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The Legend of Ochi feels like a film that shouldn't exist today. It's an original story, not an adaptation of an already popular book or comic. It's filled with complex puppetry and practical effects, something many films avoid because CG is simply easier to deal with. And it evokes some of the scarier children's films of the '80s and '90s, like the nightmare-inducing adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches.

According to Isaiah Saxon, the film's writer and director, it was a struggle to get The Legend of Ochi made. "The attempt to make the film took longer than the making of the film," he said in an interview on the Engadget Podcast. " I think it's extremely hard to reach kids with your first film because kids are kind of behind this kind of corporatized IP world now. But I really wanted to reach kids with my first film and, and so that's why it took so long."

Whenever he received a bit of funding for the film, Saxon says he used it to prototype creatures with London's John Nolan Studios, which has built animatronics for films like Jurassic World Dominion, as well as scouted locations in Romania. "And so, through the three-and-a-half years of this work before I got a green light [to make the film], I had then accrued this visual package that was kind of undeniable," he said. "That's when A24 finally just said, okay we're gonna be bold and risky and this isn't what anyone normally does, but we're gonna believe in you here."

The result is a film that feels incredibly personal and distinct. It centers on a young girl, Yuri (Helena Zengel), who is growing up in a tiny village on the island of Carpathia. There the people fear the Ochi, mysterious primates who live in the forests and attack farm animals. Her father Maxim (Willem Dafoe in another unhinged A24 film performance) is a conservative, overly-macho man who leads a band of boys to hunt Ochi. Oh yeah, and he occasionally wears Viking armor.

A24

The film begins with the Ochi, who from afar look like menacing monkeys. Yuri was raised to fear them, but after encountering one young Ochi, she begins to reject everything her father taught her. It also helps that the creature looks adorable, with large eyes and protruding ears, it's a bit like The Mandalorian's Grogu (AKA Baby Yoda), but with fur. The infant Ochi is also a complex puppet created by John Nolan Studios, and it looks uncanny at first, since these days we expect it to be computer generated. But it's clearly a physical object, with actual facial movements that Yuri can react to.

"Puppetry is such an ancient art form," Saxon said, when I asked why he pushed to make the Ochi a puppet and not a purely CG creature. "We've been making shadows on the cave wall for thousands of years, and our brain as we watch the human hand give life to a character is just fully accepting of it."

"And then there's also the charm of the failure space of puppetry. Even when you're not doing it just right, it feels alive. And especially for this baby primate, we found immediately as we were testing the puppet, that the little imperfections that came through rod puppeteering were actually exactly the way that a little baby monkey would be just discovering how to move their own body."

A24

Creating a believable puppet is just one problem though, another is orchestrating it effectively on a movie set. "[John Nolan Studios] pushed the limits of what you could do at a really small scale with animatronics," Saxon said. "We were able to prototype for years to build these creatures. And then on set, we have extensively rehearsed every single scene with all these puppeteers. There's five on the body led by Rob Tygner, who's doing the head, and he's kind of calling out the internal monologue of the animal — all its thinking, all its vocalization — so that everyone can sync."

Another two people control the puppet's face while staring at monitors, so there's a challenge to making them all work as one entity, Saxon says. The film's sets are also built to hold all of the people who control the Ochi puppet, and who often need to be hidden from view. And then there are the suit performers. "We have small people in ape suits with hand extensions with heavy animatronic heads that they can barely see out of. They're hot and they're out in the Carpathian wilderness in the mountains of Transylvania," Saxon said.

After seeing what he accomplished with The Legend of Ochi, it's not hard to see Disney tapping Saxon for something in the Marvel universe, like it has with so many independent filmmakers. But that likely won't happen. "I've already said no," Saxon remarked in regards to making a Marvel film, and he also has no desire to make anything based on an existing IP.

