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White Noise Makes Beer Brew Faster, Scientists Claim

Music can make people do things faster, with running, dancing, and doing chores being good examples. It seems, however, that we’re not alone in picking up the pace at the sound of a good tune. Researchers have discovered that playing a sound commonly known as white noise can shorten fermentation—arguably the most important step in brewing beer—by 21 to 31 hours, without markedly changing the flavor. This could help breweries increase beer production without diminishing quality. How sound chang

DeepSeek V3.1 just dropped — and it might be the most powerful open AI yet

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek made waves across the global AI community Tuesday with the quiet release of its most ambitious model yet — a 685-billion parameter system that challenges the dominance of American AI giants while reshaping the competitive landscape through open-source accessibility. The Hangzhou-based compan

The best VPN extensions for Chrome in 2025: Expert tested and reviewed

Virtual private networks (VPNs) are excellent tools to mask your activities online, change your location, prevent eavesdropping, and avoid age verification checks. Many VPN providers also offer their subscribers browser-based solutions, typically in the form of browser extensions. These might be the best option if you just want to quickly mask your IP address during an online session. An estimated 68% of internet users favor Chrome as their browser, beating rivals including Safari, Edge, and Fi

Best Sunscreens for 2025

CNET staff -- not advertisers, partners or business interests -- determine how we review products and services. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. The hottest days of the year are upon us, and while outdoor summer activities are fun, you should know that prolonged sun exposure and ultraviolet rays can cause premature aging, sunburn and even skin cancer, according to the Skin Cancer Foundation -- and that's true all year round. Using sunscreen is one of the best ways to prot

Deel scores a lawsuit win, but not against Rippling

A Florida judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed against embattled HR and payroll provider Deel. And while Deel described this as a “Rippling-aligned” and “Rippling-supported” lawsuit, this is not the infamous lawsuit filed by its rival earlier this year that involved an alleged corporate spy. Rippling CEO Parker Conrad even went so far as to say “This litigation has nothing to do with Rippling, we are not a party to it, did not fund it,” in a tweet. (Rippling representatives declined furth

Betel nuts have been giving people a buzz for over 4,000 years

Ancient rituals and customs often leave behind obvious archaeological evidence. From the impeccably preserved mummies of Egypt to psychoactive substance residue that remained at the bottom of a clay vessel for thousands of years, it seems as if some remnants of the past, even if not all are immediately visible, have defied the ravages of time. Chewing betel nuts is a cultural practice in parts of Southeast Asia. When chewed, these reddish nuts, which are the fruit of the areca palm, release psy

Battlestar Galactica might finally get the video game adaption it deserves

In the 16 years since Ronald D. Moore's take on Battlestar Galactica ended its official TV run in 2009, the most surprising thing about the series is that it hasn't inspired many great games. Sure, more than a few releases have carried the Battlestar Galactica name, but none of those have managed to capture what made the 2003 miniseries and later 2004 show so special. That might change early next year when Battlestar Galactica: Scattered Hopes arrives. Ahead of today's announcement of the game,

Meta’s AI translation tool can dub your Instagram videos

is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Meta is bringing its AI translation tool to more users on Facebook and Instagram, which automatically dubs your reels into another language. The feature also uses AI to make its dub match up with the sound of your voice and the movement of your mouth. For now,

Anker's Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds include ANC and a snore-detection algorithm

The Anker Soundcore Sleep A30 earbuds are now available to purchase. These are some of the only sleep earbuds with ANC, which could be a boon for light sleepers that live in busy metropolitan areas. The company says they "effectively block out snoring, pet sounds, appliance hum and outside traffic noise." There are other techy additions here, beyond ANC. Anker's proprietary Ear Canal Adaptation algorithm adjusts to unique ear shapes for "deeper noise reduction." The charging case also includes

10 open-source apps I recommend every Windows user download - for free

LibreOffice / Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET ZDNET's key takeaways If Windows is your OS of choice, consider these open-source apps. There are tons of open-source apps for just about any task. These are all free to install and use on Windows. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome and Chromium browsers. I've been using open-source software for a very long time. In fact, the last time I didn't use open-source software, Bill Clinton was president o

Changing these 10 settings on my Pixel phone greatly improved the user experience

Even older Pixel models can get in on the optimization tweaks. Kerry Wan/ZDNET ZDNET's key takeaways Google Pixel phones are notorious for having hidden settings that can greatly enhance the user experience. The list includes options for ramping up the display refresh rate, optimizing the battery life, and gestures. I demo them on a Pixel 9a running on Android 15, but newer and older software versions should have similar capabilities. Get more in-depth ZDNET tech coverage: Add us as a prefe

