Looking for NYT Connections answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, plus my commentary on the puzzles.

As someone who has lived in the concrete jungle for all her life, one of my retirement dreams is to live somewhere surrounded by nature but to still have my creature comforts. I would love to have a house in a clearing in the middle of all those trees and green foliage but not to be camping or living in a trailer. I crave the warmth of a well-designed space, a place where I can enjoy a hot shower, a good book, and a cup of tea, all while being enveloped by the sights and sounds of nature. It would probably be disorienting to see a house in the middle of the forest there so the structure would have to be designed in a way that it can both blend in and stand out in that space.Designers: Gonzalo Rufin Arquitectos and Felipe ToroShelter 45 is one such structure in the only flat portion in the mountainous part of Matanzas, Chile. It has a unique look as it has a slanted roofline so it can adapt to its location and is built both horizontally and vertically due to the challenge of this particular terrain. The house occupies 90 square meters and uses a pine truss system and wood and steel ties for the framework that optimizes the area it is built in as well as its slightly limited interior space. The house also has facades that were specifically designed to integrate the indoor and outdoor elements. The shelter has three floors that have both vertical and horizontal elements. The first floor has the communal spaces like the kitchen, living room, bathroom, as well as the terrace spaces. The two other floors become narrower as you go up to bring the triangular and slanted look. They have three bedrooms as well a a loft for the guests. One side of the house is open so you get a perfect view of the forest that surrounds the house. The northern side is where you have timber blinds to your interiors are protected from both the rain and the sunlight. The glass and timber construction of Shelter 45 makes it look very attractive if youre viewing it from afar and of course up close as well. The wood materiality brings it closer to the wooden landscape surrounding it as well. It looks like an experimental kind of house but it is built not just for the aesthetics of it all but also to bring you beauty, comfort, and a sense of harmony with the nature surrounding you. The post Shelter 45 brings a slanted architecture to blend in with nature first appeared on Yanko Design.

The first beta for iOS 18.4 adds support for controlling robot vacuums via Apple Home, and a recent model from Switchbot is among the first to embrace it.The Switchbot S10 is the first robot vacuum to support Apple's Matter standard. Image source: SwitchbotThe official release of iOS 18.4 is currently expected to be in April, but testing on the first beta is underway by developers. Currently, the Switchbot S10 Robot Vacuum and Mop is the only one available from Switchbot that supports Matter, but future vacuums are expected to add support.Bluesky user James Prochnow noted in a post that he has tested the S10, and found that it is already supported on the iPhone's Home app. The unit is currently available for sale for $1,199. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums

There are so many people here that nobody can tell where the end of the line is. New people arrive, ask if theres a line, shuffle into a blob of bodies idling and waiting for someone to give them instructions. The hallway is horribly warm unclear if its from the bodies or the heat and its a little smelly, which could just be me but I dont think it is. I estimate between 100 and 150 people are hanging around, waiting for 2:15PM to roll around, their anticipation building. This is not a club with a strict bouncer, though it feels like it. This is the Luigi Mangione hearing.The hearing is a relatively minor pre-trial status update, but for the people most tapped in, there is a lot riding on it the Luigi info-drip has been a bit dry lately. Court dates for the 26 year old accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December keep getting pushed back. Mangione, who is currently being held in federal custody in a Brooklyn jail, has not made a public appearance since before Christmas. (Mangione is accused of gunning down Thompson in December outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel, and has pleaded not guilty.) On TikTok, commenters regularly complain that they havent seen Luigi on their For You page in months. When Mangiones legal team launched a new website with updates on the case, a flood of donations came pouring into his legal fund more than half a million dollars as of this writing. Everyone involved understands that this case is unique: there are the many officers patrolling the hallway to keep us in check, like we are kids waiting to be seen by the principal; the hordes of people, some of whom live in the city and some of whom flew in for the occasion, trying to make sense of whats about to happen; the members of the media who are just as gobsmacked and wide-eyed, angling to get a good view.Mangiones supporters outside the courtroom, some having arrived as early as 7:30AM. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeIts dark, but even from the beginning, Thompsons killing has seemed tailor-made for the internet. Every additional detail created a new (and sometimes absurd) twist to a story that people seemed in equal parts horrified and gleeful about. The days-long manhunt for a suspect, the backpack full of Monopoly money recovered by police, and finally, when law enforcement had arrested Mangione, the fact that they wouldnt stop releasing new photos of him. The rough outline of the crime the murder of a wealthy CEO working in an industry millions of Americans despise seemed to lift the veil of propriety that is otherwise expected of us. It was one thing that the obsession with his appearance resulted in comments online that feel too explicit to even type out. But it wasnt just his looks even before Mangiones picture was plastered on the web, the crime he ultimately was accused of was seen as inevitable, even righteous. People joked about having an alibi for