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Revisión de OM System OM-1 II: potencia del tamaño de una pinta

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Sistema OM OM-1 II: Revisión de 2 minutos

Durante mucho tiempo ha existido una arrogancia en lo que respecta a los formatos de cámara que se remonta a la época del cine. Pero con la fotografía digital, aunque esto sigue siendo cierto hasta cierto punto, el panorama de las cámaras es muy diferente y las cámaras Micro Four Thirds (MFT) con sensores más pequeños suelen ser algunas de las cámaras más avanzadas disponibles.

La OM System OM-1 Mark II es una de estas cámaras, pero es solo una actualización incremental en comparación con la original. sistema OM-1 Es una gran promoción. Sin embargo, el nuevo modelo sigue siendo una de las cámaras tecnológicamente más avanzadas disponibles actualmente y ofrece características y funciones que fácilmente podrían tentar a los fotógrafos a alejarse de las cámaras APS-C de formato más grande y de fotograma completo, especialmente aquellos que buscan un sistema de cámara liviano.

El OM-1 II ofrece muchas de las mismas características que el original, incluido el mismo sensor retroiluminado de 20 megapíxeles con un sistema AF de 1053 puntos, 50 fps al disparar con AF continuo y filtros Live ND (basados ​​en software). ) junto con un cuerpo protegido contra la intemperie IP53, por nombrar algunos. Las dos cámaras también lucen notablemente similares, casi idénticas, entonces, ¿qué tiene de especial la OM1-II?

Olympus OM-1 Mark II

(Crédito de la imagen: James Abbott)

No hay duda de que la OM-1 II es una cámara increíble que se maneja increíblemente bien y ofrece características y funciones que desearía que tuvieran las cámaras con sensores más grandes, muchas de las cuales cubriré con más detalle más adelante. Pero este nivel de funcionalidad no es barato: el precio solo de la carrocería es de $ 2,400 / £ 2,199 / AU $ 3,599.

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Microsoft launches generative AI model designed exclusively for US intelligence services — air-gapped system for spies aims to avoid potential security leaks

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AI technology has already proved instrumental in transforming and disrupting a wide range of industries, and really it’s just getting started.

Microsoft, which has gone “all-in” on artificial intelligence, has developed a generative AI model designed expressly for U.S. intelligence services. Unlike other AI platforms, such as Microsoft’s own Copilot, this one will be “air gapped” and won’t require a potentially unsafe connection to the internet.

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Rejuvenating the immune system could slow ageing

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Hello Nature readers, would you like to get this Briefing in your inbox free every day? Sign up here.

A Red and White Holstein is led into the judging area during the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.

Dairy cattle seem to survive infection with the H5N1 strain of influenza virus, which has killed millions of wild birds.Credit: Ben Brewer/Reuters

As the first-known outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza in cows continues in the United States, scientists are increasingly concerned that the animals will become a permanent reservoir for the virus, giving it more chances to mutate and jump to humans. Cows usually survive infection, which could make them a good place for viruses to acquire mutations by swapping genetic material — and there are a lot of cows. One dairy worker in Texas has definitely already been infected with H5N1 (with only mild symptoms) but there could be far more unidentified cases because testing of people is limited.

Nature | 6 min read

A new version of DeepMind’s AlphaFold tool gives scientists the ability to predict protein structures during interactions with other molecules. The tool could be transformative for drug discovery because it can predict the shape of proteins that contain function-altering modifications, or their structure alongside those of DNA, RNA and other cellular players that are crucial to a protein’s duties. “This is just revolutionary,” says biochemist Frank Uhlmann. “It’s going to democratize structural-biology research.” Access to the AlphaFold3 server, however, is limited — partly to protect the advantage of DeepMind’s own drug-discovery spin-off company.

Nature | 6 min read

Reference: Nature paper

The United States has introduced a new policy that provides stricter oversight of biological experiments that could be misused or spark a pandemic. It took more than four years of deliberations to develop a system that evaluates the risks and benefits of pathogen research without paralysing fundamental science. The policy, which comes into effect next year, sets a standard that might inspire other countries to re-evaluate their current approaches, says biosecurity researcher Filippa Lentzos.

