Hi readers! Shayla Love here, science journalist and longtime fan of Your Mileage May Vary. I’m honored to be subbing for Sigal while she’s out on parental leave. I’m diving into your questions as a way to help understand human nature and our choices through multiple lenses: philosophical, psychological, and beyond. Please send in any emotional, body/brain, sociological, perceptual, or other kind of life quandaries you might have.
Tech
This Yellow Liquid Turns Into a Black Gel to Store Energy for Months
Northwestern University chemists have built a material that begins as an ordinary yellow liquid and rearranges itself into a black gel whenever it absorbs energy. The change locks electrons inside a new structure that can hold them for months when sealed away from air. Open the container later and oxygen triggers the release, powering chemical reactions even in complete darkness.
There’s no need for permanent electrodes or sophisticated battery packs because the material can handle capture, storage, and release on its own simply modifying its structure. Samuel Stupp and his team’s recent research, published in the journal Chem, demonstrates how this works. Tyler Jaynes and Luka Dordevic were the study’s co-first authors, and they carried out some very amazing lab experiments. The design is essentially a duplicate of the cytoskeleton, a dynamic protein network that exists within every cell and is constantly formed and deconstructed to allow the cell to move and expand. All they’ve done is exchange biological fuel for electrons.
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In their resting state, the custom molecules form independent tiny clusters. Now, push one section of each molecule with light, electricity, X-rays, or chemical fuels, and it will transfer electrons to its partner segment. That causes the charged molecules to stack up because they tend to adhere together in neat little rows, and these rows turn into long, ribbon-like strands that begin to tangle and catch some water, transforming the entire thing into a soft, black gel.
Inside that assembled mess, the electrons are as safe as houses. Northwestern researchers believe that a single gram can store enough electrons to power a smartwatch for several months. To get those electrons out, all you have to do is give the gel some oxygen, which causes the formation of some nasty reactive oxygen species. These reactive compounds can degrade contaminants or initiate other chemical reactions that do not require light to occur. Once the gel has completed its function, it simply begins to degrade and returns to the original yellow liquid from which it originated.
This is a working example of dark photocatalysis, in which energy is stored during the day using sunlight or another input and then used to drive chemical reactions afterward. The substance itself serves as a sort of intermediary, bridging the gap between energy arriving and energy used. The researchers also demonstrated that light can form transitory conductive patterns within the gel, employing masks to ensure that the patterns appear in the first place. These conductive patterns only remain for as long as the gel is created, making them ideal for soft, programmable electronics that appear and disappear as needed.
Traditional batteries simply keep on trucking, storing ions or electrons in their unchangeable circuitry. Solar panels either convert light immediately or fail to do so at all. This technology, on the other hand, allows the material to alter shape and manage energy over time. Then step back once it’s finished, and everything runs in water, because the only thing required to reset the material is ordinary air. It also avoids the metals and plastics that are so prevalent in modern electronics.
This technique could be used to clean up the environment by on-demand oxidation, or to create sterilization systems that employ chemical energy. It could also be used as a power source for soft robotic components that only require a little amount of juice at times. They’re still in the early stages here, and thus far, researchers have only looked at small lab samples under fairly controlled conditions. They still need to figure out how to scale this up so that it works in the real world, enhance the energy density per gram of material, and then convert all of that stored chemical energy into a direct electrical output rather than releasing it as chemical reactions.
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Today, you probably asked a question of a large language model, or accepted a connection suggestion on LinkedIn, or watched a recommended video on YouTube, or took a different route to work based on a traffic prediction from Google Maps. In other words, you probably used artificial intelligence. But what you might not know is how much energy that interaction consumed or why.
AI requires processing massive amounts of data, which is usually done in large data centers populated by thousands of GPUs capable of executing up to trillions of operations per second. But each of those GPUs achieves that by consuming as much as 1,000 watts apiece. For comparison, if you’ve got a newer smartphone, it probably uses less than 1 W. That kilowatt figure puts GPUs on the same level as vacuum cleaners, dishwashers, and stoves, but with the big difference that data-center processors are operating uninterrupted around the clock.
Fundamentally, a lot of this inefficiency is because GPUs are trying to simulate the workings of artificial neural networks using software and billions of transistors, which requires using energy to move massive amounts of data. What’s more, the simulated artificial neurons that make up these networks lack even a fraction of the complex computing behavior of the biological neurons that comprise the most energy-efficient computing system that we know, the human brain.
Dan Page
The brain is roughly one million times as energy efficient at many of the comparable tasks we set for AI. To try to approach these efficiencies, a radically different way of computing called neuromorphic engineering is seeking to build electronic components and circuits that act more like the brain’s neurons and the synapses that connect them.
Huge amounts of work have gone into making electronics operate more like biological neurons and synapses. Some research has focused on developing new, experimental devices, but they aren’t yet reliable enough to be used in large systems. Other efforts aim to implement neurons and synapses by interconnecting many complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) transistors—the workhorses of digital logic—to simulate a single neuron and synapse. But this approach requires so many transistors (and a few bulky capacitors) that it greatly limits the size of the system that can be constructed, making it unclear how such brain-inspired hardware could ever scale up and compete with state-of-the-art GPUs.
But all along there was an artificial neuron and a synapse—each a single device—hiding in plain sight. We found them last year. They were each made possible by an ordinary CMOS transistor—and not even a very good one at that. This is the story of their accidental discovery and their great promise for lowering the environmental footprint of AI.
Biological and artificial neurons
Modern digital electronics is based on producing and manipulating the ones and zeros of the binary code through the operation of metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors. MOSFETs have evolved in recent years, but their classic form consists of a piece of silicon that has been doped to contain an excess of either positive (p-type) or negative (n-type) charge carriers. (CMOS logic contains transistors of both types.) The device has two terminals connected to the silicon through regions highly doped with the opposite polarity of the rest of the silicon—the source and the drain. Another terminal, the gate, sits atop the silicon that separates the source from the drain. The gate itself doesn’t connect directly to this silicon, instead resting above a thin layer of insulating dielectric.
Notably, there is a fourth terminal that attaches to the bulk of the silicon; think of this bulk terminal as connecting to the underside of the chip. It doesn’t typically get much attention, but it’s very important to our story.
When voltage is applied at the gate and the bulk terminal is grounded, charge carriers of the same polarity as the source and drain are attracted to the channel region. In the case of an n-type source and drain, that will be electrons; for p-type it will be holes. The presence of these charges forms a conductive channel that reduces the resistance between the source and the drain by several orders of magnitude, and the device switches on. As the voltage at the gate increases, this physical phenomenon produces a current signal that, when plotted against the gate voltage, rises steadily. This response is ideal for logic gates, converters, multiplexers, memories, and other digital circuits. But it is not a good fit for mimicking the behavior of a neuron.
In real neural tissue, brain cells, called neurons, consist of a cell body, a long projection called an axon, and short branching projections called dendrites. The suite of behaviors and computing this collection of components is capable of is rich and broad, but the portion that artificial neural networks hope to copy is this: When the cell body’s voltage is perturbed enough to reach a particular threshold, a self-propagating pulse of voltage, called an action potential, shoots down the axon. The axon terminates in a synapse, an electrochemical connection between the axon and another neuron’s dendrites. The action potential will then temporarily boost the voltage of this next neuron, by an amount that depends on the strength of the synaptic connection. If enough action potentials reach these dendrites in a given time—from this neuron or from others that might also form synapses there—the cell body’s voltage will surpass the threshold and trigger its own action potential.
To get closer to the behavior of real neurons, artificial neurons should produce a current spike when a critical voltage threshold is crossed and then quickly relax back to a resting state on their own. This spike needs to be sudden—nonlinear. It should also exhibit some hysteresis; that is, the activation and relaxation voltages should be different from each other to ensure that current flows only for a certain amount of time.
What’s wanted from an artificial synapse, the thing that connects two artificial neurons, is less complicated, but equally important. The main thing is that its conductance can be electronically adjustable. The device’s conductive states should increase and decrease in a linear pattern and remain stable over time.
No single MOSFET working under the standard operation mechanism can reproduce either of these neural properties. Instead, it’s been done by combining them into complex circuits. Until now, each neuron and each synapse has been implemented by interconnecting dozens and sometimes even hundreds of MOSFETs, which is highly inefficient in terms of area, performance, and cost. To limit the amount of space needed, chips can multiplex their signals, sending them to neurons and synapses serially, but such sequential processing introduces additional delays.
