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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 heavy side, and the configuration swapping can be buggy. A host of great 2-in-1 laptops launched in 2024, forcing more and…

Lance Whitney/ZDNET Microsoft 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,…

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 – and makes IRL conversations searchable Last Friday, Caitlin Kalinowski, who joined OpenAI in November to lead the robotics and consumer…

ZDNET Open-source approaches continue to show promise in democratizing artificial intelligence (AI). NovaSky’s Sky-T1-32B-Preview On 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 explained The team developed Sky-T1 by fine-tuning Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-32-Instruct and trained it on data generated with QwQ-32B-Preview,…

ZDNET I’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…

ZDNET I’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…

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 mAh battery. There are limitations, which include the weight of the kit and the limited power it generates, 40 Watts. more…

ZDNET Have you ever experienced a problem with your operating system — one that was self-inflicted? You might have misconfigured something, only to find that whatever you did caused a cascade failure of other services or apps. When that happens, you might not even remember what you did to cause the problem. Maybe it was a config file in /etc, which is often the case. Also: 10 Linux apps I always install first – and you…

ZDNET’s key takeaways The Creative Aurvana Ace Mimi earbuds are available now for $129 on Creative’s official site. With rich, dynamic bass, well-blended mids, and crisp highs, these earbuds are a perfect match for any type of music you can feed them. The LE audio feature on these earbuds can cause brief disconnects, but they typically quickly reconnect on their own. I’ve always found earbuds to be hit-and-miss with sound. Depending on the make and…

ZDNET If you’re displaced by the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, Spectrum is offering free Wi-Fi to help you stay connected. Also: The best travel VPNs In the midst of power outages and cell tower loss, it’s getting difficult for many people to contact loved ones or to do necessary things online. More than 100,000 people have been evacuated, nearly as many are on standby to evacuate, and more than a million people are without power. Free…