the shooter. True crime podcasters, for whom no crime is too grisly for content, said they wouldnt help police find the killer. A niche backpack company was forced to dispel internet rumors about its involvement in the investigation, assuring customers that it didnt help police in their search for the shooter. Compared to other murders, there was an overwhelming and swift reaction to Thompsons death that we dont typically see, a vibe shift that corporate PR teams are still trying to get under control. Murder is wrong, full stop again, but I dont mourn him, a New York Times reader said in the comment section about Thompson. I mourn his victims.A consistent narrative in mainstream media reports is that Mangione has amassed a fan club of rabid young women, but mostly people are well-behaved here. The crowd is fairly diverse: people of all races and ages, though most appear under 50 years old. Chelsea Manning is here. Women outnumber men, but there is a strong showing across the spectrum young people who skipped school, working professionals who took the day off, a woman who runs a Mangione fan account on Instagram. Three people ranging from 18 to 21 years old tell me they flew in from Chicago just to be here, curious about the court proceedings but also wanting to see with their own eyes the person who has become something of a folk hero.Chelsea Manning sits with other supporters while waiting for the Luigi Mangione hearing to commence. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeTheres a lot of gun violence and theres not much of a reaction, but [Mangione] is apparently a huge deal, one of them, who asked not to be named, said questioningly. The upper class is feeling threatened, their friend added.One man waiting who also asked not to be named said he told his wife he was going shopping and came to the hearing instead, hoping to snag a seat inside the courtroom. (He did not.) He told me he was concerned about Mangione receiving a fair trial and that he wanted to see what the atmosphere was like. He has sent Mangione letters and even books, he told me. Like other supporters, he wore green to show support a reference to the Nintendo character Mangione shares a name with.Richard Partington says he arrived at the courthouse around 7:30AM, at which time already 30 or so people were waiting for the building to open.A police officer loudly declares that no interviews are allowed in the packed hallway outside of the courtroom. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeYou hear polarizing opinions about the case, he says, adding that he does not condone violence. Id like to get a vibe of him does he seem angry? Does he seem remorseful?As more and more people streamed in, it began resembling a concert, or a political rally: onlookers pushed up against the metal barricade constructed, leaning on the bars like they were in front of a stage. The closer it got to 2:15PM, the more testy everyone grew: at one point, we were told by guards that we couldnt conduct interviews in the hallway. Some people were kicked out for breaking the no photos policy. Members of the media trickled in at the last minute, trying to secure a spot in the courtroom. The public information officer was hounded by journalists and somehow was keeping his cool. When Mangiones attorneys entered the building, the crowd assembled cheered and held their phones up. Were not in a pit! Do not take photos! a guard shouted. But the show had already started.What a shitshow, I overheard another say.Mangione entered the courtroom shackled at the wrists and ankles. His lawyers objected to this, but the cuffs remained throughout. He arrived flanked by multiple officers and when he sat down, he was surrounded by even more guards. He didnt speak except to his lawyers, but that didnt stop everyone in the courtroom members of the public and journalists alike from craning their heads to catch a glimpse. The reporter next to me took no notes, just watched, like it was a play. Afterward, friends texted me to ask what he was like, but I dont know that anyone there would have much of an answer: he was quiet (demure, even), taller than I had pictured, apparently not wearing socks, and yes, looks like he does in pictures. Luigi Mangione arrives, flanked by police escort. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeIn all, only about 18 of the people waiting outside the courtroom were allowed in, along with several dozen members of the media. The hearing itself was anti-climatic in essence: it was a routine status update in the states case against Mangione, which is proceeding ahead of the federal case. There were eight to 10 officers inside at all times, making sure nobody uses a cell phone and that people are not being disruptive. There was no grand reaction to his entrance, no gasps or even whispers that I could hear. Attorneys for the state said they had turned over 800 gigabytes of discovery material to the defense, including surveillance footage collected by NYPD, data from the medical examiner like DNA testing, ballistics reports, and more. At a press conference after the hearing, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, Mangiones attorney, said her team was still awaiting police reports from New York City, that they are concerned [Mangiones] constitutional rights were violated, and that there were serious search and seizure issues in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where he was arrested. Agnifilo also said the defense was waiting for other key evidence, including what has been described as his manifesto.The scene in the courtroom at the February 21 hearing in People v. Mangione in New York City. Top: Judge Gregory Carro, center left: Luigi Mangione, center right: Karen Friedman Agnifilo Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeBut one moment in court felt especially notable in this case driven by the publics consumption of it. In court, Agnifilo said New York City mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny shared key evidence in the case in a documentary before sharing it with the defense. This week on HBO in a documentary, I see the Chief of Detectives and the New York City mayor, full hair and makeup done, sitting