Sony just revealed its lineup of new TVs for 2024. While many boast interesting features that we’ll get into later, the biggest change is naming conventions. Sony TVs used to be named confusing strings of numbers and letters, but that’s all gone now. The names here are clean and simple. They all use Bravia, a long-time Sony moniker for televisions, and a single digit number.
The Bravia 3 is a standard 4K LED TV with dynamic HDR, upscaling technology and a 60Hz refresh rate. This is the most basic box within Sony’s lineup, but it still looks plenty capable. The company promises that it also uses eight percent less power than last year’s equivalent, which is always nice. The TV is available in sizes ranging from 43-inches all the way up to 85-inches, with prices going from $600 to $1,800.
Sony
Don’t ask what happened to Bravia 4, 5 and 6, because the next TV in the lineup is called the Bravia 7. This is a mini LED box with some neat tech, including a powerful updated processor and Sony’s proprietary Backlight Master Drive local dimming algorithm. The company says this allows it to feature 790 percent more dimming zones compared to last year’s similar X90L. The more dimming zones a TV has, the smaller each one will be. This leads to an increase in precision and a better contrast ratio.
It also uses less power than the X90L, to the tune of 15 percent, and boasts a new calibration mode primarily intended for Prime Video content. The Bravia 7 is available in sizes ranging from 55-inches to 85-inches, with prices fluctuating from $1,900 to $3,500.
The Bravia 8 is the company’s latest OLED model. The OLED panel ensures a “perfect black” response and the box includes the same calibration mode for Prime Video found with the Bravia 7. However, the most interesting aspects of this line have to do with size and form factor. The Bravia 8 is 31 percent thinner than last year’s equivalent model, with a slimmed down bezel. It should really pop when hung on a wall. There are only three sizes in this lineup, and the 55-inch model costs $2,000, the 65-inch version costs $3,400 and the 75-inch box costs a whopping $3,900.
Sony
Finally, there’s the flagship Bravia 9. This is basically a souped-up version of the Bravia 7, as its another mini LED box. Sony says that the display technology is similar to what’s found in a mastering monitor, which is a lofty promise. It’s 50 percent brighter than last year’s X95L, which was already plenty bright, with a 325 percent increase in dimming zones.
There’s also a 20 percent reduction in power consumption when compared to the X95L and new beam tweeters for improved audio. The Bravia 9 features Sony’s proprietary Backlight Master Drive and the new Prime Video calibration feature. The 65-inch version of this TV costs $3,300, while the 85-inch model comes in at a jaw-dropping $5,500.
Delta turns an iPhone into a range of classic handheld consoles. Screenshot: Testut Tech
Delta retro game emulator is now on the iPhone App Store. Not only can it handle ROMs originally for the classic Game Boy handheld console, but it also emulates NES, SNES, Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS.
It’s a launch that fans of classic games have long awaited.
Delta is the retro game emulator for iPhone you’re hoped for
For many years, Apple prohibited developers from listing retro game emulators for download on the iPhone App Store. It actively took down any such that slipped through its review process. But in early April, the company updated the App Store guidelines to allow this type of software.
Which means Delta finally got Apple’s approval. The developer, Riley Testut, says of his creation:
“Delta is an all-in-one emulator for iOS. Delta builds upon the strengths of its predecessor, GBA4iOS, while expanding to include support for more game systems such as NES, SNES, N64, and DS.”
For those not up on all those acronyms, the full list of supported classic consoles is:
Nintendo Entertainment System
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Nintendo 64
Game Boy (Color)
Game Boy Advance
Nintendo DS
Start playing today
Delta is ready to download on the App Store now. It runs on iPhone and iPad, is free, contains no advertising and does not track users in any way. It even supports external game controllers so virtual on-screen ones aren’t required.
The software includes a system to access ROMs stored on the iPhone or iCloud. And Testut built in options to save the game state so players don’t lose their progress when they flip away from the app. It even supports cheats designed for the original game ROMS.
Software piracy alert
Probably one of the reasons Apple previously blocked retro game emulators from the iPhone App Store is they’re primarily used with the many classic game ROMS easily available on the internet via software piracy.
