Flynn Busson, the son of billionaire Arpad Busson and Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson, appears to be the spitting image of his father in new photos.
Flynn, 24, shared pictures on Instagram of himself the same speedboat that his financial father drove him around in as a toddler.
“22 years apart… 2022, 2012, 2000,” he posted alongside three photos of himself aboard the boat.
The first two images show Flynn driving the boat as an adult, the third from 2000, is a throwback to him as a child, sitting on his fathers lap at sea.
Elle and dated Arpad from 1996 until they spilled in 2005. But they remained friends and appeared together when Flynn graduated after studying finance and real estate at Boston University last year, with his mother sharing family photos to Instagram.
“Where did the time go? You boys are a credit to your selves, and your dad and I are so in awe of the men you have become,” she wrote at the time.
Flynn, who is also a licensed pilot, is the former couple’s oldest son. They also share another son, Cy, 19
According to both Elle and Flynn, the mother and son share a close relationship. In recent years, they’ve appeared at various events together, including the Christian Dior Haute Couture 2022/2023 fashion show in Paris, France.
The 58-year-old and her son wore complimentary Dior designs. Busson’s girlfriend Anna de Ferran was also in attendance.
The star, who is famously known as “The Body,” posted several snapshots of the outing on her Instagram account, Fox News reported.
“My favorite date,” she boasted in one post.
“Loved sharing these special moments with my sons,” she wrote in another, noting that her other son Aurelius Cy Andrea Busson, 19, was greatly missed.
Despite living in the public eye, the model previously revealed she has been determined to give her children a more low-key life. It was not until 2019 that Macpherson appeared alongside her sons de ella on the cover of Vogue Australia.
“We kept the children out of the public eye,” she explained to the outlet at the time. “It was a decision that their dad and I made. We didn’t think it was necessary for them to be recognized in public. Of course, you can’t stop paparazzi.”
Macpherson told the outlet that “for years” many asked her to model with her sons. But up until then, she had always said no.
“We had one experience where a family shot was used on the cover of a magazine without our permission, and at the time it was terrible, but actually I am strangely grateful now because it’s so beautiful,” she said.
“Now, with Instagram, the boys are public, and they make their own choices,” she continued. “[And] they are amazing company. Who wouldn’t love taking them places?”
In an interview with Vogue Australia in 2019, Flynn – who reportedly divides his time between London, New York and Miami – spoke glowingly of his mother: “I know everyone says that about their mum, but it really is true. My mother has always been so incredibly devoted to me and my brother.”
“I always knew we were her number-one priority.
“It has shone through everything from the way she chooses her jobs to the way she cooks dinner.”
A 42-year-old man was arrested Friday in connection with the four homicides early Thursday morning in Laurel, Nebraska, according to the state patrol. Crime scene investigators found evidence that linked Jason Jones, a Laurel resident, to the homicides. After attempts for Jones to exit the home voluntarily, the Nebraska State Patrol SWAT Team entered the home and found Jones with severe burn injuries, according to law enforcement. NSP said he was airlifted to a Lincoln hospital and is in serious condition as of Friday morning. The Nebraska State Patrol also believes gunfire played a role in the deaths at two separate homes in the northeast Nebraska town. Around 3 am, the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call about an explosion at a residence in Laurel and fire teams found a person dead inside the home, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. The victim at the first residence was identified as 53- year-old Michele Ebeling, according to the Nebraska State Patrol. As investigators arrived at the scene, a second fire was reported a few blocks away, authorities said. Three people were found dead in the second residence and fire crews worked to preserve evidence while putting out the fire, the state patrol said. The three victims at the second residence were identified as 86-year-old Gene Twiford, 85-year-old Janet Twiford and 55-year-old Dana Twiford. Fire investigators believe that accelerants may have been used in each of the fires, according to authorities. Officials are waiting on autopsies for the cause of death. The Nebraska State Patrol said there is no danger to the Laurel community as a result of the arrest.
LAUREL, Neb. —
A 42-year-old man was arrested Friday in connection with the four homicides early Thursday morning in Laurel, Nebraska, according to the state patrol.
Crime scene investigators found evidence that linked Jason Jones, a Laurel resident, to the homicides.
