All posts tagged: clever

Elevate your space with cool and clever features

Elevate your space with cool and clever features

Published by Daniella Wilson

Spring is the time for starting afresh, so whether you’re making some smart home choices or going for a full revamp, these bright ideas will turn any house into a home to be proud of. Make the move to low-carbon heating (Vaillant) Extracting heat from the air outside and using it to warm your home – it’s a lot to get your head around. However, the experts at Vaillant are here to help. No matter what kind of home you live in – whether you have underfloor heating or radiators – there is a solution to fit your home. You will need space to house a hot water cylinder, which can be placed in many locations around the home, even in a garage. There’s no doubt that using a heat pump to heat your home can take a little getting used to – radiators won’t feel hot to the touch as they do with a gas boiler system, but they’ll still ensure each room is toasty. Vaillant’s sensoCOMFORT control will manage your heating efficiently, so …

3 clever ways to use Google Opal to build mini apps without any code

3 clever ways to use Google Opal to build mini apps without any code

Published by skeptic

Google Opal is quickly becoming a household name as a Labs experiment, and it’s the easiest way to vibe code tiny apps with AI. Previously, Google Opal was limited in functionality and availability, but that’s finally changing. Google opened up Opal to over 160 countries late last year, and expanded its feature set in a big way last month. Instead of needing to provide Opal with detailed instructions for every step in the app-building process, vibe coders can now use an AI agent to automate parts of the app and deploy mini-apps in new ways. The characteristic setting Opal apart is that it’s truly a no-code solution. You can use natural-language prompts to describe what you want to build, and Opal will think up a mini app for you. Or, you can use the Opal visual editor to create custom “workflows” made up of “actions” and “chains.” These are the building blocks of Opal mini apps, and they’re easy for anyone to build. Whichever way you create mini apps, you won’t encounter a single line …

Kawasaki patent reveals new electric motorcycle with clever frame

Kawasaki patent reveals new electric motorcycle with clever frame

Published by skeptic

Kawasaki may have taken its sweet time to slowly bring us the most basic level of commuter electric motorcycles, but a new patent shows that the company has quietly been working on more advanced designs that could signify a major leap in development for the company. It is important to note that most electric motorcycles are designed around their powertrains in a fairly integrated way. In some cases, the motor and battery pack become structural elements within the chassis itself, meaning the frame is effectively designed around a specific motor configuration. That approach works well for performance and rigidity, but it can limit flexibility if a manufacturer wants to create multiple models with different motors. Kawasaki’s newly published patent, as noted by Cycle World’s Ben Purvis, proposes a different idea: a modular mounting system that allows multiple motor types to fit within the same motorcycle frame. The basic design outwardly resembles Kawasaki’s existing Z e-1 and Ninja e-1 electric motorcycles, featuring a steel trellis frame with removable battery packs positioned between the frame rails and …

Gone review – Did he do it? David Morrissey unravels in clever, nuanced drama

Gone review – Did he do it? David Morrissey unravels in clever, nuanced drama

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter None of us know how we would react to the news of the body of a loved one being found in woodland near our home. But David Morrissey’s painfully uptight headteacher Michael Polly’s first thought is to furiously reprimand Detective Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles), who has just delivered this terrible news, for walking mud into his house. It is, as we’ve already learned by that point, fairly typical behaviour. Polly is, as Cassidy puts it, “a funny fish”. Might he also be a murderer? Let’s just say that on the basis of early impressions, it doesn’t seem impossible. ITV’s new crime thriller Gone is a fiction but one inspired by real-life detective Julie Mackay and crime journalist Robert Murphy’s 2024 book To Hunt a Killer. As such, it has the ring of both practical and narrative veracity. Michael Polly lives for …

TCL quietly did something clever with its Nxtpaper phone and AMOLED at MWC

TCL quietly did something clever with its Nxtpaper phone and AMOLED at MWC

Published by skeptic

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways TCL has unveiled a Nxtpaper AMOLED concept phone. It promotes more vivid imagery while retaining its eye-comfort elements. Key upgrades include a higher polarization rate and reduced blue light. TCL’s Nxtpaper line of phones and tablets has always been a ‘comfort pick’ for me, as their displays are treated to effectively promote eye care and digital well-being. That’s why the company’s latest upgrade left me flailing my arms around upon discovery. Also: Best of MWC 2026: Live updates on phones, concepts, and robots we’re seeing By building Nxtpaper over AMOLED, TCL says its phones can now achieve more vivid visuals while retaining the level of eye comfort we’ve come to expect. In a warm, naturally-lit room, I picked up a working model and saw the difference myself. Since the beginning, TCL Nxtpaper has been rooted in LCD panels, partly for the ease of light management (to create that natural e-paper appearance) and cost. The downside of LCD backlighting, however, is reduced contrast …

