Blogroll

Forget the Mazda MX-5—this is the most fun Japanese sports car

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 18:00

When most people think of fun Japanese sports cars, one lightweight roadster usually comes to mind, but there’s another classic that many drivers overlook. A mid-engine icon from Toyota delivers a unique blend of balance, responsiveness, and sheer driving enjoyment that continues to thrill enthusiasts decades after its debut. For those who crave pure fun behind the wheel, it arguably offers an experience that even the most beloved roadster can’t quite match.

Categories: IT General, Technology

UniRG: Scaling medical imaging report generation with multimodal reinforcement learning

Microsoft Research - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 18:00
At a glance
  • AI-driven medical image report generation can help medical providers become more efficient and productive.
  • Current models are difficult to train because reporting practices vary widely among providers.
  • Universal Report Generation (UniRG) uses reinforcement learning to align model training with real-world radiology practice rather than proxy text-generation objectives.
  • UniRG has achieved state-of-the-art performance across datasets, metrics, diagnostic tasks, longitudinal settings, and demographic subgroups.
  • Test results show that reinforcement learning, guided by clinically meaningful reward signals, can substantially improve the reliability and generality of medical vision–language models.

AI can be used to produce clinically meaningful radiology reports using medical images like chest x-rays. Medical image report generation can reduce reporting burden while improving workflow efficiency for healthcare professionals. Beyond the real-world benefits, report generation has also become a critical benchmark for evaluating multimodal reasoning in healthcare AI.

Despite recent advances driven by large vision–language models, current systems still face major limitations in real-world clinical settings. One challenge stems from the wide variation in radiology reporting practices across institutions, departments, and patient populations. A model trained with supervised fine-tuning on one set of data may learn its specific phrasing and conventions instead of more general patterns—a problem known as overfitting. As a result, the model performs well on that data but delivers poor results when evaluated on unseen institutions or external datasets. Moreover, since model training is often aimed at producing text that looks similar to existing reports, some well written but clinically inaccurate reports can slip through.

In this blog, we introduce Universal Report Generation (UniRG) (opens in new tab), a reinforcement learning–based framework for medical imaging report generation. This work is a research prototype intended to advance medical AI research and is not validated for clinical use. UniRG uses reinforcement learning as a unifying mechanism to directly optimize clinically grounded evaluation signals, aligning model training with real-world radiology practice rather than proxy text-generation objectives. Using this framework, we train UniRG-CXR (opens in new tab), a state-of-the-art chest x-ray report generation model at scale, spanning over 560,000 studies, 780,000 images, and 226,000 patients from more than 80 medical institutions.

To our knowledge, this is the first report generation model to achieve consistent state-of-the-art performance across report-level metrics, disease-level diagnostic accuracy, cross-institution generalization, longitudinal report generation, and demographic subgroups. These results demonstrate that reinforcement learning, when guided by clinically meaningful reward signals, can substantially improve both the reliability and generality of medical vision–language models.

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Subscribe today Opens in a new tab A unified framework for scaling medical image report generation

UniRG builds state-of-the-art report generation models by combining supervised fine-tuning with reinforcement learning, which optimizes a composite reward that integrates rule-based metrics, model-based semantic metrics, and LLM-based clinical error signals. This approach allows the resulting model UniRG-CXR to learn from diverse data sources, move beyond dataset-specific reporting patterns, and learn representations that generalize across institutions, metrics, and clinical contexts. Notably, UniRG-CXR sets a new state of the art on the authoritative ReXrank leaderboard (opens in new tab), a public leaderboard for chest X-ray image interpretation, as of 01/22/2026, surpassing previous best models by substantial margins (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Overview of UniRG-CXR. (a) Training Data: UniRG-CXR is trained on the training splits of MIMIC-CXR, CheXpert Plus, and ReXGradient-160k, covering diverse institutions and patient demographics. (b) Training and Rewards: Taking input from the current image, clinical context (e.g., indication), and optionally prior studies, UniRG-CXR uses GRPO reinforcement learning to optimize composite rewards that combine rule-based, model-based, and LLM-based metrics. (c) Evaluation: We assess UniRG-CXR on held-out test sets (MIMIC-CXR, CheXpert Plus, ReXGradient), and unseen datasets (IU Xray and proprietary data). Report quality measured using ReXrank metrics and an LLM-based clinical-error metric, while diagnostic ability is evaluated via F1-based disease classification from generated reports. (d) ReXrank Results: UniRG-CXR achieves SOTA performance across four datasets and two generation settings (findings only and findings + impression), showing substantial gains over prior state-of-the-art systems. Universal improvements across metrics and clinical errors