Nature | 6 min read

Mexico has two scientist-candidates for president in its elections next month. Leading in the polls is environmental engineer Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, who has vowed to “make Mexico a scientific and innovation power”. Sheinbaum Pardo would be the first woman and first environmental engineer to lead Mexico. Her rivals include computer engineer Xóchitl Gálvez Ruiz, who criticises Sheinbaum Pardo for not challenging current president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policies, including support for Mexico’s oil industry, a controversial science law and cuts to science spending. Some academics echo those concerns: “Is she going to continue López Obrador’s attacks on science or will she … radically change?” asks mathematician Raúl Rojas González.

Science | 13 min read

Features & opinion

Rejuvenating the immune system seems to revitalise many organs in an animal’s body — at least in mice. This raises the tantalising prospect of treating immune ageing to control age-related diseases. But interfering with the highly complex immune system can be perilous. Pioneers are setting their sights on low-risk but important goals, such as strengthening older people’s responses to vaccinations and boosting the efficiency of cancer immunotherapies.

Nature | 11 min read

In The Light Eaters, journalist Zoë Schlanger takes a deep dive into plant intelligence and consciousness — topics that were long considered pseudoscience. Some cautious studies have popped up, for example of a vine that changes the shape of its leaves to mimic those of neighbouring plants. “As a plant scientist, I am fascinated by what draws us to wanting to define plants as sentient or conscious — or not — through the lens of our limited human understanding of those terms,” writes reviewer Beronda Montgomery.

Nature | 6 min read

In the first of a new Nature Careers advice column, an overworked technician writes to say that their principal investigator (PI) blew up at them after they made a big mistake. Three scientists with experience in negotiating conflict offer their advice.

Nature | 5 min read

Do you have a work dilemma you’d like some help with? E-mail [email protected]

QUOTE OF THE DAY

In 2009, neuroscientist Larry Young wrote in Nature about his influential research into how the hormone oxytocin influences complex social behaviours such as the parent-infant bond and romantic love. Young has died, aged 56. (Nature | 5 min read)

Read a full obituary of Young in The New York Times (7 min read)

Today, I want to share news of the Nature Awards Microbiome Accelerator for researchers with aspirations to translate their microbiome research to transform health outcomes. Four applicants will each receive US$10,000 and entry to an immersive residential programme. Learn more and apply here — the deadline is 24 June.

Thanks for reading,

Flora Graham, senior editor, Nature Briefing

With contributions by Katrina Krämer, Smriti Mallapaty and Sarah Tomlin

Want more? Sign up to our other free Nature Briefing newsletters:

• Nature Briefing: Microbiology — the most abundant living entities on our planet — microorganisms — and the role they play in health, the environment and food systems.

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Hacking the immune system could slow ageing — here’s how

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Stem-cell researcher Carolina Florian didn’t trust what she was seeing. Her elderly laboratory mice were starting to look younger. They were more sprightly and their coats were sleeker. Yet all she had done was to briefly treat them — many weeks earlier — with a drug that corrected the organization of proteins inside a type of stem cell.

When technicians who were replicating her experiment in two other labs found the same thing, she started to feel more confident that the treatment was somehow rejuvenating the animals. In two papers, in 2020 and 2022, her team described how the approach extends the lifespan of mice and keeps them fit into old age1,2.

The target of Florian’s elixir is the immune system. The stem cells she treated are called haematopoietic, or blood, stem cells (HS cells), which give rise to all immune cells. As blood circulates, the mix of cells pervades every organ, affecting all bodily functions.

But the molecular composition of the HS cells changes with age, and this distorts the balance of immune cells that they produce. “Fixing the drift in them that occurs with time seems to fix a lot of the problems of ageing — not only in the immune system but also in the rest of the body,” says Florian, who is now at the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain.

In March3, another team showed that restoring the balance between two key types of immune cell gives old mice more youthful immune systems, improving the animals’ ability to respond to vaccines and to stave off viral infections.

Other scientists have used different experimental approaches to draw the same conclusion: rejuvenating the immune system rejuvenates many organs in an animal’s body, at least in mice. And, most intriguingly, evidence suggests that immune-system ageing might actually drive the ageing of those organs.

