"RGB LED TVs have been the talk of the TV world this year," argues The Verge, with models coming from all the manufacturers."
And the first one of 2026 is here — the UR9 from China's Hisense — "the first look at the viability of the new backlight technology outside of demo rooms." They call it "a step above the traditional mini-LED TVs of years past." and "a great first shot against OLED's bow."
HDR is colorful and accurate, it has great brightness, and it is capable of showing colors beyond the P3 color space for movies and TV shows that have wider color. But at $3,500, the 65-inch model I reviewed is priced comparably to high-end OLEDs from LG and Samsung, which is tough competition... One of the touted benefits of RGB LED TVs is their ability to achieve 100 percent of the BT.2020 color space... [But] even if a TV is capable of extending beyond P3 and into BT.2020 colors (which the UR9 absolutely is), with most movies and TV shows it doesn't matter. It's also a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg situation — we need TVs that can accurately display BT.2020 before the color space is fully adopted by TV and movie creators, but if there's no content, why get a BT.2020 TV?

BGR points out this new mini LED TV also "includes a DisplayPort (DP) connection alongside HDMI."

"Well, technically, it's a USB-C port that delivers full DisplayPort functionality, but it's labeled as DisplayPort."

The TV also has three HDMI 2.1 ports, making it a great choice for game consoles and PCs. And while HDMI 2.1 supports 4K/120Hz, the Hisense UR9S will deliver 4K/170Hz or 4K/180Hz visuals [a higher refresh rate] when connected to a gaming PC via DisplayPort. Better yet, the TV is AMD FreeSync-compatible, and Hisense plans on adding Dolby Vision 2 HDR in future firmware.

The Hisense UR9S will be available in four sizes: 65, 75, 85, and 100 inches. It's worth mentioning that the two largest sizes will max out at 180Hz for the refresh rate, while the 65 and 75-inch screens come in at 170Hz. This is exciting news for serious gamers looking for the best gaming TVs and a huge step forward in the evolution of panel tech. RGB Mini LED TVs were showcased by a handful of manufacturers at CES 2026, including Samsung, Sony, and LG; so Hisense will certainly have some competition.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mississippi has one warehouse — run by a contractor — that sells all the liquor for the entire state of 2.9 million people. "If a restaurant or store anywhere in Mississippi wanted a bottle of Jim Beam, they had to order it from the wholesale warehouse," reports the Washington Post.

But then Mississippi's warehouse-managing contractor implemented a new computer system that wasn't compatible with the state's delivery system (like they'd promised it would be back in 2023). And then things got even worse... "The problem, business owners allege, is that the company tore out the conveyor belts but didn't hire humans to replace them."

In February a state Revenue Department commissioner told lawmakers the state was hiring temporary replacement workers, but in the five weeks through March 29th they'd only managed to reduce "pending" orders by 21.7%, from 218,851 down to 171,190, according to stats from Mississippi Today. At least four Mississippi businesses are now suing the warehouse operator "claiming breach of contract and harm to their business."

So what's it like in a state suddenly running dry? The Washington Post reports:

Willie the one-eyed skeleton is dressed for Cinco de Mayo, but the liquor store where Willie sits ran out of Jose Cuervo months ago. Arrow Wine and Spirits is also out of Tito's and Burnett's vodka, Franzia boxed wine, Jack Daniels, and every kind of premixed margarita... Restaurants in Jackson had no wine on Valentine's Day, and bars on the Gulf Coast ran dry before Mardi Gras. At least five liquor shops have closed, and if cheap pints don't hit the corner stores soon, many of them will, too...

[A]s both the state and its businesses lose millions in revenue, many say they see no real end to the crisis. Nearly 174,000 cases of alcohol are sitting in a warehouse north of Jackson, but no one seems to know how to get them out the door... Even the shops that have received deliveries say they often get the wrong thing — Jell-O shots, for instance, that should have been small-batch Norwegian gin...
At Willie the one-eyed skeleton's liquor store they'd previously made 300 to 400 sales a day, according to the article, but last week had 34 customers. And Mississippi is one of 17 U.S. states requiring liquor stores to buy their liquor from distribution centers controlled by the state's Department of Revenue...

Mississippi Today points out that while some want the state to finally privatize liquor distribution, "The state collects around $120 million a year in taxes on alcohol." Plus the state has already authorized "borrowing $95 million to construct a new warehouse, set to begin operations in 2027..."