10 Clever Home Appliance Innovations You’ll See in 2026

10 Clever Home Appliance Innovations You’ll See in 2026

Published by skeptic

KBIS 2026 was full of industry firsts. Much of the innovation on display at the sprawling home and kitchen showcase involved large appliances. Top brands, including Samsung, LG, GE and Sharp, were on hand to give a glimpse into the future of home tech. We were there to see it all up close and speak with product managers, engineers and brand reps about all the new large-appliance features coming in 2026.   The latest fridges, ovens, dishwashers and laundry systems were well represented on the show floor, and the innovations on display weren’t just flashy — they were practical upgrades designed to make home life a little easier. Here are 10 standouts from KBIS 2026. 1. Golden Heater, a new quick cooking technology Sharp debuted its Celerity stove with industry-first cooking technology. David Watsky/CNET It’s not every year we get a new type of cooking technology. Sharp’s new Celerity oven features “Golden Heater” technology that fuses microwave, true convection and infrared heat to cook food three times faster than a standard oven. We tasted cookies baked in just …

Truly Clever People Who Underestimate Their Intelligence Often Share These 11 Traits

Truly Clever People Who Underestimate Their Intelligence Often Share These 11 Traits

Published by Jenni Sidey

There are a wide variety of ways to measure intelligence, just as there are many forms that intelligence takes. In fact, psychologist Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences holds that there are eight distinct types: logical and mathematical, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, spatial, musical, and naturalist. People who are not only smart but also truly clever are particularly quick and resourceful. But clever people may also have a tendency to underestimate their own intelligence at times, especially when they share some particular traits. Truly clever people who underestimate their intelligence often share these 11 traits 1. They are highly curious Golubovy | Shutterstock Truly clever people seek answers to life’s most difficult questions, and they don’t stop their quest for knowledge just because they’ve completed the traditional educational path. Their desire to understand how the world works leads them to read voraciously and engage in intellectual conversations with people around them. Your curiosity can cover a wide range of topics, and you’re always looking for connections and larger implications among seemingly disparate subjects. RELATED: 10 Signs You’re …

12 Clever Ways To Store Books Without A Single Bookshelf | Diane Quintana

12 Clever Ways To Store Books Without A Single Bookshelf | Diane Quintana

Published by Jenni Sidey

If you want to learn how to organize and store books without a bookshelf, it starts with a little creativity. I’ve been in love with books ever since I could sit still long enough to listen to a story. I’ve collected a wide variety of books and truly enjoy sharing my collection with family and friends. Over the years, I’ve reduced my book collection so that they fit on the few bookshelves in my home. But no matter how many books you have, you typically want a place to display them. The mere presence of books in your home has real benefits. A two-decade-long study discovered that having books visible around the house increases vocabulary development, attention, and even job success later in life. The most logical place is a bookshelf. What do you do if you love books and have a large collection of them, but don’t have a bookshelf? There’s no need to go shopping. You just have to get a little creative with your organizing strategy and repurpose empty, unused spaces in …

The clever way food trucks are now using e-bike batteries

The clever way food trucks are now using e-bike batteries

Published by skeptic

New York City’s food carts are part of the city’s soul. They’re loud, fast, fragrant, and everywhere – serving up everything from tacos to kebabs on street corners that somehow never sleep. But for all their charm, there’s one thing almost everyone agrees could disappear tomorrow without being missed: the rattling, smoky gas generators that keep those carts powered. Now, in a twist that feels peak New York, some of those carts are starting to run on the same batteries that power the city’s e-bike delivery fleet. A Brooklyn-based startup called PopWheels is piloting a system that uses swappable e-bike batteries to power food carts, replacing small gasoline generators with silent, emissions-free electricity. The first full-scale test recently took place at La Chona Mexican, a food cart operating on a busy Manhattan corner – and it didn’t take long for neighboring vendors to notice something was different. Specifically: the absence of noise, fumes, and vibration. Advertisement – scroll for more content It’s a cool idea, but it wasn’t the company’s initial goal. PopWheels didn’t set …

Matthew McConaughey Is Using a Clever Legal Trick to Bludgeon AI Companies

Matthew McConaughey Is Using a Clever Legal Trick to Bludgeon AI Companies

Published by José Betancourt

Michael Buckner/SXSW Conference & Festivals via Getty Images For years now, actors have rung the alarm bells over the AI industry planning to sell their likeness and voices — either with or without their consent — and hence threatening to put them out of work. Beyond a major 2023 strike by Hollywood actors fueled by these concerns, we’ve already seen actors take matters into their own hands, like when Scarlett Johansson threatened to sue OpenAI over a ChatGPT update that she claims imitated her voice. Two voice actors have also filed a lawsuit, accusing an AI startup of using their voices to train their AI without permission. Tensions came to a head last year when an AI company unveiled an AI actor dubbed Tilly Norwood. The news was met by near-universal backlash from both industry insiders and the public, further stoking fears of the industry coming for human actors’ jobs. To get ahead of having the industry making unauthorized AI dupes of his likeness or voice, Hollywood star Matthew McConaughey came up with a clever …