Saxon isn't entirely against using digital tools, despite his obvious love for puppetry. The Legend of Ochi still uses CG for distant shots of the Ochi, and for creating virtual sets. "I've also, over the years, learned CG and I've made purely animated 3D films. And I know the software myself and I know that it's a bespoke craft art that is tedious and full of love and attention to detail."

"It doesn't get the respect it deserves," he added. "And that's partly because there's been a kind of corporatization and overuse of CG a lot.” Saxon says he was well aware a CG character couldn’t carry the film, but he also knew that it was the best way to create a 3D river that didn’t exist in Romania. (It’s also reminiscent of the music video he directed for Bjork’s “Wanderlust.”)

"You have to look at each opportunity and come to the technique organically for the task. You can't have philosophies about this."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/tv-movies/it-feels-alive-the-legend-of-ochi-director-on-the-power-of-puppets-183043579.html?src=rss

The fashion-forward adventure Infinity Nikki is finally coming to Steam on April 29, complete with its iconic photo mode. The Steam version launches alongside a major update called Bubble Season that brings some new features to the game on all platforms.

First and foremost, Bubble Season will introduce co-op play. This two-player mode lets a pair of friends explore the entire game world. There will be unique co-op puzzles and new escort missions.

The update brings a new area and, of course, a whole bunch of new outfits to collect. Publisher Papergames is also bringing back some old outfits from previous seasons, for those who missed the boat. There’s even a new fashion runway gameplay mechanic with new interactions for photo mode.

Finally, Bubble Season adds a new dye mechanic, which changes outfit colors. We don’t know exactly how this will work, but it looks to add even more customization options. Again, all of these features will be available on April 29 for PC, mobile and PS5.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/infinity-nikki-is-coming-to-steam-and-getting-a-co-op-mode-185014372.html?src=rss

Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant, appears to be struggling to match its competition in terms of popularity. The number of people using Copilot has remained around 20 million weekly users for the last year, according to tech newsletter Newcomer, while OpenAI's ChatGPT has hit as high as 400 million weekly users.

The data was shared at an annual executive meeting in March by Microsoft's chief financial officer Amy Hood, Newcomer reports, and raise some concerns about the AI future Microsoft is pitching. Microsoft uses OpenAI's models to power Copilot, and the assistant offers similar features to ChatGPT, but they clearly don't draw the same interest from users. The company has also built Copilot into Windows 11, Microsoft 365 and the Edge browser, without apparently reaping the benefit of additional user growth.

The need to revamp Copilot, become less dependent on OpenAI and reimagine the company's assistant as a true consumer product were Microsoft's motivations for acqui-hiring Mustafa Suleyman and his team from Inflection AI. Suleyman's work as CEO of Microsoft AI has culminated so far in a redesign of Copilot, and the launch of several new features, including the ability for the AI to take action for you in certain websites. It's maybe the start of a cohesive vision, but not one that's immediately connected with Windows users or anyone else.

Microsoft invested billions in OpenAI to aid the company's research and gain privileged access to its models, all in the hopes of competing with Google. Even with that access, ChatGPT arriving first seems to have had the biggest impact on turning people into AI users. ChatGPT was the AI assistant people tried first, and it's not clear what new Copilot feature will pull them away.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/it-seems-like-most-windows-users-dont-care-for-copilot-195500516.html?src=rss

Android tablet or foldable owners can now adjust the divider between Gmail's message list and conversation views. 9to5Google spotted the change, which arrived in version 2025.04.13.x of Gmail for Android.

The update lets you drag your finger on the divider to dynamically change the sizes of the Gmail app's two panes: the list on the left with multiple messages and the pane on the right that shows individual emails and threads. Alternatively, you can drag the boundary to the display's edge to show only one or the other.

The adjustable divider is also available in the Google Chat app for large-screen Android devices. The new feature is available to everyone with a personal Google or Google Workspace account in both apps.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/tablets/gmail-on-android-tablets-and-foldables-now-has-an-adjustable-layout-202111833.html?src=rss

If you’re looking for hosting solutions under $30 a month, Hostinger and HostGator are two of the best web hosting companies that you might be considering. Both hosting providers offer services that are suitable for first time website owners wanting to host their first site but there are differences between them.

