is not available in the App Store, the app cannot be updated, and if deleted, cannot be reinstalled. That also means anyone buying a new phone cannot get TikTok on it.TikTok remains freely available in all other geographic regions. Add 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Image by Getty / FuturismAmid his bizarre and expensive efforts to reverse aging or gain eternal life, tech founder-turned-biohacker Bryan Johnson is now we wish we were making this up comparing his erections with those of his 19-year-old son.In a post on X-formerly-Twitter, the 47-year-old longevity enthusiast presented what he refers to as "nighttime erection data" for himself and his son, whose name is Talmage.As the Braintree founder explained, the younger Johnson's erectile "duration" was two minutes longer than his own. If the confusingly-marked dashboard shared in the post is to be believed, each man had roughly three hours' worth of erections per night, and the son had exactly one more "erection episode" than the five his father experienced."Raise children to stand tall, be firm, and be upright," Johnson added, in case readers weren't yet feeling quite enough secondhand embarrassment. He also added in another post that his son is his "best friend," which would be sweet in almost any different context but seems awfully weird in this one.Unfortunately, Johnsonhaving five boners per night seems to suggest that his single-minded quest to return his penis to its youth which has also involved the man having his long-suffering genitals electrocuted and shot up with Botox, is working. As studies have shown, the average 20-to-26-year-old man also has five erections per night.Similar studies suggest that nocturnal erections decrease progressively with age, dependent on various health factors and quality of sleep.Per the dick dashboard data, both father and son have an "AndroAge" of 22. The elder Johnson may even have the edge over his son on "average erection quality," whatever that means, with his being scored at a 94 while the younger's was a mere 90. The data also indicates that the 47-year-old is getting more "efficient" slumber than his 19-year-old son, likely due to the elder's extremely strict sleeping habits that see him in bed by 8:30 PM with little "arousal" beforehand.As you may recall, Talmage Johnson last made waves nearly two years ago when, at age 17, his father was infused with his teen blood in hopes of receiving its regenerative powers, while giving some of his own blood to his own dad. Jarringly similar to the "blood boy" plot line on HBO's "Silicon Valley," that gruesome scenario brought Johnson an early investor in Futurism who hasn't been involved with the site for years into the public eye.Back in 2023, biochemist Larry Brenner of the City of Hope National Medical Center in Los Angeles toldBloomberg that the practice of young blood transfusions is, to his mind, "gross, evidence-free, and relatively dangerous.""The people going into these [longevity] clinics who want anti-aging infusions basically have an anxiety problem," Brenner elaborated. "They have an anxiety problem about their mortality."Share This Article

AI's darkest secret.Faltered CarbonThe already formidable environmental toll of generative AI is even worse than it seems because businesses aren't being transparent about the emissions given off by their enormous new AI datacenters.Take Amazon Web Services, a subsidiary of Amazon and one of the largest cloud computing platforms in the world, which doesn't provide location-based or data center-specific statistics in its emissions reports. That means it's impossible to tell how much greenhouse gases the massive facilities and specifically, ones that host or train AI models are producing,right at the most important moment for the public and policymakers to be grappling with that information."The environmental impact of AWS is not broken out specifically, and you can only find the emissions of Amazon overall," Benn Caddy at the IT analysis firm Canalys, . "In fairness, Google and Microsoft similarly publish annual sustainability reports for their wider respective companies, reflecting emissions beyond their cloud businesses."Off the BooksLast year, an analysis conducted by The Guardian found that the actual emissions of data centers operated by AI leaders like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, are 662 percent higher than what's been officially reported. The analysis used data between 2020 and 2022, before the AI rush was in full swing,so it's almost certain the numbers would be even more dramatic now.Amazon's chicanery seems particularly egregious. Its "creative accounting" would have you believe that its emissions have actually gone down. This seems extroardinarily unlikely, the Register notes, given the continued expansion of its data center empire for both cloud computing and AI services. Amazon also doesn't distinguish between different types of emissions, Caddy told the paper, known as Scope 1, 2 and 3, which describe direct emissions, indirect emissions from electricity purchased, and all other indirect emissions not covered by the first two categories respectively.Of course, the Bezos-owned company isn't alone. Heavy hitters like Microsoft and Google don't report data-center specific emissions,either. They also don't report data all the same way.All of them favor the same trick, however: renewable energy certificates. These supposedly certify that a company offset a certain amount of carbon emissions by buying an equivalent amount of renewable energy. In practice, little is done to verify these certificates. But by buying them, tech companies can report lower overall numbers.Opening UpCaddy's firm suggests that, at least in the European Union, the recent adoption of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) will mean that potential customers and businesses that would work with Amazon will expect more transparent emissions data if they're going to partner with the retail giant. If it doesn't play ball, it could turn away buyers of its cloud computing services."This issue has frustrated sustainability-focused customers and partners alike for years now," Caddy told the Register, "but as companies prepare for CSRD disclosure, this lack of granular emissions disclosure from AWS can create compliance challenges for EU-based AWS customers."In the US, though, attempts to enact similar measures have stalled. The Securities Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rules adopted in March 2024, which would have standardized how all publicly traded companies listed on the stock exchange reported emissions data, were immediately challenged in the courts and paused.Share This Article

