What if a plant could wield a sword? An artist/inventor named David Bowen wondered that, so he created his latest art installation, “Plant Machete.” The piece consists of a philodendron, an industrial robotic arm, a machete, and a microcontroller. Its construction and operation are relatively straightforward. Electrodes attached to the plant’s leaves pick up bioelectric signals and send them to a microprocessor. Custom software reads the fluctuating resistance signals in real-time and maps the impulses to the robotic arm’s joints to move them....

Asus ROG Swift PG27UQX The PG27UQX is the first mini-LED gaming monitor on the market. It takes Asus’ existing flagship G-Sync Ultimate monitor up a notch by offering 576 backlight zones for excellent HDR performance, compared to 384 zones in the previous model. It runs quieter and more efficiently, and should offer the best HDR gaming experience from a monitor when it launches later this year. We didn’t expect to see a mini-LED gaming monitor so soon, but Asus has delivered this year to make it the best monitor on show at Computex 2019....

Having reviewed several 4K monitors this year, it’s time to round them up and choose what the best options are in this category and display resolution. The 4K segment has really evolved in 2021, with more options than ever before, more affordable models that are worth buying, and crucial new categories like high-refresh 32-inch displays. But before getting into our picks, we should briefly discuss whether you should buy a 4K monitor or not....

Dell just released a new webcam that’s essentially a younger brother to its $200 UltraSharp 4K model from last year. If you don’t need 4K and want to save money, the Pro 2K WB5023 at $135 might be a good option. Despite the lower price, Dell’s new webcam adds an integrated noise reduction mic to ensure your speech sounds clear. Arguably the biggest mark against the 4K model is its lack of a mic....

Majora’s Mask arrived in 2000 as the sixth game in the mainline Zelda series. It was the second title to utilize 3D graphics following The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, a brilliant game that managed to sell 2.5 million copies in the final 39 days of 1998. Nintendo launched its Switch Online Expansion Pack back in October with a small collection of Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games. Nintendo has since added more titles to the mix, but they’ve come at a very slow rate - often just one at a time....

However, initial deployments are unlikely to meet the ITU’s exact specifications and in fact, the Olympic demonstration for instance does not technically qualify as 5G by the ITU’s full standards. Early trial runs such as at the Olympics are using a competing specification that has been picked up by a few operators but has not been adopted as the global standard, according to Sherif Hanna of Qualcomm. Like the transition from 3G to 4G, the move from 4G to 5G has a lot of moving parts....

In December 2017, the FCC emphasized its enthusiasm for 5G in a bill titled “Accelerating Wireline Broadband Deployment by Removing Barriers to Infrastructure Investment” that became effective January 29, 2018 and boosts the rate of deployment for new infrastructure by streamlining zoning approval and removing many of the obstacles to installing antennas in local communities. Many communities across the country are resisting this bill, which provides telecommunication companies with liberal access to most utility poles, street lamps and public rights of ways in neighborhoods for 5G antenna placement, accelerating deployment in the interest of economic benefits....

Valve being Valve, things went a bit quiet for a while on the announcements front. But in late September 2013, everything arrived at once; the Linux-based Steam OS, the Steam Controller, and the console-style PCs, named Steam Machines, were unveiled. The company called the mini computers “a powerful new category of living room hardware.” A year later in the run-up to CES, Newell announced 13 hardware partners that would make the machines, based on Valve’s designs....

As in the upload test, N3200XXX matched the performance of the Synology DS211 in our game copy benchmark, while it was 38% slower than our desktop test system and 62% faster than the LG N2A2. Bucking the trend, the N3200XXX’s copy transfer rate of 10MB/s earned it a seat below our test system in the program test. It was 33% slower than the desktop machine, but still 11% faster than the DS211....

If, like this writer, you were the proud owner of some Transformers toys in the 1980s, including the Optimus Prime truck and trailer, these modern incarnations will likely make your heart flutter and wallet weep. The replica Autobot leader, which also costs $750, measures 19 inches, comes with 27 servo motors, and has 80 sound effects, including spoken dialogue by original voice actor Peter Cullen. It can walk as a robot, automatically transform into a truck and vice versa, and is able to drive around in the wheeled form....

