Tag: thought

I thought screens on earbuds cases were a bit meh – but JBL just proved me wrong

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date May 7, 2024
No Comments on I thought screens on earbuds cases were a bit meh – but JBL just proved me wrong

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One thing we never put in the reviews that make up our best earbuds or best noise cancelling earbuds guides is a mark specific to the case. Usually, we like said charging nest to be pocketable, for the magnets in the lid to keep their precious music-giving cargo safe and if there’s a nice powerful onboard battery for extra stamina, so much the better. But when JBL put a smartwatch-style screen on an earbuds case in December 2022, it initially felt like the game was about to change. This was something we never thought possible!

Although that inaugural screen was pretty, it made the case it was attached to rather big – and our JBL Tour 2 Pro review was something of a mixed bag because it made the earbuds a pricey proposition within a crowded market. Also, the promised message notifications, call history and any social media access via the Tour Pro 2 case never arrived.

JBL Live Beam 3's JBL Headphones app, three screen-grabs showing smart charging case settings — The Smart Charging Case settings within the app – neat! (Image credit: JBL)

Well, those extra things still haven’t arrived, but JBL’s screen-adorned case is now quite a bit smaller, slicker and cheaper – the JBL Live Beam 3 are just $200 / £150 (around AU$296), which is $50 or a whopping £70 cheaper than the 2022 Tour Pro 2.

For me, everything is relative and that price drop alone makes this little case much more viable and fun. This is not a review reader (no, that is coming, I promise), it’s merely a brief experiential feature on how I enjoy this little case.

My favorite thing about it? No, it’s not my TechRadar screensaver, it’s the way it notifies you when you’ve got an incoming phone call and offers a friendly on-screen button to accept it, meaning you don’t have to a) dig out your phone or b) try to do it by pressing your earbuds – which I tend to fail at and hang up before I’ve said a word.

What you tellin’ me, JBL Live Beam 3?

JBL Live Beam 3, showing an incoming call, case held in a hand with red fingernails

Keep talking, or hang up? Do it on the case (and say it was a tunnel) (Image credit: Future)

The screen lets you scroll through playback (play, pause and skip functions); volume; noise cancelling; ambient aware and talk-thru profiles (although to tweak the levels between ‘on’ and ‘off’ you’ll still need your phone and the JBL Headphones app); spatial sound (music, movies and gaming profiles); EQ presets; a cute timer; screen brightness tweaks; lock screen wallpaper changes; voiceaware (to amp up or turn down your own voice during calls); auto-play and pause; Find My Buds; a ‘Notification’ and ‘Message preview’ screen (I’m still working out what these do – a tantalising envelope icon remains, in the top left corner of this tiny screen, but I’m unsure if one can access anything beyond this); a flashlight feature (a bright screen to help you locate an errant bud, perhaps) and language tweaks.

These screens can also be subbed and edited in the companion app, so you only see what you use as you scroll through – and for me, this scrolling is a lot smoother and quicker than in the Tour Pro 2.

Again, this isn’t a fully star-rated review, but for the money, I still like it a lot.

As we said when reporting the JBL Live Beam 3, Live Flex 3 and Live Buds 3’s release in January 2024, the 10mm dynamic driver, up to 48 hours of battery life and Best Fit test add up to a compelling proposition, but a lovely additional feature in the app is something called Personal Sound Amplification. This (not to be confused with Ambient Aware) has a Gain slider to amplify situational sound around you and can be tweaked to favour one ear more, should you wish.

I haven’t tested it extensively yet (again, it’s not a review – yet) but initially, I like it as a perk. In fact, there’s an awful lot to like here, in a much smaller, more affordable JBL package. Watch this space for more…

I made air fryer shrimp and my friends thought I’d bought them

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date April 27, 2024
No Comments on I made air fryer shrimp and my friends thought I’d bought them

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I’m a huge fan of shrimp and always order them if they’re on a menu, but I’ve always assumed they’d be too difficult to cook at home. Especially because I like them to be soft, succulent and full of flavor, and I didn’t trust my cooking skills to achieve that.

However, while testing the best air fryers, I recently discovered an air fryer shrimp recipe that not only looked simple enough for even my often-questionable skills, but was packed full of spices and flavor.

Below, I show how to make breaded shrimp at home – the best part is that they take just 10 minutes in the air fryer. Quick, easy and delicious.

Air fryer shrimp

The air fryer shrimp recipe I have followed is from @chefgenevieve – aka Genevieve LaMonaca – via her TikTok channel. It’s already been watched by 386k people, and counting.

@chefgenevieve
♬ Sunshine – WIRA

Air fryer shrimp: ingredients

1/2lb shrimp
1/2 cup flour
1 egg, whisked
1 cup Panko breadcrumbs
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp onion powder/granules
1/2 tsp pepper

I don’t like a lot of spice so I used smoky paprika for my air fryer shrimp. You can dial up the heat by swapping it for hot paprika in the breadcrumb mixture, or use any herbs or spices you want.

Similarly, any breadcrumbs will work, but Panko breadcrumbs give the shrimp a nice crunch.

Ingredients for air fryer shrimp on the kitchen counter

(Image credit: Future)

To make air fryer shrimp you will need the following equipment:

Air fryer shrimp: method

Step 1: Whisk the eggs into your first bowl. Add flour to the second bowl, and in the third bowl, add the breadcrumbs.

Step 2: Add the spices and seasoning to the breadcrumbs and mix well.

A bowl of egg, breadcrumbs and flour, ready for the shrimp to be dipped

(Image credit: Future)

Step 3: Dip the shrimp in the flour, then into the egg. Finally coat each shrimp with breadcrumbs. You can use your fingers or the back of a fork to press the crumbs onto the shrimp.

I recommend coating each shrimp individually, or in small groups, to avoid creating a soggy mess and to guarantee you get better coverage.

Image 1 of 3

Raw shrimp in a bowl with beaten egg — Tap the arrows to scroll through the coating process(Image credit: Future)

Step 4: Place the shrimp in a row in your air fryer basket.

Step 5: Set the air fryer to 375°F / 190°C and cook the shrimp for 10 minutes.

shrimp in the air fryer basket

(Image credit: Future)

Step 6: After 5 minutes, flip each shrimp over. This is where a pair of tongs comes in useful.

Step 7: Once cooked, remove from the air fryer and serve.

The original video added a Bang Bang sauce to the shrimp after the first five minutes, but I prefer to dip my shrimp straight into sweet chilli dipping sauce once cooked.

Air fryer shrimp: verdict

These air fryer shrimp are delicious. Not only are they soft, succulent and perfectly cooked but the breadcrumbs add texture, and the different spices add a huge hit of flavor.

My Panko breadcrumbs were a little uneven in shape and size and, while this didn’t impact the taste, it did make the coverage a little patchy so they could have looked prettier.

This didn’t seem to put my friends off from devouring the lot though, and one even asked where I’d bought them from. High praise indeed.

Cooked air fryer shrimp

(Image credit: Future)

If you’re still sitting on the fence and wondering whether to buy an air fryer, you may want to read our article to decide whether air fryers are worth it?

Air fryer deals

If you’re yet to take the plunge and buy yourself an air fryer, or are looking to upgrade, check out our top-rated air fryers below, all available to buy now for the best prices.

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Tags Air, bought, friends, fryer, shrimp, thought

Featured

OpenAI just gave artists access to Sora and proved the AI video tool is weirder and more powerful than we thought

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date March 26, 2024
No Comments on OpenAI just gave artists access to Sora and proved the AI video tool is weirder and more powerful than we thought

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A man with a balloon for a head is somehow not the weirdest thing you’ll see today thanks to a series of experimental video clips made by seven artists using OpenAI’s Sora generative video creation platform.

Unlike OpenAI‘s ChatGPT AI chatbot and the DALL-E image generation platform, the company’s text-to-video tool still isn’t publicly available. However, on Monday, OpenAI revealed it had given Sora access to “visual artists, designers, creative directors, and filmmakers” and revealed their efforts in a “first impressions” blog post.

While all of the films ranging in length from 20 seconds to a minute-and-a-half are visually stunning, most are what you might describe as abstract. OpenAI’s Artist In Residence Alex Reben’s 20-second film is an exploration of what could very well be some of his sculptures (or at least concepts for them), and creative director Josephine Miller’s video depicts models melded with what looks like translucent stained glass.

Not all the videos are so esoteric.

OpenAI Sora AI-generated video image by Don Allen Stevenson III

OpenAI Sora AI-generated video image by Don Allen Stevenson III (Image credit: OpenAI sora / Don Allen Stevenson III)

If we had to give out an award for most entertaining, it might be multimedia production company shy kids’ “Air Head”. It’s an on-the-nose short film about a man whose head is a hot-air-filled yellow balloon. It might remind you of an AI-twisted version of the classic film, The Red Balloon, although only if you expected the boy to grow up and marry the red balloon and…never mind.

Sora’s ability to convincingly merge the fantastical balloon head with what looks like a human body and a realistic environment is stunning. As shy kids’ Walter Woodman noted, “As great as Sora is at generating things that appear real, what excites us is its ability to make things that are totally surreal.” And yes, it’s a funny and extremely surreal little movie.

But wait, it gets stranger.

The other video that will have you waking up in the middle of the night is digital artist Don Allen Stevenson III’s “Beyond Our Reality,” which is like a twisted National Geographic nature film depicting never-before-seen animal mergings like the Girafflamingo, flying pigs, and the Eel Cat. Each one looks as if a mad scientist grabbed disparate animals, carved them up, and then perfectly melded them to create these new chimeras.

OpenAI and the artists never detail the prompts used to generate the videos, nor the effort it took to get from the idea to the final video. Did they all simply type in a paragraph describing the scene, style, and level of reality and hit enter, or was this an iterative process that somehow got them to the point where the man’s balloon head somehow perfectly met his shoulders or the Bunny Armadillo transformed from grotesque to the final, cute product?

That OpenAI has invited creatives to take Sora for a test run is not surprising. It’s their livelihoods in art, film, and animation that are most at risk from Sora’s already impressive capabilities. Most seem convinced it’s a tool that can help them more quickly develop finished commercial products.

“The ability to rapidly conceptualize at such a high level of quality is not only challenging my creative process but also helping me evolve in storytelling. It’s enabling me to translate my imagination with fewer technical constraints,” said Josephine Miller in the blog post.

Go watch the clips but don’t blame us if you wake up in the middle of the night screaming.

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Tags Access, artists, gave, OpenAI, Powerful, proved, Sora, thought, tool, video, weirder

Life Style

Bumblebees show behaviour previously thought to be unique to humans

Post author By lisa nichols
Post date March 10, 2024
No Comments on Bumblebees show behaviour previously thought to be unique to humans

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Scientists have long accepted the existence of animal culture, be that tool use in New Caledonian crows, or Japanese macaques washing sweet potatoes.

Read the paper here: Bumblebees socially learn behaviour too complex to innovate alone

But one thing thought to distinguish human culture is our ability to do things too complex to work out alone — no one could have split the atom or traveled into space without relying on the years of iterative advances that came first.

But now, a team of researchers think they’ve observed this phenomenon for the first time outside of humans – in bumblebees.

Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.

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Tags behaviour, Bumblebees, humans, Previously, Show, thought, unique

News

Amazing bionic arm controlled by thought and AI

Post author By miranda cosgrove
Post date January 3, 2024
No Comments on Amazing bionic arm controlled by thought and AI

Amazing bionic controlled by thought and AI

In a remarkable turn of events, Sarah has overcome the odds after a devastating train accident that resulted in the loss of her right arm and leg. Her life has been transformed by an AI-powered bionic arm that has given her a new lease on independence. This high-tech prosthetic is sensitive to the muscle movements in Sarah’s remaining limb, and is controlled by thoughts and artificial intelligence. Allowing her to perform tasks with an impressive level of precision that closely resembles natural human motion. Watch the demonstration video below to learn more about the technology that is currently under development.

The cutting-edge technology behind Sarah’s new arm includes a rotatable wrist and the ability to apply a significant amount of force, features that replicate the functionality of a real limb. The arm is equipped with 16 electrodes that pick up on the subtle muscle twitches in Sarah’s residual limb. These signals are then converted into a variety of actions by the prosthetic. The artificial intelligence is crucial in this process, as it records Sarah’s movement patterns, predicts her intentions, and learns from her to improve the arm’s responsiveness.

Bionic arm powered by users mind

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Sarah’s journey to mastering the use of her bionic arm has been intense and required a lot of dedication. She spent countless hours in rehabilitation, working closely with experts to perfect the way she communicates with her new limb. This training is vital for the AI to fine-tune its interpretation of her commands, which is key to making the use of the arm feel more natural and integrated into her everyday life.

The impact of the bionic arm on Sarah’s daily activities has been profound. Tasks that were once challenging due to her disability are now within her reach. She can now prepare meals, type, and participate in a variety of activities that were difficult before. This advancement has not only increased her independence but has also significantly boosted her confidence.

Looking ahead, Sarah is excited about the potential for future AI improvements that could enhance the functionality of her bionic arm even further. She hopes to one day regain the ability to ride a bike and drive, activities that symbolize freedom for her. As AI technology continues to progress, there is a growing sense of optimism for individuals like Sarah, who may be able to experience a greater sense of normalcy with their prosthetic limbs.

Sarah’s story is a testament to the powerful combination of human resilience and technological innovation. Her experiences with the AI-powered bionic arm highlight the incredible potential for technology to change lives and expand the limits of what is achievable for those who rely on prosthetics.

Image Credit : BBC

Filed Under: Technology News, Top News

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Tags amazing, Arm, bionic, controlled, thought