Blogroll

While practically every smart home product has now pivoted to using "AI" somewhere in their marketing material, the actual impact of recent AI development hasn't impacted the smart home experience much. However, with the rise of AI agents, that's set to change in a big way.

SAVE 75%: As of Jan. 17, score a two-pack of Skullcandy Indy Evo true wireless Bluetooth earbuds for $34.99. That's a 75% discount or $104.99 off the list price.

Opens in a new window Credit: Skullycandy two-pack of Skullcandy Indy Evo true wireless Bluetooth earbuds $34.99
$139.99 Save $105.00 Get Deal

What’s better than owning one pair of wireless earbuds? Getting two for the price of one.

As of Jan. 17, you can get two pairs of Skullcandy Indy Evo true wireless in-ear Bluetooth earbuds for $34.99 at Woot. We’re pretty sure Woot inflated the list price to $139.99 because Amazon has these same buds for $26.99 on average (though the price fluctuates). Even so, $34.99 is a good deal for two sets of top-rated (40K+ reviews on Amazon) earbuds with decent sound quality, comfortable fit, and long-lasting battery life.

SEE ALSO: Skullcandy's $40 eco-friendly wireless earbuds sound surprisingly good

Each set includes a charging case, stability ear gels (small and large), and a USB-C charging cable. They also have an IP55 rating and are water- and dust-resistant.

The cool thing about these buds, aside from their performance and 30-hour battery life, is that they come with Tile tech built-in, so you'll always be able to track them down if you accidentally leave them somewhere. All you have to do is download the Tile app and pair it with the buds.

If you're looking for affordable wireless earbuds for yourself or to gift to a friend or family member, jump on this deal before it's gone.

Our yearly celebration of the best infographics and data-visualisations from around the world is back for 2023! Now in its eleventh year and in association with The Data Visualisation Society, a professional home and community for those working in this discipline.

If you create in this field, you may wish to submit your work.

We welcome entries of any type: infographics, data journalism, maps, interactives, information art, video, animation, app, site, sculpture, or artwork. Pieces can be created in any software, platform, or medium, using any type of materials.

Here are the categories open for submission:

» Arts, Entertainment & Culture
» Business Analytics
» Current Affairs & Politics
» Humanitarian
» Leisure, Games & Sport
» People, Language & Identity
» Places, Spaces & Environment
» Science, Technology & Health
» Unusual

Entries are currently open and will close on 31st Jan 2025.
Any work created between Sep 1st 2023 and Dec 31st 2023 is eligible.
Winner will share prizes from a $20,000 pot.

» See more criteria for entry

You can see previous years’ winners and entries on the Information is Beautiful Awards Showcase.

In this edition:

• We introduce privacy enhancements for multiparty deep learning, a framework using smaller, open-source models to provide relevance judgments, and other notable new research.
• We congratulate Yasuyuki Matsushita, who was named an IEEE Computer Society Fellow.
• We’ve included a recap of the extraordinary, far-reaching work done by researchers at Microsoft in 2024.  

NEW RESEARCH

AI meets materials discovery

Two of the transformative tools that play a central role in Microsoft’s work on AI for science are MatterGen and MatterSim. In the world of materials discovery, each plays a distinct yet complementary role in reshaping how researchers design and validate new materials.

Read the story NEW RESEARCH Communication Efficient Secure and Private Multi-Party Deep Learning

Distributed training enables multiple parties to jointly train a machine learning model on their respective datasets, which can help address the challenges posed by requirements in modern machine learning for large volumes of diverse data. However, this can raise security and privacy issues – protecting each party’s data during training and preventing leakage of private information from the model after training through various inference attacks.  

In a recent paper, Communication Efficient Secure and Private Multi-Party Deep Learning, researchers from Microsoft address these concerns simultaneously by designing efficient Differentially Private, secure Multiparty Computation (DP-MPC) protocols for jointly training a model on data distributed among multiple parties. This DP-MPC protocol in the two-party setting is 56-to-794 times more communication-efficient and 16-to-182 times faster than previous such protocols. This work simplifies and improves on previous attempts to combine techniques from secure multiparty computation and differential privacy, especially in the context of training machine learning models. 

Read the paper NEW RESEARCH JudgeBlender: Ensembling Judgments for Automatic Relevance Assessment

Training and evaluating retrieval systems requires significant relevance judgments, which are traditionally collected from human assessors. This process is both costly and time-consuming. Large language models (LLMs) have shown promise in generating relevance labels for search tasks, offering a potential alternative to manual assessments. Current approaches often rely on a single LLM. While effective, this approach can be expensive and prone to intra-model biases that can favor systems leveraging similar models.