Hostinger vs HostGator: main similarities & differences

Hostinger and HostGator both offer web hosting in the form of shared hosting, WordPress hosting, and VPS hosting. The packages are also very similar. Both offer a free domain for the first year, high bandwidth allowances, SSL certificates, money-back guarantees, and website builders.Both provide a CDN and have uptime guarantees of higher than 99%. There is very little to separate these two hosts.Where they do differ is in email and backups. With Hostinger backups and email are free for the entire life of the hosting plan. With HostGator they become paid-for add-ons after the first year.

(Image credit: HostGator)

Price comparison

Hostinger’s most basic plan comes in at only $2.49/mo for the first four years and then renews at $7.99 per month for the next four years. Should you not want to renew for four years it's $11.99/mo. In comparison, HostGator's cheapest plan is $2.75 for the first year and then $10.99/mo after. This makes Hostinger considerably cheaper of the span of 8 years.Hostinger’s basic plan lets you host 25 websites, offers 25GB of SSD storage, weekly backups, and email. HostGator on the other hand supports 10 websites, 10 GB storage, and unmetered bandwidth.

Ease of use

HostGator use cPanel for the hosting panel. It has been the industry standard for a long time but price increases have pushed many web hosting providers to create their own in-house panel. We find cPanel to be a bit out-of-date now but there is a familiarity to it that many will like. Plus, as it's been around a while and used by so many there are tutorials all over the web.When it comes to building a website HostGator have a website builder that we used and found to be uncomplicated and intuitive to use.Hostinger use their own hPanel to manage the server. From there you can click through to manage websites or stay in the panel to monitor the site health and manage domains and emails. Hostinger have two website builder options. One is an AI website builder and the other is a drag-and-drop option.

(Image credit: Future)

Performance

Shared hosting could potentially lead to instability, if the server is not managed well by the host. This is because multiple accounts share the same server. Too many sites or a few sites that take up too many resources can cause an overall slowdown of the entire server. HostGator safeguards their hosted sites’ performance by limiting how many clients each server hosts. As a result, HostGator’s sites perform well beyond expectations.Hostinger’s high-performance solid-state drives alone make data load faster, resulting in an uptime guarantee of up to 99.9% and a relatively higher site loading speed, due in part to their servers being located in three continents. When we stress tested Hostinger's shared server we encountered rate limiting quite quickly. We still got the fair amount of performance for our site and it showed that Hostinger are good at managing websites that start to take more than a reasonable share.

Dedicated, VPS, WordPress hosting comparison

HostGator has one dedicated hosting plan. It starts at $141.19 a month and renews at $188.79 a month. For this you get 8 CPU cores, 32 GB DDR5 RAM, 1000 GB NVMe storage, unmetered bandwidth, and one dedicated IP.Hostinger don't offer dedicated hosting but it does have four VPS plans. You can choose the location from a datacenter in the US, Brazil, France, Germany, Lithuania, or Germany.

Hostinger's VPS plans seem to offer much better value but HostGator's VPS plans come with semi-management. This means that they'll monitor the server and provide premium support. With Hostinger's VPS servers, you're more on your own.Hostinger's plans are also more weighted towards RAM which can be handy for web applications that make frequent queries to large databases.

Website builder comparison

Hostinger’s in-house and widely known website builder, lets you publish a website within minutes with an easy and beginner-friendly interface. With the tool, building a website takes only three steps: choose an SEO-optimized template, drag & drop to edit, and pick a plan to publish.HostGator’s website builder also offers the “build a website within minutes” feature. Unlike Hostinger, their website builder will require five (easy) steps to launch, which includes answering some questions, inserting your logo, adding your images, editing, and then launching the site. This website builder also allows drag-and-drop and has a simple and beginner-friendly interface.HostGator and Hostinger’s website builders both offer non-complex website building, but since Hostinger's website builder is extremely easy to use, Hostinger takes this round easy.

