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The iRobot Roomba 694 is back on sale for $180 via Amazon, which is a savings of 35 percent or $95. This isn’t the lowest price ever for the well-regarded robovac, but it’s darned close. There likely won’t be a price drop this stark until Prime Day or the holidays.
iRobot
The Roomba 694 isn’t one of the company’s flagship models, but it’s still a highly efficient design that excels with standard cleaning tasks. As a matter of fact, this robovac topped our list of the best budget robot vacuums. We loved the handy mobile app that helps people plan routes, schedule cleanings and perform basic maintenance tasks. We also enjoyed the powerful suction, which makes short work of pet hair, dust and debris.
The 694 will return to the charging base on its own, which is always nice, and it runs anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes on a single charge, depending on the flooring. This is a no-frills vacuum, however, so there isn’t a mopping feature or a large debris tank. It’s also somewhat larger than many of its siblings, so it could struggle to get underneath certain items of furniture.
This is part of a larger Amazon sale on iRobot devices, with discounts on just about every model the company makes. For instance, the high-end iRobot Roomba Combo j5+ is on sale for $500, a discount of $300. This machine can both vacuum and mop, and it’ll even self-empty debris into the included container.
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The worm-like caecilian Siphonops annulatus is the first amphibian described to produce ‘milk’ for offspring hatched outside its body.Credit: Carlos Jared
An egg-laying amphibian found in Brazil nourishes its newly hatched young with a fatty, milk-like substance, according to a study published today in Science1.
Lactation is considered a key characteristic of mammals. But a handful of other animals — including birds, fish, insects and even spiders — can produce nutrient-rich liquid for their offspring.
That list also includes caecilians, a group of around 200 limbless, worm-like amphibian species found in tropical regions, most of which live underground and are functionally blind. Around 20 species are known to feed unborn offspring — hatched inside the reproductive system — a type of milk. But the Science study is the first time scientists have described an egg-laying amphibian doing this for offspring hatched outside its body.
The liquid is “functionally similar” to mammalian milk, says study co-author Carlos Jared, a naturalist at the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil.
An unusual diet
In the 2000s, researchers showed that in some caecilians, the young hatched with teeth and that they fed on a nutrient-rich layer of their mother’s skin2 around every seven days. “It sounded a little strange — babies eating just once a week,” says Marta Antoniazzi, a naturalist also at the Butantan Institute. “That wouldn’t be sufficient for the babies to develop as they do.”
Antoniazzi, Jared and their colleagues wanted to investigate these young amphibians’ bizarre feeding habits in more detail, so they collected 16 nesting caecilians of the species Siphonops annulatus and their young at cacao plantations in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. The researchers then filmed the animals and analysed more than 200 hours of their behaviour.
The footage revealed that as well as munching on their mother’s skin, S. annulatus young could get their mother to eject a fat- and carbohydrate-rich liquid from her cloaca — the combined rear opening for the reproductive and digestive systems — by making high-pitched clicking noises. The young would also stick their heads into the cloaca to feed.
The finding that S. annulatus is “both a skin feeder and now a milk producer is pretty amazing”, says Marvalee Wake, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California, Berkeley. It is probably just one of the caecilians’ many biological quirks. “Most species have not been studied at this level of detail,” says Wake. “So, who knows what else they’re doing.”
A couple of years ago, Apple introduced the Voice Control feature without a lot of fanfare, but it was quickly considered a valuable feature that improved user accessibility.
Even if it doesn’t necessarily impact your accessibility, you can still try a different way of using your computer where you use your voice to control more, and your mouse or trackpad less.
Hidden Features
We love a good hidden feature, that functionality on your device that may not necessarily be active at default but which elevates your experience (or even your life). This series explores our pick of them – and you can read them all here.
Previously, I pointed out a way that Windows users could more easily navigate their memory (both their own and digital) in Clipboard History. Here, I’m going to talk about a way macOS users can extend their reach when it comes to controlling their devices beyond their mice, trackpads, and keyboards.