Rather than excelling on one metric at the expense of others, UniRG-CXR delivers balanced improvements across many different measures of report quality. More importantly, it produces reports with substantially fewer clinically significant errors. This indicates that the model is not just learning how to sound like a radiology report, but is better capturing the underlying clinical facts. Explicitly optimizing for clinical correctness helps the model avoid common failure modes where fluent language masks incorrect or missing findings (Figure 2).

Figure 2. UniRG-CXR achieves state-of-the-art performance, delivering consistent and comprehensive performance gains across metrics. (a) On the ReXrank leaderboard, UniRG-CXR (green) shows robust, universal improvement across all evaluation metrics.  (b). Starting from the same SFT checkpoint, RL with our combined reward achieves more balanced gains across metrics and the highest RadCliQ-v1 score compared to RL on single metrics. This ablation study is trained and tested on MIMIC (c). Ablation study on the training dynamics shows RL full (UniRG-CXR) achieves significantly better RadCliQ-v1 score than RL only on BLEU. (d). During training, RL full (UniRG-CXR) shows a steady decrease in clinical errors per report as compared with a fluctuating trajectory without consistent improvement from an ablation run without error awareness (i.e. removing CheXprompt metric optimization). Both (c) and (d) show results on 1024 MIMIC validation set from ablations that are trained on MIMIC. (e). Case studies illustrate that UniRG-CXR can produce error-free reports, unlike MedVersa and MedGemma. (f). UniRG-CXR yields a substantially higher proportion of reports with $\leq 1$ error and fewer with $\geq 4$ errors than prior models. Strong performance in longitudinal report generation

In clinical practice, radiologists often compare current images with prior exams to determine whether a condition is improving, worsening, or unchanged. UniRG-CXR is able to incorporate this historical information effectively, generating reports that reflect meaningful changes over time. This allows the model to describe new findings, progression, or resolution of disease more accurately, moving closer to how radiologists reason across patient histories rather than treating each exam in isolation (Figure 3).

Figure 3. UniRG-CXR enhances longitudinal report generation. (a). Comparing UniRG-CXR and its non-longitudinal ablation with prior models on longitudinal report generation, we show UniRG-CXR exhibits the best performance and the longitudinal information is beneficial to the performance. (b). UniRG-CXR achieves the best performance across different longitudinal encounter points ranging from the first encounter to the more complex 5th+ encounters, showcasing its improvements are across the board. In comparison, prior models such as GPT-5, GPT-4o and MedGemma are barely surpassing the copy prior report baseline (grey lines).  (c). Compared with prior models which barely improve over the copy prior baseline (dashed line), UniRG-CXR significantly and consistently improves performance across different temporal disease change categories including new development, no change, progression and regression (categorized by GPT-5 on ground truth report). Qualitative examples are shown for each category where UniRG-CXR correctly predicts the temporal change based on the input. All results in this figure are on MIMIC test set with prior information where available. Robust generalization across institutions and populations

UniRG-CXR maintains strong performance even when applied to data from institutions it has never seen before. This suggests that the model is learning general clinical patterns rather than memorizing institution-specific reporting styles. In addition, its performance remains stable across different patient subgroups, including age, gender, and race. This robustness is critical for real-world deployment, where models must perform reliably across diverse populations and healthcare environments (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Generalization and robustness of UniRG-CXR. (a). We evaluate UniRG-CXR in a zero-shot setting on two datasets from previously unseen institutions: IU-Xray and PD (proprietary data). UniRG-CXR consistently outperforms prior models, maintaining substantial performance gains in this challenging setup. (b) and (c) present condition-level F1 scores on MIMIC-CXR and PD and highlight that UniRG-CXR remains the overall top-performing model in condition-level diagnostic accuracy. (d). UniRG-CXR demonstrates stable and robust performance across gender, age, and race subgroups, all of which exceed the performance of the second-best model (the dashed lines). UniRG is a promising step toward scaling medical imaging report generation

