This article contains Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning spoilers. Before Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning earned its latest title, it was previously called Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 2. Considering Part 1’s muted box office reception in 2023 (back when it had the unenviable task of opening sans IMAX screens a week before Barbenheimer), Paramount was probably wise to change it. And yet, as late as November of last year, the still untitled Mission: Impossible 8 was apparently at the center of competing marketing visions between the studio and its star/producer/living manifestation of destiny: Tom Cruise. According to a THRFinal Reckoning moniker that came to pass, plus all the callbacks and cameos that were spoiled in the film before release (I for one wish I hadn’t known that Rolfe Saxon’s delightful reprisal of the CIA analyst who had the worst day of his life in the original 1996 Mission: Impossible was returning). Yet while the film put “final” in the title, and the word was dropped heavily throughout the script—including by Shea Wingham when he promised Ethan Hunt that they were going to have “a reckoning”—the creative loggerheads over whether this really was the end seems to have bedeviled M:I8 all the way to the closing sequence. For deep in London’s busy Trafalgar Square, a retinue of familiar faces gather in the crowds beneath Nelson’s Column. Cruise’s Ethan is there, of course, as is Hayley Atwell’s Grace and Simon Pegg’s Benji. Even Pom Klementieff seems locked in as a permanent IMF fixture, which is impressive since canonically she was trying to kill all these folks only a month earlier. In many ways it gives closure to the adventure we just watched… but only to a point. In fact, like so much else of The Final Reckoning, the ending feels like a variation of scenes we’ve already seen in this series, such as the surviving members of the team gathering for a victory drink in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, or having a celebratory stroll through the London evening streets (which is the original deleted ending to Mission: Impossible – Fallout). Ultimately much of Final Reckoning feels like a retread of something the series has done relatively recently, and often better, including an ending that refuses to say goodbye to anyone—except maybe Ving Rhames’ fan favorite Luther, who like Rebecca Ferguson’s Ilsa in the last movie discovered that the only way for their actor to retire from the series was by being killed off by a pretty underwhelming villain named Gabriel (Esai Morales). Otherwise though, this is the conclusion of almost any other Mission flick, and one that feels faintly tinkered with. It is easy to speculate, for instance, whether that scene was a reshoot since none of the stars are seen in the same shot together. Even the setting beneath Nelson’s Column looks like an untied thread after we previously spied the statue of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson at the beginning of the film right before our first shot of Ethan in London. The historical Nelson died ostensibly saving the world (at least from the British perspective) at the Battle of Trafalgar where he led the Royal Navy in a rout of Napoleon Bonaparte’s ships, cementing British supremacy of the seas for the next hundred years. The subtext of beginning the movie with Nelson, therefore, would seem to be that we were about to see another great man give his life to save the world from a megalomaniac. Instead Ethan not only survived The Final Reckoning, but pretty much went through the exact same ending he experienced in Mission: Impossible – Fallout where Cruise’s hero was forced to commandeer one flying contraption (a biplane now instead of a helicopter) in order to hijack another with his enemy, all so he can snap some MacGuffin into place at a great height while the rest of the team disarms the proverbial ticking bomb that is about to destroy the world. This in no way is meant to undercut the pure spectacle thrill of The Final Reckoning’s climax. Seeing Tom Cruise cling from a biplane that is doing barrel rolls in IMAX is worth the price of admission alone. However, the repetitive nature of it suspiciously resembles a compromise. The Mission films during Christopher McQuarrie’s superb tenure as writer-director—beginning with Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation 10 years ago—are famous for their playing the story by ear on the set. Yet despite Dead Reckoning and even the first act of Final Reckoning inserting some pretty major setups meant to confront Ethan’s past (including with the man who apparently killed a great love of his life 35 years ago and sent him into the IMF) nothing significantly is resolved. We never learn exactly who Ethan was before the IMF, what Gabriel meant to him, or how much this film is about him living with the losses of Ilsa and Luther. Furthermore, even Shea Wigham’s threat that they would have “a reckoning” when this is all over—which comes after the limp reveal that Agent Briggs is actually Jim Phelps Jr.