This feature isn’t just impressive as a demonstration of technology or of Apple’s consideration for users (Voice Control is included for free on every suitable Mac, iPhone, and iPad), it’s also important for users who have little or limited mobility in their hands or arms. Many people can already experience the possible benefits, and I think it’s worth giving it a spin even just to familiarize yourself in case you ever need it.
In this article, I’ll tell you how you can get started with Voice Control, and there’s some decent customization options that you can use to tweak this feature to work best for you.
You can always revert to your previous settings, or you might just fall in love with your macOS device all over again.
Who is Voice Control for and what can you do with it?
Using your macOS device with your voice may feel unusual to many able-bodied users. Still, it’s a crucial feature for many who have different user needs. With Voice Control, you can do many things like navigate desktops and apps, interact with what’s onscreen, and edit and dictate text.
You can also get more into the details of Voice Control to fine-tune it to your needs and preferences further by going beyond the standard commands that come built-in with the feature. You can craft your own commands, delete commands, and import and export custom commands. If this isn’t tuned to your liking enough, you can go further and add specific individual vocabulary terms, as long as custom vocabulary is supported in the language you’re using Voice Control in.
To be able to use Voice Control, you’ll have to make sure that your device is running macOS Catalina 10.15 or later. Apple recommends that you keep your laptop lid open if you’re using a laptop, use an external microphone if you can, or use a display that comes with a microphone built-in. It also reassures users that all the processing of any audio happens right on your device, so whatever you tell it stays private.
Also, in a somewhat cruel but necessary irony, you do have to set up Voice Control using traditional peripheral or built-in controls. If you have accessibility needs. this probably means you’ll need to ask for help in getting Voice Control set up.
How to turn on Voice Control in macOS
Again, make sure you’re running macOS Catalina 10.15 or later. Once you’ve made sure this is the case, follow the following steps:
1. Open your Apple menu which can be found by clicking the Apple icon. Click on System Settings (which might be System Preferences in some macOS versions).
2. Select Accessibility. In Accessibility settings, click on Voice Control.
3. Turn Voice Control on.
When you turn on Voice Control for the first time, your Mac device might be prompted to do a one-time download of the feature from Apple. Allow it to do this and then you’ll be able to use the feature after this is complete.
Once you have Voice Control turned on
If you’re using macOS Sonoma or a later version, a blue icon depicting a sound signature will appear in your menu bar. Clicking this icon will open the actions you can do with Voice Control like start or stop listening, change the microphone or language, and opening more Voice Control settings.
You can also stop and start Voice Control listening by using the commands “Go to sleep” and “Wake up.”
If you’re using macOS Ventura or an earlier version, a microphone icon will appear on your screen. Clicking this icon will open your Voice Control actions like ‘Wake up’ to start listening and ‘Sleep’ to stop listening.
You can also say “Wake up” or “Go to sleep” to start or stop Voice Control listening.
How to get started using Voice Control with a guide
You can familiarize yourself with the built-in voice commands of Voice Control or bring them up whenever you’d like to see a full list by telling it “Show commands.” This will show you the list of existing commands that you can use based on the context of what you have open at that moment.
Then you can say one of the commands from the list to carry out an action.
In macOS Sonoma or later, you can go for a practice run with Voice Control to get used to it with an interactive guide that Apple has included.
To access this interactive guide, follow the following path:
Go to the Apple menu by clicking the Apple icon > Click on System Settings > Select Accessibility in the sidebar of settings > Click on Voice Control in the Accessibility menu > Select Open Guide.
It’s in these same Voice Control settings where you can also turn the Play sound when command is recognised setting to make it easier to know if and when Voice Control has recognized a command (similar to Siri).
Journalists, creators and long-winded VCs on X now have a new way to be exhausting on main. X now allows verified organizations and Premium+ subscribers to “Articles.”
The feature adds a basic text-editing interface that includes embedded media and some text formatting options, like the ability to make bulleted lists. It also appears that articles can be longer than the 25,000-character limit currently in place for premium subscribers’ “longer posts” feature. According to my initial tests, I hit the character limit for articles at just over 100,000 characters or about 15,000 words.