down and giving an interview for television talking about the evidence in Luigis case, Agnifilo said to reporters. Its outrageous that they have time to go and prejudice Mr. Mangiones ability to receive a fair trial.The hearing lasted all of 20 minutes. Mangione was escorted out, again by an almost comical number of guards. He walked deliberately, with his chin up, and scanned the room briefly as he passed. Then he was gone.The hearing on Friday was mostly procedural. The real spectacle began once court was adjourned and crowds dispersed: in real time, Reddit users created a timeline of what happened. Celebrity news aggregators shared new images of Mangione as they hit the news wires. By the time I left the building there were already TikToks with millions of views, clips of Mangione entering court set to Dangerous Woman by Ariana Grande, and his name was trending on Twitter, now known as X. The latest turn in the case against Mangione traveled quickly back to where this had all started. He is next expected in federal court in a month. The internet moves at lightspeed. The legal system, less so.Luigi Mangione is escorted out of the courtroom. He throws one last look over his shoulder as his supporters cheer despite the scolding of the police in the room. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeMeanwhile on Reddit, supporters of Mangione who did not attend the hearing or protest in person congregated in a thread for live updates. They theorized what he might wear (I can confirm he wore a dark green cable-knit sweater, possibly by Ralph Lauren, khakis, brown shoes, and a bullet proof vest); mused about Agnifilo and her tactics in the courtroom; and posted Getty Images links to the best shots from inside.The r/FreeLuigi subreddit is one of the few digital spaces that supporters of Mangione have left, Alex, a moderator, says. (Alex requested a pseudonym for fear of professional repercussions, and because most people in their life do not know they are involved in r/FreeLuigi.) Other subreddits have been shut down, and content on platforms like TikTok have been removed, supporters say. Despite the ubiquity of the Luigi memes and viral jokes, there are not many forums for Mangiones supporters to freely and openly discuss the case.In an effort to keep the subreddit from being banned by Reddit, moderators running r/FreeLuigi have strict rules around how users engage. Users cannot mention the triple Ds: deny, defend, and depose, the words found written on bullet casings at the crime scene. Advocating for or celebrating violence will get you kicked out. Sexualizing Mangione is prohibited, though users are allowed to [pay] compliments to his appearance.Every single day I wake up and Im worried that Reddit has decided to take it down, Alex says. Posts and comments must be approved before they show up, so Alex and other moderators can ensure compliance with the subreddits rules and the platforms terms of service. I dont want to go to sleep and then wake up and someone has posted something terrible. r/FreeLuigi has around 33,000 members and acts as a clearing house for updates on the cases against Mangione.Though theyre a moderator, Alex emphasizes repeatedly that their perspective is theirs alone, not representative of the subreddit as a whole. They say they would prefer not to be at the center of pro-Mangione activism or organizing Alexs involvement in the Mangione case has surprised even them. Only a few people know that they are a moderator of the group. Though they keep up with news generally, they are not the type to attend protests and have never been involved in any type of activism. Now they find themselves keeping order in a digital community united by a touchy subject that has rippled through American society and media. (By my count, theres not one, not two, but three true crime-style documentaries about the Mangione case already, including one produced by gossip rag TMZ.)I dont condone murder. I dont think this should have happened, it is very unfortunate, Alex says. But at the same time I dont advocate for it, I understand why someone would want to do that.Perhaps the main organizing message of r/FreeLuigi is the presumption of his innocence until and unless he is proven guilty. Mangione faces state charges in Pennsylvania and New York, as well as four federal charges, one of which carries the possibility of the death penalty. But that hasnt stopped politicians and influencers from seizing the moment and taking a premature victory lap: who could forget New York mayor Eric Adams shuffling behind Mangione during a highly publicized and downright cinematic perp walk? Mangione has come to represent the symptoms of the American healthcare system, and peoples rage at it in New York, where I live, I regularly encounter his face on stickers on bathroom walls and lamp posts, often styled as a saint. But disentangling Mangiones right to a fair trial and the need for healthcare reform can be difficult when the very jokes that created the folk hero image also peg Mangione as guilty.I think the waters have gotten really muddied between these two issues, Alex says. Im not saying that it should stop. I think people are always going to do whatever they want to do, and it is funny, and it contributes to pop culture. But there needs to be some responsibility in it, where you make sure that youre not making the situation worse for him.As supporters see it, another thing making the situation worse is coverage of Mangione in the media, including documentaries. Mangione supporters have been described as sick (The Daily Mail); disgusting Gen-Z fan club (The Telegraph); and supporting Mangione because of his good looks (Newsweek). Before the hearing even began, the New York Post had its angle: Twisted Luigi Mangione fans pack NYC court ahead of UnitedHealthcare CEO murder hearing.Many of Mangiones most dedicated and vocal supporters say this isnt true that they care about this specific case and about the dire need for overhauling the US for-profit healthcare industry. The lawyers arrive amid the media circus. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeWhile Mangione was in court, a protest of a few hundred people gathered on the street below. The protest outside was organized by People Over Profit NYC, a grassroots group focused on the Mangione trial and healthcare reform that seeks to change the for-profit system that puts corporate interests above the well-being of ordinary Americans. The latest hearing is a step one says Lindsy Floyd, a member of the group tasked with speaking with the media. The people who are supportive of Mangione and who want to participate in the conversation [about healthcare reform] all of us are speaking about those topics directly, and were doing so quite seriously, says Floyd.The media vilifies us out to be these horrible, wicked, deranged people who have lost our souls and are misguided. And thats just not at all the experience.While supporters held signs reading Death by deductible and Health over wealth, trucks with LED billboards organized by People Over Profit NYC circled the courthouse displaying stories of patients who died after their insurance claims were denied. Another truck showed information about jury nullification, a type of protest when a jury hands down a not guilty verdict even when they believe the accused has broken the law. On a park sign nearby, someone had plastered several wanted posters bearing the faces and names of other healthcare executives of companies like CVS Health and Aetna. We could hear the crowd cheering below from the courtroom every time the trucks rolled past.This is personal for people, and this is emotional because its peoples lives, Floyd told me in a phone call the day before. When were talking about why someone wants to get involved, its because the healthcare industry failed them, and now theyre cripplingly debilitatingly disabled because of it.Because this is 2025, there was another rogue LED truck not hired by People Over Profit NYC that was circling the building. It displayed a giant image of Mangione as a saint, with a QR code affixed that led to a website promoting a Luigi Mangione cryptocurrency. I figured I had seen enough for the day. I left to chants of Fuck Eric Adams.Brian Thompsons death was processed by the public not so much as the killing of a human being, but as a despised industry getting its comeuppance. There is a reason, I suspect, that the case is referred to mostly as the CEO shooting rather than the Brian Thompson murder it is less about the person (though there is plenty of scrutiny there too) than it is about the industry he represented. It is horrible for someone to have to see a loved one shot point-blank on their way to a work event. Its also horrible to watch a loved one die slowly, all the while waiting for someone at the insurance company, or someone in the government, to give a shit.To many, the specifics of the case do not matter as much as the window it opened to discuss the horrors of the US healthcare system. And as Jessica Winter wrote in The New Yorker, the killing has given others the permission to indulge in some of their worst impulses, to laugh at the jokes and memes and murder ballads that might otherwise feel morally compromising. People have no doubt seized the opportunity, from Saturday Night Live joking about Mangione (to cheers from the audience) to a CEO shooter look alike contest held in a public park in New York. Mangiones name has even been invoked as a verb to Luigi somebody despite the fact that he has not been convicted. The media frenzy inside the Manhattan courthouse, with press corralled into their own line. Illustration: Molly Crabapple for The VergeIn a way, Thompsons death and Mangiones fate are two sides of the same wretched coin. Both men have become symbols of an industry that has brought about so much pain and generated so much profit that people on both sides of the equation are willing to kill or die for it. And just as the cultural impact of his death has completely obscured who Thompson was as a person (and in many cases, that he was a person at all), so has Mangiones beatification obfuscated the cold hard reality of a young man cuffed, chained, and held without bail who has pleaded not guilty to the murder that has made him an American icon. As he sits in prison, his photos go viral. TikToks and Reels blow up, new jokes and songs and memes are constructed every second. But then the content mills will finish grinding out what they can from the twenty minutes of Luigi the public got on Friday afternoon. The Luigi references on the For You pages will start drying up or get content-moderated out of sight; the die-hards will once again voice suspicions about the Narrative. And when Mangione and his attorneys next return to court, itll happen all over again: the crowds, the media, the police, the protest, the green sweaters, the memes, the livestreams, the thinkpieces and the outrage bait, a cultural engine that is ready to roar back to life the moment we catch a glimpse of Luigi Mangione once more.Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer living in New York City. She has drawn scenes from life in many places, including Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, and Guantanamo Bay. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. See More:

Im hard-pressed to find another example of a tech company announcing something and then waiting over four years to actually ship it, but thats exactly the situation weve reached with Spotify and its long-delayed HiFi feature. The latest reports indicate its finally coming in a matter of months as part of a Music Pro package that Spotify hopes will ensure the services continued profitability.But this has become quite the saga.First introduced on February 22nd 2021, Spotify HiFi was to roll out later that year or such was the original plan, anyway. In that story, I wrote your turn, Apple Music, which is funny in retrospect since Apple Music managed to successfully deliver lossless and high-resolution audio just a few months later (and at no added cost for subscribers). Amazon stopped charging extra for lossless music at around the same time.Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has mentioned a forthcoming deluxe tier of Spotify numerous times. Image: Getty ImagesBy all accounts, this aggressive approach from both companies totally derailed Spotify HiFi, which was always going to demand an upcharge over the services regular Premium subscription. The company went radio silent on the feature, and Spotify spokespeople never provided any meaningful updates on its status.There were occasional glimpses of HiFi, mostly from those willing to dig through the apps code. Ive been told that employees have long had access to lossless streaming. Spotify HiFi, as it was originally envisioned, was thoroughly tested and has been ready to go for ages but a green light for launch has never materialized. Why? Some believe its due to a music rights quagmire that Spotify has sought to resolve with its latest deals. This is partially true, according to a recent Bloomberg report, which noted that the service doesnt have rights from all of the major music companies for what its trying to do.But I think Spotify also came to realize that higher-bitrate music streams alone wouldnt be enough to prop up an ultimate subscription tier. A lot of people simply cant hear the difference between lossy audio (like Spotify offers today) and CD-quality streams or they lack the kind of headphone/speaker hardware that would highlight such an upgrade.Its been a long road getting here, but it sure feels like 2025 is the year well finally be getting Spotify HiFi or some incarnation of it. If youre familiar with what Spotify has planned for the next few months and beyond, I can be reached securely and confidentially via Signal at (845) 445-8455 or at the username @chriswelch.01.So the company has been reworking the plan into a broader Music Pro add-on that extends far beyond audio quality. Its still unclear exactly what this will end up looking like: past reports have mentioned everything from early-access concert ticketing to DJ remixing tools. Its also been rumored that Music Pro could offer an optimization trick for specific models of earbuds, headphones, and speakers. Spotifys user surveys have hinted at other possibilities including karaoke another thing Apple Music is already doing and the option to add an additional user account to any Music Pro subscription.Spotify itself might be undecided on just what Music Pro should entail: Bloomberg reported that the company plans to roll out the plan in phases, adding tools and features over time and is still planning to test new capabilities throughout 2025. But the surest sign that Music Pro is actually happening is that Spotify is talking about the project again. CEO Daniel Ek has mentioned an upcoming deluxe tier on multiple occasions. Last year, he said it would offer all of the benefits that the normal Spotify version has, but a lot more control, a lot higher quality across the board, and some other things that Im not ready to talk about just yet. And only a few weeks ago, Ek claimed Spotify plans to double down on music in 2025.Whenever it does eventually arrive, Music Pro will tack an extra $5 or $6 onto a standard Spotify Premium subscription, which currently starts at $11.99 per month. Ive already made the switch to Apple Music, as I like knowing Im getting the best quality possible for my money. But even Ill be tempted to try Spotifys ultimate plan once its ready. I dont particularly miss Spotify Wrapped anymore, but its still the platform where most of my friends do their listening. If the company can string together an enticing bundle of perks, theres always a chance Id go back. Itd be a tough pill to swallow after using the far less bloated Apple Music app for so long, though.See More:

Humans have an innate ability to process raw visual signals from the retina and develop a structured understanding of their surroundings, identifying objects and motion patterns. A major goal of machine learning is to uncover the underlying principles that enable such unsupervised human learning. One key hypothesis, the predictive feature principle, suggests that representations of consecutive sensory inputs should be predictive of one another. Early methods, including slow feature analysis and spectral techniques, aimed to maintain temporal consistency while preventing representation collapse. More recent approaches incorporate siamese networks, contrastive learning, and masked modeling to ensure meaningful representation evolution over time. Instead of focusing solely on temporal invariance, modern techniques train predictor networks to map feature relationships across different time steps, using frozen encoders or training both the encoder and predictor simultaneously. This predictive framework has been successfully applied across modalities like images and audio, with models such as JEPA leveraging joint-embedding architectures to predict missing feature-space information effectively.Advancements in self-supervised learning, particularly through vision transformers and joint-embedding architectures, have significantly improved masked modeling and representation learning. Spatiotemporal masking has extended these improvements to video data, enhancing the quality of learned representations. Additionally, cross-attention-based pooling mechanisms have refined masked autoencoders, while methods like BYOL mitigate representation collapse without relying on handcrafted augmentations. Compared to pixel-space reconstruction, predicting in feature space allows models to filter out irrelevant details, leading to efficient, adaptable representations that generalize well across tasks. Recent research highlights that this strategy is computationally efficient and effective across domains like images, audio, and text. This work extends these insights to video, showcasing how predictive feature learning enhances spatiotemporal representation quality.Researchers from FAIR at Meta, Inria, cole normale suprieure, CNRS, PSL Research University, Univ. Gustave Eiffel, Courant Institute, and New York University introduced V-JEPA, a vision model trained exclusively on feature prediction for unsupervised video learning. Unlike traditional approaches, V-JEPA does not rely on pretrained encoders, negative samples, reconstruction, or textual supervision. Trained on two million public videos, it achieves strong performance on motion and appearance-based tasks without fine-tuning. Notably, V-JEPA outperforms other methods on