—culminates in nothing more than a handshake and hug. Join our mailing list Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! The ending of “the Final Reckoning” is treated like an afterthought. In one sense, this is no dealbreaker. Even the best Mission films, which I count Cruise and McQ’s partnership on Fallout and Rogue Nation as the pinnacle of, have never been “plot movies.” With the exception of maybe the first film’s techno thriller elements, every M:I flick is about the spectacle and/or the fun of the team dynamics. They are affirmations of Cruise’s movie stardom achieving an almost religious apotheosis. Yet by marketing the eighth film as the last one, Final Reckoning set expectations its star clearly had no intention of meeting. In retrospect, we should have believed Cruise back in 2023 when he said “I hope to keep making Mission: Impossible movies until I’m [Harrison Ford’s] age.” So the end of Final Reckoning is no ending at all for the franchise, which which becomes a problem when it fitfully attempts to emulate the gravity of franchise closers like The Dark Knight Rises, No Time to Die, and Avengers: Endgame (at least in terms of Iron Man and Black Widow). There are no real goodbyes in Final Reckoning, but the movie is still almost certainly a farewell of sorts—to this iteration of the franchise which began a decade ago. McQuarrie is, again, the greatest collaborator Cruise has ever found on this series. They created the platonic ideal of what a Mission film should be in Rogue Nation and then elevated it to rarified, god tier levels within the action genre in Fallout. But it would seem McQuarrie has pushed his messianic interpretation of Ethan to a breaking point. That becomes more pronounced, too, when considering the latest entry began production during COVID and ended it on the other side of the labor strikes of 2023, causing its budget to reach a reported $400 million zenith. That is a record no studio Still, I suspect if anyone can convince a studio to invest in a franchise even after that kind of budget explosion, it’s Cruise. And until relatively recently he has kept the Mission films healthy and exciting by bringing in new directors who radically reinvent it in terms of tone, aesthetics, and even interpretations of the central character. Cruise’s all-American farmboy turned spy in Brian De Palma’s original film is not the Kung fu-kicking rebel in John Woo’s M:I2, and neither are convincingly J.J. Abrams’ familiar schtick of a suburban everyman (or woman) who has an espionage secret in the closet. McQuarrie’s version of Ethan is my favorite: the reckless gambler with a heart so big that it will redeem all mankind of its sins one insane stunt at a time. But between the 63-year-old movie star getting older and Final Reckoning arguably missing the highs of Fallout in spite its bigger budget, it is likely time to soft reboot the series again. Which might explain the non-ending of Ethan Hunt drifting into the crowd, heading toward his next reinvention.

A jump starter is an essential part of car's emergency kit, and a cordless one is definitely a lot less of a hassle. You don't need to pay a premium for a jump starter that reliably gets the job done, either. Amazon is currently offering the Lokithor J400 12V 2,000A cordless car jump starter for $33.97 shipped after you clip both $20 and 40% off coupons on the product page. The retail price is listed at $89.95, but we usually see it for closer to $50-$60. Not only does it function as a jump starter, it can also be used to recharge your smartphone in a pinch.Lokithor J400 12V 2,000A Car Jump Starter for $33.97Clip Both $20 Off and 40% Off CouponsLokithor J400 2,000A 12V Cordless Lithium Car Jump StarterThe Lokithor J400 is a compact 12V cordless car jump starter that can supply 2,000A of peak power and is capable of jumpstaring up to 8L gas or 6L diesel engines. The sizeable 8,000mAh battery will give you several jump starts before needing a recharge. Since the battery uses lithium (NMC) cells, it depletes a lot slower than your traditional battery and will retain most of its charge even after 24 months of non-use. The J400 also doubles as a portable power bank, so you can also use it to charge your iPhone or smartphone in a pinch.The J400 charges quickly over USB Type-C and if you don't have a cable on hand, both USB Type-C to Tpe-C and USB Type-A to Type-C cables are supplied in the package. There's even a flashlight with three separate modes (flashlight, SOS, and strobe) for emergencies. The jump starter is one of the smallest models in its class (3.4" x 6.9" x 1.7"), weighs about 1.5 pounds, and stows away easily in your trunk or dash.Why Should You Trust IGN's Deals Team?IGN's deals team has a combined 30+ years of experience finding the best discounts in gaming, tech, and just about every other category. We don't try to trick our readers into buying things they don't need at prices that aren't worth buying something at. Our ultimate goal is to surface the best possible deals from brands we trust and our editorial team has personal experience with. You can check out our deals standards here for more information on our process, or keep up with the latest deals we find on IGN's Deals account on Twitter.Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.