Here’s what the editing interface looks like:
Screenshot via X
Notably, Twitter began working on longer form posts long before Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The company showed off an early version, originally called “Notes”, as it looked to lure newsletter writers and other creators to the service. Musk confirmed that the publishing tools were still in the works.
The rollout of publishing tools is notable as Musk has often been hostile to journalists on his platform. Last year, Musk directed a change to X’s recommendation algorithm so that links to newsletter platform Substack would in users’ “For You” feeds, which has throttled many independent writers’ reach on the service. X also from news stories shared on the platform last fall (headlines eventually returned, in a much smaller font).
Tools such as Sora can generate convincing video footage from text prompts.Credit: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools that translate text descriptions into images and video are advancing rapidly.
Just as many researchers are using ChatGPT to transform the process of scientific writing, others are using AI image generators such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion and DALL-E to cut down on the time and effort it takes to produce diagrams and illustrations. However, researchers warn that these AI tools could spur an increase in fake data and inaccurate scientific imagery.
Nature looks at how researchers are using these tools, and what their increasing popularity could mean for science.
How do text-to-image tools work?
Many text-to-image AI tools, such as Midjourney and DALL-E, rely on machine-learning algorithms called diffusion models that are trained to recognize the links between millions of images scraped from the Internet and text descriptions of those images. These models have advanced in recent years owing to improvements in hardware and the availability of large data sets for training. After training, diffusion models can use text prompts to generate new images.
What are researchers using them for?
Some researchers are already using AI-generated images to illustrate methods in scientific papers. Others are using them to promote papers in social-media posts or to spice up presentation slides. “They are using tools like DALL-E 3 for generating nice-looking images to frame research concepts,” says AI researcher Juan Rodriguez at ServiceNow Research in Montreal, Canada. “I gave a talk last Thursday about my work and I used DALL-E 3 to generate appealing images to keep people’s attention,” he says.
Text-to-video tools are also on the rise, but seem to be less widely used by researchers who are not actively developing or studying these tools, says Rodriguez. However, this could soon change. Last month, ChatGPT creator OpenAI in San Francisco, California, released video clips generated by a text-to-video tool called Sora. “With the experiments we saw with Sora, it seems their method is much more robust at getting results quickly,” says Rodriguez. “We are early in terms of text-to-video, but I guess this year we will find out how this develops,” he adds.
What are the benefits of using these tools?
Generative AI tools can reduce the time taken to produce images or figures for papers, conference posters or presentations. Conventionally, researchers use a range of non-AI tools, such as PowerPoint, BioRender, and Inkscape. “If you really know how to use these tools, you can make really impressive figures, but it’s time-consuming,” says Rodriguez.
AI tools can also improve the quality of images for researchers who find it hard to translate scientific concepts into visual aids, says Rodriguez. With generative AI, researchers still come up with the high-level idea for the image, but they can use the AI to refine it, he says.
What are the risks?
Currently, AI tools can produce convincing artwork and some illustrations, but they are not yet able to generate complex scientific figures with text annotations. “They don’t get the text right — the text is sometimes too small, much bigger or rotated,” says Rodriguez. The kind of problems that can arise were made clear in a paper published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology in mid-February, in which researchers used Midjourney to depict a rat’s reproductive organs1. The result, which passed peer review, was a cartoon rodent with comically enormous genitalia, annotated with gibberish.
“It was this really weird kind of grotesque image of a rat,” says palaeoartist Henry Sharpe, a palaeontology student at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. This incident is one of the “biggest case[s] involving AI-generated images to date”, says Guillaume Cabanac, who studies fraudulent AI-generated text at the University of Toulouse, France. After a public outcry from researchers, the paper was retracted.