Time zones: GMT (UTC +0)Zapiet is a fast-growing tech company that provides e-commerce solutions for businesses of all sizes. Our products enable retailers to manage their online stores more efficiently, with a particular focus on optimising the customer experience. We are looking for a talented and creative Product Designer to help us take our products to the next level.Overview:As a Product Designer at Zapiet, you will be responsible for creating intuitive, user-friendly interfaces that enhance the customer experience. You will work closely with our development team, product managers, and other stakeholders to design and iterate on features for our platform. The ideal candidate will have a strong understanding of user-centered design principles, as well as experience designing for both web and mobile platforms.Responsibilities:Design UX Flows: Craft intuitive interfaces for new products.Collaborate: Work with product managers and engineers to meet user needs.Deliver Designs: Develop wireframes, prototypes, and final assets.Maintain Design System: Ensure consistency and scalability.Data-Driven Decisions: Use insights and data to guide designs.Experiment: Conduct A/B tests to validate ideas.User Focus: Incorporate feedback to enhance the user experience.Requirements:Proven experience with a strong portfolio.Proficiency in FigmaSolid understanding of UX principles.Strong communication and collaboration skills (Fluent English).Passion for crafting impactful user experiences.

6.3/ 10 SCORE Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 $730 at Lenovo Pros Thin and light for 16-inch laptop All-metal design Good performance for the price Long battery life Cons Dim display Dismal audio output Mushy keyboard Slow USB ports Table of Contents The IdeaPad Slim 5i sits in the middle of Lenovo's IdeaPad lineup. It trades the plastic chassis you get with the budget IdeaPad Slim 3i series for an all-aluminum design, but one that lacks the rigidity and gently rounded edges of the high-end Slim 7i line. Decked out in a deep blue color, our IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 review unit boasts an upscale look, and it's surprisingly light for its size. It makes a good first impression, but the warm feelings I had initially for this thin-and-light midrange 16-inch laptop evaporated as soon as I powered it up.When I plugged in the IdeaPad Slim 5i and turned it on, I was greeted with a dim image on the 16-inch display. White backgrounds were a dull gray, and colors looked muted. Pushing the brightness to its max didn't do much to improve things. I also didn't like the keyboard feel, the placement of the touchpad or the speed of the USB ports. Lenovo's own Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 is a better option if you're looking for an affordable, big-screen laptop; it offers better build quality and a brighter display for roughly the same price while also adding two-in-one functionality to the mix.Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 Price as reviewed $730Display size/resolution 16-inch 1,920x1,200 touch IPS LCDCPU Intel Core 7 150UMemory 16GB LPDDR5 5,200MHz RAMGraphics Intel Iris Xe GraphicsStorage 1TB SSDPorts 2 x USB-C 3.2 Gen 1, 2 x USB-A 3.2 Gen 1, HDMI 1.4b, combo audio, microSD card slotNetworking Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2Operating system Windows 11 HomeWeight 4 pounds / 1.8 kilograms The IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 is based on a roomy 16-inch touch display with a 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution. Lenovo sells two fixed configurations of it. The base model costs $580 with Lenovo's consistent discount and features an Intel Core 5 120U CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. We received the step-up model that costs $730 and bumps you up to a Core 7 150U chip and a 1TB SSD.The IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 starts at 730 in the UK and AU$1,689 in Australia.Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 performanceThe Intel Core 7 150U processor inside our IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 test system is a low-power chip that prioritizes battery life over raw performance. It features two performance cores, eight efficiency cores and a total of 12 processing threads. If you don't need the extra storage, then the baseline model with the Core 5 120U chip and 512GB SSD will likely offer similar performance because there's little difference in the two CPUs. Both feature the same number of cores and threads -- the only difference is that the Core 7 150U operates at slightly higher frequencies.In testing, the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 turned in solid if not spectacular scores. Its single-core results were strong, but it fell back on our multicore tests because the Core 7 150U has only two performance cores. In comparison, the Core Ultra 155H of the HP Spectre x360 16 has six P-cores, eight E-cores and 22 total threads. Still, its overall performance on our application benchmarks -- Geekbench 6 and PCMark 10 -- wasn't terrible when you factor in that the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 costs hundreds less than the other 16-inch laptops in the performance charts at the end of this review. Matt Elliott/CNETThe other big difference between the Core 7 150U and Core Ultra 7 155H is the integrated GPU on each chip. The Core Ultra 7 