Something-Something-v2 and remains competitive on Kinetics-400, demonstrating that feature prediction alone can produce efficient and adaptable visual representations with shorter training durations.The methodology involves training a foundation model for object-centric learning using video data. First, a neural network extracts object-centric representations from video frames, capturing motion and appearance cues. These representations are then refined through contrastive learning to enhance object separability. A transformer-based architecture processes these representations to model object interactions over time. The framework is trained on a large-scale dataset, optimizing for reconstruction accuracy and consistency across frames.V-JEPA is compared to pixel prediction methods using similar model architectures and shows superior performance across video and image tasks in frozen evaluation, except for ImageNet classification. With fine-tuning, it outperforms ViT-L/16-based models and matches Hiera-L while requiring fewer training samples. Compared to state-of-the-art models, V-JEPA excels in motion understanding and video tasks, training more efficiently. It also demonstrates strong label efficiency, outperforming competitors in low-shot settings by maintaining accuracy with fewer labeled examples. These results highlight the advantages of feature prediction in learning effective video representations with reduced computational and data requirements.In conclusion, the study examined the effectiveness of feature prediction as an independent objective for unsupervised video learning. It introduced V-JEPA, a set of vision models trained purely through self-supervised feature prediction. V-JEPA performs well across various image and video tasks without requiring parameter adaptation, surpassing previous video representation methods in frozen evaluations for action recognition, spatiotemporal action detection, and image classification. Pretraining on videos enhances its ability to capture fine-grained motion details, where large-scale image models struggle. Additionally, V-JEPA demonstrates strong label efficiency, maintaining high performance even when limited labeled data is available for downstream tasks.Check outthePaper and Blog.All credit for this research goes to the researchers of this project. Also,feel free to follow us onTwitterand dont forget to join our75k+ ML SubReddit. Sana HassanSana Hassan, a consulting intern at Marktechpost and dual-degree student at IIT Madras, is passionate about applying technology and AI to address real-world challenges. With a keen interest in solving practical problems, he brings a fresh perspective to the intersection of AI and real-life solutions.Sana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Meet Baichuan-M1: A New Series of Large Language Models Trained on 20T Tokens with a Dedicated Focus on Enhancing Medical CapabilitiesSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/xAI Releases Grok 3 Beta: A Super Advanced AI Model Blending Strong Reasoning with Extensive Pretraining KnowledgeSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Learning Intuitive Physics: Advancing AI Through Predictive Representation ModelsSana Hassanhttps://www.marktechpost.com/author/sana-hassan/Microsoft AI Releases OmniParser V2: An AI Tool that Turns Any LLM into a Computer Use Agent

Puzzles are a great activity and there are so many different options to choose from nowadays. If you're looking to shake things up with something new and different, puzzles from The Magic Puzzle Company are worth your attention. These jigsaw puzzles truly live up to their name, offering a magical puzzling experience that tells a story as you piece it together. What really makes them stand out, though, is that each puzzle has a surprise ending, which adds an especially satisfying layer to the activity as you finish it. All this makes Magic Puzzles a worthy addition to any puzzler's collection. But which jigsaw puzzle from the company do you start with?TL;DR: These are the best Magic Puzzle Company puzzlesOur Top PickThe Mystic Maze Series One$22.97 at AmazonThe Sunny City Series One$22.99 at AmazonThe Happy Isles Series One$22.97 at AmazonThe Crystal Caves Series Two$24.12 at AmazonThe Forest Feast Series Two$24.12 at AmazonThe Busy Bistro Series Two$22.97 at AmazonThe Gnomes' Homes Series Three$22.99 at AmazonThe Magic Puzzle Company offers quite a few different options to choose from, each with its own distinct original art and story to tell. Here we've gathered up a few of our favorites from each series that are worth your time and money. We've also explained what the surprise ending of each puzzle adds to the story if you want insight on the truly special part of each one, but don't worry; we'll alert you of spoilers before revealing what happens. The Mystic MazeOur Top PickThe Mystic Maze Series One$22.97 at AmazonPart of Series One of The Magic Puzzle Company's releases and with original artwork by Boya Sun, the 1,000-piece Mystic Maze features a little character in a yellow outfit that's looking for their friend who's gotten lost in an enchanted maze. Its design certainly feels mystical, with plenty of soft purples and blues to admire on your journey. But what happens to the little character in yellow at the end? If you're curious to know what that is, we've included it below. Spoiler warning, of course!The Mystic Maze Secret Ending: The character in yellow finds their lost friend.The Sunny CityThe Sunny City Series One$22.99 at AmazonThe Sunny City is another 1,000-piece puzzle that's part of Series One of The Magic Puzzle Company's puzzles and boasts art from Felicia Chiao. True to its title, this puzzle features bright oranges and yellows, with a bustling city scene that has a "sunny secret", according to The Magic Puzzle Company's website. And what might this secret be? Beware of spoilers, but you can learn more below.The Sunny City Ending:Big flowers are blooming in the center of the city.The Happy IslesThe Happy Isles Series One$22.97 at AmazonTo cap off Series One, The Happy Isles is a 1,000-piece puzzle with art from Sarah Becan. This bright puzzle captures little island paradises, and piecing it together allows you