• KFI Studios Calm Privacy Screens Work as Hard as You Do
    design-milk.com
    Does it ever feel like privacy screens make the workspace look more like voting booths than modern offices? KFI Studios gets it. Thats why the Kentucky-based furniture brand teamed up with Union Design to create Calm, a system of stylish privacy partitions that dials up the design while dialing down distractions. With a fluted pattern pressed from recycled plastic felt, these screens are anything but stuffy. Instead, theyre versatile, modular, and ready to transform the work environment without sacrificing style.Crafted from recycled plastic felt and featuring a distinctive fluted design, the Calm freestanding panels are as versatile as they come, offering personalized privacy wherever its needed. The modular system allows you to connect multiple panels with six steel brackets for a variety of configurations, including L-shaped, Zigzag, and even Star-shaped, if youre feeling bold. From a humble workstation to wider designs like lounges and co-working spaces, Calm carves out the privacy you need to recharge or do heads-down work.KFI Studios CEO Chris Smith explains it best: Todays hybrid work model is typically synonymous with hot desks and modular furniture solutions. This ever-evolving working landscape means less quiet time and personal space. Our new Calm screens provide personalized privacy wherever needed.Each Calm panel comes in one of three shapes a straight screen, a straight screen with a rounded side, and a curved screen offering endless possibilities for tailoring your space. The straight screens come with a weighted steel base for easy freestanding use, while the curved screen adds a softer, organic touch. The PET felt is available in three neutral colors (Charcoal, Grey, and Stone) to blend seamlessly into any environment.For those who like their furniture to multitask, Calm plays nice with KFIs other products. Pair it with the Conversa Modular Lounge for private seating zones or match the curved screens with Dotti Lounge chairs for a cozy retreat thats as functional as it is inviting.Whether you need to carve out a moment of focus in a bustling open office or create flexible spaces that can quickly adapt to team needs, Calm is the solution that proves privacy doesnt have to come at the cost of style. With its thoughtful design, sustainable materials, and seamless integration with other KFI Studios products, Calm is the workspace upgrade the modern office needs.To learn more about the Calm collection by Union Design for KFI Studios, visit kfistudios.com.
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  • Hanneke Lourens Leftover Bench Reimagines Public Seating
    design-milk.com
    Weve all been there looking for a place to sit in a public space that just doesnt have enough seating. Now imagine that being the norm, especially in lower-income areas, where public seating is more of a luxury than a given. In South Africa, this challenge is a lingering leftover of the apartheid era, which left the country with a severe deficit of safe, communal public spaces. Yet, in the face of this, South Africans have responded with everyday creativity, with people turning milk crates, stacked cinder blocks, or mismatched chairs into impromptu gathering spots. Its this culture of inventive improvisation that inspired South African-born, California-based furniture designer Hanneke Lourens Leftover Bench, a thoughtful reimagining of public seating that merges South African ingenuity with Californian craftsmanship.Currently based in Northern California, Lourens is surrounded by the towering redwood trees that define the landscape. It was this environment, combined with her South African roots, that shaped her vision for the Leftover Bench. Created for Works in Progress, an exhibition series dedicated to amplifying the Bay Area design community, Lourens piece was part of a challenge for participants to reflect on and reimagine the public bench. The project is being showcased during San Francisco Art Week, adding to the dialogue about communal seating and its cultural significance.The Leftover Bench takes its shape from a playful mix of forms: a stool, a bench, and a chair, all combined to create a communal seat. The bench is crafted entirely from savaged old-growth redwood, a nod to both her Californian surroundings but also the culture of repurposing that thrives in her homeland. Inspired by the inventive ways South Africans create their own gathering space, the Leftover Bench is a celebration of resourcefulness and togetherness proof that even in scarcity, creativity can foster connection and community.Hanneke LourensThe Leftover Bench is on view as part of Works in Progress at the CCA Campus Gallery in San Francisco until February 7, 2025. To learn more about Hanneke Lourens, visit hannekelourens.com.Photography courtesy of Hanneke Lourens.
