Author: Press Room

The Sega Master System has turned 40. Sort of. Certainly, the Sega Mark III that became the Master System in the US in 1986 just turned 40. Either way, you’re old if you owned one back then. Sorry. On the plus side, today is a great excuse to celebrate Sega’s 8-bit wonder. I remember loving the ads too: “To be this good takes AGES!” And rarely have marketing slogans been so apt, because it took forever for Sega’s 8-bit console to find its feet. On paper, things looked great: the Japan-only SG-1000 Mark III was a would-be Nintendo Famicom smasher.…

The fifth and final season of Stranger Things kicks off in November, and we’ve now learned the running times for the first four episodes: the shortest is nearly an hour long at 54 minutes, and the longest well over an hour at 83. If the show sticks to tradition, later episodes will be even longer. It’s no wonder this show can sustain fans through long waits between seasons: when new episodes do come, they’re huge. It’s become increasingly common for episodes of TV shows to rival movies for length. What are some of the longest in history, and how did…

AMC has hosted a lot of iconic TV shows over the years, from The Walking Dead to Breaking Bad to Mad Men. They’re in the middle of making another banger as we speak, although not nearly enough people are talking about it: Interview With The Vampire, an adaptation of Anne Rice’s classic 1976 horror novel, is coming back for a third season with a new name, a new lead character, and a new attitude. And whether you’ve already sucked the first two seasons dry or are just hearing about this show for the first time, you need to be psyched…

In today’s world, smartphones are the go-to devices for remote music listening. But decades ago, the iconic Sony Walkman was the preferred choice for listening through headphones to music on walks, runs, or just lounging around. The Sony Walkman product line held immense cultural significance. Sony introduced it in 1979, and it lasted without interruption until 2010. Although the company has occasionally released new models since then, they aren’t targeting the masses like the halcyon days of cassette. Sony originally called their portable cassette player the Roundabout in the United States and the Freestyle in other countries like Australia and…

Plex is also surprising me with its suite of features, from its ability to work with useful add-ons to even being useful for accessing personal images, like my own cloud storage. Not to mention the companion apps, like Plexamp, which is my personal favorite media player for playing back my CD collection. Fortunately, Plex isn’t done surprising me, because I dug deeper into the settings and found several useful tools that completely changed how I use it. As it turned out, I could use it for more than streaming my personal collection of movies and series—I can stream so much…

Handheld gaming is having a moment. If you’re looking for the best way to play your games on the go, you’ve come to the right place. From big hitters like the Switch and Steam Deck, to powerful Windows machines, cloud-based creations and curios like the Playdate, we’ve reviewed the best handheld gaming console you can buy right now. To test the best handheld gaming console contenders, we use them in every situation we think you will. That meant long sessions on the sofa, dealing with our backlogs in bed, killing time during flights and even booting up a game in…

“Would you like me to make a chart to help visualize your data?” No, I wouldn’t. Everything that feels wrong about ChatGPT today began when it went mainstream. It started as a productivity tool, but was gradually downgraded into a “chatbot.” A chatbot exists to chat. That’s the difference. OpenAI’s focus shifted, and ever since then, ChatGPT has been obsessed with being conversational and engaging. No matter how many times I’ve told it not to do that — don’t try to engage, don’t echo my tone, don’t compliment me — it refuses to stop. It remembers the instruction but ignores…

Introduction There are oodles of options in the crossover SUV arena right now and here’s another; the Leapmotor B10. It’s a Chinese brand part owned by Stellantis, which in itself has many of the rival options pitched directly at it, including the Peugeot e-2008, Vauxhall Mokka Electric, Alfa Romeo Junior and Jeep Avenger. Other obvious contenders for your mid-market custom are the Ford Puma Gen-E or Hyundai Kona Electric, not to mention the perennially popular MG S5.That’s why I approached my road test of the Leapmotor B10, seen here in the Design model variant destined for the UK market, with…

Among the most popular streaming platforms, Netflix was consistently my favorite to navigate. The size of the tiles, in addition to the number, is just enough that you aren’t presented with too many options or too few. This ratio was also extended to your watch list, but the keyword here is “was.” Now that Netflix has changed one of my favorite aspects of its UI, I’ve moved my watch list to Letterboxd. I needed a good reason to create an account, but now that I’m making headway on my watch list, I’m really glad I jumped over to Letterboxd. You…

I have a habit of annoying audiophiles. While I love playing and creating music, I’ve long been suspicious of an industry a little too happy with snake oil. Ludicrously spendy cables with equally ludicrously spendy ‘risers’. Special SSDs that somehow make digital audio sound ‘richer’. Downloadable audio files that feature frequencies only a terrifying bat-elephant hybrid could hear. Headphones that cost as much as a car, with audio output described in the same florid, over-the-top, extravagantly metaphorical way a wine critic might wax lyrical about a glass of plonk. In short: not keen. I vividly recall attending an event for very high-end…