This now-infamous AI-generated figure featured in a scientific paper that was later retracted.Credit: X. Guo et al./Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
There is also the possibility that AI tools could make it easier for scientific fraudsters to produce fake data or observations, says Rodriguez. Papers might contain not only AI-generated text, but also AI-generated figures, he says. And there is currently no robust method for detecting such images and videos. “It’s going to get pretty scary in the sense we are going to be bombarded by fake and synthetically generated data,” says Rodriguez. To address this, some researchers are developing ways to inject signals into AI-generated images to enable their detection.
Why has there been a backlash from some fields?
Last month, Sharpe launched a poll on social-media platforms including X, Facebook and Instagram that surveyed the views of around 90 palaeontologists on AI-generated depictions of ancient life. “Just one in four professional palaeontologists thought that AI should be allowed to be in scientific publications,” says Sharpe.
AI-generated images of ancient lifeforms or fossils can mislead both scientists and the public, he adds. “It’s inaccurate, all it does is copy existing things and it can’t actually go out and read papers.” Iteratively reconstructing ancient lifeforms by hand, in consultation with palaeontologists, can reveal plausible anatomical features — a process that is completely lost when using AI, Sharpe says. Palaeoartists and palaeontologists have aired similar views on X using the hashtag #PaleoAgainstAI.
How are publishers adapting to the popularity of these tools?
By now, you’ve probably seen Amazon’s cute electric “bread truck” – the Rivian Delivery Van – roaming your neighborhood streets. Perhaps you’ve even caught a glimpse of Ford’s E-Transit in the wild. And very soon, your favorite contractor might pull up in a Mercedes eSprinter or RAM ProMaster EV. Delivery vans and other commercial vehicles are going electric and changing the way businesses (and fleets) operate.
What does this mean for you and me? Less noise, cleaner air, and happier delivery drivers, for sure. But commercial EVs are also poised to become the platform of choice for DIY camper conversions and RV manufacturers alike. A few all-electric RVs have already been announced – like the Winnebago eRV2, Grounded G1, and Thor Vision Vehicle – but, are commercial EVs ready for #vanlife? Let’s find out.
Rivian’s Commercial Van (née Delivery Van) was the first out of the gate, but was exclusive to Amazon until last November when Rivian made the EV available to other businesses. It’s available in two sizes – 500 and 700 cu.ft – for payloads of 2,734 and 2,513 lbs, with a range of 161 and 153 miles, respectively. Amazon also gets a 900 cu.ft version with 120 miles of range. Since it’s only available to fleet operators, pricing varies.
Ford’s E-Transit van came next, and looks pretty much identical to the ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) Transit van. It also comes in almost as many configurations – with cargo van, cutaway, and chassis cab models; low, medium, and high roof heights; and regular, long, and extended lengths. Range maxes at 126 miles, payload at 3,880 lbs, and pricing starts at $45,995. An optional pair of 120V outlets can supply up to 2.4kW of power.
Mercedes-Benz just launched the second generation eSprinter van (the first generation never came to the US). While it’s only available in one configuration (23.3 ft long wheelbase and high roof), it boasts a range of 200+ miles. Payload is 2,624 lbs and pricing starts at $71,886. Like its ICE sibling, the eSprinter packs many of Mercedes’ safety and driver-assistance features, plus the latest MBUX infotainment system, but lacks high-power 120V sockets.
RAM is expected to launch the ProMaster EV van sometime in 2025. It will look almost identical to its ICE cousin and will be available in five configurations, with a 3,020 lbs payload, and a range of 162 miles. It’s currently unclear whether the ProMaster EV will offer high-power 120V outlets like Ford’s E-Transit, but one model will include a roll-up door. Pricing is still TBD, but is expected to start around $69,000.
Peace and quiet
Ford E-Transit (Image credit: Myriam Joire)
So yes, commercial EVs are becoming a thing. But why does it matter? Pay attention and you’ll notice that our neighborhoods can be loud at times, even in areas located away from major roads. With commercial EVs you’ll enjoy more peace and quiet – not to mention less air pollution. Delivery vans and commercial vehicles are just the beginning. Just imagine if taxis, buses – and even garbage trucks – were also electric.