to "Discover the unexpected fate of the denizens of this bright paradise," according to The Magic Puzzle Company. You don't have to wait to discover their fate, though. You can have a look at the hidden ending below, if you choose.The Happy Isles Secret Ending:A sea monster has been causing trouble in The Happy Isles.The Crystal CavesThe Crystal Caves Series Two$24.12 at AmazonJumping to Series Two of The Magic Puzzle Company's lineup, The Crystal Caves is a 1,000-piece puzzle with art from Odsanyu. Once again this puzzle is bursting with bright colors and chronicles an ancient rivalry between the crystals and mushrooms, to which you can discover the end result of it all after finishing the puzzle. If you don't want to wait to put in that final piece, though, you can learn what became of this conflict below.The Crystal Caves Secret Ending:A triangular area forms within the cave that shows the crystals and mushrooms as friends.The Forest FeastThe Forest Feast Series Two$24.12 at AmazonThe Forest Feast is another 1,000-piece puzzle from Series Two and features art from Sanne-Marie Kohlmann. In this colorful puzzle, you'll get to "Reveal the serendipitous inspiration for today's epic feast," according to The Magic Puzzle Company. To get a taste of this grand meal early and see what inspired it, have a look at the ending below.The Forest Feast Secret Ending:There's a giant burger, fries, and drink at the center of the puzzle.The Busy BistroThe Busy Bistro Series Two$22.97 at AmazonClosing out Series Two is The Busy Bistro, a 1,000-piece puzzle complete with original artwork by Oscar Sun. According to The Magic Puzzle Company, piecing together this puzzle will have you learning the big reason the puzzle's adorable rats are so busy. What's got these little guys running around so much? Click below to learn more about the ending, if you're curious.The Busy Bistro Secret Ending:There's a big cat that's eating all the food.The Gnomes' HomesThe Gnomes' Homes Series Three$22.99 at AmazonThe Gnomes' Homes is a puzzle that released as part of Series Three of The Magic Puzzle Company's lineup. This one is also 1,000 pieces and features artwork from Ninn Salan. This adorable and wonderfully vibrant puzzle tells a story of the gnomes and the place they live, but something's coming for them. What will happen to them? If you're curious to know the gnomes' fate and don't want to wait to put all the pieces together, click below.The Gnomes' Homes Secret Ending:A large tree spirit shows up to protect the gnomes' homes from the construction work.What Makes The Magic Puzzle Company a Good Brand?The Magic Puzzle Company's unique approach to puzzles makes them a brand worth investing in. With each puzzle having over 50 easter eggs to hunt down and special endings, they offer an individual experience that elevates them above a standard puzzle. According to the company's website, the team "set out to create the most entertaining puzzles youve ever done by combining the traditional jigsaw puzzle experience with ideas from the worlds of tabletop games and magic." Their Kickstarter even boasts 62,284 backers from when it was last updated, showing that the company had a lot of people who believed in their vision from the start.Magic Puzzles are also designed to be packaged back up and shared with others. After you finish your puzzling journey, check out their re-packing guide so you can share the adventure with someone else in your life.We consider The Magic Puzzle Company to be among the best puzzle brands to buy in 2025. If you want to see even more recommendations from top brands, it's worth checking out that roundup. And if you'd like to see more of our favorite puzzles in general, have a look at our roundup of the best jigsaw puzzles for adults.Hannah Hoolihan is a freelancer who writes with the guides and commerce teams here at IGN.

The new Major League Soccer season kicks off tonight, with LAFC vs Minnesota as the first game starting now. You can watch the entire leagues games through MLS Season Pass on the Apple TV app, live and on-demand.MLS Season Pass costs $99 for the full season, or at a discounted $79 price for Apple TV+ subscribers. Watch all of the regular season and playoff games with no blackouts or regional restrictions, and share one subscription with up to six people using Apple Family Sharing. As well as full-year purchases, you can also subscribe on a monthly basis. The MLS Season Pass monthly subscription is priced at $14.99 per month, or $12.99 per month for TV+ subscribers. MLS Season Pass is streaming exclusively through the Apple TV app. Apple TV+ subscribers can tune into a select number of games each week, including the new Sunday Night soccer fixture, but you need the pass to be able to watch every game.MLS Season Pass includes pre-game, post-game and bonus content as well as live matches. You can also tune into MLS 360, a whip-around show that covers highlights and key plays from all the games going on at once. MLS Season Pass streams with dual broadcasts, in both English and Spanish. You can access it through the MLS channel in the Apple TV app, available on various platforms including Apple devices, smart TVs, and even Android phones and tablets for the first time.Multiview mode with support for up to four streams at a time is available on iPad and Apple TV 4K. Watch up to five games at once using the TV app on Apple Vision Pro. MLS Season Pass is also available through Comcast Xfinity and DirecTV for the first time. If you have those cable packages, all matches are free for the first week so you can get a taste before paying to keep access to the new channels in the EPG.How to watch MLS Season Pass for freeIf you have a full season ticket to any MLS club, you can get one free MLS Season Pass subscription. If you have a T-Mobile phone plan, you can also get a free MLS Season Pass subscription through the T-Life app.If you have Apple TV+, check in every week for games you can watch at no additional charge. That includes the featured match playing on Sunday, under the Sunday Night Soccer broadcasting banner. If you have Xfinity, you can also watch MLS 360 for free throughout the season at no additional charge.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