UniRG introduces a reinforcement learning–based framework that rethinks how medical imaging report generation models are trained and evaluated. By directly optimizing clinically grounded reward signals, UniRG-CXR achieves state-of-the-art performance across datasets, metrics, diagnostic tasks, longitudinal settings, and demographic subgroups, addressing longstanding limitations of supervised-only approaches.

Looking ahead, this framework can be extended to additional imaging modalities and clinical tasks, and combined with richer multimodal patient data such as prior imaging, laboratory results, and clinical notes. More broadly, UniRG highlights the promise of reinforcement learning as a core component of next-generation medical foundation models that are robust, generalizable, and clinically aligned.

UniRG reflects Microsoft’s larger commitment to advancing multimodal generative AI for precision health (opens in new tab), with other exciting progress such as GigaPath, BiomedCLIP, LLaVA-Rad (opens in new tab), BiomedJourney, BiomedParse, TrialScope, Curiosity.

Paper co-authors: Qianchu Liu, Sheng Zhang, Guanghui Qin, Yu Gu, Ying Jin, Sam Preston, Yanbo Xu, Sid Kiblawi, Wen-wai Yim, Tim Ossowski, Tristan Naumann, Mu Wei, Hoifung Poon

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The post UniRG: Scaling medical imaging report generation with multimodal reinforcement learning appeared first on Microsoft Research.

Categories: Microsoft

Snag a pair of Apple AirPods Pro 3 for their lowest price yet

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:54

SAVE $50: As of Jan. 27, get the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for $199 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $249. That's a discount of 20% and the lowest price we've seen.

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When it comes to headphones, you've got plenty of choices out there. If you prefer earbuds to their over-the-ear cousins, however, there's one brand that stands tall over the rest: AirPods. And if you've been waiting to get a pair to upgrade your kit, you should head to Amazon now to pick up the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for the lowest price we've seen.

As of Jan. 27, get the Apple AirPods Pro 3 for $199 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $249. That's a discount of 20% and the lowest price we've seen.

SEE ALSO: Score $120 off Apple AirPods Max in Best Buy's 48-hour flash sale

Mashable reviewer Adam Doud called the AirPods Pro 3 "one of the best products of the year" in his review. They offer "phenomenal noise cancellation" as well as easy and seamless iPhone integration, and "premium sound", all within a tiny little package. Plus, they have active noise cancellation (ANC) as well as transparency mode and more. They're a refined version of the previous model, and well worth adding to your audio arsenal.

That makes them a great option for not just listening to music, but hanging out on calls with its even sound profile. Doud referred to this bump in quality as a "remarkable upgrade", which you'll undoubtedly appreciate whether you're coming from the previous AirPods or trying them for the first time.

Since they're up for grabs at the lowest price we've seen, now is the time to get a pair if you're interested, so jump on them while you can.

Categories: IT General, Technology

You could get an Amazon refund, thanks to class action settlement

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:48

Amazon has agreed to a massive class action settlement that could put money back into the pockets of millions of U.S. shoppers who were incorrectly denied refunds on returns. This is big news for anyone who has ever had to chase down a credit after sending an item back to the retailer.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Valve's Proton compatibility layer brings 19 more games to Linux

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:35

The Proton compatibility layer has helped bring many PC games to Linux, and it's updated regularly with new features and improvements. Now, Proton 10.0-4 has arrived with 19 new compatible games and a pile of bug fixes.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Google Messages is about to get better on your watch

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:30

Google is showing no signs of slowing down the updates to Google Messages. And while some updates are better than others, a few highly requested features could finally be coming that'll improve the experience on your smartwatch.

