A good mouse has the potential to upgrade your computing experience significantly. If it’s made with ergonomics in mind, it will feature a thumb rest or the kind of design that’s good for your wrist—a vertical mouse. If it’s a gaming mouse, it will prioritize customizable buttons, a high polling rate, adjustable DPI,…
NASA is monitoring a leak on the Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS), from which air has been escaping at an increasing rate for nearly four years. The space agency acknowledged that the leak is growing, while claiming it poses no threat to the astronauts on board.
With the Valley of Witches set to open March 16, Ghibli Park will finally be complete. Since 2022, the attraction—nestled in the Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park in Nagoya, Japan—has unlocked realms inspired by Studio Ghibli’s legacy of films. But it’s not to be mistaken for a modern theme park; Hayao Miyazaki…
New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, announced on Thursday that she’s opened an investigation into the recent AT&T outage that left customers across the country without service. And if you live in the state of New York, James would like to hear from you.
There’s a lot to like about Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2, which is a highly versatile system. However, the normally high price was one of our major complaints about the system when we reviewed it last October. That sticker shock is slightly less of a concern now, as the laptop is on sale at Amazon. The price has dropped by $400 to $2,399. That’s a new record low for a configuration that includes 32GB of RAM, a 13th-gen Intel i7 processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 GPU.
Those specs make the laptop more than capable of handling everyday tasks, while the 1TB of included storage should be enough for most folks’ needs. You should be able to run most current games on this computer too.
Microsoft says the Surface Laptop 2 will run for up to 18 hours on a single charge, which is respectable. The system has a 14.4-inch touchscreen with true-to-life color and a 120Hz refresh rate. There’s Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support too. As for connectivity, you’ll get two USB-C 4.0 ports with Thunderbolt 4, a USB-A port, a microSD card reader and Surface Connect for docking and charging.
We gave the Surface Laptop 2 a score of 85 in our review, lauding it for many of those factors as well as the unique design. Since the lid is split into two halves, you can pivot the screen 180 degrees or tilt it down into an easel. It effectively gives you the versatility of a 2-in-1 with the power of a mid-range laptop.
On the downside, the Surface Laptop 2 is bulkier than other 14-inch ultraportables and you’ll need to buy the Surface Slim Pen 2 separately if you want it. That said, the laptop should be capable of handling all of most people’s day-to-day needs.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-surface-laptop-studio-2-is-400-off-at-amazon-185728432.html?src=rss
NASA is monitoring a leak on the Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS), from which air has been escaping at an increasing rate for nearly four years. The space agency acknowledged that the leak is growing, while claiming it poses no threat to the astronauts on board.
Following the launch of Copilot Pro in January, Microsoft will start rolling out a slew of upgrades today to make its AI assistant more useful in Windows 11. The biggest addition is support for plugins, something that only worked with Copilot on the web previously. You could, for example, connect Copilot to OpenTable so you can make a reservation from within its chat window. If you’re low on groceries, you could start an order using the Instacart plugin. Microsoft says that plugins from Kayak, Klarna and Shopify will also be arriving over the next month. The goal, of course, is to keep you locked into the Copilot window for as long as possible.
Microsoft doesn’t even want you to leave Copilot to access system settings. With this new update, you’ll be able to turn battery saver mode on and off, or view your system’s hardware profile, from within the AI chat view. You could also request that Copilot turn on Windows 11’s Live Captions, Narrator or Screen Magnifier. It can even display a list of available Wi-Fi networks to connect to. Mainstream users might end up loving the ability to tap into Windows 11’s features without navigating through the Settings app, so Copilot’s enhanced integration could end up being a usability win for Microsoft.
Windows 11 apps that use AI-powered features, like Photos and Clipchamp, are also getting a few AI enhancements. Photos now has a Generative Erase feature that can help you remove unwanted objects and elements from a picture, while Clipchamp will begin previewing a Silence Removal AI tool to cut out awkward video moments.
Microsoft says it will begin rolling out these Copilot and AI upgrades starting today for users running Windows 11 with the 22H2 (2022) and 23H2 (2023) year-end updates. If you’re eager to try out the new features, make sure you’ve enabled the option to “Get the latest updates as soon as they’re available.” The company expects to have most features available when it launches the optional March 2024 non-security preview update.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/windows-11-gets-microsoft-copilot-plugins-and-more-ai-upgrades-180002527.html?src=rss
Google just announced a trio of features for its Chrome browser to allow for “more helpful suggestions.” Some of these tools are for the smartphone app, while others work with the standard PC-based browser.