The potential — helping people to remain healthy in their later years — is seductive. But translating this knowledge into the clinic will be challenging. Interfering with the highly complex immune system can be perilous, researchers warn. So, at first, pioneers are setting their sights on important yet low-risk goals such as improving older people’s responses to vaccinations and improving the efficiency of cancer immunotherapies.

“The prospect that reversing immune ageing may control age-related diseases is enticing,” says stem-cell scientist Vittorio Sebastiano at Stanford Medical School in California. “But we are moving forward cautiously.”

Fading immunity

The human immune system is a complex beast whose multitudinous cellular and molecular components work together to shape development, protect against infections, help wounds to heal and eliminate cells that threaten to become cancerous. But it becomes less effective as people age and the system’s composition starts to change. In older age, people become susceptible to a range of infectious and non-infectious diseases — and more resistant to the protective power of vaccines.

The immune system has two main components: a fast-acting innate system, which destroys invading pathogens indiscriminately, and a more-precise adaptive immune system, whose components learn to recognize specific foreign bacteria and viruses and generate antibodies against them.

The HS cells in the bone marrow spawn the immune cells of both arms of the system. They differentiate into two main classes — lymphoid and myeloid — which go on to differentiate further. Lymphoid cells are mostly responsible for adaptive immunity, and include: B cells, which produce antibodies; T cells, which help to attack invaders and orchestrate complex immune responses; and natural killer cells, which destroy infected cells. Myeloid cells include a raft of cell types involved mostly in innate immunity.

Side by side comparison of young and aged stem cells showing the reduction of asymmetric cell division with age

Proteins inside immune-cell-generating stem cells become more symmetrical with age (right).Credit: Eva Mejia-Ramirez

One of the earliest changes in the immune system as people age is the shrinking of the thymus, which begins after puberty. This organ is the crucible for T cells, but a lot of the tissue has turned to fat by the time people hit their 30s, slashing the production of new T cells and diminishing the power of the immune system. What’s more, the function of T cells alters as they age and become less specialized in their ability to recognize infectious agents.

The proportions of different types of immune cell circulating in the blood also changes. The ratio of myeloid to lymphoid cells skews markedly towards myeloid cells, which can drive inflammation. Moreover, increasing numbers of immune cells become senescent, meaning that they stop replicating but don’t die.

Any cell in the body can become senescent, typically when damaged by a mutation. Once in this state, cells start to secrete inflammatory signals, flagging themselves for destruction. This is an important anticancer and wound-healing mechanism that works well in youth. But when too much damage accumulates with ageing — and immune cells themselves also become senescent — the mechanism breaks down. Senescent immune cells, attracted by the inflammatory signals from senescent tissue, secrete their own inflammatory molecules. So not only do they fail to clean up properly, but they also add to the inflammation that damages surrounding healthy tissue. The phenomenon is known as ‘inflammaging’.

“It becomes a terrible positive feedback — a never-ending dance of destruction,” says immunologist Arne Akbar at University College London.

And evidence suggests that this feedback loop is kicked off by the immune system. In a series of experiments in mice4, Laura Niedernhofer at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has shown that immune-cell senescence actually drives senescence in other tissues. “These cells are extremely dangerous,” she says.

Her team used genetic methods to eliminate an important DNA-repair enzyme in the immune system of the mice. The animals remained healthy until adulthood but then, unable to correct accumulating mutations, various types of immune cell started to become senescent.

A few months later, increasing numbers of cells in organs such as the liver and kidney also fell into senescence, and the organs showed signs of damage. These effects were all reversed when the scientists gave the mice immune cells from the spleens of young, healthy mice.

All of this suggests that fixing the characteristics of immune-system ageing could help to prevent or mitigate diseases of ageing, says Niedernhofer.

Battling senescence

Many scientists are trying to do just that, from very different angles. Lots of the approaches hint that very short treatments of the immune system might have long-term effects, keeping side effects to a more manageable minimum.

One approach is to tackle senescent immune cells head on, using drugs to either remove them or block the inflammatory factors they secrete. “Senescent immune cells have long been known to be very modifiable in humans,” says Niedernhofer. “They go up if you smoke and down if you exercise.”