Concern about being sued by Nintendo apparently caused the developer of Bimmy, an NES emulator for the iPhone, to pull this own product off the App Store just hours after it debuted on Tuesday.
Google Wallet is one of the most useful apps for Android devices as it allows you to store and access identification (ID) cards or documents, payment cards, boarding passes, and event tickets among other things. Unfortunately, it isn’t available in the world’s most populous country, India. Fortunately, that’s going to change soon.
As spotted by TechCrunch, Google had listed the Google Wallet app on the Play Store in India and the listing had screenshots showing Indian brands, currency, and locations. While there was no download option available on the listing and the brand later de-listed the app, it suggested that the company is working on making Google Wallet available in India. In fact, if people sideload the app in the country, it works with local payment cards, boarding passes, and event tickets. Some users also reported that Google Wallet worked on WearOS smartwatches in the region.
All in all, it won’t be too long before Google releases the Google Wallet app officially in India. Currently, there’s only one digital wallet app available on Android in the country, which is Samsung Wallet. Unfortunately, it works only on Samsung devices. Once Google launches Google Wallet in India, non-Samsung Android users will finally have a digital wallet app that they can use, allowing them to access IDs, payment cards, boarding passes, and event tickets from a single place. It’s worth mentioning that it will co-exist with Google Pay, which offers UPI payments.
The Apple Notes app is a cultural fixture as well as an essential tool, and it looks like Apple is going to supercharge the iconic app in iOS 18, the next major update for Apple’s flagship mobile operating system. iOS 18 is expected to be previewed alongside the latest versions of its other platform operating systems at WWDC 2024, Apple’s software-centric conference primarily aimed at developers, which kicks off on June 8.
Reports from AppleInsider are that two impressive features are expected to be revealed. First is support for audio recordings directly within the app – akin to the Voice Memos app, but better integrated. This feature is currently being developed for iOS 18 and macOS 15, and a version for the newest iteration of iPadOS can be expected soon after.
The feature will give users basic playback features for audio recordings, letting them record, play, and save entries right in the Notes app. The recordings will be embedded into specific notes that users choose, which can also include text and images along with the recording. Creatives will no doubt find this useful for making multimedia entries, and more casual users might find it a great way to make digital scrapbooks. It will also let users make more complex entries to detail the audio they save, being able to add lengthy descriptions or context entries.
The user interface of the app will be visually similar to the existing Voice Memos app, with the new audio recording feature being presented with similar graphical representations of the captured audio. These new in-app audio notes recordings will be available on all devices connected to iCloud and running at least iOS 18 or macOS 15.
Pre-release versions of the operating systems to be presented at WWDC 2024 also apparently reference a new ‘Math Notes’ feature which will enable the Notes app to interact with the Calculator app. Presumably, this will allow the Notes app to enlist the Calculator app to make calculations as users are entering them in Notes, though there’s no indication of how complex these calculations might be.
More features of this sort are expected to follow the Math Notes feature, and the introduction of the Math Notes feature is slated to coincide with Apple’s debut of a redesigned macOS Calculator app. Users will likely be able to prompt the Math Notes feature from the Calculator app using a designated button or option, but we will have to wait a little while longer to see the exact plans Apple has in store for Math Notes.
(Image credit: Shutterstock/Matveev Aleksandr)
Apple steals a note from Microsoft
These features have both been a part of OneNote, Microsoft’s proprietary note-taking app, a favorite among many who use educational curricula and materials, and those who work in mathematical notation. It also happens to rank highly in terms of popularity in both the iOS App Store and the macOS App Store, the former being highly regarded in user reviews and the latter having been awarded Apple’s Editors’ Choice award. It’s the cohort of people who find OneNote so useful and crucial to their work that Apple might hope to entice them with its Math Notes feature.
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The Notes app may have begun as a humble confidant for shopping lists and late-night thoughts, but it looks like it’s growing up and becoming a more capable app to assist users in more ways. It’s still very popular as the native notetaking app for Apple products, and Apple is understandably making moves to hold on to its staple status.