After attempts for Jones to exit the home voluntarily, the Nebraska State Patrol SWAT Team entered the home and found Jones with severe burn injuries, according to law enforcement. NSP said he was airlifted to a Lincoln hospital and is in serious condition as of Friday morning.
The Nebraska State Patrol also believes gunfire played a role in the deaths at two separate homes in the northeast Nebraska town.
Around 3 am, the Cedar County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call about an explosion at a residence in Laurel and fire teams found a person dead inside the home, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.
The victim at the first residence was identified as 53-year-old Michele Ebeling, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.
As investigators arrived at the scene, a second fire was reported a few blocks away, authorities said.
Three people were found dead in the second residence and fire crews worked to preserve evidence while putting out the fire, the state patrol said.
The three victims at the second residence were identified as 86-year-old Gene Twiford, 85-year-old Janet Twiford and 55-year-old Dana Twiford.
Fire investigators believe that accelerants may have been used in each of the fires, according to authorities.
Officials are waiting on autopsies for the cause of death.
The Nebraska State Patrol said there is no danger to the Laurel community as a result of the arrest.
Simulators can jumpstart the work of animation, but often return an overwhelming array of options for the animator to sort through. A new browser refines those options to a more manageable number.
View video here.
By Andrew Myers
Computer-based animators who are tasked with bringing to life imaginary worlds and characters are aided by simulators that can model the many possible ways an object or fluid might move through a physical space. Known as “solvers,” these simulators provide a significant head start on the work of animation. But there’s a catch. As computers have gotten faster, these solvers often create too many options for the animator to effectively sort through looking for just the right one.
“A simulator can return thousands of options. It’s so time consuming to sort through them that these helpful solvers can’t be used to their full potential,” said Purvi Goel, a doctoral candidate in computer science at Stanford, who with her mentor, professor Doug James, has created a new approach to refine the search and narrow results to the most promising options.
They call it “Unified Many-Worlds Browsing,” and they will debut their approach at the upcoming SIGGRAPH 2022 conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, the premier annual gathering for computer graphics and interactive techniques. The approach could both speed the search process for animators and, by limiting the options the simulators must cycle through, reduce compute time and expense. Ultimately, the researchers hope, it will allow artists and scientists to interface with solvers with unparalleled ease and efficiency.
“We’ve got this interesting conflict in the field that every year computers get faster, more parallel, and they can do more, but it’s the humans who are getting maxed out,” said James, who is a professor of computer science.
parameters and time
Solvers are controlled by input parameters – the physical dimensions of the object in the animation. In one example, the researchers used Unified Many-Worlds Browsing to animate an imaginary bowling alley. The parameters include the starting velocity and position of the ball.
A solver simply steps through the parameters incrementally, one by one, and simulates the many potential outcomes over the course of time. The key point is that there can be many input parameters, and the longer and more complex an animation is, the more parameters and compute time are needed to create simulations, and the more options are generated.
“If you are an animator and you have some idea in mind, you have to tune those parameters manually, then sort through all the outcomes one by one,” Goel explained.
Unified Many-Worlds Browsing allows animators to create “queries” to narrow down the options to make the process of identifying very specific outcome options easier. Queries can, for instance, confine outcomes to only those the animator is most interested in – including those that are either “in” a desired range of possibilities or, conversely, excluding those that are “not in” that range. Sample animations are available to view on the researchers’ website.
Asked to animate a stuffed armadillo falling down a spiral staircase, for instance, the animator might create a query in the Unified Browser that says, “Show me only options where the armadillo falls all the way to and comes to rest on the lowest stair. ” Charged with animating cubes of Jell-O bounding into a bowl, the animator could limit options only to those where all the cubes stay in the bowl, or perhaps where one, but only one, falls out. A small blue ball launched at an imaginary sandcastle might specify “give me samples where the front-left turret is smashed” or “the top turret only.”
If the queries are well defined, Unified Many-Worlds Browsing could potentially reduce thousands of possible options to a handful that are interesting to the user, Goel says. Plus, the fact that this browsing framework can work with everything from fluids to smoke to fracturing solids – why it’s described as “unified” – sets it apart from previous options, which were limited in scope to a single physics-based phenomenon.
Finding the needle
James says Unified Many-Worlds Browsing can pay surprising dividends in creativity. The browser, he says, can increase the likelihood of finding that “needle in the haystack” option that the animator might never have found with the solver alone.