Club3D has announced the first USB Type-C cables that can deliver up to 240W of power using the EPR standard launched by the USB-IF last year. The announcement includes three models: a 2m 480Mbps cable, another 2m one rated for 20Gbps, and a shorter 1m version rated for data transfers up to 40Gbps (USB4 Gen 3x2). These cables can deliver up to 240W of power by supporting up to 48V at 5A, meaning they won’t be much thicker than your average USB-C cable rated for 3A....

Diving into the survey’s GPU category, there isn’t too much change amongst the top ten cards. But it’s starting to look as if the GTX 1060’s four-plus years in the top spot is being threatened by the… GTX 1650, which was the second best-performing card last month. The big news is that the Radeon RX 6000 series is finally making headway into the chart. The Radeon RX 6700 XT had been the only card representing AMD’s latest GPUs since it broke into the list in September 2021, but April saw the Radeon RX 6600, Radeon RX 6600 XT, and Radeon RX 6900 XT all gain enough users to make the main GPU section....

According to DigiTimes (via Tom’s Hardware), TSMC’s rising foundry costs will have an impact on all processors made using its 7nm and 5nm process nodes. It will hit AMD the hardest as team red’s product line includes the 7nm Zen 2 and Zen 3 architectures, while this year’s Zen 4 is built on the 5nm process. Although Intel will be less affected, the chips it already relies on TSMC to manufacture could get more expensive for consumers due to the Taiwanese firm’s price hike....

The saga of Elon Musk’s attempt to buy Twitter ended earlier this month over the long-running issue of how many fake accounts populate the site. Musk previously claimed Twitter’s alleged refusal to reveal bot numbers constituted a material breach of the deal and allowed him to avoid the $1 billion breakup fee. Unsurprisingly, Twitter’s response to Musk dropping out was to launch a lawsuit that it hopes will force the world’s richest man to complete the purchase....

Today’s shoot out is between the Ryzen 7 1800X and Core i7­-7700K. But before we get into it, some disclaimers. We’re testing the 1800X and not the cheaper 1700 partly because we wanted to make it a one-on-one test and time was of the essence, thus we could only pick one Ryzen 7 processor. The 95 watt TDP 1800X is a better Ryzen 7 representative, if we could only pick one....

I’ve observed that game-of-the-year editions usually have a few things in common. They typically come out around a year after the title’s initial release. Far Cry 6 turns one year old on Friday. More often than not, the GOTY version includes Some or all of the already released DLC. Far Cry 6 GOTY bundle consists of all currently available DLC, the upcoming Lost Between Worlds expansion, and strangely, the 2013 Far Cry 3 expansion, Blood Dragon....

Fusing random-access memory (RAM) and storage isn’t a new idea, but so far no company has managed to materialize this concept into a successful, widely-used commercial product. However, that doesn’t mean research on this topic has gone cold. Earlier this month, researchers from the Physics and Engineering Department of Lancaster University in the UK published a paper detailing important progress that’s been made into bringing UltraRAM closer to mass production....

The LLD weapon, designed and built by Lockheed Martin, is able to take out unmanned aerial systems, fast attack boats, and, using its high-resolution telescope, in-bound air threats. February’s tests were carried out by the Office of Naval Research at the US Army’s High Energy Laser Systems Test Facility at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The LLD was tested against a wide range of targets, including unmanned fixed-winged aerial vehicles and quadcopters as well as the high-speed drones that acted as subsonic cruise missile replacements....

German company Bitmanagement Software brought a federal lawsuit against the Navy back in 2016. The complaint claimed the Navy agreed to license the 3D virtual reality software BS Contact Geo on a limited and experimental basis in 2011 and 2012. The trial involved installing the program on 38 computers for testing and integration into the Navy’s systems. So impressed was the Navy with the software that it allegedly led the developer to believe it planned on purchasing additional licenses for large-scale deployment in 2013....

In a statement issued to CNBC, Walmart said it is continuously exploring how emerging technologies may shape future shopping experiences. “We are testing new ideas all the time,” the company said. “Some ideas become products or services that make it to customers. And some we test, iterate, and learn from.” Patent filings don’t guarantee a company is planning to act on an idea, but trademark attorney Josh Gerben seems to think Walmart is serious about the endeavor....