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  • Comcast Just Gave Six Cities an Early Look at Lag-Free Internet
    lifehacker.com
    If you live in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Colorado Springs, or Rockville (Maryland), Comcast might have just given you a sneak peak at the internet of the future. In collaboration with Apple, Meta, Nvidia, and Valve, the service provider is currently rolling out a new open standard called L4S, which seeks to drastically reduce how lag works online, and make gaming and video calls much smoother.What is L4S?Short for Low Latency, Low Loss, Scalable Throughput, L4S wants to make this internet feel faster not by upping bandwidth, but by making data transfer more efficient.Right now, your internet service provider, or ISP, sends data to you in the form of packets. These are small chunks of information that, in worse-case scenarios, have to queue up to make their way to you. L4S adds an indicator to packets that are currently stuck in a queue, allowing the network to address the congestion, and perhaps outright end it.Essentially, the idea is to clear the roads for your internet traffic, so it doesnt take as long to get to or from your house. This should make video chats feel a lot more like sitting across a coffee table with someone, or gaming feel a lot more like sharing a couch with your teammate. In a statement to Lifehacker sister publication CNET, Comcast said that its L4S trials saw working latency reduced by 78%.How do you use L4S?L4S is open-source, so Comcast doesnt have any special rights to it, but actually using it still involves getting a bunch of big companies to agreehence the slow rollout, and hence why Comcast is the first to really implement it at scale.Perhaps the biggest issue with L4S is that it requires app developers to support it alongside internet service providers. That means that Comcasts version is starting with just a few use casesL4S will work with FaceTime, Nvidia GeForce Now, and supported apps on both Meta Quest headsets and Steam. The latter two companies havent exactly published a list of which apps or games work with L4S, but if your next Counter-Strike 2 match feels smoother, thatd be why.What are the limitations of L4S?In a charitable move, the company says L4S will be available to all Xfinity Internet customers, but that doesnt mean there arent potential hiccups here. The internet is a two-way (billion-way, really) street, and sometimes, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.For instance, if youre on a FaceTime call with Grandma, and Grandma lives in rural Indiana and uses DSL (no personal experience inspiring this example, I promise), no amount of technical wizardry on your end is going to make her connection better.Similarly, playing a game alongside teammates who dont have L4S means you might end up having to carry a little bit, or if the games servers are hosted by clients rather than the publisher itself, it could be a moot pointyour connection will be at the mercy of whichever player gets picked to host the match.Its still early days, but among people using Comcast broadband in the test cities listed above, their interactions with each other might be about to get far smoother. Comcast says it will deploy tomore locations across the country rapidly over the next few months, while Verizon and Ericsson recently wrapped up a test on using L4S with the formers 5G network. Its an optional bonus for now, but the more people adopt L4S as a norm, the more the internet will get smoother for everyone.
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  • 'Liked Songs Manager' Automatically Turns Your Spotify Likes Into Playlists
    lifehacker.com
    My Spotify liked-songs playlist is not exactly listenable on shuffle; there are simply too many genres and moods in there. Luckily, there's now Liked Songs Manageran online service that automatically sorts your liked songs into playlists based on whatever criteria you like: genre, decade, or even mood.To get started, head to Liked Songs Manager and sign in using your Spotify account. You'll then see a list of criteria you can use to create playlists. I recommend first clicking the Analyze songs per playlists at the top of the screenthis will show you how many songs in your liked list are available in each category. You can then browse the categories and check any that you think will make interesting playlists. A variety of moods and genres are offered, each with a particular number of songs. Credit: Justin Pot The main categories are mood, genre, subgenre, decade, and nationality. You can also create playlists based on when you liked them or create totally randomized lists. Create as many playlists as you want and click the Create selected playlists button. You'll see a progress bar, after which your playlists will be created. They should show up in Spotify right away but you may need to restart the application in order to see them.The real bonus here: The service will work continuously on the playlists it's created. Any songs you like going forward will also be sorted into the new playlists, meaning you're effectively adding to several curated playlists just by occasionally hitting the like button on a song. It's also worth noting that you can change the names of your created playlists if you wantthe updates will keep working all the same.There are some limitations. The free version can only create 15 playlists and will only consider the first 1000 of your liked songs. The Premium plan, which costs $8 per month, removes the liked songs limits and supports the creation of up to 100 playlists. It also lets you combine criteriayou could, for example, create a list that's only 1990s pop-punk or 2000s hip hop.