Again, it’s expected that both the embedded audio recording feature and the Math Notes feature will be premiered at WWDC 2024, but Apple has canceled or delayed features that have been rumored to be in the pipeline before. We won’t know for sure until we hear about it on stage at WWDC in June.
Nations worldwide are aiming to introduce some of the tightest restrictions ever on smoking and vaping, especially among young people.
In one of the world’s most ambitious plans, UK lawmakers on 16 April backed a proposal to create by 2040 a ‘smoke-free’ generation of people who will never be able to legally buy tobacco. The UK, Australian and French governments are also clamping down on vaping with e-cigarettes. These countries’ bold policies are currently in the minority, say researchers, but such measures would almost certainly prevent diseases, as well as save lives and billions of dollars in health-care costs.
Smoking scars the immune system for years after quitting
The UK plan would probably “be the most impactful public-health policy ever introduced”, says health-policy researcher Duncan Gillespie at the University of Sheffield, UK. The proposal, initiated by the Conservative government’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, is a step closer to becoming law. The government hopes that smoking restrictions, alongside offering health benefits for individuals, will reduce toxic chemicals leaching from used vapes into the environment.
Smoke-free generations
The health harms of smoking tobacco have been established for decades — it substantially raises the risk of diseases including cancer, heart disease and diabetes. Increased awareness of these health risks has led to a global decline in the deadly habit in the past few decades (see ‘Smoke clears’).
Source: WHO
Any drop in smoking rates saves money and reduces the burden on health-care systems, says Alison Commar, who studies tobacco policy at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO estimates that tobacco use costs the world US$1.4 trillion every year in health expenditures and lost productivity. “Every tobacco-related illness is adding to the burden on the health system unnecessarily,” says Commar.
The UK proposal, announced last October, would ban the sale of tobacco to any person born in or after 2009. That would prevent anyone who turns 15 or younger this year from ever buying cigarettes legally in the country. From 2027, the minimum legal age to purchase tobacco products would increase from 18 years old by one year each year — meaning that the threshold in 2028, for instance, would be 20. This strategy, the government hopes, will by 2040 create a smoke-free generation. The UK move follows similar legislation announced in 2021 by New Zealand. The nation reversed its intended ban because tobacco sales were needed to help pay for tax cuts, but the government said last month that it will seek to ban disposable vapes.
Modelling smokers
The UK government’s policies are backed by a modelling study published in December that predicts how the proposal would affect smoking rates and people over time. Its ‘pessimistic’ model predicts that the policy could reduce the smoking rate among people aged 14–30 from 13% in 2023 to around 8% in 2030. By 2040, just 5% of this age group would smoke. In the baseline scenario, 8% of 14- to 30-year-olds would smoke. In the ‘optimistic’ scenario, only 0.4% of that age group would start smoking by 2040 (see ‘Ban plan’). That model suggests that, by 2075, the policy would save tens of thousands of lives and £11 billion ($13.7 billion) in health-care costs by preventing smoking-related diseases.
These projections are based on solid evidence and are of high quality, says tobacco researcher Allen Gallagher at the University of Bath, UK.
Still, no country has ever introduced a policy that raises the minimum tobacco-purchasing age in this way — only time will tell what the effects will be, says Commar.
Vaping bans
Nations are also targeting vaping, a trend that began around 2010 and has surged among younger people. Many people have perceived it as a potentially healthier alternative to smoking — for which there is substantial evidence. But whether vaping itself harms health has long been controversial, and the evidence is uncertain.
“The results are not super clear, but certainly hint towards vaping causing damage to the lungs and other organs,” says Carolyn Baglole, who studies lung disease at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada.
Source: UK government
Vapes are made of a box filled with liquid that usually contains nicotine, a heating element that turns the liquid into aerosols and a mouthpiece to inhale the aerosol ‘vape’ clouds, which are often fruity or dessert-flavoured. Although vapes lack tobacco and most of the toxic chemicals in cigarettes, the nicotine is still harmful. Nicotine can raise blood pressure, increase the risk of heart and lung disease and disrupt brain development in children and adolescents. In turn, this can lead to impairments in attention, memory and learning.