Categories: IT General, Technology

You can buy AMD's fastest graphics card for $700, but there's a catch

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:30

AMD's new RX 9000 Series graphics cards have been turning heads for a good reason—they offer excellent value. But with the global DRAM shortage threatening to drive prices up, now could be the perfect time to explore the used market. And what better choice than AMD's most powerful gaming graphics card ever—a card that sometimes even outperforms the latest RX 9070 XT?

Categories: IT General, Technology

Artemis 2: Next steps for NASAs moon rocket after historic roll to pad

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:24

NASA will soon run a high‑stakes fueling test on its Artemis II rocket, a practice run that must succeed before four astronauts can fly around the moon.

The U.S. space agency inched the 11 million-pound Space Launch System and mobile launcher to a Cape Canaveral, Florida, launchpad on Saturday, Jan. 17. The slow procession of the 322-foot rocket, topped with the Orion spaceship, took 12 hours on the aging crawler-transporter to complete. 

That four-mile trek could mark the first leg of Artemis II, a 10-day journey around the moon and back that will put the spaceship through its paces. The lunar mission will be NASA's first with astronauts —Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman, and Canada's Jeremy Hansen — in 53 years since Apollo 17. 

The so-called "wet dress rehearsal" will load the mega moon rocket with 700,000 gallons of ultra‑cold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants and take the countdown all the way to 29 seconds before liftoff. How this test goes will shape the flight timeline and determine whether launch opportunities in February remain in play.

UPDATE: Jan. 27, 2026, 11:16 a.m. EST NASA has announced that engineers have stayed "on track or ahead of schedule" on tasks at the launchpad, making a wet dress rehearsal possible as early as 9 p.m. ET Jan. 31. This story has been updated to reflect the new target.

"We need to get through wet dress, we need to see what lessons we learn as a result of that, and that will ultimately lay out our path toward launch," Artemis Launch Director Charlie Blackwell‑Thompson said. "With a wet dress that is without significant issues, if everything goes to plan, then certainly there are opportunities within February that could be achievable." 

SEE ALSO: NASA says Artemis II can fly without its big, broken deep space antenna NASA's mega moon rocket emerges from its massive warehouse at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: NASA / Joel Kowsky When is the wet dress rehearsal?  The 322-foot rocket, taller than the Statue of Liberty, rolls past the firing room on its way to the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: NASA / Aubrey Gemignan

During the test, teams will fill the rocket and rehearse every major step of launch‑day fueling. Controllers will run through all countdown procedures, including the final "terminal count," then stop on purpose at T‑29 seconds. NASA is targeting 9 p.m. ET Jan. 31 for the crucial exercise, though that could change, depending on preparations. 

"We'll review the data,"  said Blackwell‑Thompson, "then we'll set up for our launch attempt." 

The results will determine whether NASA will hit its soonest launch window, which opens Feb. 6.

NASA's crawler-transporter carries the 11-million-pound rocket stack and mobile launcher to the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: NASA / Aubrey Gemignani

Artemis II builds on lessons from the uncrewed maiden voyage in 2022, which needed several tries to complete fueling. Engineers adjusted how they load liquid oxygen after seeing temperature issues and modified hardware after hydrogen leaks were discovered in the connection between the ground systems and the rocket. They also changed and cryogenically tested a key valve that caused trouble during the final uncrewed countdown.

Since Artemis I, the Kennedy Space Center has revised procedures and upgraded hardware as part of the Artemis II plan.

The mega moon rocket traverses 4 miles to get to the launchpad for a wet dress rehearsal at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: NASA / Ben Smegelsky From left, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, pilot Victor Glover, and Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman take questions from reporters as the mega moon rocket rolls behind them to the launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: NASA / Kim Shiflett When will Artemis II launch? After 12 hours of crawling, the rocket reaches launchpad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, after 6 p.m. ET on Jan. 17, 2026. Credit: NASA / Brandon Hancock

Once the wet dress rehearsal ends, engineers will pore over the performance of the rocket, the Orion spacecraft, and the ground systems. Only if the data looks clean will the mission managers move on to setting a specific launch date. 

NASA officials have rejected any characterization that the team has "launch fever" or that preparations have been rushed.