Despite these area-and-time penalties on tasks such as audio processing, computer vision, or health monitoring, state-of-the-art brain-inspired microchips have achieved power reductions up to a thousandfold compared with those of GPUs or CPUs on the same task. If we could create neurons and synapses from individual devices that are readily manufacturable instead, we might target more massive implementations while maintaining energy efficiency.
Reinventing the MOSFET for AI
Working in our laboratory in 2024, one of my students was measuring a memory circuit that consisted of one transistor and one memristor—a type of nonvolatile memory device first fabricated in 2008. The student’s memristor circuit was built from two-dimensional material atop a silicon microchip containing MOSFETs. The MOSFETs were created in a commercial foundry using fabrication technology called the 180-nanometer node, which was cutting-edge in the year 2000.
One day the student forgot to connect the bulk terminal of the transistor. What he observed was a sudden increase in current with high nonlinearity that self-relaxed when the voltage was ramped down (a phenomenon called a hysteresis loop). This was a very promising neuronlike behavior!
After a fruitless week of trying to think of an explanation for this behavior, I (Lanza) asked Pazos, then my postdoctoral fellow, to try to observe and control this phenomenon in chips without memristors. This time, we applied pulses of voltage—like the spikes a neuron would produce—instead of the ramped voltage that my student used when he first saw the peculiar behavior.
Pazos’s new data helped us understand what was going on. The key was that oft-ignored fourth, or bulk, terminal of a MOSFET. Under ordinary operation, many mobile charge carriers flitting through the channel collide with the silicon atoms, producing free pairs of electrons and holes—a process known as impact ionization. The electric field created by the potential difference between the source and the drain causes these new free electrons to drift toward the positively biased drain and the holes to move toward the bulk terminal, which is usually grounded, removing the charge without any drama.
However, when the bulk terminal of the transistor is floating—unconnected as it was in my student’s experiment—the holes produced by impact ionization cannot be driven to the ground. Instead, they accumulate in the bulk of the silicon, increasing its voltage. Then things start to get interesting.
It helps here to imagine a MOSFET as two different kinds of transistors occupying the same physical space—the intentionally constructed MOSFET and a hidden, bipolar junction transistor. A bipolar device transmits a current signal across two p–n junctions, in this case the interfaces between the source and the channel region and the channel and the drain. This signal is in proportion to a smaller current at a third terminal in between, called the base. In our experiment, that third terminal is the bulk.
To get current flowing through a bipolar transistor, you need a big enough potential difference between the base and one of the other terminals, so that current can get across the p–n junction. Let’s say this “threshold voltage” is 0.7 volts, although the real number depends on device geometry and silicon doping. In our device, that potential difference comes from those holes that were accumulating in the bulk, because it was not connected to ground. Once it reaches the threshold voltage, the device becomes sharply conductive, producing an abrupt increase of current. This sharp current increase eventually falls off once the drain voltage is lowered, because that lowering reduces the rate at which holes are generated in the bulk. The remaining excess holes recombine with stray electrons or leak away, and finally the bulk voltage falls. This cycle of hole accumulation, current spike, and hole removal gives rise to a hysteresis loop, very much like the electrical behavior of a biological neuron as it integrates ionic currents, fires a spike, and relaxes back to its resting voltage.
Initially, we observed this behavior only in a few transistors, and the relaxation time was very different for each of them. So, to try to control it better, we adjusted the resistance of the bulk terminal using a second MOSFET. Simply setting that resistance suddenly caused all the transistors to fire at the same voltage with hardly any variability. In other words, we found we could create perfect electronic neuron behavior in a single silicon transistor by controlling the bulk contact resistance. Setting the resistance can be done by doping the silicon during fabrication, but we think the two-transistor cell—where one acts as the bulk resistance—offers much greater versatility because it allows for electronic control.
We had to make sure the phenomenon would last, otherwise such a device would be useless. To our delight, every single one of the devices we tested worked over 10 million cycles. Not even one of them failed during our tests.
To be honest, we were amazed. Dozens of research groups and companies all around the world have spent many millions of U.S. dollars over the past 20 years trying to emulate these neural behaviors using experimental memristor-like devices and other things, with limited success, mainly due to reliability and cost issues. We managed it in the cheapest and most industry-standard device: the MOSFET. This result was so shocking that we decided to confirm it using microchips from a different foundry. It was successful: All the behaviors could be reproduced, and perfect yield was achieved once again.
We were happy with the results and had started the process of filing for a patent and writing up our findings for the journal Nature, when our lab made another astonishing discovery: The same kind of MOSFET could act as a synapse, too!
Recall that in ordinary operation some electrons crash into silicon atoms to create pairs of electrons and holes. We noticed that at specific values of bulk resistance a significant amount of the charge from this impact ionization would get trapped in the gate dielectric. This trapped charge interferes with the flow of current through the MOSFET, effectively changing the device’s conductance. Importantly, this new conductance is stable and adjustable at will. It was then that we realized the MOSFET could also be used as an electronic synapse.
As it was in the neuron transistor, the bulk terminal was the key. A negative bulk-source voltage drives electrons into the dielectric, decreasing conductance. A positive one pushes holes in, increasing it.
From neuromorphic device to circuit to system
Here’s how the MOSFET synapse and the MOSFET neuron, together called a neurosynaptic random-access memory, or NSRAM, could work together to achieve a simple neural circuit: Say you had a circuit consisting of three synapse MOSFETs and a neuron MOSFET. The synapses have already been programmed as we’ve described, so that each has a different conductance. Spikes of voltage with different patterns and frequencies are applied to the gate of each of these transistors. What emerges from their drains are spikes of current with amplitudes modulated by the synapses conductance values.
The spikes converge at the drain of the neuron MOSFET. With each spike, impact ionization causes charge to build in the bulk of the silicon. Some of it will drain away, but if enough spikes arrive in a short enough period of time, the bulk voltage will reach a value at which the “hidden” transistor triggers a spike of current through the MOSFET. This current would then go on to become the input to other MOSFET synapses, and so on. The behavior is exactly the kind of integrate-and-fire action real neural circuits deliver.
The competitive advantage of our single-MOSFET electronic neurons and synapses is straightforward: We can produce with only one or two transistors the electronic signals that today require, at an industrial level, dozens and sometimes even hundreds of components. And moreover, unlike other emerging technologies, our solution is fully compatible with today’s silicon manufacturing lines and exhibits a yield of 100 percent in key figures of merit with near-zero variability.
Building functional circuits for brain-inspired computing and AI based on this technology is as exciting as it is laborious. It will require us to improve our computer models to resemble the behavior of both devices more accurately and to do so with computational efficiency. We must also perform accurate circuit- and system-level simulations to validate computing architectures, design peripheral circuitry to drive and convert signals, and undergo multiple fabrication rounds to optimize performance.
But all that will be worthwhile, because it could result in brain-inspired microchips for AI with better energy efficiencies than what we have now. These chips will first be a fit for smaller-scale, “edge-AI” tasks, such as bringing greater intelligence to battery-powered systems. But if we can scale up such chips, maybe in the long run they can compete with state-of-the-art GPUs.
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Sylvie Andrews and her partner didn’t just lose the new house they’d helped build when the Eaton Fire ripped through Altadena, California, in January 2025. They lost an entire decade’s worth of sacrifices they’d made to put down roots in their hometown, and the community they’d created. “We put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into it,” Andrews said. “That’s what we lost in the fire.”
That fire, along with the Palisades Fire to the west, destroyed more than 16,000 structures and killed 31 people. But while Andrews and thousands of Angelenos were racing to evacuate, other people saw a financial opportunity. Using Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market platform, they made bets on the fires—how they would grow, how long they would last, and how much they would destroy.
Prediction markets are essentially gambling websites where people bet on the outcome of events, including elections, sports, the weather, and more. Anything is fair game, from oil prices and the spread of infectious diseases to international incidents. Markets usually frame questions in a “yes” or “no” fashion, with the price of a “contract” fluctuating between $0 and $1. A price of 50 cents on a “yes” contract means that the people doing the betting collectively believe the event has a 50 percent chance of happening. Market hosts make money by charging a fee on wagers.
In January 2025, Polymarket listed almost 20 questions, created by the platform’s “markets team,” related to the wildfires burning up Southern California. How many acres will the Palisades Fire burn by Friday, three days after it ignited on a Tuesday? Will the Palisades Fire reach Santa Monica by Sunday? When will the Palisades fire be 50 percent contained? Will the Palisades and Eaton fires be contained before February?
People spent $1.2 million betting on these queries, according to Aeon Magazine. “Wow,” Andrews said repeatedly when she learned the figure. “My first take is that it’s morally reprehensible,” she said. “The fact that someone would feel OK doing that flabbergasts me.”