Security

Neither HostGator nor Hostinger takes security and protection lightly. That’s why you’ll get a free SSL, regular backups, DDoS protection and server monitoring included in your plan with both companies. These backups are automated and while Hostinger lets you download and keep your backup files, HostGator wipes them out weekly.When it comes to advanced security options, however, HostGator has additional security measures from add-ons that you can find on the cPanel. These features cost a little extra, though. Hostinger has some of these advanced features available without extra charges. Hostinger’s security features are hands down more enticing, with the free advanced security features sealing the deal.

Customer support

As mentioned earlier in this article, both Hostinger and HostGator will have their support team ready to assist you anytime anything goes wrong to keep your website up and running. That means having their team on standby 24/7.Hostinger only has live chat and email agents available, which means having a live agent is the fastest way you can have someone to the rescue if something isn’t working, which isn’t half as bad, except when you find out that Hostinger has phone agents ready to talk you through troubleshooting steps, on top of live chat support. That said, we’d have to give it to Hostinger’s customer support team.

Verdict

The comparison we’ve just made has hopefully shown how close the competition is between these two popular hosting providers, which should help if you're stumped and cannot make a decision. There’s not a lot of difference between these two hosting providers as both give great performance and offer their quality services in reasonably-priced plans. However, when you take into consideration how much cheaper and more practical Hostinger’s plans are, not to mention a free trial to use their website builder and free advanced security features, Hostinger does get a huge advantage over its toughest competitor, HostGator.

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AI voices usually aim to be realistic in a friendly way, mimicking relaxed, happy, helpful people. But a new open-source model named Dia is leaning into the more emotional spectrum of voices, including some really intense screaming.Dia’s creators at Nari Labs are a tiny group, but have given AI voices the option to sound like a somewhat melodramatic performer, capable of making realistic laughing, coughing, throat-clearing, sniffing, and yes, yelling.

You might not think that yelling is a big deal for AI at this point, but screaming is hard to fake. It can't just be talking loudly; it's an entirely different speech mode.Emotionally expressive speech is a gap in most AI voices. It’s easy for a voice model to read a bedtime story. However, it’s much harder for it to sound like it’s trying to calm a friend down, or like it just saw something shocking. Most commercial models avoid sounding robotic by smoothing the tone of the voice, which doesn't leave room for the kind of audio asymmetry of speaking emotionally.Dia treats nonverbal communication as part of the performance. It knows that "(coughs)" isn’t something to be ignored or read literally. It knows that a scream isn’t just a louder line. And it performs these things with a level of timing, pitch modulation, and breath control that makes them feel more real.One enterprising user even used it to recreate a bit of the famous Leroy Jenkins sketch carried out on World of Warcraft.

That's not to say that OpenAI, ElevenLabs, Google, Sesame, and others haven't produced amazing AI voice models. You can customize OpenAI's Advanced Voice Mode to speak with different emotions, and ElevenLabs is good at interpreting capitalization and punctuation to adjust speech, but that's not the same as yelping in surprise or wheezing with laughter.Sesame is particularly good at sounding and reacting like a real person, but even its models err towards cheerful and generally positive demeanors.Of course, realism is subjective, and you might work out pretty quickly that Dia is an AI voice. Then again, fake screams and laughs are also pretty human sounds to make in the right context.