See the First Photos and Videos of the Rare Subalpine Woolly Rat, a Massive but Elusive Rodent in New Guinea’s Mountains Working with local Indigenous people, biologist František Vejmělka spent six months surveying the creatures that live on Mount Wilhelm in Papua New Guinea Trail cameras recorded nocturnal subalpine woolly rats roaming around in search of plants to eat. Czech Academy of Sciences The subalpine woolly rat lives high in the mountains of New Guinea, where it spends its nights searching for plants to eat and its days hiding in underground burrows or tree canopies. This furry rodent is massive, measuring more than 2.5 feet from nose to tail and tipping the scales at more than four pounds. But despite its large size, the subalpine woolly rat (Mallomys istapantap) is incredibly elusive. First described in 1989, the species was only known to scientists because of a few museum specimens, and it had never been photographed in the wild—until now. František Vejmělka, a biologist at the Czech Academy of Sciences and the University of South Bohemia, spent six months exploring the highlands of Papua New Guinea. With help from local Indigenous people, he surveyed and genetically identified 61 species of rodents and marsupials found on Mount Wilhelm, a 14,793-foot peak and the country’s highest mountain. But perhaps his most significant work centered around the subalpine woolly rat. Vejmělka captured the first photos and videos of the mysterious creature in the wild. He also caught a few individuals, which allowed him to take the first biometric measurements of males and gather data about the rats’ behavior, diet and parasites. He shared his findings in a paper published April 18 in the journal Mammalia. By capturing several subalpine woolly rats, František Vejmělka was able to take the first biometric measurements of males of the species. Czech Academy of Sciences “It’s astonishing that such a large and striking animal has remained so poorly studied. How much more is there to discover about the biodiversity of tropical mountains?” Vejmělka says in a statement shared last week. The subalpine woolly rat is the biggest rodent in Australia and Oceania, and it’s one of the largest in the world. It’s a “striking and formidable creature,” with three-inch-long paws, sharp teeth and dense, shaggy fur covering most of its body, according to the statement. But these rodents are only active at night, and they live between 10,500 and 12,140 feet above sea level. Their rugged, remote habitats, coupled with their nocturnal habits, have made them difficult for researchers to study. Subalpine Woolly Rat Filmed For The First Time Watch on Vejmělka was up for the challenge. He wanted to know more about this mysterious species, as well as the mammalian diversity of New Guinea more broadly. For help, he turned to several tribes living on Mount Wilhelm. Their support and collaboration were crucial to the project, he says. The rats spend their days hiding in underground burrows or tree canopies, but they come out at night to search for food. Czech Academy of Sciences “If it weren’t for the Indigenous hunters who accompanied me in the mountains and helped me locate the animals, I would never have been able to collect this data,” he says in the statement. From trail camera footage and biometric observations, Vejmělka was able to glean several new insights into the lives of these mysterious creatures. He learned they primarily eat ferns and other plant material, for example, and that both males and females have a reddish brown color on their chests, reports IFLScience’s Eleanor Higgs. The species’ large size is likely due to “insular gigantism,” a biological phenomenon in which animals on islands evolve to become larger than those on the mainland, Vejmělka tells Live Science’s Jess Thomson in an email. Scientists think the rodents’ predecessors first arrived on New Guinea roughly five million years ago. Without much competition to worry about, they’ve been able to adapt to the rainforest landscape and thrive. “Their ancestors arrived from Asia to the island completely absent of any other terrestrial placental mammals (only marsupials and monotremes),” Vejmělka adds to Live Science. Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

