Author: Press Room

I’ve been dabbling around with local LLMs on my computer for a while now. It all started as a hobby when I ran DeepSeek-R1 locally on my Mac, and is now a pretty amazing part of my workflow. I’ve tried just about every popular local AI inference app on Android, and performance has always been the biggest sticking point. You’re already working with serious hardware limits because, duh, it’s a phone. That makes the software side absolutely critical. That’s where MNN Chat absolutely nails it. MNN Chat is the best local LLM app I have ever tried I still wish…

When people think of realistic sci-fi media, their minds might go to a TV show like For All Mankind, which meticulously charts out how the world would be different had the United States and the Soviet Union never stopped running the space race, doing its best to take the science seriously. They probably wouldn’t think of a century-old silent movie where a group of characters travel to the Moon only to find that the atmosphere is breathable. And yet, when NASA scientists put together a list of the seven best sci-fi movies ever made back in 2011, a movie that…

One of VLC’s best features is its ability to play online videos just as easily as local files. Yet most of us never bother to use that feature, simply because it takes far too many steps to actually move the video from your browser to VLC. Open in VLC is a free extension that solves this problem. Once you install it, sending videos from your browser to VLC only takes a single click. That’s it. One click, and you’re all set to watch the video in a clean, distraction-free player with full control over playback. Why I prefer watching online…

I’ve had the opportunity to test a lot of fitness tech over the years. Most of it gets quickly relegated to a cupboard or drawer, never to see the light of day again. Some kit does stick around, though, and actually manages to motivate me to get out the door, pack a gym bag, or feel good enough to work up a sweat. This is the fitness tech I actually use on a regular (and often daily) basis, plus some kit I’ve yet to be won over by. Fitness tech stuff I actually use Garmin Forerunner 970 or Apple Watch…

In 2011, NASA scientists met at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and came up with a list of the seven best (and worst) sci-fi films ever made. “Best” doesn’t necessarily mean “most realistic,” and there are a couple of movies on their list — like 1951’s The Day The Earth Stood Still — that aren’t especially scientifically rigorous. But according to contemporaneous reports from the likes of NPR, the scientists were trying to nudge Hollywood producers towards making the science in their movies more plausible, so it was a factor. Classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Contact appear…

Every morning, the first thing I do is turn on the TV and play a few spiritual songs. It’s my way of easing into the day, slowly and peacefully. What immediately disrupts that calm, though, is my smart TV’s home screen, which is cluttered and overflowing with ads and sponsored recommendations. Some days I manage to tune it out. Most days, I really can’t. I really enjoy using a browser on my smart TV. It feels freeing and functional, at least until I’m done and inevitably taken back to that same ad-heavy home screen. That constant visual noise eventually became…

Hoarding documents or rendering endless video: the best portable SSDs give your workflow some much-needed breathing space. And if you’re in the market for a storage expansion, this is the list you need. From pocket-friendly plug-ins to rugged drives that can withstand some serious fieldwork, the round-up below features our pick of the best portable SSDs for every user. They’re perfect for upgrading a laptop (which you should have chosen from our best laptops guide). Whether you need somewhere to stash gigabytes of game files or terabytes of 4K footage, we’ve picked out a cache of external drives for different…

Three years ago, I was wrong about Apple – specifically, Apple Arcade. I know, I’m as shocked as you are. But at least I’m self-aware enough to admit my inability to predict the future of tech with any degree of accuracy. And at least this wasn’t quite an “iPod will never take off” blunder (something I once said in MacUser magazine, which one former staffer delights in periodically reminding me about). Still, I did write ‘Why I want Apple Arcade to include classic arcade games – and why that’ll never happen’. But now it has happened, thanks to Retrocade. And here’s the bit…

Netflix has been producing original content for over a decade at this point, and has made lots of easily digestible miniseries you can finish over a weekend. But the streamer’s crowning achievement came last year: the four-episode drama series Adolescence very well may be the best thing Netflix has ever made, and it’s hard to see them topping it anytime soon. If you still haven’t seen Adolescence, it’ll be four hours of your life well spent. Adolescence is a great crime show for the 21st century The drama is thrilling and up-to-the-minute Adolescence is set in a small town in…

Summary About the Song is a Now Playing card that provides details like song inspirations and behind-the-scenes stories for the current track. Stories are summarized from third-party sources. The feature is currently in beta and is available to Premium users on Android and iOS in the US, UK, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Australia. Spotify has rolled out a ton of useful new features over the last couple of months, and that trend continues today with the announcement of About the Song. This aptly-named new feature “explores the meaning behind the music you’re hearing.” What is About the Song? Credit: Spotify…