Some drugs — such as dasatinib, which is approved for the treatment of some cancers, and quercetin, which is marketed as an antioxidant dietary supplement but not approved as a drug — are known to reduce the age-related acceleration of senescence, and dozens of clinical trials are testing their impact on various age-related diseases. Niedernhofer herself is involved in a small clinical trial on older people with sepsis, a condition that becomes more deadly with age.

Her team is also doing experiments to assess which of the many types of immune cell is the most important in driving senescence in the body, which should help in the design of more precise therapies. Two types — T cells and natural killer cells — are emerging as key contenders, she says. She plans to screen natural products and drugs already approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration for their ability to interact with those types of immune cell in senescence.

Akbar thinks that targeting inflammation itself might be as effective as targeting the senescent cells. He and his colleagues did a study in healthy volunteers using the investigational compound losmapimod, which blocks an enzyme involved in the production of inflammatory molecules called cytokines. They treated the volunteers with the drug for four days, and then, over the course of a week, measured their skin responses to an injection of the virus that causes chickenpox. Most people are exposed to this virus during their lives and it frequently lingers in the body. But with age, people tend to lose their immunity to it, and it can then manifest as shingles. The drug restored the immune response in the skin in older volunteers to a level similar to that seen in the younger volunteers5. In unpublished work, Akbar has found the same robust skin results up to three months later.

“Temporarily blocking inflammation in this way to allow the immune system to function might similarly boost the response of older patients to flu vaccinations,” says Akbar.

Immune boost

The value of priming the aged immune system before administering a vaccine has been demonstrated in a series of clinical trials led by researcher Joan Mannick, chief executive of Tornado Therapeutics, which is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. Those trials tested analogues of the drug rapamycin and other drugs with similar mechanisms, which target the immune system and are approved for prevention of organ transplant rejection and for the treatment of some cancers. The drugs block an enzyme, called mTOR, that is crucial for many physiological functions and which becomes dysregulated in old age.

For several weeks before receiving their influenza vaccinations, trial participants were treated with doses of the drugs that were low enough to avoid side effects. This treatment regimen improved their responses to the vaccine, and boosted the ability of their immune systems to resist viral infections in general.

Senior citizens wearing facemasks hold their upper arms after receiving a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine

Vaccines tend to work less efficiently in older adults, but new approaches could boost their power.Credit: Hector Vivas/Getty

But rapamycin can raise susceptibility to infection and affect metabolism, so Mannick is planning trials with similar drugs that might have a safer profile. “But there are all sorts of different ways to try to improve the immune system,” she notes.

One other way is to try to restore the function of the thymus to maintain the production of new T cells. Immunologist Jarrod Dudakov at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, is researching the basic biology of thymus cells to try to work out how they regenerate themselves after stressful assaults. “It’s all a bit early to see how this understanding will translate into the clinic,” he says. But he thinks that maintaining the ability of the thymus to generate a broad repertoire of T cells will be “foundational”.

Others are trying to combat ageing by generating thymic tissue from pluripotent stem cells for eventual transplantation. But Greg Fahy, chief scientific officer at Intervene Immune in Torrance, California, says he sees no need to wait for these long-term prospects to come to fruition, because an available drug — synthetic growth hormone — is already known to regenerate thymus tissue. He is doing a series of small studies on healthy volunteers using growth hormone as part of a cocktail of compounds. Early results indicate that the participants show increased levels of functional thymic tissue, and that their epigenetic clock — a biomarker of ageing — reverses by a couple of years6. Fahy is now extending the trial to look at whether the drug cocktail also improves physical fitness in a larger group of volunteers.

Turn back time

Another approach, not yet in the clinic, is to partially reprogram immune cells, to try to turn back the clock in cells that have become senescent. This involves transiently exposing the cells in a dish to a cocktail of transcription factors known to induce a pluripotent state in adult cells.

Sebastiano and his colleagues have shown in human cells that this process corrects the epigenetic changes that occur with ageing7. He has co-founded a start-up company to use the technique to try to counteract a problem in a cancer therapy known as CAR T, in which T cells are engineered outside the body to target and destroy a person’s cancer. But the T cells can turn senescent before they can be returned to the person. Rejuvenating them during the generation process would make production quicker and more robust, says Sebastiano.