In a recent paper: JudgeBlender: Ensembling Judgments for Automatic Relevance Assessment, researchers from Microsoft we introduce a framework that employs smaller, open-source models to provide relevance judgments by combining evaluations across multiple LLMs (LLMBlender) or multiple prompts (PromptBlender). By leveraging the LLMJudge benchmark, they compare JudgeBlender with state-of-the-art methods and the top performers in the LLMJudge challenge. This research shows that JudgeBlender achieves competitive performance, demonstrating that very large models are often unnecessary for reliable relevance assessments.

Read the paper NEW RESEARCH Convergence to Equilibrium of No-regret Dynamics in Congestion Games

Congestion games are used to describe the behavior of agents who share a set of resources. Each player chooses a combination of resources, which may become congested, decreasing utility for the players who choose them. Players can avoid congestion by choosing combinations that are less popular. This is useful for modeling a range of real-world scenarios, such as traffic flow, data routing, and wireless communication networks.

In a recent paper: Convergence to Equilibrium of No-regret Dynamics in Congestion Games; researchers from Microsoft and external colleagues propose CongestEXP, a decentralized algorithm based on the classic exponential weights method. They evaluate CongestEXP in a traffic congestion game setting. As more drivers use a particular route, congestion increases, leading to higher travel times and lower utility. Players can choose a different route every day to optimize their utility, but the observed utility by each player may be subject to randomness due to uncertainty (e.g., bad weather). The researchers show that this approach provides both regret guarantees and convergence to Nash Equilibrium, where no player can unilaterally improve their outcome by changing their strategy.

Read the paper NEW RESEARCH RD-Agent: An open-source solution for smarter R&D

Research and development (R&D) plays a pivotal role in boosting industrial productivity. However, the rapid advance of AI has exposed the limitations of traditional R&D automation. Current methods often lack the intelligence needed to support innovative research and complex development tasks, underperforming human experts with deep knowledge.

LLMs trained on vast datasets spanning many subjects are equipped with extensive knowledge and reasoning capabilities that support complex decision-making in diverse workflows. By autonomously performing tasks and analyzing data, LLMs can significantly increase the efficiency and precision of R&D processes.

In a recent article, researchers from Microsoft introduce RD-Agent, a tool that integrates data-driven R&D systems and harnesses advanced AI to automate innovation and development.

At the heart of RD-Agent is an autonomous agent framework with two key components: a) Research and b) Development. Research focuses on actively exploring and generating new ideas, while Development implements these ideas. Both components improve through an iterative process, illustrated in Figure 1 of the article, ensures the system becomes increasingly effective over time.

Read the article

Spotlight: Microsoft research newsletter

Microsoft Research Newsletter

Stay connected to the research community at Microsoft.

Subscribe today Opens in a new tab Microsoft Research | In case you missed it Microsoft Research 2024: A year in review 

December 20, 2024

Microsoft Research did extraordinary work this year, using AI and scientific research to make progress on real-world challenges like climate change, food security, global health, and human trafficking. Here’s a look back at the broad range of accomplishments and advances in 2024.

AIOpsLab: Building AI agents for autonomous clouds 

December 20, 2024

AIOpsLab is a holistic evaluation framework for researchers and developers, to enable the design, development, evaluation, and enhancement of AIOps agents, which also serves the purpose of reproducible, standardized, interoperable, and scalable benchmarks.

Yasuyuki Matsushita, IEEE Computer Society 2025 Fellow 

December 19, 2024

Congratulations to Yasuyuki Matsushita, Senior Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Research, who was named a 2025 IEEE Computer Society Fellow. Matsushita was recognized for contributions to photometric 3D modeling and computational photography.

View more news and awards Opens in a new tab

The post Research Focus: Week of January 13, 2025 appeared first on Microsoft Research.

GET DOUBLE KINDLE POINTS: As of Jan. 17, get double Kindle Points for each Kindle purchase, today only.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Double Kindle Points with each Kindle book purchase Kindle Rewards Get Deal

Are you a voracious reader? Looking to get paid back for some of the money you spend on Kindle books? Amazon's Kindle Rewards program lets you earn points per dollar spent on Kindle e-books, and print books as well. You can redeem earned points for rewards and discounts (to buy even more books)/. And today, you can stock up on Kindle books and earn more points right now.

As of Jan. 17, you can earn double points on all the Kindle books you purchase today as part of the Kindle Rewards program. Between 12:00 a.m. PT and 11:50 p.m. PT, you can shop 'til you drop and get six points per dollar you spend on Kindle title, and one point per dollar you spend on print books.

SEE ALSO: Prime members can save on the brand new Amazon Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition

The rewards you can earn through this program can net you cash for more books. You get $3 for every 300 points you earn, and for a limited time you can choose to redeem 300 points on your next Kindle purchase for $3 off.