“APPstinence,” which as you may have guessed, refers to abstaining from using your apps, is a movement encouraging people to get off social media and become less attached to their smartphones. It was founded by Harvard graduate student Gabriela Nguyen. The 24-year-old, who grew up in the center of Big Tech in Silicon Valley, realized she was addicted to both social media and her phone, probably from an early age, so she decided to something about it and started a club at the Ivy League school for her fellow students, along with the website APPstinence. Aimed at her Gen Z and Gen Alpha peers — although it applies to everyone who feels they have an unhealthy relationship with tech (which is basically all of us, right?) — APPstinence forgoes popular quick fixes like screen time controls, algorithm hacking, or digital detoxes, and offers something much more radical: a five-step method (which sounds Alcohol Anonymous’ 12-step program) to free yourself once-and-for-all from the chains of technology addiction. Appstinence’s 5-steps method can be summed up in just as many words: Decrease, Deactivate, Delete, Downgrade, and Depart. The point of this process is to reduce the sources of stimulus gradually. The idea isn’t to be completely phone-free, but to eventually be able, over time, to downgrade to some type of dumb-ish phone without social accounts. (Nguyen herself has three dumb phones, including the Light Phone.) According to her, people, and Gen Z specifically, should know they have the choice to opt out of social media. How does the process work? Sure, quitting cold turkey is hard. (Am I the only person who regularly deletes Instagram off my phone, only to reload it at 1:00 a.m in a panic?) Instead, Nguyen’s 5D Method decreases your usage incrementally, by deactivating your social media accounts one-by-one, which automatically deletes your apps 30 days later, allowing you to downgrade your phone, and finally depart from the digital world. Interested in trying it out? Here’s a full breakdown of the steps. Before you start: Make a list of family and friends you are in regular contact with, and who are important for you. Let each know, one-by-one, you’ll be moving offline and to reach you by text or phone instead. Step #1, Decrease: Delete all of the apps from your smartphone, and only access them through the browser on your laptop. Unfollow non-essential accounts and turn off non-essential notifications. After a few weeks, you can move to the next step. Step #2, Deactivate: Social media apps have a 30-day deactivation period before your account is deleted. Start by deactivating the app you feel you use the least. Step #3, Delete: As your accounts automatically delete in 30 days, spend this time strengthening your connections in the real world, for example, exercising, calling your relatives, hanging out with friends, or reading. Refer to your list from before you started. Set a regular schedule to call loved ones (or text, if necessary) and propose a time to hang out in person. Doing this regularly will help you stay connected with the people that matter, and more intimately so. If you panic during this withdrawal stage, re-activate, it’s not a race. Repeat Steps 2 and 3 until you’ve deleted the last app. Step #4, Downgrade: Get a “transition device” like a low-fi smart phone with limited functionality, something cheap that will allow you to access the basic apps you need (banking, Double Factor Authentication for students, QR codes) and keep it shut off in your bag on outings when you may need it. Also get a flip phone, which you should use most of the time. Step #5, Depart: It could take several weeks, months, or over a year to get to this final stage.