“We found it can help find unlikely outcomes that will surprise – or even delight – viewers by their novelty,” said James. “’Oh wow, the ball went right between those two turrets and hit this other one just perfectly.’”
The browser has clear implications in the fictional animation space, the researchers say, but could also be adopted to benefit engineers, physicists, biologists, and other scientists who increasingly rely on simulations in their work.
“Unified Many-Worlds Browsing certainly makes the animator’s work faster and easier,” said Goel, “but we think it makes it more fun, too.”
James is also a member of Stanford Bio-X, the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, and the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME). This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.
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A small-town library is at risk of shutting down after residents of Jamestown, Michigan, voted to defund it rather than tolerate certain LGBTQ+-themed books.
Residents voted on Tuesday to block a renewal of funds tied to property taxes, Bridge Michigan reported.
The vote leaves the library with funds through the first quarter of next year. Once a reserve fund is used up, it would be forced to close, Larry Walton, the library board’s president, told Bridge Michigan – harming not just readers but the community at large. Beyond books, residents visit the library for its wifi, he said, and it houses the very room where the vote took place.
“Our libraries are places to read, places to gather, places to socialize, places to study, places to learn. I mean, they’re the heart of every community,” Deborah Mikula, executive director of the Michigan Library Association, told the Guardian. “So how can you lose that?”
“We are champions of access,” she added, including materials that might appeal to some in the community and not others. “We want to make sure that libraries protect the right to read.”
The controversy in Jamestown began with a complaint about a memoir by a nonbinary writer, but it soon spiraled into a campaign against Patmos Library itself. After a parent complained about Gender Queer: a Memoir, by Maia Kobabe, a graphic novel about the author’s experience coming out as nonbinary, dozens showed up at library board meetings, demanding the institution drop the book. (The book, which includes depictions of sex, was in the adult section of the library.) Complaints began to target other books with LGBTQ+ themes.
One library director resigned, telling Bridge she had been harassed and accused of indoctrinating kids; her successor of her also left the job. Though the library put Kobabe’s book behind the counter rather than on the shelves, the volumes remained available.
“We, the board, will not ban the books,” Walton told the Associated Press on Thursday.
The library’s refusal to submit to the demands led to a campaign urging residents to vote against renewed funding for the library. A group calling itself the Jamestown Conservatives handed out flyers condemning a library director who “promoted the LGBTQ ideology” and called for making the library “a safe and neutral place for our children.” On Facebook, the group says it exists to “keep our children safe, and protect their purity, as well as to keep the nuclear family intact as God designed”.
Residents ultimately voted 62% to 37% against a measure that would have raised property taxes for roughly $24 in order to fund the library, even as they approved similar measures to fund the fire department and road work. The library was one of just a few in the state to suffer such a loss, Mikula said: “Most passed with flying colors, sometimes up to 80%.”
The vote comes as libraries across the US face a surge in demands to ban books. The American Library Association identified 729 challenges to “library, school and university materials and services” last year, which led to about 1,600 challenges or removals of individual books. That was up from 273 books the year before and represents “the highest number of attempted book bans since we began compiling these lists 20 years ago”, the ALA president, Patricia Wong, said in a press release.
“We’re seeing what appears to be a campaign to remove books, particularly books dealing with LGBTQIA themes and books dealing with racism,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, head of the ALA’s office for intellectual freedom, told the Guardian last year. Celebrated books by Toni Morrison, Alison Bechdel and Ibram X Kendi are among those facing bans.
“I’m not quite sure what instigated the culture wars that we’re seeing, but libraries are certainly at the front end,” Mikula said. Indeed, as states across the US move to deny LGBTQ+ rights, the ALA’s No 1 “most challenged” book last year was Gender Queer.
“When you remove those books from the shelf or you challenge them publicly in a community, what you’re saying to any young person who identified with that narrative is, ‘We don’t want your story here,’” Kobabe told the New York Times in May.
Each library chooses its own collection, Mikula noted, an intensive process that involves staying abreast of what’s new, listening to what’s being requested, and “weeding out” selections that are rarely on loan.
“Our librarians are qualified. They have advanced degrees,” she said. “We want to make sure that the people who have been hired to do this work are trusted and credible, and that they’re making sure that the full community is represented within their library. And that means having LGBTQ books.”