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  • The best 2025 Super Bowl TV deals we could find
    www.engadget.com
    The countdown to Super Bowl LIX is underway, which means it's a decent time to grab a new TV at a discount. If you were hoping to upgrade your living room before the Chiefs and Eagles do battle (again), we've picked through Amazon, Best Buy and other retailers to find a few Super Bowl 2025 TV deals that are actually worth considering.To be clear, many of the deals we've found stem from TVs naturally falling in price around this time of year more than sales specifically tied to the Super Bowl. In general, most TVs follow a similar pricing timeline: arrive in the spring, drop a little over the summer, receive a larger price cut around the holidays, then gradually become cheaper until being discontinued the next year. This pattern is happening again now, and with manufacturers like Samsung and LG unveiling their 2025 lineups during CES earlier this month, last year's models will probably fall even further in the coming months.That said, if you're itching to make a change right now, a handful of well-reviewed TVs from LG, Sony, Samsung, TCL and Hisense are back down to the prices we saw around Black Friday. In some cases, they're even cheaper. While we at Engadget do not formally review TVs, we've scoured reviews from other sites we trust and picked through price histories to ensure the discounts are genuine deals.LG B4 OLED TV (48") for $600 at Best Buy ($200 off MSRP): This ties the lowest price we've seen for the 48-inch LG B4, which is the entry-level model in LG's 2024 OLED lineup. While it's not as bright or color-rich as some higher-end alternatives, it still offers the essential perks of any good OLED TV: superb contrast with deep black tones, clear motion, wide viewing angles and the like. It's also a nice value for gaming, as it has four HDMI 2.1 ports that support refresh rates up to 120Hz. It's just better off in a darker room, and this particular model is relatively small.Hisense U7N QLED TV (65") for $698 at Amazon ($300 off): Several reviewers we trust say that the U7N delivers better brightness, contrast and HDR performance than most TVs in its price range. It's built with most of the features expected from pricier LED sets, including quantum-dot color, mini-LED backlighting and a 144Hz refresh rate. It also runs on the handy Google TV platform. Its viewing angles are poor, so it's not great for watching shows with a large group, and you may need to tinker with settings to get an optimal image. But the 65-inch model should be a strong value at this price, which is only about $20 more than the all-time low we saw briefly around Cyber Monday. Also at Walmart and Best Buy.The Samsung Frame TV.Amy SkorheimSamsung The Frame 2024 QLED TV (55") for $868 at Woot ($630 off): This deal from Amazon subsidiary Woot has been live for a few weeks, but it ties the best price to date for the 55-inch version of Samsung's stylish Frame TV outside of a one-off eBay coupon deal. You'd buy this set for its design above all else: It can't match the contrast and color volume of other TVs in its price range, as it lacks local dimming altogether, but it's convincingly built like a framed piece of wall art that can blend in with your home decor. Its matte panel helps it fend off glare in a bright room, and you can display actual artwork onscreen when you're not watching something. It's worth noting that Samsung unveiled a new and improved "Frame Pro" TV at CES, but we'd expect that to cost more whenever it arrives.TCL Q651G QLED TV (65") for $370 at Amazon ($180 off): The Q651G is a fairly basic LED TV that might appeal to gamers on a budget, as it can play at a fast 120Hz refresh rate albeit only when you drop the resolution from 4K to 1440p or 1080p. It's another one without local dimming, so its contrast is limited. Most reviewers suggest that the Hisense U6N (which isn't majorly discounted) provides a brighter and much more dynamic image for not much more. However, while the U6N can also play in 1440p/120Hz, the TCL model has a wider variable refresh rate (VRR) range in that mode. In simpler terms, that means it'll have an easier time allowing your PS5 or Xbox games to run smoothly. This discount marks a new low for the 65-inch model. Also at Best Buy.The Samsung S90D.SamsungHisense U8N QLED TV (65") for $900 at Amazon ($600 off): The U8N's picture quality is a broad step-up from the U7N above, with better contrast, more vibrant colors and supremely high peak brightness. It still has most of the same drawbacks mediocre viewing angles, minor blooming in a dark room, just decent upscaling of lower-res content but it should be a worthy upgrade if you have more cash to burn. This is another discount we saw for much of November and December, but it ties the all-time low for the 65-inch variant. Also at Best Buy.Samsung S90D QD-OLED TV (55") for $1,198 at Amazon ($600 off): The S90D stands out for its QD-OLED panel, which mixes the benefits of an OLED display with quantum dots to boost color performance. Most reviews say that it can put out a wider gamut of more vibrant colors and brighter HDR highlights than more traditional OLED TVs like the LG C4. It also has four HDMI 2.1 ports that can play up to 144Hz. It doesn't support Dolby Vision HDR, however, and Samsung's Tizen interface can be clunky. The company has also made the aggravating step of using both QD-OLED and more standard WOLED panels within the same product line, but this 55-inch version comes with the superior display in North America. (The 65- and 75-inch models do as well.) This deal is the second-best price we've ever seen and about $150 off this variant's average street price in recent months. Also at Samsung and Best Buy.The Sony Bravia 7.SonySony Bravia 7 QLED TV (55") for $1,198 at Amazon ($100 off): The Bravia 7 isn't as strong of a value as the Hisense U8N, but some reviews suggest that it's a decent alternative if you're willing to trade some contrast and peak brightness for a more accurate picture out of the box. Like the Hisense TV, its image washes out when viewed from an angle and it only has two HDMI 2.1 ports for gaming. In general, most people will be happier with a good OLED TV around this price. But if you want a brighter LED TV that looks great right away, this one might be worth a look. This is a new low for the 55-inch model. Also at B&H and Best Buy.Roku Ultra (2024) for $79 at Amazon ($21 off): Roku's Ultra set-top box is overkill for most, but it might be worthwhile if you prefer the simplicity of Roku's interface and need built-in Ethernet and USB ports. It supports just about all the major apps and HDR formats, plus it lets iPhone owners cast video from their phone via AirPlay. Unlike the cheaper Roku Streaming Stick 4K, it also comes with a rechargeable remote that has backlit buttons, built-in voice controls and a lost remote finder. We call it the best Roku player in our guide to the best streaming devices. This deal was available for much of the holiday season, but it ties the latest model's all-time low. Also at Roku, Walmart and Best Buy.TV deals that are no longer availableLG C3 OLED TV (65") for $1,197 at Amazon ($303 off): The LG C3 was released in 2023, but it's not a huge downgrade from last year's LG C4, so it's still worth considering when it's available for less. The C4 should be slightly better in terms of brightness and color volume, plus it supports refresh rates up to 144Hz rather than 120Hz, though the latter is only really useful for PC gaming. Neither model can quite match the QD-OLED panel on the Samsung S90D, but the C3 will still look excellent if you're not comparing the two side-by-side and just want to save some cash on a larger premium display. This discount ties the lowest price we've tracked outside of a handful of in-store-only and eBay coupon deals.Sony A95L OLED TV (65") for $2,498 at eBay via BuyDig ($500 off): The A95L is wildly expensive even with this discount, but many reviewers agree that it's the best TV on the market if money is no object. It's another QD-OLED TV like the Samsung S90D, but it's more color-accurate out of the box and should be better at preserving details in shows that aren't presented in 4K. It also supports Dolby Vision, unlike Samsung's TVs, and its Google TV software is generally easier to navigate than Tizen. The only serious drawback is that it's limited to two HDMI 2.1 ports, which may be annoying for those who own a soundbar and multiple game consoles. This discount from ties the lowest price to date for the 65-inch model; just use the code SAVEBIG20 at checkout. It comes from eBay via BuyDig, which Sony lists as an authorized seller.Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-best-2025-super-bowl-tv-deals-we-could-find-161012484.html?src=rss
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  • Nothing is launching the Phone 3a series on March 4
    www.engadget.com
    Nothing is launching a new device, the Phone 3a Series, on March 4. That's a year after the London-based company launched the Phone 2a, which is a budget version of the brand's Phone 2 model released in 2023. Nothing models with "a" in them are typically the less expensive versions of those without its Ear a earbuds are also cheaper than the Ear, for instance, but there's no Phone 3 for which the 3a would serve as a budget alternative. Most likely, the Phone 3a is simply named as such, because it would be in the same price range as the 2a that sold for at least $349 at launch."For the (a) Series we have a different set of users," Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis said. "When people buy a smartphone some are looking for the greatest specs, they want the latest innovations and processors. Yet there are some other users that are equally excited about tech, but are happy with just a great user experience thats who the (a) Series is for. We're really focused on the core user needs in terms of camera, screen, processor, and of course design."If you want to be notified when Nothing unveils the Phone 3a on March 4 at 5AM ET, you can sign up to get an alert on the company's website. We'll, of course, keep you updated, as well. In addition to announcing the Phone 3a's upcoming launch, the company has also revealed that it has surpassed $1 billion in lifetime revenue since it was founded in October 2020, half of which Nothing earned in 2024.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/nothing-is-launching-the-phone-3a-series-on-march-4-150026313.html?src=rss
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  • Criminals are abusing top-level government domains across multiple countries
    www.techradar.com
    The US and Brazil seem to be particularly targeted by hackers, report notes.
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  • The Future Games Show returns in March for its spring showcase and will include live broadcast from GDC
    www.techradar.com
    The Future Games Show is making a return for its annual spring showcase on March 20.
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  • Microsoft stock slumps 5% on disappointing revenue outlook
    www.cnbc.com
    Microsoft shares dropped 5% despite topping fiscal second-quarter estimates due to weak guidance.
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  • OpenAI partners with U.S. National Laboratories on scientific research, nuclear weapons security
    www.cnbc.com
    OpenAI on Thursday said it's signed a partnership allowing the U.S. National Laboratories to use its latest line of AI models.
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