It might not seem like a lot, but if you're buying Kindle books anyway, you may as well earn a little cash back on each purchase. Even the smallest of discount can mean a very affordable Kindle book, since there are some titles on sale for as low as 99 cents. You can fill your device with tons of reading material just by splurging on some of the books you've had your eye on.

This deal is only going on today, so if you have some books in mind you still need to buy, go ahead and snag them. Those points aren't going to earn themselves.

Don't settle for the default Steam boot animation. Instead, grab some alternatives from the Points Shop, or use your own custom video. Here's how to change your startup movie on Steam Deck and Big Picture.

Wolf Man stars Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott join producer Beatriz Sequeira and writer/director Leigh Whannell to discuss how they reimagined the iconic werewolf tale and the essentials of telling a good werewolf story.

Wolf Man opens in theaters Jan. 17.

Apple might have a fix for overheating issues with the upcoming iPhone 17.

According to Chinese outlet MyDrivers via WCCF Tech, the iPhone 17 lineup will reportedly be built with a "vapor chamber cooling" system to address any overheating that might arise. Building phones with vapor cooling heatsinks is pretty commonplace for Android phones like the Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel lineups.

SEE ALSO: Apple's iPhone 17 will come with a huge RAM upgrade, report claims

However, Apple has yet to introduce this method of managing overheating, which passes vaporized liquid through a chamber within the phone. This solution is slightly bulkier than traditional cooling methods, which might be why previous iPhones weren't built with this mechanism. Adopting a vapor cooling system will help maintain performance even during intensive use, such as gaming.

The iPhone 15 was plagued with overheating issues, according to users who reported their phones would become too hot to touch. Apple implemented a fix with a software update, and despite concerns that it might slow down the device, testers confirmed that it worked without any compromises to performance. Although the iPhone 16 had improved thermal cooling, there were still reports of overheating with the iPhone 16, although less widespread.

We've barely entered 2025, but there are already rumors about what to expect with the iPhone 17 lineup, expected this September. Apple might introduce the A19 chip for the iPhone 17 Pro, and all models might get a better selfie camera.

And then there's the rumored slimmest model yet, called "iPhone 17 Air" or "iPhone 17 Slim" to replace the Plus versions. That said, Apple is reportedly struggling to fit a 6mm battery within the slimmer size.

Adam Scott, Zach Cherry, Britt Lower, and John Turturro dive into the challenges and joys of filming Season 2, from getting lost in the ever-growing maze of hallways to exploring their characters’ innies and outies.

Severance Season 2 is streaming now on Apple TV+, with a new episode every week.

A rocket from Elon Musk's SpaceX exploded spectacularly during a test flight on Thursday. As one might expect, that caused some issues with air travel.

The Federal Aviation Administration told TechCrunch that it briefly had "slow and divert a number of aircraft" that were flying near the area. Flightradar24 data showed a number of aircraft slowing or changing course in airspace near Puerto Rico. Jet Blue had to delay a couple of flights to San Juan while American Airlines had to divert fewer than 10 flights, CNBC reported.

Tweet may have been deleted SEE ALSO: SpaceX catches Starship booster but loses ship in seventh flight test

In case you missed it, Starship experienced what SpaceX dubbed a "rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn." In non-euphemism, laymen's terms, that means the ship went kaboom. Apparent video of the debris falling to Earth, shared by Musk himself, was pretty spectacular to witness.

Tweet may have been deleted

Sure, the Starship might've exploded and caused issues with flights, but it definitely did look cool as it fell to the ground. So that's something.

The trailer for upcoming film Cold Wallet promises a home invasion movie with a cryptocurrency twist.

SEE ALSO: What to know about David Sacks, Trump's pick for AI and crypto czar

Directed by Cutter Hodierne and presented by Steven Soderbergh (Presence), Cold Wallet follows a group of Redditors who fell prey to a recent cryptocurrency scam. After losing everything, this trio — played by Raúl Castillo (Smile 2), Tony Cavalero (The Righteous Gemstones), and Melonie Diaz (Fruitvale Station) — decide to kidnap the financial influencer (Josh Brener, Saturday Night) who perpetrated the scam.

Of course, their plan falls apart once they make it to the influencer's mansion. As the trailer shows, the Redditors' target begins to manipulate his would-be kidnappers and turn them against one another. Check out the full trailer above for more crypto-fueled madness — including a nod to both the GameStop and AMC short squeezes from 2021.

Cold Wallet hits theaters Feb. 28.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the forthcoming ban of TikTok, which will see the app phased out of American users' digital diets starting Jan. 19.

Following a short deliberation, the court's unanimous decision keeps the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (as it is officially called) in place.

"There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community. But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary," the court decision says.

Despite several attempts to ban the app over the last few years, this is the first successful move against the China-owned company, which U.S. politicians have repeatedly accused of being a threat to national security.