I recently drove Mercedes’ eSprinter in Long Beach, CA, and I came away impressed. Forget your average U-Haul rental van. These electric vans are significantly more comfortable, not to mention quieter, smoother, and easier to drive than their ICE (internal combustion engine) counterparts. Deploying more of them is going to result in significantly less driver fatigue, making for happier workers and friendlier deliveries.
The RV potential
Ford E-Transit (Image credit: Myriam Joire)
Vans like the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, Ford Transit, and RAM ProMaster have been super popular platforms for DIY camper conversions and RV manufacturers for years now. With 200+ miles of range, Mercedes’ eSprinter opens up a whole new world of possibilities, especially when you consider that most campgrounds have 240V RV power hookups that can charge a modern EV overnight (level 2 AC charging).
But the main reason commercial EVs have so much potential for #vanlife is because of their high-voltage battery. Traditionally, camper vans and smaller RVs have relied on a combination of AGM (lead-acid) batteries and propane to power lights and appliances – and to provide heating and cooling. More modern setups are all-electric and use more energy-dense LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries.
These secondary “house batteries” – as they are called – are kept charged using the internal combustion engine (while driving), optional solar panels (in the wild), or sometimes even “shore power” ie. by plugging into the grid (at campgrounds). It works, but house batteries are heavy and take up space inside the camper or RV. That’s where commercial EVs get interesting, thanks to their high-voltage battery.
By making power available from the high-voltage battery – like Ford’s E-Transit does (via dual 120V sockets for up to 2.4k of power), and Ford’s F-150 Lightning does (up to 9.6kW of power, including a 240V outlet) – camper vans and small RVs built on commercial EV platforms won’t require a house battery. Allow the on-board vehicle charger to support solar panels, and you now have a complete solution.
Almost there
Ford E-Transit (Image credit: Stellantis)
So, what’s primarily been holding back the adoption of commercial EVs as a platform for DIY camper conversions and RV manufacturers has been range and access to power from the high-voltage battery. Mercedes’ eSprinter is getting there with range (200+ miles), and Ford’s E-Transit is getting there by making 2.4kW of power available via two 120V outlets. RAM’s ProMaster EV doesn’t appear to solve either problem.
But there’s hope. After blasting around Long Beach, CA in the eSprinter, I asked the folks at Mercedes when the van would allow access to power from the high-voltage battery and I was told to “stay tuned”. Then there’s Rivian. Considering the R1T electric pickup and R1S electric SUV offer up to 410 miles of range, it’s not inconceivable for Rivian’s Commercial Van to gain more range and lose its fleet exclusivity.
It won’t take much longer before you can have your (all-electric #vanlife) cake and eat it too.
Rivian generally had a good day yesterday, launching the R2 SUV along with the surprise R3 crossover and dune buggy-esque R3X that were met with general acclaim. Buried in that press release, however, was the news that the automaker is halting production of its $5 billion Georgia plant in order to save money.
Instead of building the R2 in Georgia as originally planned, the company will start production of the electric SUV at its existing Normal, Illinois plant. “Beyond significantly reducing the amount of capital needed to bring R2 to market, the company believes this approach considerably reduces risk to the launch and associated ramp,” the company said.
The move will also allow Rivian to bring the R2 to market sooner, in the first half of 2026, while saving the company $2.25 billion in capital spending in the short term. That’s important since it has been burning through cash of late, according to recent reports.
Elliot Ross Studio
Of all the EV startups to come along of late, Rivian has been one of the most promising thanks to significant investments from Amazon, Ford and others. The company’s electric R1T pickup and R1S SUV were also widely praised for their attractive designs, healthy range and more.
Ramping up an automotive startup is no easy feat, though, especially in a market that’s been tough on EVs of late — with even stalwart Tesla feeling the pinch. It doesn’t help that startup rivals like Fisker are having serious cash flow issues, as it may spook consumers wary of untested EV brands.
