With Valentines Day around the corner, LEGO is offering a collection of buildable gifts that go beyond the traditional bouquet or box of chocolates. These themed sets celebrate love with artistic design, playful nostalgia, and a touch of creativity that lasts well beyond February 14th. Whether its a floral arrangement designed to last forever or an iconic sculptural tribute to romance, these sets offer a creative and lasting expression of love.Designer: LEGOPretty Pink Flower Bouquet: A Floral Arrangement That LastsFresh flowers may be a classic Valentines Day gesture, but LEGOs Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet (10342) takes the idea in a direction thats equally beautiful and far more enduring. Featuring 15 individual stems, the bouquet includes a blend of pink roses, orchids, eucalyptus, daisies, and cornflowers, along with a waterlily dahlia centerpiece. The variety of shapes, colors, and textures offers a strikingly realistic floral composition, while the pastel palette adds a soft, romantic touch.LEGOEach flower is intricately designed, using LEGOs signature brickwork to mimic organic forms. The varying petal designs bring authenticity, with the roses sculpted using rounded LEGO pieces to resemble delicate, unfurling petals. The orchids feature structured petals with sharp contours, contrasting beautifully with the softer shapes of the daisies and cornflowers. The eucalyptus stems introduce a more subtle color variation with muted greens, enhancing the bouquets realistic charm. Once assembled, the bouquet makes for a sophisticated home display, blending seamlessly with contemporary or classic decor. No matter if placed in a glass vase or integrated with other LEGO Botanicals sets, its a stunning alternative to fresh blooms.LEGOSweetheart Tweety Bird: Looney Tunes Meets Valentines DayFor fans of classic animation, LEGO Looney Tunes Sweetheart Tweety Bird (40824) delivers a nostalgic yet charming Valentines surprise. This buildable Tweety, dressed as Cupid, perches on a fluffy white cloud, complete with a bow and arrow, wings, and heart accents. Alternatively, the character can be posed holding a small bouquet, with a floating heart giving the model an extra dose of sentimentality.LEGOThe design leans into Tweetys playful personality, capturing expressive blue eyes, rounded cheeks, and signature oversized feet. The characters familiar bright yellow hue is accurately represented, ensuring instant recognition. The use of curved LEGO elements effectively brings out the soft contours of Tweetys face, while the buildable heart and tiny bouquet add to the festive spirit. The posable wings and feet provide a degree of customization, allowing for various expressions and display options. The floating heart, attached via a clear LEGO rod, adds an extra dimension to the build, reinforcing the Valentines theme in a clever and visually appealing way.LEGOLove Bears: A Brick-Built Couple Full of CharmTeddy bears are another timeless Valentines gift, but LEGOs Love Bears (40821) transforms the idea into an interactive building experience. The set features two charming bearsone in a panda-inspired black-and-white design, the other in classic browneach with expressive eyes and a small pink heart for a nose. Accessories include a bouquet of red and pink flowers, a tiny chocolate bar, and a background of floating hearts.LEGOThe attention to detail in this set is impressive, with carefully constructed facial expressions that bring the bears to life. The rounded heads are formed using a combination of sloped LEGO pieces and curved tiles, achieving a smooth, organic shape. The heart-shaped noses stand out against the neutral tones of the bears faces, immediately drawing attention. Each bear has posable arms, allowing them to hold flowers or chocolates, making them an interactive and sentimental gift. The pandas stark contrast between black and white fur adds a layer of visual appeal, while the brown bears warm tones feel comforting and traditional. Together, they create a heartwarming scene that perfectly encapsulates the spirit of Valentines Day.LEGOLOVE: A LEGO Tribute to an Iconic SculptureRobert Indianas LOVE sculpture remains one of the most recognized art pieces celebrating romance, and LEGOs LOVE (31214) set offers a brick-built homage to the legendary design. The structure, with its bold red letters and tilted O, stays true to the original, while subtle blue and green details on the inner surfaces add a unique LEGO twist.LEGOThis set combines artistic design with structural ingenuity, delivering both aesthetic appeal and solid craftsmanship. The interlocking structure ensures stability, and the bold red finish makes it a visually striking centerpiece for any desk or shelf. The letter O is tilted at an angle, accurately mirroring Indianas original work, but executed in LEGO form through an intelligent use of hinge bricks. The combination of sharp edges and smooth surfaces makes this piece stand out as both an art piece and a creative LEGO build. Given that 2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the original artwork, it arrives at an ideal time for collectors and art enthusiasts alike. No matter if displayed as a personal tribute to love or gifted as a meaningful gesture, this set carries both artistic and emotional weight.LEGOThoughtful Gifts That Go Beyond Traditional Valentines Day IdeasLEGOs 2025 Valentines Day collection strikes a balance between nostalgia, design, and personalization. Each set celebrates love while showcasing intricate design elements that highlight the versatility of LEGO as a medium. No matter if its through a floral bouquet with lasting beauty, a beloved animated character in romantic form, or a sculpture that symbolizes love itself, each build provides an experience beyond traditional gift-giving.LEGOThe Pretty Pink Flower Bouquet captures the delicacy of real flowers with brick-built precision, making it an elegant decor piece. Sweetheart Tweety Bird infuses a beloved character with Valentines charm, offering both sentimental and playful value. The Love Bears bring an element of warmth and cuteness, designed for interactive posing and display. And for those who appreciate fine art, the LOVE set transforms an iconic sculpture into a hands-on building project.These sets redefine Valentines gifting by combining sentimentality with creativity. The fun of building them together makes for an even more memorable experience, ensuring that love is built brick by brickquite literally.The post Spark Valentines Creativity: Unique LEGO Gifts to Express Your Love first appeared on Yanko Design.