Two undergrads. One still in the military. Zero funding.One ridiculous goal: build a TTS model that rivals NotebookLM Podcast, ElevenLabs Studio, and Sesame CSM.Somehow… we pulled it off. Here’s how 👇 pic.twitter.com/8cfJSegciXApril 21, 2025

Scream for AI

What makes this a bigger story than just “AI voice learns a party trick” is what it signals for the broader race in AI for emotional intelligence.We’re rapidly entering an era where it won’t be enough for your assistant to say the right thing; it’ll need to say it in the right way. Think customer support bots that sound genuinely sorry, teachers that sound encouraging instead of instructional, and in-game characters that convey sincerity.Of course, giving AI the power to emote convincingly makes it more persuasive and thus potentially more manipulative. If emotional speech can be just another AI tool, then more than a few people may feel like screaming themselves.Still, I can imagine some fun writing a ghost story for Dia to not just read, but perform, screams and all.

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After a couple years of having its open-source Llama AI model be just a part of its Connect conferences, Meta is breaking things out and hosting an entirely generative AI-focused developer conference called LlamaCon on April 29. The event is entirely virtual, and you'll be able to watch along live on the Meta for Developers Facebook page.

LlamaCon kicks off at 1PM ET / 10AM PT with a keynote address from Meta's Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, Vice President of AI Manohar Paluri and research scientist Angela Fan. The keynote is supposed to cover developments in the company's open-source AI community, "the latest on the Llama collection of models and tools" and offer a glimpse at yet-to-be released AI features.

The keynote address will be followed by a conversation at 1:45PM ET / 10:45PM ET between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi on "building AI-powered applications," followed by a chat at 7PM ET / 4PM PT about "the latest trends in AI" between Zuckerberg and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. It doesn't seem like either conversation will be used to break news, but Microsoft and Meta have collaborated before, so anything is possible.

Meta hasn't traditionally waited for a conference to launch updates to Meta AI or the Llama model. The company introduced its new Llama 4 family of models, which excel at image understanding and document parsing, on a Saturday in early April. It's not clear what new models or products the company could have saved for LlamaCon.

LlamaCon will stream live on April 29th through the Meta for Developers Facebook page and we'll be live-blogging the event right here on Engadget so you can get all the details as they happen.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/how-to-watch-llamacon-2025-metas-first-generative-ai-developer-conference-215241289.html?src=rss

There’s a new AI image fad spreading on the internet, one that could bring new life to those dusty shoeboxes and family albums. ChatGPT users have discovered that the AI assistant can take old photos and mimic a restored, colorized version.I first saw it discussed on a Reddit thread, one that was initially skeptical of ChatGPT's restoration ability for good reason.The AI was far more likely to take an old headshot and 'restore' it by making a headshot of someone who might be the cousin of the person in the original photo. Thanks to tips shared by others on Reddit and Instagram on how to make it work properly, I cobbled together a prompt that does a pretty good job of it.The prompt I settled on is: “Please upscale and colorize this photo while keeping it faithful to the time period. Do not change the arrangement, expressions, background, or attire; only add period-accurate color and details. The new photo should overlay the original exactly."It's not actually restoring the image, but you might think of it as a recreation by an art forager with a modernist streak. The results are in color, with better resolution, any damage repaired, and even some lost details reimaged.Again, it's important to remember this isn't the same thing as enhancing the actual photo, but it's amusing, and certainly feels less problematic than swiping Studio Ghibli's style.To test out the trend, I pulled some public domain photos from the Library of Congress, which is truly an amazing resource. Check out some of the results below.

Rough Rider Restoration

(Image credit: Library of Congress/ChatGPT-generated image)

First up is President Theodore Roosevelt. The photo catches Teddy in the middle of a writing session at his desk. The desk has a large plaque and, a very of the time, liquor decanter with glasses. After ChatGPT does its work, you can see some fine details and colors.Now, not all of those details are right. Hand positions, chair arm shape, a radio replaced with what looks like a large candle, and plenty more. It managed to capture a lot of the man himself pretty well, though.

Bike to the future

(Image credit: Library of Congress/ChatGPT-generated image)

Next came the bicycle delivery boy. Again, the person looked amazingly like the original. The original photo was already lively, with puddles on a street that is clearly filthy. The colorized version decided that meant the street had a nice hardwood floor for some reason.Even so, the sign on the building behind the bicyclist, along with the crowd in the background, all really pop. It even managed to get the reflection of the bicycle on the ground.