Rivian selected Georgia as the site for its second EV factory back in 2021, receiving up to $1.5 billion in state incentives. At the time, the company said it hoped to eventually produce 400,000 electric vehicles there annually. With plant changes, the Normal, Illinois facility will augment capacity to 215,000 units annually across R1T, R1S, EDV, RCV, and R2.
The Georgia location remains in the picture, but Rivian only said it construction would restart later. “Rivian’s Georgia plant remains an extremely important part of its strategy to scale production of R2 and R3,” it said in a statement.
The film Dune: Part Two might feature human actors Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, but the biggest stars — at least literally — are the sandworms. The sandworms are central to the desert ecosystem of the fictional planet Arrakis, the film’s main setting, and to the culture of its inhabitants, the Fremen. Sandworms live underground and excrete a substance that becomes the all-important drug called the spice, and the Fremen ride them like giant sandy freight trains. In the film’s first glamour shot of a sandworm, a house-sized mouth ringed with teeth erupts out of the sand to swallow a whole platoon of soldiers.
To find out whether the fictional worms in Dune have anything in common with real worms, Nature spoke to palaeontologist Luke Parry at the University of Oxford, UK. He studies worms from the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, which together lasted from roughly 540 million to 444 million years ago.
Dune’s sandworms can grow to at least 450 metres long, about 15 times the size of the longest blue whale. How big do real-life worms get?
There are annelid worms that get up to several metres in length called eunicid worms, a type of bristle worm. They’re pretty gnarly — they have big jaws, they look a bit like Graboids from the 1990 film Tremors. Some of them are ambush predators. They eat octopuses, squid, vertebrates.
There are some earthworms that get really big, as well. Megascolides reaches up to 2 metres. The biggest ones are from Australia.
The ambush predator called the bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois) can reach 3 metres long.Credit: Constantinos Petrinos/Nature Picture Library
Do any of them have teeth?
The worms in Dune have lots of teeth around their mouths, and that’s what the Fremen use to make their crysknives. There are worms like that, called priapulids. These are the sorts that were making the first complex burrows in the early Cambrian. They use all of these teeth, called scalids, on a proboscis to drag themselves through burrows. Alitta worms — sandworms — and ragworms have teeth for catching prey. Some leeches have teeth.
The sandworms in Dune have totally changed their planet by excreting the valuable drug called the spice, making the weird blue liquid called the Water of Life and more. Have worms on Earth changed our planet?
Worms on Earth were responsible for burrowing into sediments over half a billion years ago and changing marine ecosystems forever. It’s part of what we call the Cambrian explosion, one of the most profound changes on the planet.
Before the advent of worms, the sea floor would have been smothered with what are called microbial mats. All the sediment would have been anoxic, without oxygen. If you’ve ever gone swimming in a river or a lake and it’s muddy and you plunge your foot into it, and it’s smelly and anoxic, that’s basically what the entire sea-floor environment would have been around the world.
Then, all of a sudden, some animals evolve a wormy body plan that allows them to move in three dimensions. They start burrowing into sediments, and that means that oxygen can get into the sediments and complex animal life can live there. It opens up new ways of making a living. Worms are part of this fundamental restructuring of the world.
When the Fremen in Dune want to ride a sandworm, they summon one with a device called a thumper that drums the ground. Do real worms sense vibrations?
Yeah, a common thing that birds do for catching earthworms is drumming on the ground, to bring them to the surface of the soil. Seagulls do it. Unfortunately, I don’t think the seagulls ride around on them.
If you were the right size to ride on a worm, do you think it would be similar to riding a sandworm in Dune?
It depends what sort of worm it was and where it was going. There are lots that crawl around on the surface of sediments — maybe you could ride those around. For worms that burrow, I think you’d find it quite uncomfortable and confining.
Any other favourite worm facts?
There are about 30 animal body plans — what we call the animal phyla, the big groups that we chop up animal diversity into — and more than half of them are worms. It’s a really good, versatile way of making a living. Lots of things that didn’t start off as worms just become worms. There are groups of lizards that lose their limbs, like snakes and amphisbaenians, worm lizards. There are worms that live in hydrothermal vents in the deep sea.
How do you feel about having the organisms you study portrayed on screen?
I think it’s awesome. Although there’s nothing like the worm in Dune that’s alive today, some of the things that it does, or some of the ways it looks, are actually like some of these really unfamiliar organisms that we find in the ocean. If a handful of people find out about those animals as a result of watching Dune, I think that’s awesome, because these things are — life is — amazing and diverse.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tecno Mobile, while not widely known outside of China, does have a reputation for making high-quality devices at competitive prices. The company’s new 16 inch Megabook T16 Pro 2024 Ultra laptop, which was first revealed at this year’s MWC 2024, comes with an Intel Core Ultra 7 processor (a fresh release from December 2023), paired with Arc mobile GPU. If you don’t need all that power, there’s a version with an Intel Core Ultra 5 CPU.
Tecno Mobile says Megabook T16 Pro can deliver 65 watts of performance, and cooling is provided by the company’s proprietary “Ice Storm” advanced thermal management system.
The laptop comes with a choice of 32GB or 16GB LPDDR5 RAM, and a 1TB PCIE 4.0 SSD, with a 512GB option for those looking to spend less. The laptop’s 16-inch, 2.5k display offers a 16:10 ratio and delivers 100% of the sRGB color gamut, making it suitable for both work and entertainment.
Long battery life
Megabook T16 Pro has a 180° hinge, so you can lay the screen down flat, and a fingerprint reader for security. There’s a starry backlit keyboard and elevated touchpad, and it comes with Windows 11.
The highlight of the T16 Pro, however, is its battery, which has a capacity of 99.99Wh and comes with a 100W GaN super-fast charging (promising 50% charge in just 30 minutes). This battery reportedly allows users to work or play for up to 22 hours on a single charge, which is very impressive if true.
Apple says its MacBook Pro 16-inch 2023 can match that, but in tests Tom’s Hardware found it managed just under 19 hours – which is still fantastic, but maybe not as good as its new rival claims it can achieve. We’ll have to wait to find out.
Pricing and availability are currently unknown, but it’s expected to arrive some time in Q2.
Two years ago, Wales were defending champions and France were on their way to the Grand Slam. Now they’re both just hoping to avoid the wooden spoon. To their credit, Warren Gatland’s young side has shown flashes, which is more than can be said for Les Bleus, who entered the 2024 Six Nations as favourites but are lucky to have any points on the board at all.
Questionable refereeing decisions gifted France a victory over Scotland and a draw against Italy, when both games should have ended in defeat. Poor discipline and the absence of star scrum-half Antoine Dupont have hurt them, but such has been the scale and speed of the decline that head coach Fabien Galthié’s job has come under scrutiny – something that was unthinkable even a month ago.
By contrast, even though Wales have just a single point to show from their three games, fans can see that Gatland is building something. They nearly pulled off a comeback for the ages against Scotland and came within minutes of a first win at Twickenham since 2012. The 31-7 defeat to Grand Slam-chasing Ireland last time out was nothing to be too ashamed of.
In their final home game of the tournament, though, Wales will want to repay their fans for their loyal support and give them a taster of what lies ahead. This France team is there for the taking.
HOW TO WATCH A FREE WALES VS FRANCE LIVE STREAM ON BBC iPLAYER
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UK stream: BBC iPlayer (FREE)
US stream: Peacock TV
AUS stream: Stan Sport
What time is kickoff?
The Wales vs France kickoff is at 3pm GMT / 11am ET / 8am PT on Sunday, March 10. In Australia, that’s 2am AEDT on Monday, March 11.
Wales vs France venue
Saturday’s game will be played at the 73,931-seater Principality Stadium in Cardiff, the second-biggest of the Six Nations venues. Known by many as the Millennium Stadium, it features a retractable roof and employs the services of Dad the hawk to keep seagulls and pigeons at bay.