SEE ALSO: As TikTok faces a ban, creators brace for an uncertain future

TikTok filed an emergency motion for injunction in early December, requesting the Supreme Court hear arguments against the decision and halt it going into effect. Organizations like the ACLU have called the ban unconstitutional and a violation of free speech, joining a larger call by users and industry leaders to stop the ban. On Dec. 18, the court formally agreed to hear challenges.

In his final days before leaving office, President Joe Biden has said he will not actively enforce the ban, leaving the decision to implement the ban in the hands of the upcoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in for the second time on Monday, Jan. 20, has pledged to save the app from leaving the U.S. market and asked the court to grant a stay for the ban's deadline.

SAVE $300: As of Jan. 17, the Apple Mac mini desktop (M2 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) is available at Best Buy for $899, down from $1,199. That's 25% off.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple Mac mini desktop (M2 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) $899.00 at Best Buy
$1,199.00 Save $300.00 Get Deal

If your standard desktop isn’t cutting it, you might want to consider upgrading to an Apple Mac mini desktop. While these mighty machines typically come with a hefty price tag, Best Buy’s got a deal we couldn’t help but share.

As of Jan. 17, you can score an Apple Mac mini desktop (M2 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD) that's normally $1,199 for $899 at Best Buy — that's a whopping $300 discount, or 25% off. And, if you’re a Total or Plus member, you can drop that price by another $100 to just $799.

Bonus: You’ll also get three months of Apple TV+, three months of Apple Fitness+, three months of iCloud+, three months of Apple Music, and four months of Apple Arcade for free with this purchase.

SEE ALSO: M4 Mac mini vs. M2 Mac mini: What are the differences?

With an M2 Pro chip, 10-core CPU, and 16-core GPU, you’ll be able to edit photos and video, code, or do pretty much anything else you need to do in a flash — with enough power to spare. And, if you need an extra screen (or two), this Mac mini supports up to three displays and features four Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports, HDMI, Ethernet, and two USB-A ports.

If that’s not enough to sell you, just wait until you see how small and mighty this little machine is. Measuring just 7.76 inches square and 1.42 inches tall, it'll easily fit on any desk without taking up too much space.

SAVE $61.53: As of Jan. 17, get the Technics Premium Hi-Fi Bluetooth Earbuds for just $197.47 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $259. That's a discount of 24%.

Opens in a new window Credit: Amazon Technics Premium Hi-Fi Bluetooth Earbuds $197.47 at Amazon
$259.00 Save $61.53 Get Deal

There are tons of options on the market if you're looking to buy some new earbuds. You've got the coveted Apple line, excellent options from brands like Bose, and much more. But one of the brands we recently named our Mashable Choice pick, the Technics AZ100 Earbuds, are particularly excellent. While you can't go wrong with Sony and Bose according to reviewer Timothy Beck Werth, you might not want to pony up as much cash as those command. The next best thing? The previous-gen version of these earbuds, on sale right now.

As of Jan. 17, you can get the Technics Premium Hi-Fi Bluetooth Earbuds for $197.47 at Amazon, down from their usual price of $259. That's $61.53 of and a discount of 24%.

These buds offer much the same as their newer model, with great noise cancellation, Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and multipoint connections with support for up to three devices so you can swap between them as necessary. They offer crisp treble with some seriously booming bass as well, with up to 7 hour sof playback with noise cancellation on. Just toss them in their case to charge up again when you need a boost.

They're not just great for listening to music. They have three microphones so your voice comes through loud and clear, with Voice Focus AI features that isolate voices on both end for better clarity. The adaptive noise cancellation feature also helps to keep other noises from taking over your calls, too.

If you're lookig to scoop up some excellent earbuds, now's your chance – chances are you'll love these as much as we loved their follow-up model.

There's a delicious surprise in Night Call, a Brussels-set action movie that plays out over one brutal night shift. And it's just how plausible every moment feels. Forget high-flying superheroes, Force-wielding Jedis, or car thieves who defy the laws of physics. There's good fun to be had in such movies, for sure. But filmmaker Michiel Blanchart makes his directorial feature debut with a lean and brilliant thriller that is uniquely thrilling because of how devotedly grounded it is. 

The screenplay (written by Blanchart and Gilles Marchand) begins simply enough, following twentysomething Mady Bala (Jonathan Feltre) through the routine of his night job as a locksmith. He gets a call, checks for proof of ID, cracks the lock, and gets paid cash. Easy. That is, until a cute brunette who calls herself Claire (Natacha Krief) lures him into a heist. Next thing Mady knows, his routine is in the rearview mirror as he races to survive a night where he's enraged a ruthless gangster with a band of skinheads at his beck and call. To live, he'll need to get the girl — or at least the cash. 

Racing across Brussels, from its high-rise apartments to its bumping nightclubs, seedy brothels, and claustrophobic basements, Blanchart puts Mady through the wringer, and we get to be his captive audience. 