“The prediction markets are just the wild, wild West,” said Susan Sherman, who grew up in Pacific Palisades. She lost her childhood home in the Palisades Fire; her late parents had owned it since 1963, and now it was gone. She sold the empty lot a few months ago. “I look at (betting on the fires) as just being very crass and heartless.”
As prediction markets boom and a new wildfire season begins, fire survivors and ethicists say that the betting encourages and rewards callous thinking—and dangerous behavior.
One major concern stemming from wildfire prediction markets is arson. “That’s what has me nervous,” Sherman said. Theoretically, making a bet could give someone the perverse incentive to start a fire or help one grow. Unlike other disasters, such as hurricanes, flooding, or extreme heat, a fire can be manipulated in minutes by just one person. “Systems that tie financial gain to wildfire outcomes risk encouraging misuse, including arson, and are not compatible with our mission,” a spokesperson for the US Forest Service said.
“Imagine what a bad actor might do,” said Ann Skeet, the senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “A market that might support that kind of activity, I think, is a dangerous market.” Firefighters or land managers with exclusive information about a fire’s behavior or an agency’s firefighting plans could even be tempted to bet on a fire, which would be considered insider trading.
Being online is extremely stressful and unpleasant, and on days I don’t use Twitter, or Bluesky, or any other social media, I typically feel much better mentally — less stressed about the posts I see and less upset about the state of the world.
There’s two problems: The first is that I think it’s pretty irresponsible to put yourself and your emotional comfort above being informed and active in debates about the future. I have a non-insignificant following on both sites, and it would be a bit of a dereliction of duty to give up my influence over my followers for it. The other part is that this non-insignificant online presence has helped me in my non-professional writing career pretty significantly, and I wouldn’t have either source materials or similar opportunities if it wasn’t for my online presence.
So, all in all, there’s pretty strong reasons to not be there. There’s pretty strong reasons to be there. There’s pretty strong personal benefits from leaving and pretty strong personal benefits from staying. Should I stop being online?
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Dear Wishfully-Off-the-Grid,
I feel you. In late June, throughout New York City, I started noticing posters appearing for the “Summer of Ludd” — a series of very offline events organized by a group trying to bring back the philosophy of the Luddites, the 19th-century movement against automated machinery. I attended one of their lectures recently in Manhattan, and I have a hunch that the Luddites could help you with your concerns about becoming detached from the world if you leave social media.
The word “Luddite” has, for the most part, become an insult (even if deployed for self-deprecation), used to describe a person who won’t keep up with the advancements of their time — rejecting innovation in favor of older, slower, and less effective products. There is a hint of this in your question: You’re worried that social media is the more potent way to be informed and to communicate with others. If you leave these platforms, will you lose that ability?
First, the real Luddites were more complex than how we refer to them colloquially. They were English clothmakers who saw how machines owned by wealthy merchants resulted in lower wages and worse working conditions. After trying to organize in support of workers’ rights failed, Luddites broke the looms that were automating their labor. “They would sneak in through the windows or hold up the overseer at gunpoint, and methodically smash just those machines that were de-skilling their work,” wrote journalist Brian Merchant, author of the excellent book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.
Luddites weren’t against all technology, Merchant notes, just the tech that took away resources from humans or gave too much power to those at the top. The British government retaliated against the Luddites, and laws were passed that made it punishable by death to break a machine.
The neo-Luddites that I saw and met at The Luddite Conference on Participatory Futures event were bound by a similar distrust and antagonism towards, in this case, big tech. But there was another question they grappled with that was even more closely aligned with your concerns. “This week is just sort of an experiment, right?” said one of the organizers during opening remarks. “Can we get a bunch of people together in a room without using any of these platforms?”
Based on the turnout, the answer was a resounding yes. The large auditorium was standing-room only. It was filled with young people in their 20s in cool outfits who I heard giving each other advice about switching to flip phones.
These neo-Luddites would say to you that learning about the world is an act that is better done offline. In fact, in-person meetings are not only the superior medium through which to express your politics — it is the politics. The act of organizing IRL creates deeper relationships unfettered by algorithms, which build stronger foundations for talking about or acting on any issues that you may care about. This applies to finding sources and opportunities for your writing career, too. The neo-Luddites would challenge you to imagine the rich and exciting people you might meet if you seek out and spend time in what they described as “social infrastructure”: public places where people meet face-to-face — not only for political solidarity, but also for learning, support, play, and rest.
This resonates with me; I only felt connected to my community once I spent a lot less time online and got involved in local organizing a few years ago. As part of my neighborhood’s mutual aid group, I help run our community garden, which teaches people about the area’s environmental history, food justice, and climate change and grows hundreds of pounds of produce for free fridges. I rarely post about this publicly, but I’ve met dozens of neighbors and local politicians and feel much more agentic as a result.
I also should mention the limitations of making a difference through online posting.
Many of us, of course, are trapped in echo chambers in our online communities. Even if you break through, the likelihood of online discourse being the most effective way to share your values is low. I think often about an experiment researchers from Princeton and Stanford did to see if people would change their minds if they saw posts on their Facebook or Instagram that differed from their own perspectives. In the end, they found very little effect on altering people’s opinions or political behaviors.
Not only that, but the more likely, and more disturbing, outcome of a lot of posting is the impact it can have on your own views. In the book The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World, reporter Max Fisher explains that when you get feedback in the form of likes and replies, it provides powerful positive reinforcement that gives you the signal that your beliefs are good, and you should hold onto them even more tightly. If someone starts contradicting you or pushing back, you’re likely to double down to further emphasize your point. This means that you yourself may end up with even more extreme opinions than you started out with — all without swaying anyone else’s beliefs (potentially even pushing the other person further into more entrenched versions of their views). That doesn’t sound like a very effective technology, does it?
This might seem like I’m telling you to go off social media entirely and join the neo-Luddites. But, actually, I’m not. I do think there are compelling reasons to be on social media platforms, but they are human ones, not political.
Researchers have described our access to the internet and social media as a “mobile connectivity paradox.” Even though we are able to, in unprecedented ways, connect with anyone at any time, it can make us feel isolated. Yet, I haven’t been able to fully give up on the “connection” piece of the paradox; I like seeing pictures of my friend’s baby who lives far away from me! I got a lot out of posting pictures of my wedding party! I’ve tried to (lovingly) cull my followers to only people I really know, but whom I might not get to see as much as I’d like in person. Going on Instagram feels more joyful as a result.
You say that being on social media makes you feel terrible, and you should pay attention to that signal. People respond differently to social media, and it could be a reflection of other aspects of your life. For those who are already feeling vulnerable, lonely, or depressed, spending time on social media tends to make them feel worse.
Where and in what contexts you use social media can also affect how it makes you feel. People feel more lonely when they use social media while in transit, around people they have close relationships with, and when they are in nature. In contrast, when people use social media for shorter periods when they are alone at home or in study locations, it doesn’t have as much of a negative effect. And when people share big life events, like weddings or births, it can even increase their happiness.
Reclaiming social media for quieter and more intimate uses could make you feel lighter. At the same time, perhaps you can redirect some of your activism energy away from the digital sphere and see what happens if you take it offline.
That doesn’t mean, of course, that your IRL life should become unduly heavy either. During the Q&A at the Luddite talk, a person from San Francisco, who was part of a group organizing to get Mark Zuckerberg’s name removed from a local hospital, asked how best to reduce personal social media use. Bill Hartung, a political scientist there, didn’t suggest guilt or recrimination. “I think we just need to make real life more attractive,” he said.
Anyone dabbling in Luddism today is lucky; this is a more enjoyable call to action than meeting up to smash looms in the middle of the night. One of the best ways for you to be invested in the future is to make sure that at least part of yours takes place offline.
Bonus: What I’m reading
- Now that summer is in full swing, I’m re-reading chapters of my copy of How to Be Idle, a book by Tom Hodgkinson, the founder of the similarly themed publication The Idler. Each of the book’s chapters documents an hour of the day and how to be as lazy as possible during that time. Fun to read as inspiration, even when you’re not able to loaf.
- At the Folk Art Museum in midtown, I saw a group exhibition of American self-taught artists as part of the celebration of the country’s semiquincentennial. I was riveted by paintings of pastel, layered, topological landscapes by Joseph E. Yoakum, who was a Chicago-based artist. I recommend this 2021 New York Times profile of him, which explains how his drawings don’t represent real places but figurative terrains from his mind.
- Not something to read, but a fun game called Anthropeum that gives you 10 objects to assess per day. Try to guess where and when they were made and see how you compare to other players. I’ve learned I’m much better at guessing where things are from than their time period!
