We consciously focused on a realistic zoom range (3x, 5x, 10x) that can achieve good results in everyday use. In terms of optical zoom, the iPhone 14 Pro Max features a telephoto lense with 3x zoom while the Pixel 7 Pro uses 5x zoom. The Galaxy S22 Ultra has two telephoto lenses with 3x/10x optical zoom, and the Vivo X80 Pro provides 2x and 5x optical zoom.   

None of the manufacturers can achieve decent image quality in the dark, and even in daylight and in a well-lit room, all smartphones achieve significantly lower quality at 3x zoom. Over…….

Last spring, Anthony Tabarez celebrated prom like many of today’s high schoolers: dancing the night away and capturing it through photos and videos. The snapshots show Mr. Tabarez, 18, and his friends grinning, jumping around and waving their arms from a crowded dance floor.

But instead of using his smartphone, Mr. Tabarez documented prom night with an Olympus FE-230, a 7.1-megapixel, silver digital camera made in 2007 and previously owned by his mother. During his senior year of high school, cameras like it started appearing i…….

Steven Pinker

Shortly after publishing my book The Better Angels of Our Nature, on the historical decline of violence, I attended a conference sponsored by a foreign policy magazine at which a journalist asked me: “What would it take to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide?” Thinking it was a trick question, I quipped: “Redefine ‘poverty’.” An eavesdropping economist said to me: “That was a cynical answer”, and recommended a short new book by the development expert Charles Kenny called Getting Better.

Th…….

THE WANDERING MIND: What Medieval Monks Tell Us About Distraction, by Jamie Kreiner

Among the resources that have been plundered by modern technology, the ruins of our attention have commanded a lot of attention. We can’t focus anymore. Getting any “deep work” done requires formidable willpower or a broken modem. Reading has degenerated into skimming and scrolling. The only real way out is to adopt a meditation practice and cultivate a monkish existence.

But in actual historical fact, a lif…….

MEXICO CITY, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Iran could be contributing to war crimes in Ukraine by providing drones to Russia, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday.

“Their weapons are being …….

WASHINGTON ― The Pentagon has awarded L3Harris Technologies a $40 million order to send Ukraine “Vampire” counter-drone systems by mid-year, the company announced Monday.

L3Harris said it will install 14 kits onto vehicles the U.S. government provides Ukraine. Vampire, which stands for Vehicle Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment, consists of a laser-guided-missile launcher that can quickly be installed in a civilian truck bed.

<p…….

When an interviewer said in 1959 that he’d heard that TS Eliot composed on the typewriter, he received a qualified reply. “Partly on the typewriter,” Eliot responded, and offered an insight into his recent play, The Elder Statesman, saying that it was initially produced in pencil on paper, before he transferred it to the machine. “In typing myself I make alterations,” he said, “very considerable ones.”

The early poems of the Prufrock years were mostly begun in manuscript and occasionally transferred to typescript (Conrad Aiken possessed a sheet produced by Eliot in sple…….

Researchers say they have discovered what they call a “proto-writing system” embedded in 20,000-year-old cave paintings, making it the earliest form of some sort of writing we’ve ever found.

Hunters from the Upper Palaeolithic era would have used the symbols daubed on the walls to pass on essential survival information: The researchers suggest they show a record of animal mating seasons, organized by the lunar months.

It’s a significant finding because it pushes back the earliest form of Homo sapiens writing by around 14,000 years.

Although we’re not looking at letters an…….

Thomas Evans Zanot, a Las Vegas poker player, now has a much larger bankroll after hitting a $6.4 million Pai Gow jackpot at Flamingo Saturday night.

Although it’s only January, the hit will likely be one of the largest jackpots Las Vegas will see all year. In October, a gambler hit a $3.5 million Pai Gow Poker jackpot at nearby Harrah’s, a Caesars Entertainment property like Flamingo.

Play Pai Gow Online: Practice Pai Gow and Win Your Games!

To win the top progressive jackpot in Pai gow, a popular table game played at most casinos, the player must first plac…….