If you use the internet, you've probably had at least some personal information go missing. It's just the nature of the web. But this latest discovery, as reported by Wired, is something different. Security researcher Jeremiah Fowler found a public online database housing over 180 million records (184,162,718 to be exact) which amounted to more than 47GB of data. There were no indications about who owned the data or who placed it there, which Fowler says is atypical for these types of online databases. Fowler saw emails, usernames, passwords, and URLs linking to the sites where those credentials belonged. These accounts included major platforms like Microsoft, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Roblox, Apple, Discord, Nintendo, Spotify, Twitter, WordPress, Yahoo, and Amazon, as well as bank and financial accounts, health companies, and government accounts from at least 29 countries. That includes the U.S., Australia, Canada, China, India, Israel, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the UK. Fowler sent a responsible disclosure notice to the hosting provider of the database, World Host Group. Fowler was able to detect signs that the credentials here were stolen with infostealer malware, which bad actors use to harvest sensitive information from a variety of platforms—think web browsers, email services, and chat apps. Following Fowler's notice, World Host Group restricted the database from public access. The provider told Wired that the database was operated by a customer, a "fraudulent user" who uploaded illegal information to the server. In order to ensure these credentials were real, and not just a bunch of bogus data, Fowler actually contacted some of the email addresses he found in the database. He got some bites, and those users were able to confirm the records that he found associated with their emails. That's no guarantee that all 184,162,718 records are accurate, but it's a good sign that most are. As such, it's entirely possible you and I both had credentials exposed in this database. What's worse, Fowler says there's no telling how long the database was open to the public before his notice shut it down.There's a lot bad actors and hackers can do with this type of information. If they know the username and password combo to one of your accounts, they'll not only see if they can use it to break into that account, but they'll use it on other accounts of yours as well. If you reuse passwords, as many do, you could be facing a mass breach. It's bad enough when that concerns Facebook and Roblox accounts, but seeing as there were financial, health, and even government accounts here, the implications are huge.How to protect yourself If you don't have access to the database, you can't say for sure whether your credentials are listed there, or which credentials they have.Still, if you haven't changed the passwords for your accounts in some time, now might be a good time to do so. You don't need to change your passwords as frequently as traditional security advice has taught us, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to give your accounts a quick security audit. Make sure you're using a strong and unique password for each and every one of your accounts. If you repeat passwords, you run the risk of credential stuffing (hackers trying the same stolen password on multiple accounts). In order to keep tabs on those passwords, use a secure password manager. Make sure you're using two-factor authentication (2FA) on all of the accounts that allow it. That way, even if a password is exposed, hackers won't be able to break into your account without the device containing the 2FA code. To boost your security, avoid SMS-based 2FA when possible, and opt for more secure 2FA options, like an authenticator app or physical security key. If your account offers it, try a passkey to combine the convenience of a password with the security of 2FA.

There is no shortage of first-person shooters out there, to the degree that some of them can start to blur together. Mouse: P.I. For Hire, however, has one of the most unique art styles I’ve ever seen in the genre. Think Cuphead, but with more explosive action — and way more mice to kill. The monochromatic visuals, which are all hand-drawn, are coupled with a catchy jazz soundtrack. The game is a 1930s noir where you’ll be investigating a corrupt city full of crooks. The premise sounds serious until you notice the protagonist running around with an arsenal fit for a circus. Here’s a fun trailer: You’ve got period staples like Tommy guns and sticks of dynamite right alongside a can of spinach and a finger gun. All of these weapons have special animations that make Mouse: P.I. look like a playable cartoon where every death is comical. Count me in. There’s no set release date yet, but the game will be coming to all major modern platforms, including Nintendo Switch 2. The game was highlighted today as a part of Six One Indie, an hourlong indie showcase that packed 48 different titles from all sorts of genres, which you can check out here.

