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I just went hands-on with the Amazfit Balance 2 — this new multisport smartwatch boasts 21 days of battery life
Amazfit just announced the Balance 2, a high-end smartwatch designed for multisport athletes and boasting a sizable AMOLED touchscreen, a pair of physical controls, 100 meters of water resistance and support for more than 170 workout types. The brand also unveiled the Amazfit Helio Strap. Similar to the Whoop 5.0, the Helio Strap is a screen-less wellness tracker designed to…
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MacOS Tahoe 26 hands-on: Spotlight changes and Liquid Glass everywhere
At WWDC, Apple announced its new Liquid Glass design language, which is coming to all of its devices, including Macs. I’ve been tinkering with the macOS Tahoe 26 developer beta on the M4 MacBook Air for about a day. So far, the aesthetic changes range from slick to slightly overwrought, but the new Spotlight search features are nifty and useful.…
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Why hands-on learning is critical for IT – Computerworld
Street smarts vs book smarts Recently one of our expert contributors opined that the act of writing helps to make an IT leader stronger, arguing that writing is a leadership superpower. According to CIO.com writing conquers cognitive limits, clarifies complex thoughts and stress-tests ideas for a decisive strategic advantage. This piqued the interest of readers of CIO, who were…
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Acer FreeSense smart ring hands-on review: Giving Oura a run for its money
The Acer FreeSense smart ring is not something I’d expect from a company that specializes in laptops, monitors and even electric bikes, but there it was being showcased at Computex 2025 — and I got a chance to check it out. Acer’s first-ever smart ring comes with all the health monitoring features you’d expect from the best smart rings, including…
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Hisense U65QF Mini-LED TV hands-on review
For years, there hasn’t been a single Amazon Fire TV on our list of the best TVs. Sure, the latest batch of Omni Mini-LED Series TVs from Amazon offer some decent brightness and color reproduction technologies — but they’re far from perfect. Enter the Hisense U65QF. It’s a low-cost Fire TV that combines Mini-LED backlighting and a maximum 144Hz refresh…
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Nintendo Switch 2 hands-on: Great updrades, but not cheap
The Nintendo Switch 2 certainly has big shoes to fill as the follow-up to the first smash hit hybrid console. However, small yet significant design tweaks and upgraded internals make this long-awaited handheld feel both new and familiar. After its initial reveal in Nintendo’s first-look trailer, I had a lot of questions. And while the full Nintendo Direct showcasing the…
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I just went hands-on with ChatGPT-4o’s enhanced image generator— and I can’t believe this is free
OpenAI just enhanced its image generating capabilities with a new model integrated within ChatGPT-4o. Promising more realistic, richly detailed images from the simplest prompts, the model sounded too good to be true, especially since I haven’t been all that impressed with ChatGPT’s image generating capabilities in the past. I have to admit I was skeptical. OpenAI’s new image generator is…
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Check Point expands customer advocacy program to drive ‘hands-on’ support
Cybersecurity provider Check Point has expanded its partner and customer advocacy management services to provide customers with direct access to advocacy experts. Partners and customers will now have a single point of contact that will act as a trusted advisor to help improve security operations, accelerate executive management, and optimize cybersecurity strategies, the firm revealed at its CPX 2025 event…
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Hands-on with the Windows answer to Apple’s Vision Pro – Computerworld
The ability to have multiple virtual displays — and make them as big as you want — is the most interesting productivity feature here. Chris Hoffman, IDG That’s one of the most significant downsides to this setup — that we’re talking about a two-dimensional desktop. You won’t be using an immersive VR application like Google Earth VR over Windows Mixed…
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Meta Ray-Bans Live AI hands-on: a solution looking for a problem
Here’s the scene: I’m wearing Meta’s latest Ray-Ban glasses with a new feature called Live AI, which can answer questions about the world around you. I’m preparing for a four-hour road trip to my in-laws for the Christmas holiday. I’m preplanning the next day’s breakfast because I’m 99.9 percent certain I will have no brain cells to concoct an edible…
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