"I've got one job, and it's a safe return of Reid and Victor and Christina and Jeremy. I consider that a duty and a trust," said John Honeycutt, chairperson of the mission management team. "We're going to fly when we're ready."

Categories: IT General, Technology

Clearing snow doesnt need to be hard — this trending roof rake is under $160 at Amazon

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:22

SAVE $60: The Avalanche! AVA750 roof rake is $156.95 at Amazon.

Opens in a new window Credit: Avalanche! Avalanche! AVA750 $156.95 at Amazon
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Winter storm Fern did a number on us. Snow, ice, power outages, and tons of flight cancellations occurred because of the storm. And plenty of us are still dealing with the aftermath. The kids might be thrilled school is canceled, but those of us who have to adult might be getting a bit concerned about the snow on the roof. If that's a familiar fear, check out this solution that's on sale at Amazon.

As of Jan. 27, the Avalanche! AVA750 roof rake is $156.95 at Amazon. We've all seen the epic videos online of massive amounts of snow sliding off a roof. They look cool, sure, but image that happening when you're not expecting it. Not ideal. Instead, remove the snow yourself with safety and ease in mind thanks to the Avalanche! AVA750 roof rake.

SEE ALSO: Get dinner on the table faster with the Ninja Foodi Smart XL for its lowest price yet

Designed for asphalt shingle roofs, the rake allows you to push a slick surface slide between the roof and the snow, giving it a nice chute to slide down gracefully, with no surprises. The fiberglass handle of the rake is lightweight and has four sections that make for a 15.5-foot pole, so you can stay firmly planted on the ground.

The plastic slide measures 17 inches wide and 12 feet long, so you'll be able to clear the roof quickly and can perhaps head over to a neighbors house who could use help with snow removal, too.

To help deal with snow accumulation from the weekend winter storm or prepare for future storms, snag the Avalanche! AVA750 at Amazon.

Categories: IT General, Technology

This robot snow blower is trending — and yes, you can buy one

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:18

Welcome to snow season. Tons of states in the U.S. got significant accumulation thanks to winter storm Fern. For some folks, the snow is a welcomed sight, offering a fun opportunity to head outside or stay indoors for some serious Lego building. But for others, dealing with snow accumulation is a huge pain. Anyone who has to get the car out of the driveway or walk out the front door might not love running into a foot of snow.

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In viral videos that are sweeping our social channels, people have found a unique solution to dealing with snow that doesn't involve shoveling. It's a robot snow blower, specifically the Yarbo Snow Blower Robot. Serving as the only robot snow blower on the market, the Yarbo takes center stage in viral videos that show it working snowy magic.

It comes with a premium price, but for those who deal with constant winter snow clogging up the driveway or walkway, it could be well worth the investment.

Where to buy the Yarbo Snow Blower Robot Yarbo Snow Blower Robot $4,999 at Amazon Shop Now Yarbo Snow Blower Robot $4,999 at Best Buy Shop Now Yarbo Snow Blower Robot $4,999 at Yarbo Shop Now Yarbo 4-in-1 Modular Robot (Lawn Mower, Snow Blower and Leaf Blower) $6,999 at Amazon Shop Now

When it comes to getting rid of snow, the Yarbo is at your service. With throwing ranges from six to 40 feet, the Yarbo can handle snow as deep as 12 inches. It works in a similar way as a robot vacuum, mapping your driveway, yard, or walkway. You can also set zones and schedules, or let the Yarbo automatically detect storms and take off all on its own. That means the Yarbo can take off to clear the driveway in the middle of the night, without you even knowing the snow has begun.

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With a single charge, the Yarbo can clear about 6,000 square feet of snow, and it's capable of operating in temps as low as -13 degrees Fahrenheit. When the snow-gobbling robot gets down to 20% battery, it'll automatically return home to recharge. With about 90 minutes of recharging, it'll be back at 80% battery power.

The stats get even more impressive when we factor in that the Yarbo can even handle plowing on gravel and on slopes as steep as 36%. Plus, it's capable of handling wet and packed snow.

It turns out, the Yarbo Snow Blower has been around for a few years. At CES in 2024, Yarbo introduced the snow-plowing robot as the latest attachment to what Yarbo calls the Yarbo Core. This robot can server as a lawn mower, leaf blower, and a snow blower, depending on which attachment you use. Snag all three and you'll be set for every season.