Microsoft is testing AI-powered text generation in Notepad for Windows 11 Insiders with Copilot Plus PCs, allowing users to draft content from prompts or build on existing text through a right-click menu. The update also introduces Paint's AI sticker generator and Snipping Tool enhancements including automatic screenshot cropping. The Write feature requires Microsoft account sign-in and uses the same credit system as other Windows 11 AI features. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide (Hardcover) $23.60 (was $45) See at Amazon Warhammer 40,000: Character Encyclopedia (Hardcover) $25.19 (was $28) | Releases October 7 Preorder at Amazon The annual Warhammer Skulls livestream provided a look at what's next for Games Workshop's popular multimedia franchise. Because of the sprawling nature of the Warhammer IP, it can seem a bit intimidating for newcomers. If you're interested in learning more about the history and lore of the tabletop wargame that has evolved to include dozens of video games and hundreds of novels, the first official Warhammer encyclopedia is up for grabs for nearly 50% off at Amazon.Published last October, Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide is discounted to $23.60 (was $45). The hardcover book has been a mainstay on Amazon's Warhammer and video game reference book charts since its release, and the current deal is the best we've seen. Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide (Hardcover) $23.60 (was $45) The Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide was written by Guy Haley and Gav Thorpe, both of whom have extensive experience writing about the franchise. Haley and Thorpe are two of the best-known authors of Warhammer prose novels published by Games Workshop's Black Library division.The 336-page hardcover encyclopedia is packed with lore for each of 40K's many factions, plus illustrations and hundreds of high-quality photos of the tabletop miniatures, including detailed looks at how each army and their most important characters have evolved over each edition of the game.Warhammer 40,000: The Ultimate Guide offers a convenient way to get up to speed on the in-game universe. Even if you aren't a Warhammer newcomer, the book's full-color, exclusive illustrations make it a great collectible and art book for longtime fans. This is especially true if you're interested in the tabletop game.If you're curious to learn more about the Imperium of Man, its super-powered Space Marine soldiers, and its many enemies (and victims), or you're a veteran looking to admire some professionally painted minis, this book has it all. See at Amazon Warhammer 40,000: Character Encyclopedia (Hardcover) $25.19 (was $28) | Releases October 7 The Ultimate Guide will soon be complemented by an official encyclopedia dedicated to Warhammer characters. Warhammer 40,000: Character Encyclopedia covers 120 characters from the tabletop and video game universe and will come with a free miniature.The 200-page Character Encyclopedia will be published on October 7 and is available to preorder for $25.19 (was $28). Preorder at Amazon Gallery Continue Reading at GameSpot

What Can Cloud Storage Do for You?The best cloud storage services integrate nicely with other apps and online tools, making the experience of viewing and editing files stored online feel natural. You want the other software you use to be able to retrieve or access your content, so it's a big deal to make sure you use a service that easily integrates with your existing tools. Box and Dropbox are particularly strong in this regard.(Credit: Google/PCMag)The range of capabilities of cloud-based storage services is wider than you may realize. Many of them specialize in a specific area. For example, Dropbox focuses on keeping a synced folder accessible everywhere and sharing folders with colleagues outside your company. Proton Drive emphasizes secure cloud storage. If you mostly store images, you might want a storage service that specializes in hosting photos (two top options are Google Photos with a Google One account and Adobe Lightroom). Some cloud storage providers, such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, are generalists, giving you folder and file syncing, media playing, device syncing, and backup. These products double as collaboration software because they let multiple people edit the same file in real time.Distinct from but overlapping in some cases with cloud storage are backup services, particularly ones that create online backups. Some of them, such as Acronis Cyber Protect, specialize in data protection and recovery, while others, like IDrive, combine data protection with syncing and sharing capabilities.Most cloud services offer some form of backup due to their intended function. Basically, any files uploaded to a cloud service are also protected from disk failures, since there are copies of them in the cloud. But dedicated backup services sometimes can create a full disk image of your machine so you can restore not just your files, but everything, including system settings and programs. Syncing, by contrast, is about backing up and managing selected files only.(Credit: Box/PCMag)What Is the 'Cloud' in Cloud Storage?There's a half-joke in the tech world: "There is no cloud. It's just someone else's computer." To clear up any confusion, the cloud part of cloud-based storage refers to storing files somewhere other than your computer's hard drive. Usually, it means the service provider's servers. Having data in the cloud allows you to access your files online. Your data is usually encrypted before making the journey over the internet to the provider's servers, and it remains encrypted while it lives on those servers. Recommended by Our EditorsWell-designed services don't upload a brand-new copy of your files whenever you change one little thing. Instead, the file syncing service looks for changes to your files and uploads only them, saving your connection bandwidth.