Night Call's violence hits harder because it feels real.  Mady (Jonathan Feltre) is caught in the middle of a protest in "Night Call." Credit: Mika Cotellon / Magnet Releasing

The first taste of action comes in the apartment Claire claimed was hers. Left alone, Mady silently takes in the living room's layout, the Nazi memorabilia prominently displayed, and the hulking stranger who has just found an intruder in his place. Before Mady can explain, he's attacked. And scrambling to fight back against a brute who would turn his face into a fire — with an assist from the lit stovetop — Mady has to think fast. He smashes a plate, turning its shards into a knife, perfect for a quick stab to the gut. 

While this might sound like a masterful improvisation of weaponry, Feltre's performance is one of terror and bewilderment. His limbs fly in defense powerfully, but not confidently. He's not Jason Bourne, conveniently trained to best any adversary. He's just a guy trying to get through the night. And this scramble makes all the violence inflicted by and on him hit like a gut punch. The stakes feel real as Mady wriggles away from the neo-Nazi on a rampage. And even as this scrappy locksmith bests him with a lucky blow to the neck, he's not ready for the fallout. Specifically, Mady gags at the sight of blood burbling from his fallen foe's neck. 

In one swift and brutal action sequence at the film's top, Blanchart keenly establishes the life-or-death stakes and the gritty reality of this action movie. The broader details of the gangsters and their crimes are kept smartly vague, as none of that matters in the urgency of Mady's dilemma. And it's absolutely enthralling to see this slim everyman in a bulky jacket, obscuring his ripped physique — as opposed to a jacked-up Wolverine — take on the hell that is the night ahead of him.

Night Call delivers exhilarating twists and superb performances.  Credit: Mika Cotellon / Magnet Releasing.

Not versed in how to commit murder, much less covering one up, Mady is soon in the hands of a scowling kingpin (French actor Romain Duris, The Beat That My Heart Skipped), who turns him over to two cronies assigned to the task of recovering the loot that clever Claire stole. No one cares that Mady was an unwitting accomplice. Reason and rationale are a luxury Mady is not granted, and so he must look for any opportunity to best his captors. 

Night Call veers from Mady being pushed around to him defiantly breaking free in ways small and large, changing his fortune with impulse or ingenuity. It's thrilling to see where his story will go next, because it's impossible to predict. Blanchart and Marchand reject action movie tropes by having their hero be a true underdog, who must rely not only on the kindness of strangers (or in this case, Black Lives Matter protesters) but also the femme fatale who set him up to survive. But even as Night Call turns into film-noir territory with Claire, the screenwriters refuse to keep her an easily evil figure. Instead, the film twists into emotionally intelligent terrain that makes its climax incredible in more ways than one. Not only does Night Call defy genre expectations, but it also plays to reality without feeling like a letdown. 

Credit: Mika Cotellon / Magnet Releasing

Props to an impeccable cast. Feltre is a riveting leady man, committing convincingly to the fight choreography without losing Mady's wide-eyed shock at his circumstances. Opposite him, Duris — whose previous movies range from Jacques Audiard's neo-noir Beat to rom-coms like Heartbreaker and the dreamy Mood Indigo — is harrowing as a snarling gangster. As a young tough, Jonas Bloquet is both intimidating and intriguing, while Natacha Krief as Claire is so deeply charming that it's easy to see how Mady fell for her ruse. All down the line, the performances in Night Call are distinctive, dark, grimy, and even sometimes grimly funny, making the underbelly of Brussels a place that's sinister but sensational. 

Combine these crackling performances and the savagely smart script with cinematographer Sylvestre Vannoorenberghe's smooth sensibility, which thoughtfully pushes and pulls audiences through the labyrinth that is Mady's mad night, and this movie is an absolute stunner. In the end, Blanchart's first film is as electrifying as it is surprising. An action movie that's daring, dark, and distinctly wild, Night Call is not to be missed. 

Night Call opens only in theaters Jan. 17. 

SAVE $100: As of Jan. 16, get AirPods Max (USB-C) for $449.99 at Best Buy, saving $100 off the original price of $549.99.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple AirPods Max (USB-C) $449.99 at Best Buy
$549.99 Save $100.00 Get Deal

Apple's AirPods Max are the ultimate over-ear headphones, and they just got even better — and cheaper.

Right now, Best Buy is offering the AirPods Max with USB-C for $449.99, down $100 from their regular price of $549.99. If you've been waiting for a price drop, this might be the time to snag them.

These aren't just headphones; they're Apple's high-fidelity audio powerhouse. The dynamic driver delivers pristine sound quality with deep bass, crisp highs, and everything in between. Thanks to Active Noise Cancellation, you can dive into your favorite playlist or catch up on a podcast with zero distractions. It's so effective that you might forget the outside world exists. And when you need to tune back in, the Transparency mode ensures you can hear what's happening around you without taking the headphones off.