Sure, dropping $5,000 on a snow-blowing robot isn't gonna be for everyone, but if you live in an area that deals with non-stop snow for months at a time, it could be well worth the investment.

Categories: IT General, Technology

3 reasons KDE Plasma is still my go-to Linux desktop

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:15

If you read our Linux newsletter, you know that I've tried several desktop environments over the years. I'm yet to find one I like better than KDE Plasma, though, and these are the reasons why.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Claude apps: How Anthropic will integrate Slack, Canva, and more

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:12

Last year, ChatGPT got the ability to perform tasks in connected third-party apps. Not to be outdone, Anthropic's Claude chatbot just got a similar feature this week.

Announced in a blog post on Monday, Claude now has the capability to interface directly with a handful of connected enterprise-focused apps. These include Slack, Canva, Box, Asana, and more. The blog post and accompanying video demonstrations do a good enough job of showing off how it all works, but since the feature is out now for paid Claude users, you can also get in there and start testing it out yourself.

SEE ALSO: Anthropic used mostly AI to build Claude Cowork tool

For instance, with Slack, you can have Claude draft messages using context derived from previous messages in your inbox, and review and re-format them to your liking before hitting send. Canva allows for the creation of presentation outlines and real-time design work, while Asana will turn your chats with Claude into projects that the rest of your team can see and execute on.

As stated previously, this is similar to something OpenAI embraced last year. However, many of the apps ChatGPT started with were not necessarily focused on professional work. They included things like Spotify and Instacart, not Slack and Asana. This gives Claude a more distinct flavor in the war between AI chatbots, if nothing else.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 trailer reunites Matt Murdock and Jessica Jones

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:03

Daredevil: Born Again brought Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) back into the MCU with a vengeance, along with a whole host of familiar faces from his first Netflix outing.

Original Daredevil baddie Wilson Fisk (Vincent D'Onofrio), aka Kingpin, continued to prove a formidable opponent, especially given his newfound power as mayor of New York City. Later in the season, Matt allied himself with former Daredevil staples like Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Frank Castle/Punisher (Jon Bernthal).

SEE ALSO: 'Wonder Man' review: All hail the MCU's latest bromance

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 continues the ride down memory lane, re-introducing Krysten Ritter as super-strong private investigator Jessica Jones. Jessica Jones was the lead of the Netflix series of the same name, but she also crossed paths with Matt in Netflix's The Defenders, which united New York-based heroes Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage (Mike Colter), and Danny Rand (Finn Jones). Now that Daredevil: Born Again will be reuniting half of the Defenders, what are the odds we'll see the other half back in some capacity in the future?

The trailer for Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 sees Jessica Jones back in action as if she'd never left. She's sassing Matt and throwing goons around like they weigh nothing. I'm not going to lie, it's great to have her back.

While the return of Jessica Jones is something to celebrate, the rest of the Daredevil: Born Again trailer is pretty bleak. Fisk still holds New York in his iron grip, and Matt is dealing with some new demons. Plus, the trailer introduces Matthew Lillard as the mysterious Mr. Charles — will he be an ally or an enemy to Matt?

Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 premieres March 24 at 9 p.m. ET on Disney+.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Why your Plex transcodes are slow (and how to speed them up)

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 17:00

You've got your Plex server set up and your content loaded into your Plex library, but when you play back certain videos, you get constant buffering, or poor image quality, or both. That's a common issue people face, and often the cause has to do with how your Plex server handles transcoding.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Heroic Games Launcher for Linux just got a big update

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 16:51

After five months of work, the developers of Heroic Games Launcher have debuted version 2.19 of its open source game manager targeting Linux users. It includes experimental support for a new gaming platform to go alongside its existing support for Epic Games Store, GoG Store, and Amazon Luna.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Get dinner on the table faster with the Ninja Foodi Smart XL for its lowest price yet

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 16:36

SAVE $150: As of Jan. 27, get the Ninja Foodi Smart XL for $149.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $299.99. That's a discount of 50% and the lowest price we've seen.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Ninja Foodi Smart XL $149.99 at Amazon
$299.99 Save $150   Get Deal

If you love grilled food, you probably love going out in the backyard and whipping up tasty meals. You can't really do that right now in winter, so if you're reminiscing about all the times last summer you cooked tasty grilled food, it might be time to get something that you can make similar flavors with while staying indoors; a 6-in-1 device that not only air fries but grills as well. And it's on sale with the best deal we've seen.