Welcome toIndie App Spotlight. This is a weekly 9to5Mac series where we showcase the latest apps in the indie app world. If youre a developer and would like your app featured, getin contact.Finma is a financial management app for your iPhone. It has a focus on user privacy and doesnt require a connection to your bank account. It also features beautiful charts and many useful features to give you a better financial picture. Privacy focused without compromisingPlaid, the service that most developers use to allow users to link banks into financial apps, can get very expensive. Thats part of the reason why many smaller financial apps dont support automatic linking.Obviously, that can be annoying for users, since that generally requires manual data entry.Finma has a unique solution for this though. Instead of having to enter everything manually, you can instead import data from your emails, including statements and transaction alerts. Theres also an option to upload statements if you dont want to share your emails.Of course, anything uploaded to the app is processed on device, and Finma doesnt have access to your financial records.Unique featuresFinma has a number of unique features to help you better manage your finances, including budget alerts, payment alerts, and many helpful charts to give you a bigger picture idea. It also features home screen widgets for a better financial understanding.Budget alerts keep you on top of your spending. You can easily set spend thresholds for certain categories, and as you approach them (and surpass them), the app will remind you. This helps fight overspending. You can also create your own rules for categorization.Theres also payment alerts, helping you stay on top of subscriptions, credit card due dates, bills, and more.Last but not least, there are many great interactive charts, giving you detailed insights on exactly how youre spending your money. The layout is also very customizable, allowing you to prioritize the insights you care about most.Pricing & downloadFinma is available for free on the App Store, and costs $2.99/month or $24.99/year for the full experience. It requires an iPhone running iOS 16.4 or later.My favorite iPhone accessories on Amazon:Follow Michael:X/Twitter,Bluesky,InstagramAdd 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

Dumb PhoneFeb 22, 12:45 PM EST/byFrank LandymoreWhen You Block the Internet on Your Phone, Something Astonishing Happens Mentally"Are we adapted to deal with constant connection to everything all the time? The data suggest that we are not."Feb 22, 12:45 PM EST/Frank LandymoreImage by Getty / FuturismMental HealthLet's face it: we're all hopelessly addicted to our smartphones. Such is the power of having the internet at your fingertips at literally every single moment of the day.Is this bad for our brains? Probably; there's a reason terms like "doomscrolling" exist. But demonstrating a connection between heavy smartphone use and cognitive woes has been difficult. There's a clear correlation, but causation requires another level of rigor.Determined to find answers, a team of researchers conducted an experiment that forced participants to completely block all internet access on their smartphones for two whole weeks. Phone calls and old-school texting were still permitted, and if they wanted to, the subjects could still go online using a computer.What the team found, as detailed in a , was that even though the intervention was relatively short,it finished with significant improvements and we really mean significant to the participants' mental health, attention span, and subjective well-being."Smartphones have drastically changed our lives and behaviors over the past 15 years, but our basic human psychology remains the same," study coauthor Adrian Ward, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Austin, said in a statement about the work. "Our big question was, are we adapted to deal with constant connection to everything all the time? The data suggest that we are not."The experiment involved 467 randomly selected participants with an average age of 32. They were divided into two groups for the month-long study: one that had no internet on their smartphone for the first two weeks, and another that did the same in the last two weeks. Midway through, they swapped roles, allowing the scientists to document whether any of the effects lasted once the participants got their internet back.A specialized iPhone app was used to block internet access, recording any time that the feature was disabled. The participants were given multiple self-reported surveys to assess changes in their mental state. The researchers also administered computer-based tests to more objectively keep track of factors like their attention span.In numbers, nearly all the participants 91 percent improved on at least one of the three outcomes, while around three-quarters reported better mental health by the end. What's really striking, though, is that attention spans improved to a degree comparable to reversing ten years of age-related cognitive decline, the study found.The findings even suggest that the intervention had a stronger effect on depression symptoms than antidepressants, and was roughly on par with cognitive behavioral therapy. The authors note, however, that the nature of the work is "quite different from those studied in clinical psychology contexts."What's driving all this? Ward suggests that the simplest explanation is that the experiment forced participants to spend more time doing fulfilling things in the real world."That's doing hobbies, talking to people face-to-face, or going out in nature," Ward said. "They got more sleep, felt more socially connected, and felt more in control of their own decisions."That it only took two weeks off the grid to produce these remarkable effects is encouraging. Maybe most of have a chance of fighting the brain rot. On the flip side, it doesn't make for a very long trial, so in the future, undertaking lengthier experiments could bear out the intervention's long-term benefits.More on mental health: Scientists Find That Yelling at AI Chatbots Can Make You Feel BetterShare This ArticleImage by Getty / FuturismRead This Next