The UK plan includes banning disposable vapes, restricting vape flavours that appeal to young users and limiting how vapes are advertised. Most young people in Great Britain use disposable vapes rather than rechargeable ones than can be refilled with liquid, according to a survey by the public-health charity Action on Smoking and Health, based in London. Rechargeable vapes would remain legal.
Global policies
The French government also wants to ban disposable vapes this year, and in December its parliament unanimously backed the proposal. And in 2021, Australia restricted e-cigarette sales to smokers who have a prescription for using vapes to quit smoking. “There is a good consensus that vaping is likely to pose only a small fraction of risks of smoking over the long term,” says psychologist Peter Hajek at Queen Mary University of London, who led a study1 that suggested vaping safely helped pregnant women to stop smoking.
But illegal vaping is still surging among people under the legal age of 18 in Australia, according to research by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. That’s led the government to tighten rules on vape products. “This policy push should see the upswing in youth vaping contained and reversed,” says epidemiologist Tony Blakely at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
The flavoured liquid in vapes also contains solvents such as propylene glycol and glycerin. Agencies including the US and European Union drug regulators have approved these chemicals for oral consumption. But animal studies suggest that inhaling them could cause damage and inflammation, raising the risk of lung and heart disease2. “The issue is we don’t know much about what happens when you heat these products and aerosolize them for inhalation,” says Baglole.
One thing researchers know is that the heating element in e-cigarettes can release heavy metals into the inhaled aerosols. These particles have been linked to a raised risk of heart and respiratory disease, she says.
Ultimately, scientists seem to be overwhelming in favour of tough restrictions on smoking and vaping. Research is needed to establish the long-term health impacts of such policies, says Baglole. “Hopefully different types of studies, different models, in addition to human participants will start to paint a more complete picture,” she says.
Apple updated its App Review Guidelines this month to allow “retro game console emulator apps” on the App Store for the iPhone and other devices. Below, we outline everything to know about these emulators and available options so far.
This information is up to date as of April 2024, but Apple’s policies could change over time.
What is Allowed
Apple told us that emulators that can load games (ROMs) are permitted on the App Store, so long as the apps are emulating “retro console games” only.
Apple would not tell us which consoles it classifies as retro, but developer Riley Testut’s popular emulator Delta is now available on the App Store, and it can emulate games for the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), Nintendo 64, and Nintendo DS.
There is also a Commodore 64 emulator on the App Store called Emu64 XL.
We have not come across any other fully-functioning emulators on the App Store released after the rule change, but more will likely be available in the future. Apple recently removed an emulator called iGBA from the App Store for ripping off Testut’s code for Delta and its predecessor GBA4iOS, while the developer of NES emulator Bimmy decided to remove the app from the App Store to avoid the risk of legal action from Nintendo.
Legality
While a U.S. court ruled that emulators are legal, downloading copyrighted ROMs is typically against the law in the country. On its customer support website in the U.S., Nintendo says that downloading pirated copies of its games is illegal:
Pirate copies of game files are often referred to as “ROMs”.
The uploading and downloading of pirate copies of Nintendo games is illegal.
Nintendo recently sued the developers of Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu for “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale,” leading to a reported $2.4 million settlement. Nintendo has yet to comment on the availability of emulators in the App Store, but Delta and its predecessor GBA4iOS have been available on the iPhone outside of the App Store for over a decade now without being shut down. Nintendo did issue a DMCA takedown notice against the GBA4iOS website in 2014, but the emulators have continued to remain available.
For those who want to abide by the letter of the law, it is generally legal to download and play “homebrew” games available in the public domain.
Amazon published a blog post on Wednesday providing an update about its Just Walk Out technology, which it reportedly pulled from its Fresh grocery stores earlier this month. While extolling Just Walk Out’s virtues as a sales pitch to potential retail partners, the article lists a startlingly minuscule number of (non-Amazon) stores using the tech. There are now “more than 140 third-party locations with Just Walk Out technology in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Canada.”