Thanks to Slashdot reader jrnvk for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The biotech industry's engineered cells could become an $8 trillion market by 2035, notes Phys.org. But how do you keep them from being stolen? Their article notes "an uptick in the theft and smuggling of high-value biological materials, including specially engineered cells."


In Science Advances, a team of U.S. researchers present a new approach to genetically securing precious biological material. They created a genetic combination lock in which the locking or encryption process scrambled the DNA of a cell so that its important instructions were non-functional and couldn't be easily read or used. The unlocking, or decryption, process involves adding a series of chemicals in a precise order over time — like entering a password — to activate recombinases, which then unscramble the DNA to their original, functional form...

They created a biological keypad with nine distinct chemicals, each acting as a one-digit input. By using the same chemicals in pairs to form two-digit inputs, where two chemicals must be present simultaneously to activate a sensor, they expanded the keypad to 45 possible chemical inputs without introducing any new chemicals. They also added safety penalties — if someone tampers with the system, toxins are released — making it extremely unlikely for an unauthorized person to access the cells.


"The researchers conducted an ethical hacking exercise on the test lock and found that random guessing yielded a 0.2% success rate, remarkably close to the theoretical target of 0.1%."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bloomberg describes him as a "former Harvard Medical School professor whose research has focused on the intersection of AI and neuroscience."
"For the past 20 years, I studied how the human brain stores and retrieves memories," Kreiman writes on LinkedIn. And now "My co-founder Spandan Madan and I built a new algorithm to endow humans with perfect and infinite memory."

Engramme connects to your **memorome**, i.e., entire digital life. Large Memory Models work in the same way that your brain encodes and retrieves information. Then memories are recalled automatically — no searching, no prompting, no hallucinations. [The startup's web site promises "omniscient AI to augment human cognition."]

We have built the memory layer for EVERY app. Read our manifesto about augmenting human cognition. ["We are not just building software; we are enabling a complete transformation of human cognition. When the friction disappears between needing a piece of information and recalling it, the nature of thought itself changes. This synergy between biological intuition and digital precision will be the most disruptive force in modern history, fundamentally reshaping every profession... We are dedicated to creating a world where everyone has the power to remember everything they have ever learned, seen, or felt "]

Welcome to a new future where you can remember everything. This is the MEMORY SINGULARITY: after 300,000 years, this is the moment that humans stop forgetting.

Bloomberg reports that the startup (spun out of a lab at Harvard) is "in talks with investors to raise about $100 million, according to people familiar with the matter."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Johann Sebastian Bach

De Coolsingel is vaker het decor van emotie, maar de tranen van deze leraar snijden net wat dieper. Helemaal kapot komt hij over de streep. Niet alleen door de kilometers in de benen, maar vooral door de herinnering aan de 14-jarige Pim.

Presentator Jan Versteegh liep tóch de marathon. Eerder vertelde hij aan Rijnmond dat zijn marathon avontuur voorbij was, vanwege een gescheurde kuitspier. Maar desondanks stond hij er vandaag en finishte hij binnen 04:46:45 uur.

Straaljagers van het Nigeriaanse leger raakten een markt toen ze jaagden op militanten van het jihadistische Boko Haram. Een lokaal bestuurder spreekt tegenover persbureau AFP van „ongeveer tweehonderd doden en gewonden”.

Acht Nederlandse milieustraten doen mee aan een pilot met reparateurs die oude apparaten weer tot leven wekken. In theorie is dat heel simpel: mensen vinden apparaten al snel kapot. Maar de grote vijand in de afvalberg is lekkend frituurvet.

Kinder- en jeugdpsychiaters Carlijn Welten en Niek Hayen ontwikkelden een nieuwe behandelmethode voor kinderen met psychische problemen. In hun zorginstelling worden zij niet in hun eentje behandeld, maar samen met hun broers en zussen, ouders en zelfs grootouders.

TEHERAN (ANP/AFP) - De 'dubbele moraal' van de Verenigde Staten was het grootste obstakel in de vredesonderhandelingen, oordeelt de Iraanse president Masoud Pezeshkian. Dat staat in een verklaring van het Iraanse presidentschap.

"Tijdens de onderhandelingen in Islamabad vormden de aanhoudende dubbele moraal van de Verenigde Staten en hun machtspolitieke ambities de grootste obstakels", zei Pezeshkian in een telefoongesprek met de Russische president Vladimir Poetin.