He was born into a storm, lightning split the summer sky, in a
village the world had not yet heard of.
The midwife called it a bad omen, his mother called it a sign. Your first
life began in a storm, under open sky.
One winter night you ran your hand along a cat’s back, and the
darkness cracked open with sparks.
Your mother warned the house could burn.
You were already chasing what you learned: Light would return.
Your second life came underwater, in the current deep. No light,
no air, the river pulling you under,
the surface closing above you without a sound, and
something in you refused to sink or sleep.
Your third life came at the dam.
The water rose. The wall held you in place.
One flash, you turned your body and rose back into air, and left
the weight of water without a trace.
Your fourth life came in stone and dark. Entombed for a
night in a mountain chapel,
visited by no one. Only silence and the memory of a spark. You called
it an awful experience and left it there, untold.
Your fifth life came in fever,
nine months cholera held you down,
until your father said: Survive, and choose your own ground. You rose.
Not from the prayer, but from the promise he made.
Your sixth life came in silence, and it stayed.
Every sound cut through you, a clock three rooms away,
a ringing that would not leave, a noise you learned to bear, until you
lived inside that noise and made a home in there.
Your seventh life burned on Fifth Avenue, not your body, but your work. Not a thief
of fire, but one who stayed with the blaze.
A modern Prometheus, your life’s work turned to ash,
“I must begin again,” you said, and turned to new ways.
Your eighth life came in the street.
No storm. No warning. A taxi struck without a sign. A
sudden impact: ribs breaking, breath gone.
No diagram this time. Only the body, slow to keep up.
The ninth life came on quiet wings.
That dove found you in the dark, and your spirit rose. She did
not move. A beam of light fell from above.
The life you would not return from, the one you loved.
Your mother thought you had nine lives, nine close
brushes with death.
Each close call, a lesson. A hand that would lead you out of the
darkness and into the dynamo of eternal light. The world profits
from the mystery of your mind,
Upon your imagination we stand.
While many TVs released between 2010 and 2015 supported 3D, using the feature required clearing a series of annoying hurdles. You had to buy 3D glasses, which ranged from $10 to $20 for passive frames, to upwards of $50 for active glasses that required constant charging. You had to make sure your Blu-ray player supported 3D discs. And you had to pay a premium for those 3D Blu-rays, assuming you could find them in stock.
For the niche media geeks who cleared those roadblocks, 3D Blu-rays did a decent job of replicating the theatrical 3D experience. But the results depended heavily on the size and viewing distance of your TV. If you’re too far away from a 42-inch or even 50-inch set, you won’t really be immersed by Avatar’s world of Pandora. It was also extra annoying if you wanted to have a 3D watch party with a crowd — you’d either have to buy a ton of extra glasses, or hope your nerdy friends had their own.
Worst of all, 3D TVs with passive glasses effectively halved the resolution of 1080p, since they had to deliver a separate image. 3D projectors and higher-end TVs avoided that issue since they relied on active glasses, but the expense and battery limitations of those frames made viewing parties all but impossible.
Outside of 3D Blu-rays, it was also tough to find much 3D content. Networks like the BBC and ESPN broadcast a handful of 3D shows and games, but they both gave up on the format in 2013. “I have never seen a very big appetite for 3D television in the UK,” Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC’s head of 3D, said in a 2013 interview with Radio Times (via The Independent). “Watching 3D is quite a hassly experience in the home. You have got to find your glasses before switching on the TV. I think when people watch TV they concentrate in a different way. When people go to the cinema they go and are used to doing one thing. I think that’s one of the reasons that take up of 3D TV has been disappointing.”
As the hype around 3D TVs waned, 4K sets with HDR started to crop up with more immediate benefits. They looked noticeably sharper and brighter than earlier HDTVs, and they were buoyed by a ton of 4K content from Netflix and other streaming services. There was no need to buy a Blu-ray player, no need to put on glasses and no need to look hard for special content. It’s no wonder 4K took off. (And even if you’re not viewing 4K content, those newer TVs still made your older SD and HD shows look better than ever.)
According to a recent study by Precision Reports, around 25 percent of households with 3D TVs actually used the technology during the peak period between 2010 and 2018. Less than 10 percent of households kept using the technology after three years. The same report also found that 65 percent of users stopped using 3D because of a lack of content, 50 percent noted discomfort for long viewing sessions and 42 percent gave up due to high equipment costs.
Despite the many issues, though, Precision Reports also predicts that the 3D TV category will grow by 15 percent by 2036 thanks to the rise of glasses-free 3D sets, commercial implementations and gaming. I’ve yet to be impressed by any glasses-free 3D TVs, personally, and they typically don’t support multiple viewers since they rely on sophisticated eye tracking to function.
These may be the last days of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk.
An announcement on the Mechanical Turk website says that on July 30, 2026, the crowdsourcing service will close to new customers. Amazon Web Services says the decision was made after “careful consideration,” adding, “Existing customers can continue to use the service as normal. AWS continues to invest in security and availability improvements for Mechanical Turk, but we do not plan to introduce new features.”
In other words, Amazon isn’t completely pulling the plug, but the service is very much on life support.
First launched in 2005, Mechanical Turk was a marketplace where people were paid tiny amounts to perform simple tasks that resisted full automation — things like completing CAPTCHA challenges or identifying the basic sentiment in a sentence.
In its heyday, the service was at the center of debates around the ethics of crowdsourced labor, and it even played a small role in the early stages of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Beginning in 2018, Amazon also began billing it as a way for companies to annotate data to train neural networks as part of its SageMaker AI service.
Less overtly, Mechanical Turk has also been described as the hidden enabler for companies taking a fake-it-till-you-make-it approach to AI, where products marketed as Ai are actually being performed by the Mechanical Turk workforce — all the more fitting since the original Mechanical Turk was itself a hoax, with a hidden human chess player pretending to be a chess-playing machine
Over time, the relationship between Mechanical Turk and AI models grew even more complicated. In a snake-eating-its-own-tail irony, a 2023 analysis found that between 33% and 46% of workers on the platform were using large language models to complete their tasks, raising questions about the reliability of data annotated on the platform and also about whether humans needed to be in the loop at all.
This week, after Amazon’s decision became public, one Reddit user suggested the platform died “years ago,” with workers and researchers abandoning it due to bots and fraud. The user predicted, “Someone at Amazon is going to decide keeping the Mturk servers running is a waste of time and resources and pull the plug entirely.”
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Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: 30-second review
Products that fuse technology to create something interesting aren’t a new concept, and with the advent of the Smart TV, most of us have one or more in our homes.
But the Apolosign 32″ Smart Portable TV takes the technology crossover idea to a whole different level, as it combines a 4K display, an Android 16 tablet and a battery backup into a single roll-anywhere solution.
This is perfect for promotional signage, but I could also see this as being the perfect way to explain mobile apps in an educational setting.
If there is a caveat to lumping this much technology together, it’s the weight, and this product is 22kg in the box, and not much less out of it. Therefore, getting it assembled is probably a two-man job, and should it fall over and hit anything, there will be breakage.
Also, at nearly $1000 / £1000, it isn’t cheap for what on the surface looks like a 32-inch TV, but that doesn’t account for all the technology underneath.
If you need a huge 4K Android tablet that can run all the standard apps and be operated by touch or voice while on battery power, then the options are limited.
And, while there are a few places where it might have been a little better, overall Apolosign has done a decent job making this fusion product design work.
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Price and availability
- How much does it cost? $820/£1000/€1100
- When is it out? Available now
- Where can you get it? Direct from the maker or via an online retailer
The Apolosign 32″ Smart Portable TV is $819 from its maker, although it can be found on Amazon.com for almost exactly the same price plus 99 cents. UK customers pay £999.99 at Amazon.co.uk, and in Europe, €1,099.99.
Therefore, Americans get a much better deal here than anyone else, for no obvious good reason, since the hardware is made in China.
If you want to save some money but still like the concept, Apolosign also makes a version with a 1080p screen for $719. And, for $619, you can have a 1080p model with a 24-inch panel. While these are cheaper, saving a few hundred dollars might not provide the best experience, and that’s what this device is all about.
I did notice a few other brand names selling what looked like similar hardware, but their prices were typically higher. Although I did find one on Amazon.co.uk selling what seemed to be similar equipment for only £699.99. But, I did note that the product only had 128GB of storage, a 10500 mAh battery and no HDMI input.
So, you get what you pay for.
When you factor that with the Apolosign 32″ Smart Portable TV, you get an Android tablet, a 32-inch 4K display, a 4K webcam, a remote control, a battery system that can power everything and a high stand, the asking price even outside America isn’t excessive.