Like visual artists, musicians tend to also answer the call of their muse, wherever it takes them. Sometimes, however, that takes them to places where theres no safe place to put down their instruments. This is especially problematic for stringed instruments like guitars of all kinds, ukuleles, mandolins, and others that have to be placed upright.Of course, there are floor stands designed for these instruments, but almost all the available ones dont exactly make it easy for you to carry them around. To address that need, this portable floor stand collapses completely flat and can be unfolded in just seconds, making it effortless to set up your busking spot anywhere. Best of all, its made of sustainable materials to satisfy conscientious musicians.Designer: HarritSorensenThe common design of guitar stands doesnt actually inspire confidence with their thin arms and flimsy legs. In fact, they dont inspire at all with their rather plain appearance, more like spindly monsters that promise security and safety but let you and your instrument down in the end. For discerning musicians, these critical tools just bring stress and worry, and thats even when theyre just using them at home.The NordicStand is designed to cater to the needs and whims of inspired musicians who need to be able to take their craft anywhere. In just 3 seconds, it can go from flat to stand and back again, taking away any friction as you shuffle from one venue to the next. At only 960g, the collapsible stand easily fits in your guitars front pocket and wont add much weight to your baggage.Its also claimed to be the most eco-friendly instrument stand, made using sustainably sourced wood and aluminum, and lined with oiled cork. The materials bring a touch of natural elegance to the design, making it stand out when your instrument isnt resting on it. Its special mechanism not only deploys the stand in just seconds, it also secures any instrument of any size up to 11kg (25 lbs) in weight.The NordicStand delivers a musical accessory that hits all the right notes, pun totally intended. Elegant and eco-friendly, it literally puts your favorite musical instrument on a pedestal while also ensuring that their craft doesnt harm the environment in the process.The post Sustainable and collapsible guitar stand lets you set your tone anywhere you go first appeared on Yanko Design.

Get the X1 Carbon and AMS combo for a great price this weekend, and take your multicolour prints to new levels.

A WIRED investigation shows that the popular Chinese AI model is censored on both the application and training level.

On the heels of DeepSeek R1, the latest model from OpenAI promises more advanced capabilities at a cheaper price.