Florian’s approach, too, aims to produce healthier immune cells — inside the body1,2. HS cells in the blood rack up epigenetic changes, and their environment also changes as they age. This causes proteins in the cells to arrange themselves more symmetrically — a process known as polarization — which shifts the balance of stem-cell differentiation in favour of myeloid cells over lymphoid cells. Florian’s studies used a four-day treatment with a compound, called CASIN, that inhibits one part of this process to correct the polarization, and helped the mice to live longer.

The team saw the same life-extending effects when HS cells from old mice given CASIN were transplanted into old mice that hadn’t received the treatment. “This very small step had a large impact,” says Florian.

Florian next hopes to bring her work to the clinic. As a first case study, she thinks her drug might support regeneration of the immune system after people receive chemotherapy for cancer.

How old?

Research on immune ageing faces some fundamental challenges. One is shared with ageing studies in all organs — the inability to measure ageing precisely.

“We don’t know in a quantitative, measurable, predictive way what ageing means at the molecular level in different cell types,” says Sebastiano. “Without those benchmarks, it is very hard to show rejuvenation.” Last year, a consortium of academics got together to begin developing a consensus on biomarkers of ageing — which will be essential when scientists come to seek approval from regulatory agencies for anti-ageing therapies.

Another challenge is the difficulty in pinning down what makes one immune cell unique. Until recently, it has been hard to demonstrate which subtypes of immune cells live where, and how they change with time.

But technologies such as single-cell RNA sequencing, which quantitatively measures the genes being expressed in individual cells, have tightened up analysis. A large study of immune cells in the blood of mice and humans across a range of ages published last November, for example, revealed 55 subpopulations. Just twelve of those changed with age8.

With so many strands of research coming together, scientists are cautiously hopeful that the immune system will indeed prove to be a key lever in healthy ageing. Don’t expect an elixir of youth any time soon, says Florian — by definition, ageing research takes a long time. “But there is such great potential for translation.”

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the dial in the brain that controls the immune system

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Coloured magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of a sagittal section through a patient's head showing a healthy human brain and brain stem.

A population of neurons in the brain stem, the stalk-like structure that connects the bulk of the brain to the spinal cord, acts as the master dial for the immune system.Credit: Voisin/Phanie/Science Photo Library

Scientists have long known that the brain plays a part in the immune system — but how it does so has been a mystery. Now, scientists have identified cells in the brainstem that sense immune cues from the periphery of the body and act as master regulators of the body’s inflammatory response.

The results, published on 1 May in Nature1, suggest that the brain maintains a delicate balance between the molecular signals that promote inflammation and those that dampen it — a finding that could lead to treatments for autoimmune diseases and other conditions caused by an excessive immune response.

The discovery is akin to a black-swan event — unexpected but making perfect sense once revealed, says Ruslan Medzhitov, an immunologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Scientists have known that the brainstem has many functions, such as controlling basic processes such as breathing. However, he adds, the study “shows that there is whole layer of biology that we haven’t even anticipated”.

The brain is watching

After sensing an intruder, the immune system unleashes a flood of immune cells and compounds that promote inflammation. This inflammatory response must be controlled with exquisite precision: if it’s too weak, the body is at greater risk of becoming infected; if it’s too strong, it can damage the body’s own tissues and organs.

Previous work has shown that the vagus nerve, a large network of nerve fibres that links the body with the brain, influences immune responses. However, the specific brain neurons that are activated by immune stimuli remained elusive, says Hao Jin, a neuroimmunologist at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, who led the work.

To investigate how the brain controls the body’s immune response, Jin and his colleagues monitored the activity of brain cells after injecting the abdomen of mice with bacterial compounds that trigger inflammation.

The researchers identified neurons in the brainstem that switched on in response to the immune triggers. Activating these neurons with a drug reduced the levels of inflammatory molecules in the mice’s blood. Silencing the neurons led to an uncontrolled immune response, with the number of inflammatory molecules increasing by 300% compared with the levels observed in mice with functional brainstem neurons. These nerve cells act as “a rheostat in the brain that ensures that an inflammatory response is maintained within the appropriate levels”, says study co-author Charles Zuker, a neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York City.