And, for those in the US, it might even be a bargain.
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Specs
Swipe to scroll horizontally
|
Item |
Spec |
|
Processor |
Rockchip RK3576, 8nm, octa-core (4x Cortex-A72 @ up to 2.2–2.4 GHz + 4x Cortex-A53) |
|
GPU |
Mali-G52 MC3 |
|
RAM |
8GB |
|
Storage |
256GB |
|
Display |
32-inch 4K 10-point capacitive touchscreen, IPS technology, 300 nits |
|
Main Camera |
4K Webcam (provided) |
|
Battery |
15000Ah dual-cell |
|
Charging |
Charges from PSU |
|
OS |
Android 16 |
|
5G |
N/A |
|
Networking |
Wi-Fi 6, BT5.3 |
|
Dimensions |
18 x 32 x 151 cm |
|
Weight |
22kg in a box |
|
Colours |
White |
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Design
- Assembly fun
- Power options
- Dual-purpose design
In the box, this hardware weighs an impressive 22kg, and the box isn’t a huge part of that weight.
That mass is mostly because of the construction of the base, which has some intentional extra weight, and also a battery, to increase the stability once fully assembled. Assembly starts with the base, connecting it to a two-part pillar, and then, once that’s together, attaching the monitor using a VESA 100 mounting.
I’d strongly suggest that, unlike me, anyone doing this have a second support person handy, because some of the parts and the assembly are heavy.
The added complication of this design is that the PSU plugs into the base, and power is passed via a series of connectors up the support arm to the display.
My install was made extra fun because on the inside of the box lid was a set of instructions that I decided to follow. To connect the base to the bottom half of the pillar, I was told to use the screws labelled B3x16, and this was the only screw bag that had a label.
Except someone in the packing department had taken B3 to be the number of screws, and put three screws in there that were for the VESA connection stage, and they weren’t anywhere near 16mm long. I found those in an unmarked bag, give of them, four to attach and one spare. But anyone following the box instructions to the letter would be stuck because the VESA screws aren’t long enough for that attachment.
Once I realised the mistake, it was all plain sailing, and soon the support arm and screen were treated as one item.
For those wondering, there is a panel you can remove on the screen that provides access to the USB ports and an HDMI port for those wanting to use a PC or smart stick with it. And, also in that location is a place to directly power the system with the PSU. However, if you use that power input, the battery in the base won’t be charged, and it will need to be plugged in to use. It’s a choice, but it does allow the display to be used on a different VESA support, like one on a table.
The support column can tilt, rotate, and swivel, and there is 18cm of vertical movement. And, as the base is on casters, it can spin completely around.
Included in the box is a webcam, and there are two points to connect it to the display, depending on whether you are using it in landscape or portrait mode.
My only concern is that, given the size and mass of the monitor and how it’s supported, it wouldn’t be impossible for this whole thing to go over, especially if someone pushed it onto a slope, like the one designed for wheelchair access. And, if that happens, the chance of the panel surviving seems remote.
If the screen doesn’t need to be moved around, a set of rubber feet is included to go over the casters, making it less mobile.
On the back of the display are a power button and a volume rocker, and pressing the power button will launch the Android installation routine, which anyone with a phone or tablet will be familiar with.
There are two accessories included with the display: a remote control and a webcam, but you can’t use either of those until Android is fully operational. When I first did that, the tablet part of this device was using Android 15, not the Android 16 that the maker’s page promises. However, a system upgrade was ready, which converted it to Android 16 and also fixed a few limitations, such as adding Widevine L1 encryption.
I wouldn’t call the The Apolosign 32″ Smart Portable TV a unique design, but there aren’t many hardware makers offering anything like this. It combines a monitor, tablet, mobile signage, information kiosk and presentation tool into a single device. And, for those who want all those things, it might be ideal.
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Hardware
- Rockchip RK3576
- VA display
- 15000 mAh battery
When I saw that this Android device used a Rockwell chip, I was initially discouraged, but that might have been a mistake on my part.
The Rockchip RK3576 first appeared on Rockchip roadmaps in late 2023, alongside the smaller RK3506. At the time, it looked like a cheaper sibling to the mighty RK3588, and that reading turned out to be correct. Rockchip officially launched the RK3576 in the second quarter of 2024, built on an advanced 8nm process, with low CPU junction temperature that allows fanless designs in many applications.
The RK3576 uses the familiar octo-core layout, and in this design, the cores are split 50/50 between performance and efficiency. Four ARM Cortex A72 cores handle heavy lifting, and four Cortex A53 cores manage lighter tasks, with an additional M0 co-processor for background duties. Together, they deliver around 58,000 DMIPS of computing power, which isn’t a huge number, but it’s enough to build an Android tablet around.
Graphics and media are where this chip earns its keep. Video decoding stretches up to 8K at 30fps or 4K at 120fps, and it supports H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1 and AVS2. Encoding covers H.264 and H.265 up to 4K at 60fps, with JPEG encoding and decoding also reaching 4K at 60fps. The embedded GPU supports OpenGL ES up to 3.2, OpenCL up to 2.0 and Vulkan 1.1, so it copes comfortably with modern display demands, although it’s not got the sort of GPU power that games like.
A new sixteen megapixel image signal processor adds real muscle for camera work, with accelerators for HDR, noise reduction, sharpening and lens distortion correction. Rockchip also built in a 6 TOPS NPU for on-device AI, enabling things like facial recognition and voice interaction without needing the cloud. Rockchips
The chip supports dual-channel LPDDR4, LPDDR4X, and LPDDR5; later revisions added LPDDR5X support, giving manufacturers plenty of flexibility depending on cost targets.
In this implementation, it’s got 8GB of memory, but try as I might, I couldn’t discover what it is, and, in the same vein, it has 256GB of storage, but the type is unclear.
As this device is mostly bought for the 4K screen, that’s the one part of this that was clearly under the most price-saving pressure.
I’m reasonably confident that this is IPS, not VA or AMOLED, it has only a brightness level of 300 nits, and a refresh of 60Hz. The quoted response time is 8ms, and it supposedly has a contrast ratio of 1:3000.
When I get into the performance weeds, I’ll return to the screen, but my initial view was that while it’s workable, it’s the one part that Apolosign needed to probably make better to justify the cost of the ensemble.
The final hardware part I want to discuss is the battery, something I wasn’t actually expecting, that turned out to be genuinely useful.
Deep in the base, but replaceable is a 15000 mAh dual-cell Lithium-ion battery rated at 14.8 Volts. This is charged when the base is connected to power, although it charges much faster when the unit isn’t in use. Apolosign states that if the unit is in use and the battery is flat, it could take 6 hours to fully recharge. If you turn the screen and tablet off, it charges faster, probably in less than two hours.
The moral of this tale is to provide a PSU with enough umph to both charge and power, not do only one of those things effectively.
Makers quoted discharge is also six hours, but that longevity is dependent on the brightness set on the monitor and what the tablet is doing. But, during that time, you can wheel it around without any connected wires, and it remains fully functional.
Overall, the hardware in the tablet part of this design is decent if a bit underwhelming. I do wonder if a more modern SoC at 4nm might be more power efficient and an even better performer, allowing for more time on battery. But then, given that most of the power in the battery will be used on the 4K display, there might not be much of an advantage to gain.
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Performance
- Modest SoC
- Display is of good quality
- 95% AdobeRGB
Swipe to scroll horizontally
|
Phone |
|
Apolosign 32″ Smart Portable TV |
|
SoC |
|
Rockchip RK3576 |
|
GPU |
|
ARM Mali-G52 MC3 |
|
NPU |
|
Integrated 6 TOPS |
|
Memory |
|
8GB/256GB |
|
Weight |
|
20kg |
|
Battery |
mAh |
15,000 |
|
Geekbench |
Single |
344 |
|
|
Multi |
1228 |
|
|
OpenCL |
1438 |
|
|
Vulkan |
1436 |
|
PCMark |
3.0 Score |
6164 |
|
|
Battery |
8h 23m |
|
Charge 30 |
% |
15% |
|
Passmark |
Score |
7180 |
|
|
CPU |
3704 |
|
3DMark |
Slingshot OGL |
1941 |
|
|
Slingshot Ex. OGL |
1473 |
|
|
Slingshot Ex. Vulkan |
1694 |
|
|
Wildlife |
864 |
|
|
Wldlife Extreme |
241 |
|
|
Nomad Lite |
100 |
Since this is a unique product to me, I’ve not put it in comparison to any other.
However, this, under the skin, is a tablet, so I’ve used the same benchmarks I’d do if it were one I could carry around.