Mind you, that isn’t the number of companies or retail chains licensing the tech; that’s the total number of locations. Nor is that the tally in one state or even one country. In four countries combined — with a total population of about 465 million — Just Walk Out is being used in “more than 140 third-party locations.”
On average, that means there’s one third-party Just Walk Out store for every 3.3 million people in those four countries. (They must be busy!) By contrast, there are over one million retail locations in the US, and, as of 2019, Starbucks had 241 locations in New York City alone, and there are over one million
Amazon had reportedly already planned to remove Just Walk Out tech from its Fresh grocery stores for roughly a year because it was too expensive and complicated for larger retail spaces to run and maintain. The company now pitches its tech as ideal for smaller convenience stores with fewer customers and products — like its own Amazon Go stores, which it has been busy shutting down over the last couple of years.
Amazon
The company reportedly gutted the team of developers working on Just Walk Out tech earlier this month. (You get one guess as to how the laid-off workers were instructed to leave the office.) As part of recent layoffs from Amazon’s AWS unit and Physical Stores Team, the company allegedly left only “a skeleton crew” to work on the tech moving forward. A skeleton crew to maintain a skeleton sounds about right.
In fairness, some of those locations are at high-traffic venues. That includes nine merch stores at Seattle’s Lumen Field (home to the Seahawks and Sounders), near Amazon’s headquarters. Delaware North, a large hospitality and entertainment company, has opened “more than a dozen” stores using the tech. Amazon says stores adopting Just Walk Out have reported increased transactions, sales and customer satisfaction.
Despite the reported gutting of Just Walk Out’s development team, Amazon says it “continues to invent the next generation of this technology to improve the checkout experience for large-format stores.” Its next steps include improving latency for “faster and more reliable receipts,” new algorithms to recognize customer actions and new sensors better.
If the reports about layoffs are accurate, the handful of remaining Just Walk Out developers will have their work cut out for them.
Multi-display computer setups with asymmetrical placements — aka, screens oriented in landscape and portrait orientations — are so popular that even vintage Apple displays are getting in the action. Today’s featured rig uses a modern MacBook and vintage displays. A M1 Pro MacBook Pro from 2021 drives a Cinema Display and Thunderbolt Display from many years earlier.
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Modern MacBook Pro and vintage displays make retro-cool setup
Redditor thatvirtualboy showcased the display-heavy setup in a post entitled, “Landscape + Portrait Layout.” In the photograph above, he has a Thunderbolt Dissplay on the left (landscape mode) and a Cinema Display on the right (portrait mode). They’re both from around 2010 and both feature 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution (2K quad high def, or QHD). His 2021 M1 Pro MacBook Pro is hidden behind the screens.
We first covered his setup in January 2023, when he kept his vintage displays far apart, and before he filled out the setup with some new items. Those include a Magic Mouse 2 and an EppieBasic LED Desk Lamp mounted next to the monitor arm and arching over the webcam atop the monitor on the left.
“I’ve already replaced the all-in-one cable on the Thunderbolt display,” Boy said. “Planning to keep using these until they either die, or the Studio Display gets refreshed. So probably a long time. With the right adapters, they work just fine with the M1 Pro.”
Boy noted the Thunderbolt Display can use the regular Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 display adapter, “which I have directly plugged into the MacBook Pro.” And he added the Cinema Display works with a Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter using a CalDigit dock.
Experiment ‘for science’
“Can you connect the [Cinema Display] to the [Thunderbolt Display]’s TB2 port or do you have to connect them each by its own to the Mac? Always thought of that as I had 2 TBDs and they were flickering,” a commenter asked.
“I had never even considered trying that, assuming it was data only,” Boy replied. “For science, I just gave it a go and confirmed that it doesn’t work!”
Old-school bezels on Cinema Display, Thunderbolt Display
Another commenter lamented the rather noticeable bezels bordering the vintage screens.
“Nice but those thick borders giving me anxiety,” they said. “It’s interesting how technology has evolved, I don’t think multiple displays were as common as they are now right?”