Pezeshkian stelde ook dat Iran bereid blijft om tot een eerlijk akkoord te komen voor blijvende vrede in de regio. "Een akkoord is zeker haalbaar, maar de Verenigde Staten moeten zich houden aan de internationaal erkende regels en het internationale recht", zei hij.

AMSTERDAM (ANP) - Met het overlijden van Sonja Barend is "een Amsterdammer in hart en nieren heengegaan", reageert Femke Halsema. Volgens de Amsterdamse burgemeester kon je Barend in de Amsterdamse binnenstad dikwijls tegenkomen. "Statig, vrolijk, met altijd een scherpe observatie gereed."

Barend overleed zaterdag op 86-jarige leeftijd. Halsema schrijft bij een foto van de presentatrice op Instagram dat ze gemist zal worden. "Ik wens haar dierbaren veel sterkte met dit grote verlies."

BOEDAPEST (ANP/AFP/RTR) - De centrumrechtse oppositiepartij Tisza in Hongarije kon volgens een exitpoll rekenen op de steun van 55 procent van de kiezers, tegenover 38 procent voor de regerende Fidesz-partij van premier Viktor Orbán. Dat is het resultaat van een peiling door 21 Research Centre.

Volgens de peiling, die werd gepubliceerd op de nieuwssite Telex.hu, eindigt Tisza naar verwachting op 132 zetels in het Hongaarse parlement, dat in totaal 199 zetels telt.

De stembureaus voor de Hongaarse parlementsverkiezingen zijn inmiddels gesloten. De opkomst bereikte met 77,8 procent een recordhoogte. Het vorige record van 70,5 procent werd behaald tijdens de verkiezingen van 2002.

In de verkiezingen van zondag wordt de nationalistische premier Viktor Orbán, die al zestien jaar aan de macht is, uitgedaagd door de conservatieve politieke nieuwkomer Péter Magyar.

After a season dominated by long throws, set-piece wrestling and rigid, overly controlled football, all of a sudden the overwhelming artistry and firepower at Manchester City’s disposal is threatening to take over when it matters most.

This game was taken away from Chelsea during a blistering spell of attacking at the start of the second half and, by the end, it was impossible not to feel the same applied to the title race. Strike up the Jaws music – Pep Guardiola’s sharks are circling. There was blood in the water after Arsenal’s defeat by Bournemouth and, after meandering through a tepid first half, City eventually found their bite at Stamford Bridge.

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Same shit different week in het oosten van Oekraïne, met een Paasbestand tussen de strijdende partijen (orthodox Pasen is later dan 'ons' Pasen) dat natuurlijk geen fluit waard blijkt. Het bestand ging gisteren (11 april) in om 16:00 uur en al om 22:00 uur noteerde Oekraïne '469 schendingen': "Since 16:00, 469 violations of the ceasefire regime have been recorded. Specifically: 22 enemy assault actions, 153 strikes, 19 kamikaze drone attacks (Lancet and Molniya-type) and 275 first-person view (FPV) drone strikes." Anderzijds: volgens de Russen vlogen er vlak na de start van het bestand Oekraïense drones de grens over bij Koersk en Belgorod, waarbij vijf gewonden vielen.

Dan een keer de niet geheel objectieve totaalstand (weet u nog hoe het begon?) van de meat grinder. Volgens Oekraïne is Rusland tijdens de oorlog het volgende kwijtgeraakt: 1.311.180 man (dood of door verwondingen uit de strijd), 11.859 tanks, 24.384 pantserwagens, 88.914 'vehicles and fuel tanks', 39.871 artilleriesystemen, 1.727 raketsystemen, 1.345 stuks luchtafweer, 435 vliegtuigen, 350 helikopters, 233.866 drones, 33 schepen / boten en 2 onderzeeboten. Tering.

Aan het front (natuurlijk) weinig veranderingen. Zeker geen Russische opmars, wel meldt het Institute for the Study of War wat Oekraïense vorderingen in de regio's Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka, Hulyaipole en Novopavlivka. Voor wat het waard is!

Op diplomatiek niveau was het de hoop dat het Paasbestand dan wel wat verlichting zou brengen, dan wel een basis zou kunnen vormen voor vertrouwen om nieuwe gesprekken aan te gaan. Dat is, zoals u in dit topic al las, niet gebeurd. Een mooi verslag over het wantrouwen tussen beide partijen, alsook onder de bevolking, leest u hier bij de BBC. Tot volgende week!

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