Compared to the typical rugged tablet I cover, this is probably one of the slowest I’ve ever tested. Looking back at my data, the only tablet I’ve tested that was remotely similar in performance was the Ulefone Armour Pad Pro, which uses the MediaTek Helio G88, and the Ulefone Armour Pad 3 Pro, which uses the MediaTek Helio P60.
This arrangement is slightly quicker than those tablets, but the difference isn’t huge.
If the numbers don’t speak for themselves, the graphics performance here is fine for block puzzles and Candy Crush, but it’s not amazing when asked to do 3D.
The makers had predicted six hours of running, but it exceeded that amount by some way, running the PCMark battery test for 8 hours and 23 minutes. That’s not enough for the full day at a trade show, but it’s acceptable. It’s worth remembering that the battery here is not only running the tablet but also the 4K display set to 120 nits of brightness.
For anyone wondering why I didn’t hook this display up to a PC and run a full Datacolor analysis on it, initially, there was a snag. Due to its integration with the tablet components, this monitor doesn’t have OSD, so selecting the various brightness settings I needed for analysis proved challenging.
What I was ultimately forced to do was swap back to Android, alter the brightness when required, and then go back to the PC HDMI input. Not impossible, but the process took much longer than it normally would.
Here are my results:
Swipe to scroll horizontally
|
Colour Gamut |
Percentage |
|
sRGB |
95% |
|
AdobeRGB |
79% |
|
P3 |
80% |
|
NTSC |
74% |
|
Rec2020 |
57% |
|
Gamma |
2.1 |
|
Brightness/Contrast |
|
|
Maximum Brightness |
287.8 |
|
Maximum Contrast |
1860:1 |
For an IPS panel, the one used here is decent, especially in Gamut and Tone Response.
It’s also strong on colour uniformity and contrast, even if it doesn’t hit the maker’s quoted 3000:1 levels.
Its weaknesses are colour accuracy and luminance uniformity, with the latter being quite poor. This is an edge-lit design, and most of the light seems to come from the upper left, making the bottom centre and right much darker than the rest of the display. At its worst, we are talking 22% darker at 50% brightness.
The viewing angles on this screen are 178 degrees, so that’s not an issue for people viewing content at an angle.
Overall, the tablet part of this package isn’t anything special, but the display is better than anticipated.
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Final verdict
As a solution, I enjoyed the Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV, since it delivered in a small but important niche.
Signage, presentation and educational rolls are all satisfied by this product, and for marketing companies needing show stand equipment, the price isn’t crazy.
In retrospect, a bigger battery to deliver a whole working day might have been worthwhile, and a high-end model with an AMOLED screen would be an eye-catching option.
The only question any prospective buyer needs to answer is whether they need 4K or if one of the 1080p models would do the job just as effectively.
Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV: Report card
Swipe to scroll horizontally
|
Value |
Limited choices make for good value |
4 / 5 |
|
Design |
Awkward to assemble but nice when together |
4 / 5 |
|
Hardware |
Modest SoC, but decent spec otherwise |
4 / 5 |
|
Performance |
Mediorcre tablet and decent screen |
3.5 / 5 |
|
Total |
Not cheap, but useful for so many jobs |
4 / 5 |
Should you buy a Apolosign 32-inch Smart Portable TV?
Buy it if…
Don’t buy if…
For more options, we’ve tested the best business monitors.
Erling Haaland’s Viking warriors set sail for New Jersey as Norway battle five-time winners Brazil for a place in the FIFA World Cup 2026 quarter-finals — and you can live stream the last-16 clash around the world for free.
Unsurprisingly, Stale Solbakken’s men have relied heavily on the goals of talismanic striker Haaland on their run to the last 16. The Manchester City star bagged an 86th-minute winner against Ivory Coast in the round of 32 and remains the Vikings’ biggest attacking threat, scoring exactly half of their 10 goals at the tournament. How Haaland fares against Brazil’s defence – particularly Arsenal defender Gabriel, who he has clashed with in the Premier League – could well be the defining storyline of this match. Interestingly, Norway have never lost to A Selecao in men’s international football and secured a famous 2-1 victory at the 1998 World Cup.
Brazil manager Carlo Ancelotti will once again look to Vinicius Jr, who scored four goals across his side’s three group-stage matches. The Real Madrid forward almost added a brilliant solo strike against Japan in the last 32, but Gabriel Martinelli was the hero as he popped up with the winner six minutes into second-half stoppage time to seal a dramatic 2-1 turnaround victory. There remains plenty of uncertainty surrounding Neymar, who continues to struggle with fitness issues. The Santos forward has played just 15 minutes at the tournament so far, although Ancelotti suggested he would have featured against Japan had it gone to extra-time.
So, read on as we show you exactly how to watch Brazil vs Norway for free from anywhere in the FIFA World Cup 2026.
How to watch Brazil vs Norway for free
Brazil vs Norway is available to watch for free in multiple countries, including the UK, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey.
Abroad? Can’t access your free stream? Unblock your free World Cup stream with Norton VPN – more on that below.
Use a VPN to watch Brazil vs Norway live streams
It’s the World Cup, and if you’re traveling, you might discover your usual Brazil vs Norway stream is suddenly unavailable due to geo-restrictions.
Don’t worry, that’s exactly where a VPN can help. A virtual private network lets you connect to servers around the world so you can securely access your usual World Cup coverage as if you were back home.
We recommend Norton VPN. Here’s why:
How to watch Brazil vs Norway in the US
US viewers can watch Brazil vs Norway on Fox and Telemundo (Spanish comms).
You can watch every World Cup game on Fox, FS1 and Telemundo, which are available on cord-cutters like YouTube TV (free trial), Hulu+Live TV, Sling (select markets), Fubo or DirecTV.
Those looking for a streaming service instead can watch Brazil vs Norway on Fox One (3-day free trial). Telemundo is available via Peacock as well.
Visiting the US from the UK? You can still watch your World Cup stream for free thanks to Norton VPN (try for 60 days).
How to watch Brazil vs Norway in the UK
UK customers are in luck as they can stream Brazil vs Norway for free on ITV. Live coverage is on ITV1 and ITVX.
You require a TV license and a valid UK postcode for an account (e.g. SE1 7PB).
Norton VPN can unlock your stream if you’re abroad today.
How to watch Brazil vs Norway in Australia
Brazil vs Norway will be shown for free in Australia on SBS On Demand.
The streaming platform has every game of the tournament for free, making it the perfect place for your World Cup viewing.
Traveling for work or on holiday? A VPN like Norton VPN can help unlock your free stream.
How to watch Brazil vs Norway in Canada
In Canada, TSN and free-to-air channel CTV will be broadcasting Brazil vs Norway.
You can live stream via the TSN+ streaming platform, which costs CA$8 per month or CA$80 per year.
CTV will require your TV provider login details, but is also available via pay-TV streaming platform Crave if you want an alternative.
Outside of Canada? Use Norton VPN whilst you’re traveling away from home to unlock your stream.
Brazil vs Norway: Match Information
What time does Brazil vs Norway start?
Brazil vs Norway kicks off at 9pm BST / 4pm ET on Sunday, July 5. That’s 6am AEST on Monday, July 6 in Australia.
What are the squads for Brazil vs Norway?
Brazil
Goalkeepers: Alisson (Liverpool), Ederson (Fenerbahce), Weverton (Gremio).
Defenders: Alex Sandro, Danilo, Leo Pereira (Flamengo), Bremer (Juventus), Ibanez (Al-Ahli), Ederson (Atalanta), Marquinhos (Paris St-Germain), Gabriel (Arsenal), Douglas Santos (Zenit St. Petersburg).
Midfielders: Bruno Guimaraes (Newcastle), Casemiro (Manchester United), Danilo Santos (Botafogo), Fabinho (Al-Ittihad), Lucas Paqueta (Flamengo).
Forwards: Endrick (Lyon), Gabriel Martinelli (Arsenal), Igor Thiago (Brentford), Matheus Cunha (Manchester United), Vinicius Junior (Real Madrid), Luiz Henrique (Zenit St. Petersburg), Neymar (Santos), Rayan (Bournemouth).
Norway
Goalkeepers: Orjan Nyland (Sevilla), Egil Selvik (Watford), Sander Tangvik (Hamburger SV).
Defenders: Kristoffer Ajer (Brentford), Julian Ryerson (Borussia Dortmund), Leo Ostigard (Genoa), Marcus Holmgren Pedersen (Torino), David Moller Wolfe (Wolverhampton Wanderers), Fredrik Andre Bjorkan (Bodo/Glimt), Torbjorn Heggem (Bologna), Sondre Langas (Derby County), Henrik Falchener (Viking).