Further experiments revealed two discrete groups of neurons in the vagus nerve: one that responds to pro-inflammatory immune molecules and another that responds to anti-inflammatory molecules. These neurons relay their signals to the brain, allowing it to monitor the immune response as it unfolds. In mice with conditions characterized by an excessive immune response, artificially activating the vagal neurons that carry anti-inflammatory signals diminished inflammation.

Dampening autoimmune symptoms

Finding ways to control this newly discovered body–brain network would offer an approach to fixing broken immune responses in various conditions such as autoimmune diseases and even long COVID, a debilitating syndrome that can persist for years after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, Jin says.

There’s evidence that therapies targeting the vagus nerve can treat diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, suggesting that targeting the specific vagal neurons that carry immune signals might work in people, Zuker says. But, he cautions, “it’s a lot of work to go from here to there”.

Besides the neuronal network identified in the study, there might be other routes through which the body transmits immune signals to the brain, says Stephen Liberles, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. What’s more, the mechanisms by which the brain sends signals back to the immune system to regulate inflammation remain unclear. “We’re just scratching the surface,” he says. “We need to understand the rule book of how the brain and the immune system interact.”

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No ‘independent chip makers and system makers and storage makers’: Industry expert paints bleakest picture of future of IT — insatiable tech appetite of Google, Microsoft and other hyperscalers could kill off competition forever

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In IDC’s own words, its Worldwide Quarterly Enterprise Infrastructure Tracker: Buyer and Cloud Deployment is “designed to provide clients with a better understanding of how enterprise infrastructure technologies (server, external enterprise storage systems, purpose-built appliances: HCI and PBBA) are being deployed in cloud environments and what type of buyers are acquiring them.”

The Next Platform has been following these trackers as they are released every quarter, and noticed that while hyperscalers, cloud builders, and other service providers who “build datacenter infrastructure and sell capacity on it” surpassed 50 percent share of the combined server and storage revenues in the first quarter of 2020, by the close of 2028, if IDC is right, that figure will have jumped to 69.7 percent.

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‘Inspired by the human brain’: Intel debuts neuromorphic system that aims to mimic grey matter with a clear aim — making the machine exponentially faster and much more power efficient, just like us

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Neuromorphic computing is about mimicking the human brain’s structure to deliver more efficient data processing, including faster speeds and higher accuracy, and it’s a hot topic right now. A lot of universities and tech firms are working on it, including scientists at Intel who have built the world’s largest “brain-based” computing system for Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

Intel’s creation, called Hala Point, is only the size of a microwave, but boasts 1.15 billion artificial neurons. That’s a massive step up from the 50 million neuron capacity of its predecessor, Pohoiki Springs, which debuted four years ago. There’s a theme with Intel’s naming in case you were wondering – they’re locations in Hawaii.

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Galaxy phones start getting April 2024 Google Play System update

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Last updated: April 23rd, 2024 at 12:47 UTC+02:00

Google’s April 2024 Play System update is now rolling out for Samsung Galaxy devices, including the Galaxy S24 flagship lineup. The latter, as you might remember, was a bit late to receive the January 2024 Google Play System update a couple of months ago, but now it appears to be back on track with the schedule.

Google started rolling out the April 2024 Play System update a few days ago, on April 17. Now, you can download it on your Samsung Galaxy phone by opening the Settings app, accessing “About Phone,” tapping “Software information,” followed by “Google Play System update.”

You will then need to wait for the phone to finish checking whether a new Play System update is available for download. Assuming the new update reached your phone, it will install it and reboot.

Once done, you should access the Play System update menu again and double-check if everything is up to date, seeing how Galaxy phone users have sometimes received “fake” Play System updates in a loop due to a bug.

We tested the new update’s availability using a Galaxy S24+, and it all worked as expected. The phone now runs the April 2024 Play System update, as seen in the screenshot above.

As to what new features this update brings, Google’s changelog is a bit sparse. It only mentions a change for the Google Phone app, claiming that “With this new feature, you’ll be able to connect with your contacts immediately after you set up your new phone.”