155H features Intel's next-gen Arc GPU, but the Core 7 150U features previous Intel Iris Xe graphics. The IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 couldn't keep pace on 3DMark Time Spy with competing models with Intel Arc or AMD Radeon graphics.The benefit of the efficient Core 7 150U chip becomes evident when we get to battery testing. The IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 lasted for more than 15-and-a-half hours on our online streaming battery drain test. The dim and relatively low-resolution display certainly helps extend battery life, but that's still an excellent runtime for a big-screen laptop. It's more than four hours longer than the next-closest competitors among this group of midrange 16-inch models.Cool blue design but basic displayLenovo sells the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 in either Cloud Grey or Abyss Blue; we received the latter. It's a deep, dark blue that looks almost black. It gives the laptop a more interesting look than basic gray, but not so interesting to prevent you from using it in a professional setting -- it won't look out of place in an office.The enclosure is blue, but it appears that Lenovo outfits the laptop with the same gray keyboard on both the Cloud Grey or Abyss Blue models. The gray keys don't look great against the blue keyboard deck -- if getting Abyss Blue keys is too much to ask, then I'd settle for a standard black keyboard that would look better with the blue color. Matt Elliott/CNETThe keyboard deck as well as the top and bottom panels are all made from aluminum, which isn't a given at the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9's low price. Many laptops at this price might slap on an aluminum top cover behind the display but use plastic for the rest. Or perhaps outfit the lid and keyboard deck in aluminum but try to slide by with a plastic bottom panel. Not so with the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 -- you get an all-metal chassis. It's not the most rigid of aluminum enclosures -- there's some flex in the lid and keyboard deck -- but it still feels well put together.It also feels light for its size. It weighed in just shy of 4 pounds -- 3.98 pounds to be exact. And it's just 0.7 inches thick, making for a thin-and-light 16-inch laptop. By comparison, the Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 has a more solid build but is heavier, at 4.4 pounds, and the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 is almost a full pound heavier, at 4.9 pounds.I don't like the look of the keyboard, and I'm not a fan of its feel either. The keys have little travel and yet a pleasingly springy feedback, but the keys feel wobbly. If you strike a key off-center, you'll know because it bends instead of traveling straight down. And I'm not sure how useful the narrow number pad will be to many users. I'd rather jettison it and have the keyboard centered below the display -- and get four full-size arrow keys instead of the half-height treatment that the up- and down-arrow keys get. Matt Elliott/CNETThe touchpad is off-center and will take some getting used to before you stop performing right-clicks when you're meaning to simply click. The touchpad is positioned way over on the left side of the expansive wrist rest. It's not even centered below the keyboard sans numpad but a bit to the left of that. Perhaps Lenovo wanted to give the small fingerprint scanner below the arrow keys a lot of breathing room. I'd much rather move the fingerprint reader to the power button where it's often located and shift the touchpad over to the right so it's closer to the center of the wrist rest.The display is the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9's downfall, though. While the rest of the design is midrange for the most part, the display is strictly budget-class. It's dim with terrible color performance and a resolution that results in fuzzy text. With a 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution across a 16-inch, 16:10 panel, it suffices for watching shows and movies but not for reading for long stretches. Text lacks the crispness you'd get from a higher resolution, but it's made all the worse by the panel's dimness. Matt Elliott/CNETAs soon as I powered on the machine, I knew I was staring at a dim display. I immediately pushed brightness to its max, but it did little to improve the situation. At its default setting of 80% brightness, white backgrounds were a dull gray, and colors looked muted. On my tests using a Spyder X colorimeter, it managed to hit a peak of 300 nits, which matches its rated brightness, but it looked duller than a typical 300-nit panel. Perhaps because its color performance was dreadful, with coverage of only 67% of sRGB and 51% of P3.The speakers and webcam were also unimpressive. A 16-inch laptop has room for four speakers for fuller sound, but the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 serves up just a pair of 2-watt speakers. And predictably, the sound was underwhelming. With the obvious entertainment appeal that a 16-inch laptop has, it's doubly disappointing when laptop makers pair small sound with a big display. You can add the webcam to my list of disappointments here. It's a 1080p webcam, but the image it produces looks closer to that of a 720p camera; it was grainy, poorly balanced and struggled in low light. Matt Elliott/CNETThe IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9's selection of ports is wide and varied, but USB connectivity is slow. You get two USB-A and two USB-C ports, but the USB-C ports are of the USB-C 3.2 Gen 1 variety with speeds up to only 5Gbps -- a fraction of the 40Gbps that Thunderbolt 4 offers. The HDMI port is also outdated and supports only 1080p output, but you can always use one of the USB-C ports to connect to a 4K monitor. Lastly, Wi-Fi is behind the times with Wi-Fi 6 instead of the newer Wi-Fi 6E or the latest Wi-Fi 7.Is the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 worth buying?Despite its good looks and trim design, I can't recommend the IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9. The dull display is a downer in general, and the poor audio output detracts from its appeal as a low-cost, big-screen entertainment laptop. The Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 doesn't offer better sound, but it does provide a better overall build and a brighter display for roughly the same cost, along with two-in-one versatility. And if you can extend your budget past $1,000, the HP Envy x360 16 offers greater value with its higher-resolution OLED display and stronger performance. The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computerlike devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device's aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments.The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we're currently running on every compatible computer includePrimate Labs Geekbench 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra.A more detailed description of each benchmark and how we use it can be found on our How We Test Computers page. Geekbench 6 CPU (multi-core) Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 12388HP Spectre x360 16 11459HP Envy x360 16 10941Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 9507Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 8939 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Geekbench 6 CPU (single-core) Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 2587HP Envy x360 16 2510Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 2378Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 2258HP Spectre x360 16 2205 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Cinebench 2024 CPU (multi-core) Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 883HP Envy x360 16 748Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 426 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Cinebench 2024 CPU (single-core) Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 108Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 103HP Envy x360 16 100 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance PCMark 10 Pro Edition Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 6829HP Envy x360 16 6671Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 6618Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 6067HP Spectre x360 16 5789 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance 3DMark Time Spy Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 8237HP Spectre x360 16 5518HP Envy x360 16 2828Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 2573Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 1770 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance Online streaming battery drain test Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Gen 9 934Dell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 671HP Envy x360 16 671Lenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 657HP Spectre x360 16 637 Note: Longer bars indicate better performance System configurations Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i 16 Microsoft Windows 11 Home; Intel Core 7 150U; 16GB DDR5 RAM; Intel Iris Xe; 1TB SSDLenovo Yoga 7 16 Gen 9 Microsoft Windows 11 Home; AMD Ryzen 5 8640HS; 8GB DDR5 RAM; AMD Radeon Graphics; 512GB SSDHP Envy x360 16 Microsoft Windows 11 Home; AMD Ryzen 7 8840HS; 16GB DDR5 RAM; AMD Radeon Graphics; 512GB SSDHP Spectre x360 16 Microsoft Windows 11 Pro; Intel Core Ultra 7 155H; 16GB DDR5 RAM; Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 graphics; 1TB SSDDell Inspiron 16 Plus 7640 Microsoft Windows 11 Home; Intel Core Ultra 7 155H; 16GB DDR5 5,600MHz RAM; 8GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060; 1TB SSD

Despite all the changes Meta has announced in the past month, the company seems to be returning to its roots in at least this one way: announcing an all-too-familiar sounding new feature. Or in this case, a new app. On Monday, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced that the company has been developing a new video editing app called Edits that willhelp creators brainstorm and edit videos.Despite Mosseri's claim that Edits will be "more than a video editing app," that is its primary purpose, and it should include standard editing tools. The Edits app will also include a higher quality camera (compared with the Instagram camera, ostensibly), the ability to share drafts with friends, and if you decide to post the edited videos on Instagram, Edits can track how the Reels performs, similar to Instagram's insights.Mosseri also said that the app is meant for people who shoot and edit videos on their phones, not for folks who use desktop apps. This could mean that Edits will be a more beginner-friendly editing program, though we'll have to wait to see how the app shapes up before we know for sure. You can preorder the app now, set to be released in theApple app store on March 13, with an Android app coming soon.From what we know now, Edits sounds awfully similar to CapCut, the video editing app made popular by TikTok. Since CapCut is owned by the same parent company as TikTok, it has been facing the same legal challenges under the US's divest-or-ban law. When Trump was sworn in as the US's 47th president on Monday, one of his first acts was to sign an executive order giving TikTok a 75-day stay. The order gives the new administration time to review the potential national security threats the app poses, but the action could face legal challenges. CapCut and TikTok are both active as of this time.There are a slew of other changes in store for Instagram and its creators this year. Earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta will be ending its years-long fact-checking program, as well as loosening rules in its hateful conduct policy that moderate the kind of speech allowed on Meta's platforms. LGBTQ and digital advocacy groups have expressed serious concerns about how the changes will affect the safety and environment on the platforms.For more, check out these other new Instagram features and what to know about Instagram teen accounts.