Midfielders: Martin Odegaard (Arsenal), Sander Berge (Fulham), Patrick Berg (Bodo/Glimt), Kristian Thorstvedt (Sassuolo), Morten Thorsby (Cremonese), Antonio Nusa (RB Leipzig), Fredrik Aursnes (Benfica), Oscar Bobb (Fulham), Jens Petter Hauge (Bodo/Glimt), Andreas Schjelderup (Benfica), Thelo Aasgaard (Rangers).
Forwards: Alexander Sorloth (Atletico Madrid), Erling Haaland (Manchester City), Jorgen Strand Larsen (Crystal Palace).
Swipe to scroll horizontally
|
Stage |
Brazil |
Norway |
|---|---|---|
|
Group stage |
Group C: 1st, 7 points |
Group I: 2nd, 6 points |
|
Last 32 |
Beat Japan (2-1) |
Beat Ivory Coast (2-1) |
Can I watch Brazil vs Norway on my mobile?
Of course, most broadcasters have streaming services that you can access through mobile apps or via your phone’s browser.
You can also stay up-to-date with all of the key World Cup moments on the official social media channels on X/Twitter (@FIFAWorldCup), Instagram (@FIFAWorldCup), TikTok (@FIFAWorldCup) and YouTube (@FIFA).
We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
US control over the most cyber-capable AI models, led by Anthropic’s Claude Mythos, looms over the NATO summit in Ankara on 7-8 July. Washington has whipsawed between export controls and expanded allied access via Project Glasswing, frustrating European allies who are demanding access while building their own defence AI. Officially, the summit will barely mention it.
TL;DR
Donald Trump arrives at next week’s NATO summit in Ankara holding unusual leverage, because the US decides which allies get access to the world’s most advanced AI, Politico reports. The alliance meets on 7 and 8 July with AI security questions hovering over the agenda.
A new wave of models from Anthropic and OpenAI can find and exploit security flaws better than most human specialists. Anthropic’s Claude Mythos surfaced vulnerabilities in classified US systems within hours during a government test.
“AI is fundamentally changing the threat landscape, and NATO needs to adapt accordingly,” Estonian cyber ambassador Helen Popp told Politico. Every capability available to adversaries is also available to allies, she argued, if they move first.
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US agencies including the NSA and CISA have been testing Mythos for cyber defence and digital espionage. European allies have clamoured for access, and EU institutions have openly demanded it, with only a few countries, including the UK, initially allowed to run evaluations.
Anthropic expanded its Project Glasswing programme in June to around 150 organisations across more than 15 countries, including the EU. The scramble followed weeks of whiplash from Washington.
In early June, the Trump administration imposed export controls on Anthropic’s most cyber-capable models, banning foreign nationals from using them and forcing a worldwide shutdown. The controls were lifted on 30 June after an 18-day blackout.
The White House has also limited the rollout of OpenAI’s latest model to a small group of approved US firms, per Politico. The push and pull has frustrated allies, prompted a rare Five Eyes warning on AI cyber threats, and left frontier models moving between governments faster than regulators can follow.
Quiet corridors, loud subtext
The summit agenda includes a track on emerging and disruptive technologies, but an official told Politico that AI and cyber will get only brief mentions in the closing statement. Former NATO cyber policy leader Heli Tiirmaa-Klaar said allies avoid formally discussing topics that lack consensus, predicting talks in the margins instead.
The US State Department’s cyber bureau is not sending a representative amid an internal reorganisation, Politico reports. Senator Jeanne Shaheen said she will attend partly to reassure allies that the US will not “alienate them” over access to AI models.
Trump has separately signed NSPM-11, ordering the US military to adopt AI faster and shield models from China. Europe is hedging by building its own capability, including the defence AI alliance between Helsing and Mistral.
The war in Ukraine, now past its fourth year, keeps the stakes concrete, and allies have pledged 1.5% of GDP to protecting critical infrastructure. Laura Galante of the Center for European Policy Analysis called Ukraine the blueprint for operating in AI-fuelled warfare.
A State Department spokesperson said every ally must adopt “trusted leading-edge AI capabilities”. Which capabilities count as trusted, and who grants the trust, is precisely what Ankara will not quite discuss.
I’ve been a CNET journalist for over 15 years and I’ve tested everything from the latest electric cars and bikes to cameras and, er, TV-controlling magic wands. I’ve even compared drones to barn owls. My main focus focus has always been the latest, greatest phones and I’ve seen a lot of them in my time. Names like Apple and Samsung have remained stalwarts in the industry during my time, but I’ve also seen the rise of brands like Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus. Meanwhile once-dominant names like BlackBerry, HTC and LG have vanished from the mobile space. Even Sony doesn’t make much of a fuss over its phones these days.
I’ve seen phones arrive with such wild fanfare that they changed the entire mobile industry, while others quietly trickled into existence only to vanish just as uneventfully. But it’s the weird ones that stick in my memory. Those devices that tried to be different, that dared to offer features we didn’t even know we wanted or simply the ones that aimed to be quirky for the sake of being quirky. Like someone who thinks an unusual hat is the same thing as having a personality.
Here then are some of the weirdest phones I’ve come across in my mobile journey at CNET. Better yet, I still have these phones in a big cardboard box in my office, so I was able to dig them out and take new photos — though not all of them still work. Let’s start with a doozy.
BlackBerry briefly tried to convince us that it’s hip to be square.
BlackBerry Passport
At the height of its power RIM’s BlackBerry was one of the most dominant names in mobile. It was unthinkable then that anything could unseat the goliath, let alone that it would fade into total nonexistence. But the once juicy, ripe BlackBerry withered and died on the bush, but not without a few interesting death rattles on its way.
My pick from the company’s end days is the Passport from 2014, notable not just for its physical keyboard but its almost completely square design. The rationale behind this, according to its maker, was that business types just really love squares. A Word document, an Excel spreadsheet, an email — all square (ish) and all able to be viewed natively on the Passport’s 4.5 inch display with its 1:1 aspect ratio. Let’s not forget that all Instagram posts at that time were also square so it had that going for it too. YouTube, not so much.
In theory it’s a sound idea. In practice the square design made it awkward to use, as the physical keyboard was too wide and narrow. Its BlackBerry 10 software, especially the app availability, lagged behind what you’d get from Android at the time. BlackBerry quickly ditched the new shape. After trying to claw back some credibility with its Android phones — including the stupidly named Priv, a phone I quite liked — and by bringing on singer Alicia Keys as Global Creative Director (because BlackBerry phones had keys, get it?) the company stopped making its own phones in 2016.
The Russian YotaPhone 2
YotaPhone 2
You’d be forgiven for having never heard of this phone or its parent company, Yota. Based in Russia, Yota made two phones: the creatively named YotaPhone in 2012 and the similarly inspired YotaPhone 2 in 2014, pictured above. Both were unique in the mobile world for their use of a second display on the rear. From the front, these phones looked and operated like any other generic Android phone. Flip them over though and you’d get a 4.3-inch E Ink display.
The idea was that you’d use your Android phone as normal for things like web browsing, gaming or watching videos, but you’d switch to the rear display if you wanted to read ebooks or simply have it propped up to show incoming notifications. E Ink displays use almost no power, so it made a lot of sense to preserve battery life by viewing “slow” content on the back.
The reality though is that beyond ebooks — which aren’t great to read on such a tiny screen anyway — there’s very little anyone might want to use an E Ink display for when out and about. It was difficult to operate, too, thanks to a slow processor and clunky software. After just two generations of YotaPhones, the company went into liquidation.
The HTC ChaCha and its Facebook button
HTC ChaCha
Remember when Facebook was the cool spot to be instead of just the place your parents and their friends go to publicly air their most troubling of opinions? When I was at university, instead of trading phone numbers when you met someone, the default thing was to add each other on Facebook before you began poking each other. Facebook was so ubiquitous at the time that it was simply the way every single person I knew communicated.
Keen to capitalise on Zuckerberg’s social media success, HTC brought out the ChaCha in 2011. The phone came with an utterly ludicrous name and a dedicated Facebook button on the bottom edge. Tapping this would immediately bring up your Facebook page, allowing you to post the lyrics to Rebecca Black’s Friday, ask what Fifty Shades of Grey is about or do whatever else it was we were all up to in 2011.
Facebook might still be around in one form or another, but HTC abandoned its phone-making business back in 2018. Unsurprisingly, phones with dedicated hardware buttons tied to social media haven’t caught on. Though if I’m being generous there is strictly speaking an X button on every keyboard.
The Finney’s pop-up screen is ideal for crypto bros.