Boy’s reply:
The bezels appear prominent when viewing the entire setup at a distance like this, but in use, they’re hardly noticeable, and are actually quite beautiful when you do stop to notice them. For my profession, I’ve used everything from a single display up to 4 displays. I think macOS makes it really easy to use a single display for most work (through the use of multiple desktop spaces and/or Stage Manager). However the two things that keep me using 2 displays for the time being is programming, and giving Power Point presentations over Zoom.
Shop these items now:
In the old setup: Take a closer look at the Thunderbolt Display as well as the mini Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad 2, M1 iPad Pro and, on the left, AirPods Max — not to mention the Autonomous standing desk underneath it all. Photo: [email protected]
Computing gear:
Displays:
Input devices:
Audio:
Furniture and lighting:
If you would like to see your setup featured on Cult of Mac, send some high-res pictures to [email protected]. Please provide a detailed list of your equipment. Tell us what you like or dislike about your setup, and fill us in on any special touches or challenges.
Sony made a special occasion of its 2024 TV launch, holding it at the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Los Angeles. At the event, attendees, myself included, were treated to demos of Foley effects and soundtrack mixing, plus other striking examples of behind-the-scenes movie magic that happens at the studio. Sony’s message was that the technology that goes into movie and TV creation via its studio and professional camera and display divisions trickles down into consumer products, and it was made loud and clear at the event.
The Sony Bravia 9 is the flagship model of the new Bravia series TVs, taking that crown from the Sony A95L OLED TV, which will continue in the lineup for 2024. Interestingly, the Bravia 9 is a mini-LED TV. That marks a change in direction for Sony, a brand that in the past had regularly positioned OLED as the most premium technology in its TV lineup.
Sony’s re-positioning of mini-LED at the top of the TV food chain results from two tech developments at the company. The first is the creation of the BVM-HX3110, a professional mastering monitor capable of 4,000 nits peak brightness. The BVM-HX3110 was introduced in late 2023, and replaces the BVM-HX310, a standard model for movie post-production that tops out at 1,000 nits peak brightness.
The backlight LED driver panel used in Sony’s Bravia 9 TVs. Those tiny black stripes are the mini-LED modules. (Image credit: Future)
The second development is XR Backlight Master Drive with High Peak Luminance, a new TV backlight technology used exclusively in the Sony Bravia 9 mini-LED TV. According to Sony, its next-gen backlight tech is responsible for a 50% brightness boost in the Bravia 9 over the company’s previous flagship mini-LED model, the Sony X95L, along with a 325% increase in local dimming zones – something it accomplishes through a new, highly miniaturized 22-bit LED driver.
Along with increasing the number of LED modules that can be positioned in a backlight, the new driver’s higher resolution (other TV makers use 10- or 12-bit drivers, according to Sony) in combination with advanced dimming control algorithms lets it display images with a greater level of refinement than previously available in the best TVs. And that’s where Sony’s demo of the new Bravia 9 TV I attended comes in.
Brightness refined
There were two components to Sony’s demonstration of the Bravia 9’s XR Backlight Master Drive with High Peak Luminance tech. The first was a comparison of the new Sony BVM-HX3110 monitor with the older BVM-HX310 using movie scenes mastered at 4,000 nits peak brightness. While most movies are mastered at 1,000 nits peak brightness, according to Sony that has mainly been a technology limitation – one now removed by the BVM-HX3110. When viewing the 4,000 nits footage on both monitors side by side, a clear increase in highlight detail on the new BVM-HX3110 made images look notably more dynamic.
Sony’s Bravia 9 mini-LED TV in a bright room setting. (Image credit: Future)
The second component was a stacked pair of Sony Bravia 9 TVs set alongside a stacked pair of Samsung QN90C TVs, that company’s flagship 2023 mini-LED model in the US. The TVs arrayed at the top had their LCD panels removed so we could see the “raw” mini-LED backlight (see pic at top). Viewing a series of video clips, the Sony’s backlight had notably higher “resolution” owing to the XR Backlight Master Drive’s more granular local dimming performance. It also had a punchier level of brightness that could be seen in images displayed on the normal, non-butchered versions of both TVs located below. That brightness made highlights pop more dramatically and colors look brighter and richer.