SEE ALSO: Rate your favorite smart home gear for a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card

One standout feature of the AirPods Max is their Spatial Audio capability. With dynamic head tracking and personalized sound tuning, these headphones make you feel like you're sitting in the middle of a recording studio or a movie theater. The sound isn't just great—it's immersive, enveloping, and pure Apple magic. With Dolby Atmos support, streaming your favorite shows or music becomes a next-level experience.

The AirPods Max have also been designed with comfort in mind. The knit-mesh canopy and memory foam ear cushions ensure a snug but cozy fit for hours of listening. Add to that the Digital Crown for precise control over playback and volume, and you've got a pair of headphones that feel as premium as they sound.

And here's the big news: Apple finally gave the AirPods Max a USB-C port. You can charge them with the same cable you use for your iPhone 15, iPad, or Mac. It's a small change but a massive convenience upgrade.

Whether you're an audiophile, a frequent traveler, or someone who values great sound and seamless connectivity, the AirPods Max are worth the hype — and at this price, they're worth every penny.

SAVE $200: As of Jan. 16, snag 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (M2 chip, 16GB memory, 256GB SSD, midnight color) for $799 at Best Buy. That’s $200 off its regular price of $999.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple 13-inch Apple MacBook Air (M2 chip, 16GB memory, 256GB SSD, midnight color) $799.00 at Best Buy
$999.00 Save $200.00 Get Deal

If you've been looking for a gorgeous and powerful laptop, 13-inch MacBook Air with the M2 chip is calling your name. Thanks to Best Buy's four-day sale, you can pick one up for $799 — knocking a hefty $200 off its usual $999 price tag.

The M2 chip is the show's star, delivering fast CPU and GPU performance, making multitasking a breeze. Edit videos and your spreadsheets or watch Netflix in stunning quality; this MacBook Air handles it without breaking a sweat. And with 16GB of memory and a 256GB SSD, you'll have the speed you'll need to keep everything running smoothly.

SEE ALSO: Rate your favorite smart home gear for a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card

Design-wise, it's Apple through and through: sleek, minimalist, and skinny at just 2.7 pounds. The midnight finish is an absolute stunner, but it's not just about colorways. The 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with 500 nits of brightness brings vibrant colors and crisp details, so your eyes will thank you during long work (or binge-watching) sessions.

Battery life? It's a beast. With up to 8 hours on a single charge, this laptop won't flake out on you mid-edit or binge. And since it's fanless, it won't sound like it's taking off when you're grafting — just silent, efficient performance all day.

Apple's attention to detail is everywhere: the 1080p FaceTime HD camera makes you look your best on calls, while the three-mic array and four-speaker system with Spatial Audio delivers clear sound. It has a MagSafe 3 port, two Thunderbolt ports, and a headphone jack, so users are covered in accessories, extra storage, and jacked headphones.

At $799, this MacBook Air packs insane value, especially for students, creatives, or anyone looking to upgrade their setup without diving into MacBook Pro territory. It's lightweight, powerful, and ready to roll for work, studying, or just streaming your favorite shows.

Deals like this don't last, so if the MacBook Air has been on your radar, this is your sign to grab it before Best Buy's four-day sale ends.

SAVE $70: As of Jan. 16, grab the Apple iPad, 10.9-inch (M4, 64GB SSD, WiFi) for $279 at Best Buy. Save $70 on this versatile tablet during their 4-day sale.

Opens in a new window Credit: Apple Apple iPad, 10.9-inch (M4, 64GB SSD, WiFi) $279.00 at Best Buy
$349.00 Save $70.00 Get Deal

If you’ve been holding out for the perfect time to grab an iPad, here it is.

Best Buy’s 4-day sale has the Apple iPad, 10.9-inch (M4, 64GB SSD, WiFi) marked down to $279, saving you $70 off its regular $349 price. This sleek, silver powerhouse is your new do-it-all device for streaming, sketching, or smashing through spreadsheets.

The 10.9-inch Liquid Retina display is a standout. Everything from YouTube videos to your email inbox pops on the screen, and with True Tone tech, it adapts to your lighting so it always looks just right. Powered by the A14 Bionic chip, this iPad handles multitasking like a pro. Need to run multiple apps while FaceTiming your friend or finishing a group project? It’s all smooth sailing.

SEE ALSO: Rate your favorite smart home gear for a chance to win a $250 Amazon gift card

The cameras are impressive, too. The 12MP Ultra Wide front cam is made for Center Stage, which keeps you perfectly framed during video calls, even if you’re multitasking (or just pacing around). The rear 12MP Wide camera takes sharp photos and 4K video, in case you want to dabble in content creation or take ridiculously crisp cat pics.