OpenAI is feeling the heat from DeepSeek. On Thursday, Microsoft announced that its rolling OpenAIs reasoning model o1 out to its Copilot users, and now OpenAI is releasing a new reasoning model, o3-mini, to people who use the free version of ChatGPT. This will mark the first time that the vast majority of people will have access to one of OpenAIs reasoning models, which were formerly restricted to its paid Pro and Plus bundles.Reasoning models use a chain of thought technique to generate responses, essentially working through a problem presented to the model step by step. Using this method, the model can find mistakes in its process and correct them before giving an answer. This typically results in more thorough and accurate responses, but it also causes the models to pause before answering, sometimes leading to lengthy wait times. OpenAI claims that o3-mini responds 24% faster than o1-mini.These types of models are most effective at solving complex problems, so if you have any PhD-level math problems youre cracking away at, you can try them out. Alternatively, if youve had issues with getting previous models to respond properly to your most advanced prompts, you may want to try out this new reasoning model on them. To try out o3-mini, simply select Reason when you start a new prompt on ChatGPT.Although reasoning models possess new capabilities, they come at a cost. OpenAIs o1-mini is 20 times more expensive to run than its equivalent non-reasoning model, GPT-4o mini. The company says its new model, o3-mini, costs 63% less than o1-mini per input token However, at $1.10 per million input tokens, it is still about seven times more expensive to run than GPT-4o mini.Its no coincidence this new model is coming right after the DeepSeek release that shook the AI world less than two weeks ago. DeepSeeks new model performs just as well as top OpenAI models, but the Chinese company claims it cost roughly $6 million to train, as opposed to the estimated cost of over $100 million for training OpenAIs GPT-4. (Its worth noting that a lot of people are interrogating this claim.)Additionally, DeepSeeks reasoning model costs $0.55 per million input tokens, half the price of o3-mini, so OpenAI still has a way to go to bring down its costs. Its estimated that reasoning models also have much higher energy costs than other types, given the larger number of computations they require to produce an answer.This new wave of reasoning models present new safety challenges as well. OpenAI used a technique called deliberative alignment to train its o-series models, basically having them reference OpenAIs internal policies at each step of its reasoning to make sure they werent ignoring any rules.But the company has found that o3-mini, like the o1 model, is significantly better than non-reasoning models at jailbreaking and challenging safety evaluationsessentially, its much harder to control a reasoning model given its advanced capabilities. o3-mini is the first model to score as medium risk on model autonomy, a rating given because its better than previous models at specific coding tasksindicating greater potential for self-improvement and AI research acceleration, according to OpenAI. That said, the model is still bad at real-world research. If it were better at that, it would be rated as high risk, and OpenAI would restrict the models release.

Visual Intelligence may be the most powerful Apple Intelligence feature. Here's what it is, how it works, and we'll go through several different real world examples.Visual Intelligence is exclusive to the iPhone 16 seriesApple added Visual Intelligence with iOS 18.2 and you'll need an iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro to use it. Sorry, iPhone 15 Pro users.It's filed under the umbrella of Apple Intelligence features. It's one of the few Apple Intelligence features that is exclusive to the iPhone 16 family. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

The Orico 20Plus MagPro Magnetic iPhone Portable SSD is a speedy-enough SSD for your iPhone, that is let down by the incredibly sorry state of Apple's Files app.Orico 20Plus MagPro iPhone SSD review: Mounted to the back of an iPhoneApple's had external drive support on the Mac forever, and it's been added to the iPhone relatively recently. It can be awkward, though, to run a cable to a drive and conveniently use the drive while shooting video.While it doesn't carry data, the MagSafe ring on the back of iPhones made for the last four years offers an interesting solution. If designed properly, an SSD enclosure can just attach back there, and a short cable run can make it accessible to the iPhone. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

Allies and Morrison and Asif Khan have released an updated plan for the comprehensive renewal of the Barbican Centre to coincide with the launch of the first stage of its 2025 public consultation. The announcement follows their initial selection in April of2022.Photo by Max ColsonThe plan covers three key areas at the Centre: Lakeside, Foyer, and Conservatory. Improvements will address years of wear and tear that have accrued since its 1983 opening. Harris Bugg Studio is another important inclusion on the design team, intent on remaking the Conservatory planting scheme to "provide a sense of theatre" to the public for the first time.Image courtesy Barbican CentreOther interventions include the removal of the mezzanine level above the Foyer to reimagine previously underutilized spaces while celebrating the designs architectural heritage. This will in turn initiate the development of "more inclusive" spaces.Lakeside. Image courtesy Barbican CentreOn the Lakeside, masonry repavi...

Paris and Montreal-based design firm Delordinaire Architects, in partnership with Annie Sylvain Architects, has designed a unique minimalist lakefront retreat in Quebec that utilizes modular design and sits atop stilts. The project builds on Delordinaires High House, a stilt house built in 2020.Image: Felix MichaudCalled The Cache, the project is located alongside Lake Saint-Jean. It features a modular system that was designed to integrate seamlessly into the surrounding environment.Image: Felix MichaudComplimenting this, the stilt typology requires minimal foundations and modification to the natural topography. This design allows for a protected outdoor area beneath the house that can be used during warmer times of the year, while also providing unique, elevated views from inside.Image: Felix MichaudThe units that comprise The Cache each span approximately 530 square feet and all feature meticulously crafted larch cladding. They were primarily prefabricated north of Montreal b...