An April 2024 Play service update also appears to have landed on Wear OS devices. The changelog states that supervised users will now be able to use a new dashboard to view parental control settings. We tried downloading the April 2024 Play System update on a Galaxy Watch 5 but had no success. It could start rolling out at a later date.

All in all, your mileage as far as the availability of the April 2024 Play System update will differ based on your location, Galaxy phone, and other factors. Nevertheless, you can always check for these types of updates manually using the steps we described above.

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Meta Expands VR Operating System to Third-Party Hardware Makers

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Facebook parent company Meta today announced the upcoming expansion of Meta Horizon OS, a virtual and augmented reality operating system that will be available to third-party hardware manufacturers that want to design their own headsets.

meta quest 3
Right now, Meta sells the Quest line of headsets, but the company wants to provide the software for third-party VR and AR products in the future, much like Microsoft offers Windows for all manner of third-party PCs.

Meta Horizon OS is the mixed reality operating system that Meta created for its own Quest headsets, and it has support for eye, face, hand, and body tracking along with passthrough, spatial anchors, scene understanding, and other features. There is a “social layer” that will allow the identities, avatars, and friends of users to move between virtual spaces on different devices.

According to Meta, multiple companies are working on devices that will use Meta Horizon OS. ASUS ROG is developing a performance gaming headset and Lenovo is working on mixed reality devices for productivity, learning, and entertainment. Meta says that it is also creating a limited edition version of Meta Quest in partnership with Xbox.

With the expansion of Meta Horizon OS to third-party hardware manufacturers, Meta is making it easier for any developer to ship VR software on the platform by removing barriers between the Horizon Store and App Lab.

By creating an operating system that can be used by other hardware manufacturers, Meta is inserting itself into the growing AR/VR ecosystem and creating opportunities for it to outpace Apple in mixed reality development. Apple launched the Vision Pro headset earlier this year, but software is lacking given the high price and limited distribution of the device.

According to a report from earlier today, interest in the Vision Pro is already waning at Apple’s retail locations with fewer people requesting demos.

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System preferences on Mac: 5 Mac System Settings to change

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Setting up a new Mac is an experience in itself. But once you finish your initial setup, you should change these Mac system settings for a better experience. These five easy tweaks to default Mac system preferences will speed up your workflow and save you time.

Irrespective of whether you are a new or long-time Mac user, below are five settings to change on your Mac. Keep reading or watch our latest video.

Change these Mac system settings now

The initial Mac setup process only covers the basics, like moving over all your data from your old computer to your new one, and ensuring you signed into your Apple account. But there are a lot more Mac system settings and options you can play around with. This includes turning off unwanted features and customizing some key elements of macOS for a better experience.

Table of contents: 5 Mac system settings to change

1. Turn off True Tone

Like iPhones and iPads, modern Macs come with True Tone support. With True Tone turned on, your Mac will automatically change the display’s color, warmth and intensity based on the ambient light in your room. This will reduce eye strain and ensure that the on-screen content appears natural.

On paper, True Tone sounds like an impressive feature. However, once you start using your Mac daily, you might not like the True Tone experience. Personally, I deactivate it on any new Mac. I find it makes the display look too warm.

Changing system preferences on Mac: Adjust display settings in macOS Sonoma's System Settings
True Tone on a Mac only sounds good on paper.
Screenshot: Rajesh/CultOfMac

Here’s how you can turn off True Tone on your Mac:

  1. Open System Settings on your Mac and select Displays from the left sidebar.
  2. Turn off the True Tone toggle.

True Tone is available on MacBooks and certain external displays, such as Apple’s Pro Display XDR and Studio Display.

2. Change Mac trackpad settings and gestures to suit your needs

If you just started using a new MacBook, you should customize the trackpad’s behavior. It’s a key way you interact with your Mac, and your preferences should drive the settings you choose.

By default, you must press down on your MacBook’s trackpad to register a click — the same behavior as on a Windows laptop. But there’s a better option: You can set it to substitute a quick tap on the trackpad’s glass surface for a click. Just enable the relevant option first.