WiFi 6 and USB-C makes charging and connecting accessories a breeze, not to mention buffer-free streaming. Pair it with the Magic Keyboard Folio or Apple Pencil; this iPad transforms into a productivity beast. Sketch, type, or jot down notes as you please — it’s as versatile as you need it to be.

Battery life won’t leave you hanging either, lasting all day on a single charge. Touch ID is still the gold standard for seamless unlocking and secure Apple Pay transactions. It’s practical and powerful, and $279 is a steal.

Deals on iPads don’t come around every day, and this one’s only good for Best Buy’s 4-day sale. If you’re in the market for a reliable tablet or looking to upgrade, snag this 10th-gen iPad while you can.

During the dark days of lockdown, we all found ways to connect. Some of us ran Zoom quizzes with mates. Some of us hit play on the same movie as our family on the other side of the world. Some of us staged an immersive, independent, multi-location production of Shakespeare's Hamlet within the world of Grand Theft Auto Online.

The latter is exactly what filmmakers Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane, and Mark Oosterveen did, filming the ideation, rehearsal, location scouting, casting, and eventual performance of the tragedy befalling the Prince of Denmark all within Rockstar Games' online universe.

Grand Theft Hamlet is nothing short of a groundbreaking work of cinema, one that explores the connections between players in online multiplayer action-adventure games, embodies the difficulty of creative pursuits and making theatre, and reminds us just how important online spaces were to us during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

SEE ALSO: ‘Grand Theft Hamlet’ review: 'Grand Theft Auto' meets Shakespeare in hilarious, moving doc

In the film, we meet friends Crane and Oosterveen playing GTA online during the third lockdown in the UK. It was a bleak time. They're both theatre actors who found themselves out of work when venues closed (Crane was just about to start his run as Harry Potter in The Cursed Child on London's West End). In the film, we never see them in real life — only as their avatars, running around stealing cars and generally causing chaos. During one fateful session, they stumble across an outdoor theatre, and naturally find themselves quoting Shakespeare to the empty crowd while standing onstage.

Crane and Oosterveen started capturing these moments in-game and posting short videos on YouTube, after which Grylls also joined the game and encouraged them to up their efforts and make it into a large-scale project — Grylls found a smartphone in her avatar's pocket which could film close up shots; you can see her character filming on her phone during some scenes. From here, the idea snowballs, and the trio start to produce a production of Hamlet just like you would in real life — only here, strangers might just wander through your rehearsal and shoot everyone. Respawning becomes part and parcel of the whole gig.

Grand Theft Hamlet joins the leagues of machinima

Though it's a landmark moment for mainstream cinema and video game overlap, Grand Theft Hamlet isn't the first work of machinima — the art of making narrative films within video games or using video game engines. Artists have dabbled in this arena for decades.

"Machinima has been around for a while. It was one of the kind of early things on YouTube," said Crane onstage at BAFTA, in London in October.

"There was a series called Red vs. Blue, it was very popular in the early noughties... [Machinima] has been around for a while, and I think there's interestingly been quite a resurgence in it in recent years, maybe as video games have got more sophisticated and visually more impressive. And also, I think generally, as video games as a cultural medium have gained a bit more respect, maybe amongst people beyond the traditional gaming audience as well."

Grand Theft Hamlet reminds viewers of high art/low art hypocrisy

While staging the production inside the game, Grand Theft Hamlet manages to expose age-old, insufferable, pointless high art vs low art snobbery by fusing Shakespeare with video games. Crane, Oosterveen, and Grylls spoke about how people have forgotten how Shakespeare's plays were seen as entertainment for the masses in his time, while dismissing the sophistication, intricacy, and timely creativity of modern video games.

"It was considered low art for the masses in Shakespeare's day in much the same way not all but many people from the theatre establishment look at people who play video games and take them seriously and look down on that and think, 'What are you doing with that juvenile nonsense?' I think that is how Shakespeare was viewed," said Crane.

"Shakespeare was, in his day, originally, a very kind of rough, popular entertainment. It was kind of rowdy and a bit naughty, and rough, funny, sweary, and violent," said Oosterveen.

Grand Theft Hamlet is a truly independent, bedroom-made film

When people throw the word "independent film" around, there can be some grey areas. But Grand Theft Hamlet was quite literally made in Grylls, Crane, and Oosterveen's homes.

"We had a screening at the IMAX last week for London Film Festival, which was just sort of surreal, because I was like, I made this in my bedroom on a Mac with Adobe Premiere," said Grylls. "We had a capture card, which we captured everything in 4K you know, we didn't have sophisticated post production. It was really, really handmade and on quite a low budget. It was an experiment, but that gives you a lot of freedom, right?"