Forecasters Warn of 100-Foot Waves as Hurricane Erin Brushes the East Coast

The National Hurricane Center expects Hurricane Erin to grow in size as it creeps up the Eastern Seaboard this week, hammering coastal communities with potentially deadly storm surge and rip currents. Erin, one of the fastest rapidly intensifying Atlantic storms on record, is a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 110 miles per hour (175 kilometers per hour) as of 8:00 a.m. ET on Tuesday, August 19, according to the NHC. Forecasters don’t expect Erin to make landfall in the U.S.

Your next movie night could glow brighter with Nanoleaf’s latest TV light strip kit

Nanoleaf TL;DR The new Nanoleaf 4D V2 light strip makes screen mirroring brighter and more accurate, with sharper whites and richer colors. You can choose from four lighting modes for a subtle ambient glow or full-on immersion. With Sync+, the lights behind your TV can link up with the rest of your Nanoleaf gear for a whole-room effect. If you’re the smart home type, Nanoleaf is giving its immersive TV kit a serious glow-up. The newly announced 4D V2 Screen Mirror and Lightstrip Kit doubles

Silicon Valley's AI deals are creating zombie startups: 'You hollowed out the organization'

Jaque Silva | Nurphoto | Getty Images Jeff Wang got a big promotion last month. There were lots of tears, but not the happy kind. The 39-year-old was unexpectedly named interim CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf. The company had been in discussions with OpenAI about a potential acquisition that would have resulted in a handsome payday for many employees. But the talks fell apart and, on July 11, several founders and top researchers instead left to join Google as part of a $2

People Are Trying to ‘Deprogram’ Their MAGA Parents Through Book Clubs

The idea of starting a book club came to Valeen Heinle late one night in July. She was having a particularly bad argument with her Trump-supporting dad over Israel’s war in Gaza and its devastating impacts on children. "I'm begging you to just try and learn something that isn't from Facebook, Fox, or Newsmax," Valeen, a 38-year-old registered Democrat who works as a pet sitter in Denver, wrote to her dad via Instagram DM after they exchanged a series of posts about Gaza. “Read a book on the his

The Best Cooling Sheets (2025): Brooklinen, Slumber Cloud, Buffy

There's a lot of terminology thrown around in the world of cooling sheets and cooling mattresses. Temperature regulating! Airflow! Moisture wicking! Phase-change material! Most of the time, these features come back to how breathable the sheets are. Breathability means moisture can better evaporate, and “temperature-regulating” usually means the sheets are breathable enough to release the heat and moisture from your body. What makes sheets breathable? Cotton, flax linen, and bamboo have great br

Eight Sleep raises $100M to expand its AI-powered sleep tech

Roughly one in three adults in the U.S. regularly gets insufficient sleep, driving demand for tools that can monitor, analyze, and enhance rest. Eight Sleep, founded in 2014, offers AI-powered sleep tech products that promise to transform your bed into a preventive health device. The New York-based startup announced Tuesday that it raised a fresh $100 million round from investors such as HSG, Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, Y Combinator and athletes including Ferrari F1 driver Charles Lec

Structured (Synchronous) Concurrency

Structured (Synchronous) Concurrency @_fsantanna I have recently learned about Structured Concurrency (SC), which supports nested coroutines with tied lifetimes. There are a number of libraries (Dill, Trio, Effection), and even language mechanisms in Swift and Kotlin. The similarities with Esterel and derived imperative synchronous languages (ISLs) is noteworthy. However, it seems that no bridges between these worlds (ISLs & SC) have been built. Research in ISLs dates back to the early 80s, a

The Cutaway Illustrations of Fred Freeman (2016)

During the two-year research for our book LOOK INSIDE we discovered many amazing illustrations and artists that, for one reason or another, did not make it into the final version of the book. It would be a pity to leave these forgotten on a drawer, so during the next few weeks we will present here some of these masters of the cutaway. A while ago we wrote here about Frank Soltesz, an American illustrator active from the 30’s to the 60’s, and author of a marvelous series of architectural cutaw

The Skydance-Paramount Megamerger Could Lead to Legendary Jumping Ship

A new report from Deadline reveals that Paramount, under David Ellison, is working out a deal with Legendary. This comes on the heels of the Duffer Brothers’ Upside Down Productions moving from Netflix to Paramount over the weekend. The shakeups continue, as Legendary is now interested in starting a multi-picture global theatrical distribution deal through Skydance. The agreement, as Deadline reported, has been in the works since the spring and would exclude China but would give Paramount a bui