Soda jerk

(Image credit: Library of Congress/ChatGPT-generated image)

Moving ahead in time a bit is this soda jerk. A happy fellow smiling while handing over what I can only assume is an egg cream or a root beer float with the flair of a Broadway actor playing “guy who loves seltzer.”ChatGPT delivered a restored version that nailed his face and expression, not to mention the bow tie. Sure, the hair is a little off, and I'm not sure how appetizing the modern drink looks, but it seems like he enjoys his job in the black void behind the counter.

Iterate, iterate, iterate

(Image credit: Library of Congress/ChatGPT)

Then came the two policemen in their long coats and tall hats. I assume the serious mustaches were part of the uniform. The colorized version brought their uniforms to life with deep navy blue tones and brass buttons that practically gleam.The officers are a little taller than their black and white counterparts, with somewhat better tailoring, but it's a photo that belongs in the same law enforcement portraits.

Mr. Mustache

(Image credit: Library of Congress/ChatGPT-generated image)

Speaking of mustaches, that's the real star of the last photo. You almost don't even notice the gentleman behind it. It's not just facial hair, it's architecture. The restored version very slightly cleaned up the stray hairs, but otherwise, this was the most impressive result.The face, haircut, coat, and even the crease in the shirt are there. Every bristle is crisp, and wherever he's headed, I'd love to see the rest of the barbershop quartet.

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This week, we celebrated Earth Day with a suite of sustainability-focused pieces, saw our LG TVs morph into Xboxes, and got to experience the new Insta360 X5.To catch up on all that and more from the world of tech, scroll down for recaps of the week's seven biggest tech news stories.When you're done, be sure to check out our picks for the seven new movies and TV shows to watch this weekend (April 25).

7. We hosted Sustainability Week 2025

(Image credit: Shutterstock / Troyan)

To celebrate Earth Day this year, we've put together a suite of stories from across the tech industry to celebrate, challenge, and highlight all things sustainable.With deep dives into sustainability champions like Fairphone, exciting details on breakthroughs in sustainable tech – like how extreme heat could be the answer to our lithium ion battery woes – and guides on how to best shop for secondhand tech, we have you covered with articles that are well worth your time if you’re keen to go green.We’ve also published new video content on our TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube channels, so make sure you're subscribed on those platforms if you want to see all of our sustainability coverage from this past week.

Read more: Check out all of our Sustainability Week 2025 content.

6. Alexa+ early adopters told us their first thoughts

(Image credit: Amazon)

Almost two months after it was announced, Alexa+ still hasn’t appeared on our Echo Show devices. We’re getting impatient, but thankfully, a member of Amazon’s early adopter program has taken to Reddit to share their experiences with the new voice assistant while we wait.It sounds like there are still a few quirks to be worked out (Alexa+ tries to direct users to Amazon Music when they want to play from Spotify), but overall, they were pretty impressed – particularly when it came to interpreting complex questions and synthesizing speech. "Old Alexa was hot garbage, but this new one was a pleasant surprise,” the tester concluded.High praise indeed.

Read more: Alexa+ early adopter gives their thoughts

5. Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders went live in the US

(Image credit: Future)

Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders finally went live on April 24 in the US after the unexpected delay that came during the US tariff uncertainty earlier this month. And there were mixed results with how it went, to say the least.Away from Nintendo’s own invite-based pre-order system, three big retailers in Walmart, Target, and Best Buy, all launched their pre-orders at midnight on April 24. There was huge clamour for the product, and while some offered only the standard console and Mario Kart World bundle, others (Best Buy) crafted a whole heap of bespoke bundles.GameStop opted for going later in the day, releasing in-store pre-orders when shops opened, and choosing to put its online stock live at 11am. However, this method was - from our learned experience, at least - a huge disappointment. The interest was so high that GameStop’s website fully stopped working for large periods of time.Across the board, it was a familiar story in terms of a sought-after hardware launch: some folks were lucky, and some folks were not. Here’s hoping it all levels out soon enough. The UK’s Switch 2 pre-order status is now less hectic, but readily available stock remains hard to come by.