Change Mac trackpad settings and system preferences in macOS Sonoma
Play around with the trackpad options on your Mac.
Screenshot: Rajesh/CultOfMac

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Open System Settings on your Mac and navigate to Trackpad from the sidebar.
  2. Enable the Tap to click toggle.

Once you’ve changed this preference in your Mac system settings, you can tap once or twice with a finger to register a single or double-click. Besides this, there are plenty of Mac trackpad gestures you should learn. The Trackpad options window provides an overview of all of them, alongside some customization options.

It’s also possible to change the size and color of the Mac pointer to make it more prominent.

3. Add more items to the Control Center for quick changes to your Mac system preferences

Your Mac utilizes a Control Center, just like your iPhone or iPad. If you find yourself using your Mac’s Control Center only sparingly, consider customizing the modules it contains to increase its usefulness. The Control Center provides quick access to some commonly used Mac settings, which you likely use daily, helping you save precious time.

If you own a MacBook, for instance, you can customize the Control Center to show the remaining battery percentage. (Then you can hide this item from your Mac’s menu bar to free up precious space there.) Other functional modules you can add to the Control Center include Focus modes, multi-user switching, screen mirroring options, and a Stage Manager toggle that lets you turn Apple’s alternative desktop manager on and off.

Change Mac Control Center settings to make it more useful
Customize the Control Center in macOS to get the most out of it.
Screenshot: Rajesh/CultOfMac

You can find the Control Center customization options in System Settings > Control Center. Oh, and if you want to access the Control Center quickly, use the keyboard shortcut fn + C.

4. Add AirDrop to Finder’s toolbar

Do you frequently use AirDrop to share files from your Mac to other Apple devices? You can add a direct AirDrop shortcut to the Finder’s toolbar to speed up the process. This will save you a few clicks — and precious time.

Customize the Finder's toolbar in macOS
Add an AirDrop shortcut to Finder’s toolbar for easy file sharing.
Screenshot: Rajesh Pandey/CultOfMac

Here’s how to set it up:

  1. Open a new Finder window on your Mac.
  2. Navigate to View > Customize Toolbar from the menu bar at the top.
  3. Drag and drop the AirDrop shortcut to your desired location in the Finder’s toolbar.

Then, the next time you want to share a file using AirDrop from your Mac, click on the file in the Finder. Then click on the AirDrop option from the Finder toolbar to bring up the list of devices available nearby.

5. Change settings for the Mac Dock

As a Mac user, you undoubtedly rely heavily on the Dock to open and switch between apps. By default, the Dock sits at the bottom of your Mac’s display. However, you can customize it to your heart’s liking. To do so, open your Mac’s System Settings and select Desktop & Dock from the sidebar.

From there, you should first change your Mac’s Dock size and magnification level to suit your preferences. Then, use the Position on screen option to move the Dock to the left or right of the display. I prefer to keep it on the left of my MacBook’s display.

Additionally, enable the Automatically hide and show the Dock toggle. This will free up precious screen space by automatically hiding the Dock when unnecessary. To bring up the hidden Dock, move your mouse to its position.

You also can customize the action when you double-click a window’s title bar. By default, it will zoom, but you can set it to minimize the window instead.

In the same menu, you will find some Desktop and Stage Manager-related customizations. To stop macOS Sonoma from flashing your desktop — a new feature that some people love but others hate — change the Click wallpaper to reveal desktop setting to Stage Manager.

Change the settings for the Mac's Dock in macOS Sonoma
Customize the Mac’s Dock to your heart’s content.
Screenshot: Rajesh/CultOfMac

Out of the box, the macOS Dock houses all your frequently used apps, such as FaceTime, Messages, Safari and more. If you prefer a minimalistic experience, remove the unwanted apps from the Dock. You can instead access them from the Applications folder or Mission Control.

Change the Mac's Dock shortcuts in macOS Sonoma to suit your preferences
Right-click on a Dock item to quickly access some everyday actions.
Screenshot: Rajesh/CultOfMac

For the apps in the Dock, you can right-click on many of them to access their commonly used actions. For example, you can favorite, repeat or toggle shuffle in the Music app directly from the right-click menu.

More Mac pro tips and how-tos

After you change these settings, check out more of our tips and how-tos that will help you customize your Mac system preferences.



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