How to Play Battlefield 6 Beta: Officially Ended After Two Weekends

EA's DICE studio has blown the lid off the multiplayer for its upcoming military shooter Battlefield 6 and held a beta to give players a taste of the game and generate feedback. Battlefield 6's first public beta was available to everyone, but after an early release and two weekends of play, it has officially ended. The Battlefield 6 open beta was the first chance for players to experience the game's multiplayer before its full release on Oct. 10. Those with early access got a couple extra days

GEPA optimizes LLMs without costly reinforcement learning

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and Databricks have introduced a new AI optimization method called GEPA that significantly outperforms traditional reinforcement learning (RL) techniques for adapting large language models (LLMs) to specialized tasks. GEPA removes the popular paradigm of learning

Hugging Face: 5 ways enterprises can slash AI costs without sacrificing performance

Want smarter insights in your inbox? Sign up for our weekly newsletters to get only what matters to enterprise AI, data, and security leaders. Subscribe Now Enterprises seem to accept it as a basic fact: AI models require a significant amount of compute; they simply have to find ways to obtain more of it. But it doesn’t have to be that way, according to Sasha Luccioni, AI and climate lead at Hugging Face. What if there’s a smarter way to use AI? What if, instead of striving for more (often unn

Despite Online MAGA Freakout About Her Jeans, Sydney Sweeney’s New Movie Bombs

A couple of weeks ago, American Eagle launched a new ad campaign for its blue jeans line that featured actress Sydney Sweeney. In one of the ads, Sweeney weirdly broached the topic of genetics (she said, and I quote: “genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue”), but, for the most part, the ads seem to be about how great Sweeney’s posterior looks when she’s wearing the company’s denim. Not long aft

I tested this Garmin sleep tracker for weeks - here's why it replaces my smart ring for good

Garmin Index Sleep Monitor ZDNET's key takeaways The Garmin Index Sleep Monitor is available for $170 in S/M and L/XL sizes. The band is very comfortable and lightweight, the monitor tracks up to seven nights of sleep, and the sleep/recovery metrics are well integrated into the Garmin Connect ecosystem. It's still fairly expensive for a single-purpose wearable, even though FSA/HSA coverage is supported. $169.99 at Amazon $169.99 at Crutchfield more buying choices Get more in-depth ZDNET tech

Otter.ai Sued for Allegedly Recording Work Calls Without Consent

Otter.ai, the maker of AI-powered transcription and note-taking tools, is facing a class-action lawsuit in California over alleged privacy violations. The suit, filed Friday in federal court by San Jacinto resident Justin Brewer, claims that Otter.ai is recording private conversations without obtaining consent from all the calls’ participants and then uses those recordings to train its AI. According to the complaint, Brewer doesn’t have an Otter account but joined a Zoom meeting in February whe

Macintosh Drawing Software Compared

Below is a list of various drawing applications that are available to use with System 7 (68K). I’m mostly interested in apps that can do both pixel and vector, and that support layers and transparency. The table below might be useful for at-a-glance comparisons. Apps run in both mono or colour, unless stated otherwise. Deneba artWORKS can do both pixel and vector, has layers and partial transparency. The bottom layer is opaque and all layers on top are transparent. Collections of pixels are ma

China's inaugural 'Robot Olympics' delivers impressive feats and disastrous falls

The first-ever World Humanoid Robot Games have come to a close with some new world records, but don't expect them to beat humans in a 100-meter dash any time soon. The three-day robotics event in Beijing, China that saw humanoid robots compete in everything from boxing to cleaning concluded this weekend. According to the World Humanoid Robot Games, more than 280 teams from 16 countries, including the US, Germany, Brazil and the host country, entered their robots into the event. A majority of th

I replaced my smartwatch with Garmin's new sleep tracker for weeks - here's my verdict

Garmin Index Sleep Monitor ZDNET's key takeaways The Garmin Index Sleep Monitor is available for $170 in S/M and L/XL sizes. The band is very comfortable and lightweight, the monitor tracks up to seven nights of sleep, and the sleep/recovery metrics are well integrated into the Garmin Connect ecosystem. It's still fairly expensive for a single-purpose wearable, even though FSA/HSA coverage is supported. $169.99 at Amazon $169.99 at Crutchfield more buying choices Get more in-depth ZDNET tech