As of Jan. 27, get the Ninja Foodi Smart XL for $149.99 at Amazon, down from its usual price of $299.99. That's $150 off and a discount of 50%. It's also the lowest price we've seen.

SEE ALSO: The Ninja Crispi is a glass-bottom air fryer, and it's $40 off at Amazon

The Ninja Foodi Smart XL grill, air fry, roast, bake, broil, dehydrate, and air crisp. It's the perfect option for cooking a delicious meal and getting it out on the table, with some seriously tasty meats and more ready in as little as 30 minutes. If you're pressed for time, it's a fantastic option.

But it's not just good at meats—you can prep just about anything else you may need in the Ninja Foodi grill. That includes sides, veggies, sandwiches, and even dessert if you so choose. It's simple to clean, and it comes with niceties like an air fryer basket, cleaning brush, and thermometer to make things even easier.

Whether you're eating alone or feeding a huge family, you can't go wrong with this grill, especially at the lowest price we've seen. Grab it now for toasty cooking while the weather outside is frightful.

Categories: IT General, Technology

This one free app solved all my Windows 11 lag and stutter

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 16:30

Stuttering and lag are some of the toughest issues to diagnose on a Windows computer, which is a shame because in my experience Windows is the operating system where this crops up most often.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Why desktop Linux matters, even if (almost) no one uses it

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 16:30

Linux—you've heard of it, and maybe you've given it a try once or twice. However, statistically, you're probably not a committed desktop Linux user. Globally, as of 2025, just over 4% of desktop PCs run Linux. That's a tiny slice of the market, and yet it's a milestone for Linux worth celebrating.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Pornhub will soon be blocked for UK users — unless they take one step

Mashable - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 16:15

Pornhub's parent company, Aylo, announced today that it is restricting the porn site in the UK come Feb. 2. Any adult who has already verified their age will still be able to use that site after that date, but no one else will.

The decision comes around six months after the enaction of the Online Safety Act, the UK's age-verification law. When the law went into effect, Pornhub announced it would comply with the law due to working with a regulator (Ofcom, UK's Office of Communication) and less intrusive methods of age assurance.

SEE ALSO: How to unblock Pornhub for free

Over time, however, Aylo identified failures with the Online Safety Act, namely non-compliant porn sites. There's also the ability to circumvent the law by the use of VPNs. Meanwhile, Pornhub's traffic has taken a nosedive in the territory, announcing in October it has dropped by 77 percent.

Now, Aylo announced that it'll restrict Pornhub and its other free sites (like RedTube and YouPorn) as of Feb. 2. If UK visitors haven't verified their age on the sites by then, the sites will be blocked. Users will instead see a written message (similar to what users in France see). For its paid sites, users will still be able to use them because credit card information is seen as a form of age assurance.

In a press conference today, Aylo representatives advocated for device-level filters, which block all websites registered as RTA, or "Restricted to Adults." Aylo has pushed this solution to keep minors of its sites for years, and free speech experts Mashable has spoken to regarding age-verification laws have also discussed them.

Back in November, Aylo sent letters to Apple, Google, and Microsoft urging them to enable these filters.

Categories: IT General, Technology

Forget depreciation: this affordable sports car refuses to lose value

How-To Geek - Tue, 01/27/2026 - 16:15

Most sports cars lose value quickly, leaving buyers with steep depreciation just when they expected thrills and style. But one affordable performance car defies that trend, holding its value far better than most of its peers and giving owners surprising long-term equity. In a segment where rapid price drops are the norm, this model’s exceptional resale strength makes it one of the smartest buys for drivers who want fun without the typical financial hit.

Categories: IT General, Technology
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