Read more: Nintendo Switch 2 pre-orders live – all the latest updates in the US and UK

4. LG TVs became Xboxes

(Image credit: Xbox)

This week Microsoft continued its mission to turn everything into an Xbox, with its latest efforts transforming your LG TV into an Xbox through its cloud gaming service.If you have a WebOS 24 or WebOS 25-compatible TV (i.e. if your LG TV launched in 2022 or after, or if it’s a 2021 StanbyME display) you can install a beta version of the XBox app. All you’ll need then is an Xbox controller and a Game Pass Ultimate subscription.Just remember that because it’s all happening in the cloud the quality of your experience will be determined by the quality of your internet connection, so if your connection isn’t the most stable your LG Xbox gaming might be a little choppy.

Read more: LG displays can now cloud stream Game Pass games without a console

3. We got our hands on the new Motorola Razr Ultra

(Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

The 2025 Motorola Razr family is here, including the new flagship Motorola Razr Ultra, and Motorola is tripling down on its commitment to unique CMF - color, materials, and finish. Besides the unique color options – all straight from Pantone’s color catalog – Motorola is making phones with unique materials like real wood and Italian Alcantara, and offering finish options that make the phones feel like nylon, Acetate, or faux leather.This Razr is truly the antidote for boring phone design, and I had fun flipping through the different looks to decide which I liked best. Spoiler: it’s the Alcantara, which has a luxurious and soft feel; though it’s a toss-up between that Scarab color and the new Mountain Trail wood option.The Razr Ultra is no slouch in the spec department either, and Motorola is finally offering flagship performance in its high-end model. Sadly, that comes with a higher price tag this year, but it could be worth the extra cost if the cameras and battery deliver on their promise.

Read more: Hands-on with the new Moto Razr Ultra – I love that it brings back one unique phone feature I missed out on

2. Insta360’s new X5 360 camera dropped

(Image credit: Insta360)

Just over a year ago, we declared the Insta360 X4 is the best 360 camera out there – and this week got a sequel with the inventively named Insta360 X5.This new and improved model can record 8K 360-degree at 30 frames per second or 5.7K at 60fps – like its predecessor – though with a bigger image sensor it should deliver much better low-light image quality than the X4, and should boast better dynamic range at all resolutions to make the color of your shots appear more vibrant.You’ll also appreciate the bigger battery capacity, efficiencies, and heat dissipation that Insta360 says result in the X5 boasting a 37% longer battery life and the device running less hot – an issue we know some had with the X4 before it. This means you should be able to rely on the X5 to record more of your adventures between charges.The Insta360 X5 Standard Version costs $549.99 / £519.99 / AU$929.99, while the Essentials Bundle costs $659.99 / £609.99 / AU$1,109.99 and includes an extra battery, fast charge case, 114cm invisible selfie stick, standard lens guards, lens cap, and carry case.

Read more: Insta360’s new X5 improves on the X4 where it matters most

1. Adobe gave us a new AI-powered mood board

(Image credit: Future)

One of AI’s most useful tricks is acting as a brainstorming sidekick – and Adobe has just launched a new tool that looks ideal for visual creativity sessions.Firefly Boards (which is the new name for ‘Project Concept’) is available to try now in beta and is an infinite canvas for moodboarding where you can use both AI-generated images and your own reference photos to come up with fresh ideas. It’s built for designers, but could also level up your birthday party invitations in a big way.There’s a free version with limited credits, and you can join the waitlist now. We can see this one being a massive (and fun) weekend timesink.

Read more: Adobe Max London 2025 live – all the new features coming to Photoshop, Firefly, Premiere Pro and more