"We were filming everything. We were always recording. It annoys me a little bit, because a lot of people are like, 'Oh, you couldn't have possibly, that looks like it might be staged or set up. It genuinely happened, like we did have an argument, and it was a continuation of an argument we'd had the night before in real life, but it was still an argument," she said.

Grylls also pointed out the incredible accessibility gaming provided her as a filmmaker who is deaf, with the technology empowering her where other mediums may not.

"Filmmaking still is really an inaccessible artform to a great number of people — women, it's getting a bit better, but not people who are excluded because of their disability. Gaming does provide you know, anyone can do that, anyone can jump into a gaming server and start filming and recording something and making a story and then editing it," she said.

"I, as a deaf person, had live captioning, when I was interacting with people, I was able to read the captions on my phone with Otter. I stopped making films completely in 2016 when I lost my hearing, because I thought well that's it, it's an audio visual medium, it's over for me. So it's been a really accessible form of filmmaking for me. And I think you'll see from the film, a lot of people who we met, I think, felt very included in the process — maybe they wouldn't have been in theater."

And speaking of the people featured in the film, really, the cast — they're a major part of what makes Grand Theft Hamlet so uniquely online and disruptive to an industry that's notoriously hard to get a foot in the door: acting.

Credit: TullStories Grand Theft Hamlet has a truly miscellaneous, marvellous cast

While I won't spoil exactly how Grand Theft Hamlet recruited its cast, one of the most intriguing elements of the film is how the band got together. Players show up and take auditions and rehearsals seriously, others stand silently by, intrigued by the project, others simply shoot everyone and leave — as is the GTA way. But from a production perspective, it was a challenge for the team to actually lock down, request and get permission for the cast to appear in the final film.

"You've obviously got access to these incredible characters but then it's that thing of they're wearing a mask because they're avatars. Some even had voice changers. We didn't include it in the film, but some of them talked through live translation software, which was actually a digital voice. So the only thing you've got to go on is their gamertag," said Grylls.

"We made sure that everybody knew that we were recording our footage. We asked them is it OK, do you want to be in this documentary? Can we contact you through PlayStation, and again to verify that? So we had to do everything that you would have to do in a normal documentary. I certainly knew about that from my own background. Sometimes people said no, and there was a lot of kids on the server. We had to go and change servers quite a lot, actually, because we've got people underage that we couldn't include."

The team recruited characters both in game (you should watch the film for their brilliant techniques) and outside the game, from their contacts in theatre. "I think it's me that said it, there's a line in the film, but there's a Venn diagram of people who are into theatre and people into GTA, and there's this tiny, tiny overlap. That's not a joke," said Oosterveen.

NPCs served a higher purpose in Grand Theft Hamlet

If you've ever played GTA, you'll know the NPCs (non playable characters) are crucial to the game's environment — and it turned out, the same went for performing Hamlet within it.

"They sort of became a bit like a Greek chorus in that you could put onto them through filming and editing, almost like a mirror of the emotions of the main characters that I was filming. And they were really moving, they would really listen to you and respond," said Grylls.

Especially in scenes where the performers get angry or have an argument (one is a real argument between Crane and Grylls), you can see the NPCs in the game become intrigued, scared, and even cower during these exchanges.

"They're also a tool for us as performers learning about that world and seeing them as a lens to understand Shakespeare within that world. You see when we're trying to work out how to do 'to be or not to be', and discovering all these NPCs and a dive bar and the way they they talk to us and respond to us in the way they exist in that world," said Crane.

When you eventually do get to experience Hamlet within GTA through Grand Theft Hamlet, it's overwhelming, moving, and a one-of-a-kind production. I'm not going to tell you anything, because this is theatre. You just have to experience it for yourself.

Grand Theft Hamlet is out now in U.S. cinemas and is streaming on Mubi in the UK.

UPDATE: Jan. 17, 2025, 2:34 p.m. UTC This article was first published for 'Grand Theft Hamlet's UK release in December 2024 and has been republished with updated release information.

Tickets are now on sale for Captain America: Brave New World, and Marvel has dropped a new trailer to celebrate.

SEE ALSO: 2025 movie preview: All the films you'll want to know about

This trailer — which mostly revisits moments from other teasers and first looks — reminds us of the threats Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) will face in the fourth installment of the Captain America franchise. These threats kick off after a meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) goes horribly south. Now, Sam finds himself at the center of a global conspiracy that only he can put a stop to.

The new trailer gives us further glimpses of Giancarlo Esposito's (Maxxxine) villain Sidewinder, as well as Joaquín Torres (Danny Ramirez, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) taking up the mantle of Falcon. He and Sam make quite a pair, zipping around the dead Celestial from Eternals in a bombastic action sequence that involves chopping plane wings off with their own wings. On top of that, the trailer concludes with another look at Ross' transformation into Red Hulk. Witness it for yourself above.

Captain America: Brave New World hits theaters Feb. 14.