Equally impressive in the demo was the virtual absence of backlight blooming effects in the transitions between bright and dark parts of images on the Bravia 9. Backlight blooming is a common visual artifact with LED-based TVs, even ones that use mini-LED tech, and it’s a key reason why OLED TVs, which have panels with self-emissive pixels that generate their own light, have retained a picture quality advantage over LED TVs.
Mini-LED mastered
Another picture quality comparison conducted by Sony at the event put the Bravia 9 alongside the Sony X95L and Samsung S95C, that company’s 2023 flagship QD-OLED model. The comparison also used Sony’s BVM-HX3110 displaying the same images as a reference point, and of the three TVs, the Bravia 9 most closely tracked the picture on the professional mastering monitor.
While Sony hasn’t revealed peak brightness specs for the Bravia 9 TV, its ability to accurately reproduce highlight and shadow details in movies mastered at 4,000 nits makes it a statement piece for HDR. As Sony’s new mastering monitor makes its way into more production facilities and movie directors and cinematographers start pushing the limits of what the format is capable of, any TV that can handle that will have an advantage.
Sony’s shift to mini-LED for its flagship TV signals its confidence in the tech, and with developments such as XR Backlight Master Drive, its ability to compete effectively with OLED. The 2024 crop of OLED TVs is turning out to be the brightest yet, with the new Samsung S95D measuring just under 1,800 nits peak brightness in our tests. But the new Samsung QN90D mini-LED model is even brighter, topping out at around 2,000 nits.
There’s only so much more that OLED makers can do to increase brightness beyond current levels, and the display tech may have hit its peak in the latest generation of TVs. And while we’ve yet to measure the Bravia 9, mini-LED is capable of higher brightness than OLED tech, and that’s something Sony clearly had in mind when planning its new flagship. In the future, we can expect to see movies with even wider dynamic range, and mini-LED with its high peak brightness capability will be well-positioned to handle it.
Jitao David Zhang (left) with his apprentices Jannick Lippuner (centre) and Giulia Ferraina.Credit: Matthew Lee
Giulia Ferraina and Jannick Lippuner, both 19, are my latest apprentices in the pharmaceutical research unit of F. Hoffmann-La Roche, a global company, at its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. Both are in their fourth and final year of vocational education and training (VET), specializing in informatics and communication technology. Coaching them, just like discovering drugs, is a rewarding part of my job as a research scientist.
Giulia and Jannick attend vocational schools for one or two days a week. Besides studying professional topics, such as how to build a computer network or an app, they also acquire life knowledge and skills. These include setting a household budget, forming a family or partnership and even starting their own company.
The rest of their time is divided between working in my team as software developers for drug discovery and attending the company’s dedicated learning centre. Besides writing software that helps to find better drugs, they learn advanced informatics topics, such as cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI), and acquire crucial skills such as project management and presentation. Within four years, they will become software engineers with industrial work experience.
Vocational education is common in German-speaking countries. At around the age of 16, teenagers in Switzerland make a choice between general education in an upper secondary school and a VET apprenticeship in one of more than 250 professions. Defined and organized by a partnership between the Swiss federal government, professional associations and individual regions of Switzerland called cantons, VET combines on-the-job training with classes in schools. Each profession has its own educational plan, which specifies a nationwide standard of skills to be mastered by the apprentices. After finishing the training, which takes between two and four years depending on the profession, and passing a final exam, apprentices receive a diploma that certifies their qualification to work or to pursue higher education. Apprentices are paid a salary, which usually starts at 600–1,000 Swiss francs (around US$700–1,170) per month and increases in each year of training.
I stumbled on the apprenticeship culture in Germany while doing my PhD in computational biology in the 2000s at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg. Until then, I had no real idea about vocational training — but I did harbour some unfair stereotypes. When I was in secondary school in Tianjin, a city in northern China with prosperous industries and booming businesses in the 1990s, vocational training was often seen as an inferior choice to general education. An apprenticeship was stigmatized as the last resort for low achievers and problematic children. My stereotypes were banished as soon as I started working with and coaching apprentices in Heidelberg. The young people amazed me with their technical expertise and diligent work, and became co-authors of scientific software and publications. Coaching them improved my leadership and communication skills, especially across cultures, because neither German nor English, spoken by the apprentices, was my first language.