First up, desktop Chrome users are getting new search suggestions that pull from what others have been using the browser to look for. The browser will still remember your recent queries and auto populate related search suggestions, but you’ll also see user-generated options to the right of those usual autofill suggestions, under a tab marked “People also search for.”
Chrome users on iOS and Android will now see more images to accompany suggested searches. In the past, Chrome only displayed images for search suggestions in the address bar that exactly matched a specific query, with Google giving an example of “Isanti dining table.” Now, broader searches — say, “bohemian table” — will tie an image to each option from the pull-down menu. A picture’s worth a thousand words, right?
Perhaps the most puzzling new feature is that Chrome for iOS and Android is getting an optimization tool that allows for search even when users have a bad network connection. Google hasn’t revealed how this works, simply stating that it’s due to “improved on-device capabilities.” The company says search will continue to work with a “bad” connection, so it’s likely some level of connection will still be necessary.
All three of these features are available today, so have at it. These are just the latest tools for the search engine, as Google seems to be constantly tweaking the service. The company recently added a trio of generative AI features and a Gemini-based writing tool.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/google-chromes-new-slate-of-features-will-allow-search-even-with-a-bad-network-connection-181522574.html?src=rss
Microsoft has developed a new API to simplify super-resolution coding in PC gaming. The company’s DirectSR, developed with hardware partners Nvidia, AMD and Intel, will provide a more streamlined tunnel for developers to tap into the companies’ three distinct approaches to graphical upscaling in Windows games.
The company describes DirectSR as enabling “seamless integration of Super Resolution (SR)” for Windows games. “DirectSR is the missing link developers have been waiting for when approaching SR integration, providing a smoother, more efficient experience that scales across hardware,” Microsoft program manager Joshua Tucker wrote in a company blog post.
Super-resolution is a technology that enhances games’ visual quality without pushing the graphics card too hard. It runs games internally in a lower resolution but uses machine learning (and other tricks) to upscale the resolution of what you see on the screen. The result is sharper graphics with only a minimal extra demand on the GPU.
Microsoft says the DirectSR API opens the door to “multi-vendor” super-resolution via “a common set of inputs and outputs.” Tucker wrote that a single code path would enable “a variety of solutions” through the companies’ three (otherwise distinct) answers to super-resolution: Nvidia’s DLSS, AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) and Intel’s XeSS.
The three GPU vendors’ SR solutions differ. Nvidia’s AI-powered DLSS appears to perform the best but requires an Nvidia graphics card. AMD’s FidelityFX is more versatile, supporting competitors’ hardware in addition to its own, while Intel’s XeSS offers AI upscaling for Intel hardware while still providing limited support for non-Intel GPUs.
Version 24H2 will have an AI “Super Resolution” feature, as previous reports mentioned. Here are some settings for it in Graphics settings – a default toggle and per-app options. (26052) pic.twitter.com/fI9t4ksTWH
— PhantomOcean3 ☃️ (@PhantomOfEarth) February 10, 2024
Earlier this month, X (Twitter) user @PhantomofEarth noticed an AI-powered “Automatic super resolution” setting in a Windows Insider preview build (24H2). Although it isn’t confirmed that it’s the same thing, it sounds like it. The setting would allow you to “Use Al to make supported games play more smoothly with enhanced details.” The preview version offers the choice of using a universal / automatic upscaling approach or a per-game one. Initially speculated to be a rival super-resolution feature from Microsoft, it now appears “Automatic super resolution” may end up as the consumer-facing version of the DirectSR API.
Microsoft says DirectSR will arrive for developers “soon” in a public preview build of the Agility SDK (a component of DirectX 12). If you’re a PC gaming developer, the company plans to go into more detail about the new API in its DirectX State of the Union on March 21 at GDC.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-plans-to-streamline-game-upscaling-across-different-graphics-cards-183052450.html?src=rss
It was a topsy-turvy month in spaceflight, with yet another lunar lander falling over and an upsetting new view showing NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter missing a rotor blade, among other memorable moments.
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