(Credit: Dropbox/PCMag)You can access your cloud files through an app or utility software installed on your computer. Once it's installed, it usually shows a small notification icon and creates your synced folder structure that fits into Windows Explorer or the macOS Finder. You can also get to the files via your web browser. Of course, you need an internet connection for it to work, but if you are temporarily without a connection, that's okay. The service waits until the next time you do have a connection and takes care of business then. For a deeper explanation, see our explainer on cloud computing. Free vs. Paid Cloud StorageMany services give you free cloud storage as part of their entry-level account. They usually come with limitations, such as the amount of storage you get or a tight cap on the size of the files you can upload. We encourage you to sign up for the free tier of service first and try out the cloud service for several weeks before you commit to upgrading. This way, you can fully integrate the cloud service into your life for real-world testing. You get a feel for how it works and determine what might go wrong with your setup.(Credit: Microsoft/PCMag)What could possibly go wrong? Human error accounts for many cloud storage tragedies, but the dropped internet connection is another common troublemaker. Not to mention that every internet service suffers the occasional outage. Ask around (or just look through our review comments), and you'll hear sad stories of how cloud storage can go wrong. One of the benefits of paying for an account is that it usually comes with additional support from the provider, so if anything goes wrong, someone from the company can help you resolve the issue.There are many other reasons to pay for cloud storage, from getting a lot more space (a terabyte doesn't cost all that much anymore) to being able to upload huge files. That last benefit is relevant to graphic designers, video editors, and other visual artists who often host enormous files. Other perks of paying for your cloud storage often include increased access to file-version history (meaning you can restore an important business proposal to the version you had before your colleague made a bunch of erroneous changes), more security, and more features for collaboration and teamwork.

Microsoft is now testing a new feature in Notepad that can generate text for you using AI. It’s part of a Windows 11 update being released to Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev channels with Copilot Plus PCs. The update also includes new AI-powered features for Paint like a sticker generator, and improvements to the Snipping Tool that can automatically crop and resize screenshots based on what you’re selecting.Notepad’s new Write feature can be used to “quickly draft text based on your prompt,” according to the Windows Insider Blog, “or build upon existing content with AI-powered assistance.” You can either right-click where you want new text to be inserted in a document or after selecting existing text you want to use as a reference.After selecting the new Write feature in Windows’ Copilot menu, a prompt will appear where instructions can be entered. The AI-generated output will appear in the document but you’ll have the option to keep it, discard it if it’s not what you’re looking for, or refine the output by entering follow-up prompts. The feature was first discovered earlier this year in code included in test builds of Windows 11.Write follows two other AI-powered tools Microsoft has been testing with Notepad. Summarize, first introduced last March, can generate a summary of the text in a document while Rewrite, which began testing last November, can adjust the tone of text, shorten or lengthen it, and rephrase sentences.Paint’s new Sticker generator creates a small selection of stickers based on your description that can also be used in other apps. Image: MicrosoftJoining AI features already being tested in Microsoft Paint like Generative Fill, Generative Erase, and the Cocreator tool that can create images based on text prompts and reference sketches, is a new Sticker generator. A new button in the Copilot menu opens a prompt where you can describe the sticker you want to create. Paint will then generate a small set of stickers based on your description that can be added to your canvas or copied over to other applications.Paint is also getting a new Object select tool that relies on AI to create smart selections that takes most of the grunt work out of isolating and manipulating specific elements in a photo or painting.Windows 11’s Snipping tool will use AI to automatically adjust the size and cropping of a screenshot based on what you’re selecting on screen. Image: MicrosoftTo potentially make it easier to screenshot exactly what you need and immediately share it without edits, Windows 11’s Snipping Tool is gaining a new Perfect screenshot button on its toolbar. When framing a screenshot using the rectangle tool Perfect screenshot will use AI to “intelligently resize based on the content in your selection,” but you’ll still have the option to resize or reposition the selected region of your screen before capturing it.It’s being joined by a new Color picker in the Snipping tool that lets you see the HEX, RGB or HSL color values below an eyedropper cursor, and it can be zoomed for more precision by either scrolling or using Ctrl +/- keyboard shortcuts.You’ll need to be signed into your Microsoft account to use Notepad’s new Write feature which will use the same credits system as other AI-powered Windows 11 features do. Microsoft hasn’t yet announced what pricing for these credits will be if it eventually starts charging for them.See More: