Robotics

Leonid Korchenko/Getty Images Meta’s upcoming move to replace its third-party fact checkers with a Community Notes feature isn’t sitting well with everyone. Following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement last week, a host of users took to Google to search for help on how to delete their Facebook, Instagram, and Threads accounts, according to Google Trends data spotted by […] More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways HP’s Envy x360 2-in-1 16-inch (2024) comes in a variety of configurations, but the version with 1TB of storage and an OLED display is on sale for $949. It sports one of the most gorgeous displays I’ve seen on a convertible laptop in this price range. It’s a little on the […] More

How do I care for my new Lenovo laptop?A new laptop is an investment, and making it last is essential to maximizing its value. To care for your new laptop, you’ll want to minimize the amount of bumps and vibrations it’s exposed to and keep it closed when not in use to protect the keys and screen, which can be fragile. Maximizing your laptop’s battery life is also part of its longevity, as it’s best to keep it between 30% and 80% to optimize battery life. Besides these obvious factors, you’ll want to keep the software and drivers up to date, and get a backpack and sleeve for safe, efficient transport. How long does the battery typically last? Battery life depends on various factors, such as what tasks you’re doing and whether your computer is in a battery-saving mode or high-performance mode. Lenovo laptops, particularly the ThinkPad and IdeaPad line of devices, are known for having solid batteries. Also: I’m a hybrid worker, and my laptop of choice is not a MacBook or a DellWhen looking at a laptop’s battery, take into account its watt-hour number (written as Wh), which measures how much power a battery uses over one hour. The higher the number, the longer the battery should theoretically last; however, how fast the computer burns through that power is another story.For example, the Legion Pro7i features a 99Wh battery, but the powerful hardware on board will demand lots of power from the battery. Conversely, the 70Wh battery in the Yoga Slim 7x will drain at a trickle in comparison thanks to the AI on board the Snapdragon X Elite processor. Which Lenovo laptop is most durable?Lenovo’s ThinkPad series of laptops is regarded as some of the most durable laptops on the market for their sturdy, well-built design and unpretentious form factors. They’re also known to be more repair-friendly than many other computers, as you can replace parts with relative ease. Also: This Lenovo laptop is ultraportable, lasts all day, and has a MagSafe-like superpowerRegarding the laptops on this list, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon and X1 Extreme are made from partially recycled magnesium, aluminum, and carbon fiber and have been MIL-STD 810H certified in torture tests against travel hazards like shock, vibration, and extreme temperatures.Can you game on a Lenovo laptop?You can game on any Lenovo laptop, but you’ll get the best performance from a computer designed for gaming, like the Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. The reason for this has a lot to do with graphics processing and whether or not the device is designed to mitigate heat well. Also: This Lenovo 2-in-1 is one of the most versatile business laptops I’ve testedMost Lenovo laptops are fine for casual or entry-level gaming, but once you start running graphically-intense games, you’re going to run into performance issues, and the laptop will not be able to compensate for the heat generated by the hardware. Lenovo’s own gaming options come with dedicated graphics cards, high refresh rate displays, and a robust cooling system. However, if you truly want the best gaming laptop, there are a host of other options out there, especially for demanding games. Check out the Razer Blade 15, for example, or a desktop computer.How do you access the BIOS on a Lenovo laptop?Restart your computer, and when the Lenovo startup screen appears, you’ll want to press either F1, F2, or Enter, depending on your model. It will often specify on the screen but note that this screen may only appear for a second or two before Windows starts up.  More

Lance Whitney/ZDNETMicrosoft is pushing its new Outlook app onto Windows 10 whether you want it or not.In a message sent to Microsoft 365 subscribers via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, the company said that the new Outlook will be preinstalled on Windows 10 computers with the optional January 28, 2025, release and the February 11, 2025, security update.Once installed, the new Outlook app will replace the existing Mail and Calendar apps. After the installation, the new app will launch even if you click on the Start menu shortcuts for the older Mail and Calendar programs. Fortunately, the new Outlook will not replace the classic Outlook that comes with Microsoft 365 or Office 365 — at least not yet.Also: How to upgrade an ‘incompatible’ Windows 10 PC to Windows 11: Two ways”New Outlook exists as an installed app on the device,” Microsoft said in its message. “For instance, it can be found in the Apps section of the Start Menu. It does not replace existing (classic) Outlook or change any configurations / user defaults. Both (classic) Outlook and New Outlook for Windows can run side by side.”Though you cannot block the new Outlook from being force-installed on your Windows 10 system, you can remove it after the fact. Microsoft even provides a support page with the necessary steps for hiding or uninstalling the app if you do not want to use it individually or within your organization.The forced installation in Windows 10 is just the latest move in the gradual migration to the new Outlook. In 2022, Microsoft started testing the new version before officially rolling it out to commercial users in 2024. The new app is already preinstalled on new Windows 11 devices and versions of Windows 11 with the 23H2 update. More

Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images Following the disbanding and reinstating of OpenAI’s robotics department over the past years and reports of OpenAI building its own robot, a series of new job listings on the robotics team suggest the company is finally ready to leap into hardware.  Also: I tried an AI wristband that listens to you 24/7 – […] More

ZDNETOpen-source approaches continue to show promise in democratizing artificial intelligence (AI).NovaSky’s Sky-T1-32B-PreviewOn Friday, the NovaSky research team at UC Berkeley released a new reasoning model, Sky-T1-32B-Preview, that performs comparably to OpenAI’s o1-preview — only it’s open source and was built in just 19 hours for under $450 using eight Nvidia H100 GPUs.Also: The best open-source AI models: All your free-to-use options explainedThe team developed Sky-T1 by fine-tuning Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-32-Instruct and trained it on data generated with QwQ-32B-Preview, another open-source model comparable to o1-preview. Using synthetic training data can help lower costs.”We curate the data mixture to cover diverse domains that require reasoning, and a reject sampling procedure to improve the data quality. We then rewrite QwQ traces with GPT-4o-mini into a well-formatted version, inspired by Still-2, to improve data quality and ease parsing,” the team says of their data preparation process in the blog. More

ZDNETI’ve been around Linux long enough that the second I see an app or a desktop that looks even remotely like what I used in the early days, I get a warm, fuzzy sensation in my chest.OK, maybe that’s a slight bit of hyperbole, but at least it makes me smile.Don’t get me wrong, I much prefer modern-looking desktops (with all the eye candy, thank you very much), but my early years with Linux were something special, and I don’t mind revisiting them one bit.Also: 5 lightweight Linux distributions with very low system requirements4MLinux is a feature-oriented, lightweight Linux distribution that can make old computers feel new again. The 4 M’s stand for Maintenance, Multimedia, Miniserver, and Mystery. What does that mean? Simple: 4MLinux can serve as a rescue CD (Maintenance), has full support for tons of multimedia files (Multimedia), and can be used as a server for FSP, FTP, HTTP, NBD, NFS, NTP, rlogin, SSH, Telnet, and TFTP (Miniserver). As to that “Mystery” piece, there’s actually an entry in the desktop menu labeled as such, and it contains a number of fun games you can play.But is 4MLinux a viable option for you?Let me break it down.What is 4MLinux really like?Imagine taking an old Linux distribution and giving it just enough of a facelift that it can be easily considered by those who’ve used Linux but don’t like the idea of an über-modern desktop or need to revive an aging computer.Now, imagine that the distribution’s desktop is a combination of Pantheon and Enlightenment, thanks to Joe’s Window Manager. There is a twist with 4MLinux.Also: 10 Linux apps I always install first – and you should tooDo you know how most Linux distributions simplify the process of installing applications with a package manager and a GUI frontend? Well, 4MLinux takes a decidedly different approach by way of Extensions.If you open the desktop menu (which you can access by clicking anywhere on the desktop or clicking the icon at the top left of the display), you’ll see an entry labeled “Extensions.” Click on Extensions, and you’ll see a few sub-menus, such as Office, NetApps, and MediaApps. Click on any one of those entries, and you’ll see related apps listed. Let’s say you want to install LibreOffice. Click on that entry in Extensions > Office, and then, when prompted, type y. The installation will begin and end, taking roughly 1-2 minutes. More

<!–> ZDNET’s key takeaways A Shine Turbine kit, which includes that turbine, stand, guy lines and pegs costs $399, while the essentials kit, which adds a few more bits such as a wind speed meter, costs $488. The kit includes everything you need to turn wind into electrical energy, and the turbine features a 12,000 […] More