Nature Spotlight: Switzerland
I moved to Basel to take up an industry position in 2011. It soon became clear to me that Swiss people also consider the apprenticeship a respected education. Statistics confirm my impression. Two-thirds of young people in Switzerland opt for an apprenticeship, and one-third of businesses train them. Despite the trend in recent years for more students to choose general education over vocational training, high-quality apprenticeship openings remain competitive. My company trains around 300 apprentices across 15 professions in the Basel area every year. For 6 informatics and computer-technology positions, we usually receive more than 100 applications.
Giulia and Jannick are my fourth and fifth trainees. In their third year, Jannick automated a bioinformatics pipeline (see go.nature.com/49uegts) and Giulia developed several software widgets for chemists that help them to predict the properties of molecules to be synthesized. Currently, both are building a system that helps biologists to visualize and interpret omics data. Apprentices advance scientific research while honing their skills. Their education is an early-access, paid-for opportunity to gain the combination of theoretical knowledge and practical skills that is normally offered by universities.
Giulia and Jannick learn much from solving real-world problems such as fixing a bug. They learn more from making mistakes and getting feedback in a working environment. After attentive learning followed by good sleep (the working hours of underage apprentices are legally limited to a maximum of 9 hours a day), they become capable, productive and keen to learn more.
Doing an apprenticeship is not without risks and downsides. I can imagine that, for some 16-year-olds, it must be a formidable task to decide on a profession and to become self-disciplined and professional almost overnight. Also, the quality of education can vary by profession, school and company. Moreover, some might consider apprenticeships outdated in an age of automation and disruptive technologies such as AI potentially replacing human jobs. A German friend of mine who learnt book binding had to do another apprenticeship and study to get a job as an accountant. Will my apprentices and their peers face a similar fate?
Although the honest answer to this is ‘I don’t know’, two observations make me cautiously optimistic.
First, the Swiss apprenticeship system is constantly evolving. The educational plans are updated every few years with feedback from all parties. Teachers and vocational trainers such as me meet, exchange and receive continuous education regularly. Apprentices are incentivized to explore and adopt new technologies to enhance their productivity. For instance, apprentices in information and communications technology can already use tools such as ChatGPT in their final examination, as long as they declare the prompts they have used. A springboard from classroom to career, apprenticeship prepares one for changes in life.
Second, the apprenticeship system fosters individual growth. Beyond learning from experienced colleagues and working under supervision, apprentices are encouraged to lead activities — for instance, building a website for a project or advising schoolchildren about their career choices. Besides day-to-day work, my apprentices and I are required to hold a formal discussion every semester. We examine their professional and personal development, give each other feedback (from which I learn a lot about myself) and set goals for the coming six months. Apprentices acquire soft skills such as creativity, empathy, compassion, resilience and teamwork that will serve them well in life.
I am therefore convinced that an apprenticeship, if done right, is a valuable education. The short feedback circuit between what is needed and what is taught, as well as an education focusing on self-actualization and collaboration, prevent the formation of a chasm that is sometimes apparent between academia and industry1. Pondering my own journey to become a research scientist in industry, I wish that I had learnt earlier about how to recognize and solve real-world problems, the power of knowledge gained from experience, the importance of building trust-based relationships and the fulfilment gained by focusing on the growth and development of people around me.
Like most of my previous apprentices, Giulia and Jannick both want to attend university when their apprenticeships end. Before that, Jannick is with us for another year (including a six-month company internal exchange in the United States) before undertaking his military or civil service, which is mandatory for men of his age in Switzerland. Giulia will study informatics part-time while working as a software developer at our company. Both have promising careers ahead: ex-apprentices abound among Swiss political and business leaders. Other countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States and China, are also expanding and updating vocational training programmes. The world should perhaps take more notice of the Swiss model.