Sirin Labs Finney U1
“Bro!” I hear you shout, all-too loudly. “BRO! You’ve got to check out what my Bitcoin is doing!” You’d then show me your phone and I’d watch while your crypto account plummeted, rebounded and plummeted again over the course of 12 seconds. The phone you’d be showing me, of course, would be the Sirin Labs Finney, a 2019 phone specifically targeted at crypto bros who wanted a device that would perfectly match their high-living, high-fiving crypto-trading lifestyle.
At its core, the Finney is just another Android phone, but a hidden second screen pops up from the back of the phone, with the sole purpose of giving you secure access to your crypto wallet. The phone had a whole host of security features to ensure that only you could access your Bitcoin or Etherium, and it allowed you to send and receive cryptocurrency without having to use a third-party online platform. Apparently that was a good thing.
If you were entrenched in the crypto world, this phone might have been the dream. But the wallet wasn’t easy to use and the phone was expensive, thanks to the cost of that second screen. Sirin Labs stopped making phones soon after and the mobile industry learned an important lesson about not developing hyper-niche devices that aren’t even that well-suited for the handful of customers that might be interested.
The Gemini PDA was part phone, part laptop.
Planet Computers Gemini PDA
Half phone, half laptop, all productivity. The Gemini PDA by UK-based mobile startup Planet Computers was a clamshell device in 2018 with a large (at the time) 5.99-inch display and a full qwerty keyboard. It was basically a slightly more modern interpretation of a PDA, like 1998’s Psion 3MX, in that it was effectively a tiny laptop that would fold up and fit in your pocket. The full keyboard allowed you to type away comfortably on long emails or documents while the regular Android software on the top half meant it also functioned like any other phone — apps, games, phone calls, whatever.
It had 4G connectivity for fast data speeds and a later model even got an update to 5G. But, like the BlackBerry Passport, its focus on business-folk and productivity above all else meant it was a niche product that failed to garner enough appeal to succeed. It didn’t help that it was utterly enormous and fitting it in a jeans pocket was basically impossible, so it didn’t impress either as a laptop or as a phone.
LG’s G5 was a nice idea, but it didn’t last. Nor did LG’s phones.
LG G5
LG remains a huge name in the tech industry today, thanks to its TVs and appliances, but it also tried to be a big player in the phone world, too. I liked LG’s phones — they were quirky and often tried weird things which kept my days as a reviewer interesting, perhaps none more so than the LG G5 in 2016.
LG called the G5 “modular,” meaning that the bottom chin of the phone snapped off allowing you to attach different modules such as a camera grip or an audio interface. Like many items on this list I can say that it’s a nice idea in theory, but in practice the phone fell short. Swapping out modules meant removing the battery, which of course meant restarting your phone every time you wanted to use the camera grip.
It was an inelegant solution to a problem that never needed to exist. But its bigger issue was that the camera grip and audio interface were the only two modules LG actually made for the phone. It’s as though the company had this fun notion in creating a phone that can transform according to your needs but then forgot to assign anyone to come up with any ideas on what to do with it. As a result, the end product was uninspiring, over-engineered and expensive.
What once was big now seems small.
Samsung Galaxy Note
Samsung’s Galaxy Note series helped transform the mobile industry. It literally stretched the boundaries of phones, encouraging larger and larger screens — even creating the unpleasant and mercifully short-lived term “phablet.” But the first-generation model in 2011 was controversial, mostly due to what was then considered its enormous size.
At 5.3 inches, it was significantly bigger than almost any other phone out there, including Samsung’s own Galaxy S2 — which, at a measly 4.3 inches, paled into insignificance against the mighty Note. It was mocked for being so huge, with memes appearing online poking fun at people holding it up when making calls. And while times have changed and we now have Samsung’s 6.9-inch Galaxy S25 Ultra, the original Note’s boxy aspect ratio meant it was actually wider than the S25 Ultra. So even by today’s standards it’s big.
It was also among the first phones to come with its own stylus shoved into its bottom. It’s a feature that few mobile companies have mimicked, but Samsung kept it as a differentiator on its later Note models before incorporating it into its flagship S line starting with the S22 Ultra.
Nokia may have been well ahead of its time.
Nokia Lumia 1020
Nokia’s Lumia 1020 was my absolute favorite phone for quite some time after its launch in 2013. And it’s because of its weirdness.
Nokia had an amazing history of bonkers mobiles — 2004’s 7280 “lipstick phone,” for example — and while the Lumia range was much more sedate, the 1020 had a few things that made it stand out. First, it ran Windows Phone, Microsoft’s brief and unsuccessful attempt to launch a rival to Android and iOS. A rival that I happened to quite like.
It was also made of polycarbonate, with a smoothly rounded unibody design that strongly contrasted the angular metal, plastic and glass designs of almost all other phones launching at that time. Its look was unlike anything else on sale, and I loved it.
But the main thing I loved was its camera. With a 41-megapixel sensor, Carl Zeiss lens, raw image capture and optical image stabilization, the Lumia 1020 packed the best camera specs of any phone I’d ever seen. It made the phone a true standout product, especially for photographers like me who wanted an amazing camera with them at all times, but didn’t want to have to carry both a phone and a compact digital camera.
While incredible image quality from a phone is a given in almost all camera phones in 2026, the Lumia 1020 was an early pioneer in what could be achieved from a phone camera.
The LG G5 was the love child of a phone and a handbag.
LG G4
LG, twice in one list? Oh yes, my friend, because the G5 seen above was not the first time LG went weird. Launched in 2015, the LG G4 had two main features that raised a few eyebrows. Most notably was LG’s decision to wrap the phone in real leather. Yes, real actual leather. Like what you’d get when you peel a cow. It even had stitching down the back, making it look like a handbag or a boot.
While it’s not a phone for vegans, I actually liked the look, especially as real leather — even the really thin stuff LG used on the G4 — naturally wears over time, gaining scuffs and scratches that give each phone a unique patina. It’s why I love my old leather Danner boots, and it’s why a vintage, worn-in leather jacket will almost always look better than a brand new one. Still, with leather being an expensive — and arguably controversial — material to use on a phone, it’s no surprise LG didn’t return to this idea.
But it’s not the only weird thing about the phone — the G4 was among a small number of phones released around that time that experimented with curved displays. It’s gently bent into a banana shape, the theory being that it makes watching videos more immersive, as is the case with curved screens in movie theaters. The problem is that movie screens are immense, so that curve makes sense. On a 5.5 inch phone like the G4, that curve is barely noticeable and only really served to push the price up.
I designed this custom phone. You can’t do that anymore.
Motorola Moto X and Moto Maker
I’ve just pointed out how weird the LG G4 was for using leather and now I’m pointing out another phone that, as you can see in the image above, is also wrapped in leather. But the weird thing here isn’t that the Motorola Moto X came in leather — it’s that I personally got to choose that it came in leather.
With the Moto X in 2013, Motorola launched a service called Moto Maker that allowed you to customize your phone in a wild variety of ways. From different-colored backs and multicolored accents around the camera and speakers through to using materials including leather and even various types of wood, there were loads of options to make your Moto X look unique. Each phone would then be made to order and you could even have it personalised with lazer etching and provide your Google account for it to be prelinked on arrival.
If custom-making phones with a vast number of potential options en mass sounds like an absolute logistical nightmare then you’re on the same page as Motorola eventually found itself. Moto Maker only existed for a few years before the company retired its customization service.
It was a weird time back then.
Samsung Galaxy Fold
I’m ending on a wildcard addition with the original Galaxy Fold. It’s a wildcard because Samsung’s Fold and Flip range are now up to number seven and we’ve got foldable devices from almost all major Android manufacturers. Though still not Apple.
While the original Fold might have kicked off the foldable revolution, there’s no question it was a weird phone. I was among the first to test it in the world when it launched in 2019 and while I was certainly impressed by the bendy display, its hinge felt weird and “snappy” to use. The outer display was, let’s face it, terrible.
On paper its 4.6-inch size is reasonable, but it’s so tall and narrow that it was borderline unusable for anything more than checking incoming notifications. Trying to type on it meant whittling down your thumbs to pointy nubs so I spent most of my time interacting with the phone’s much bigger internal screen. Cut to today when the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s outer screen measures a healthier 6.7 inches and as a result can function like any regular smartphone, with the bigger inside screen only required when you want more immersive content.
Looking back at the original Fold and its bizarre proportions, it’s honestly a surprise that Samsung persisted with the format. But I’m glad it did.
Watch this: The Galaxy S26 Ultra Could Be Samsung’s Best Yet, With These Changes
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