If community members oppose the inclusion of certain books, there are formal means of requesting their removal, involving a review committee and ascertainment that the person making the appeal has actually read the book in question. But recently, she said, people have been “going to board meetings, whether it’s a library board meeting or a school board meeting and saying, ‘Here’s a list of 300 books. We want them all to be removed from your library.’ And that’s not the proper channel, but they’re loud and their voices carry.”
WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new chip-based beam steering technology that provides a promising route to small, cost-effective and high-performance lidar (or light detection and ranging) systems. Lidar, which uses laser pulses to acquire 3D information about a scene or object, is used in a wide range of applications such as autonomous driving, free-space optical communications, 3D holography, biomedical sensing and virtual reality.
“Optical beam steering is a key technology for lidar systems, but conventional mechanical-based beam steering systems are bulky, expensive, sensitive to vibration and limited in speed,” said research team leader Hao Hu from the Technical University of Denmark. “Although devices known as chip-based optical phased arrays (OPAs) can quickly and precisely steer light in a non-mechanical way, so far, these devices have had poor beam quality and a field of view typically below 100 degrees.”
In Optica, Optica Publishing Group’s journal for high-impact research, Hu and co-author Yong Liu describe their new chip-based OPA that solves many of the problems that have plagued OPAs. They show that the device can eliminate a key optical artifact known as aliasing, achieving beam steering over a large field of view while maintaining high beam quality, a combination that could greatly improve lidar systems.
“We believe our results are groundbreaking in the field of optical beam steering,” said Hu. “This development lays the groundwork for OPA-based lidar that is low cost and compact, which would allow lidar to be widely used for a variety of applications such as high-level advanced driver-assistance systems that can assist in driving and parking and increase safety.”
A new OPA design
OPAs perform beam steering by electronically controlling light’s phase profile to form specific light patterns. Most OPAs use an array of waveguides to emit many beams of light and then interference is applied in far field (away from the emitter) to form the pattern. However, the fact that these waveguide emitters are typically spaced far apart from each other and generate multiple beams in the far field creates an optical artifact known as aliasing. To avoid the aliasing error and achieve a 180° field of view, the emitters need to be close together, but this causes strong crosstalk between adjacent emitters and degrades the beam quality. Thus, until now, there has been a trade-off between OPA field of view and beam quality.
To overcome this trade-off, the researchers designed a new type of OPA that replaces the multiple emitters of traditional OPAs with a slab grating to create a single emitter. This setup eliminates the aliasing error because the adjacent channels in the slab grating can be very close to each other. The coupling between the adjacent channels is not detrimental in the slab grating because it enables the interference and beam formation in the near field (close to the single emitter). The light can then be emitted to the far field with the desired angle. The researchers also applied additional optical techniques to lower the background noise and reduce other optical artifacts such as side lobes.
High quality and wide field of view
To test their new device, the researchers built a special imaging system to measure the average far-field optical power along the horizontal direction over a 180° field of view. They demonstrated aliasing-free beam steering in this direction, including steering beyond ±70°, although some beam degradation was seen.
They then characterized beam steering in the vertical direction by tuning the wavelength from 1480 nm to 1580 nm, achieving a 13.5° tuning range. Finally, they showed the versatility of the OPA by using it to form 2D images of the letters “D”, “T” and “U” centered at the angles of -60°, 0° and 60° by tuning both the wavelength and the phase shifters. The experiments were performed with a beam width of 2.1°, which the researchers are now working to decrease to achieve beam steering with a higher resolution and a longer range.
“Our new chip-based OPA shows an unprecedented performance and overcomes the long-standing issues of OPAs by simultaneously achieving aliasing-free 2D beam over the entire 180° field of view and high beam quality with a low side lobe level,” said Huh.
This work is funded by VILLUM FONDEN and Innovationsfonden Denmark.
Paper: Y. Liu, H. Hu, “Silicon optical phased array with 180-degree field of view for 2D optical beam steering,” Optica, 9.8 (2022).
DOI: 10.1364/OPTICA.458642.
About Optica
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CNBC analyst Rick Santelli was beside himself on Friday as he reacted on the air to the latest federal data showing that American employers added 528,000 new jobs in July — more than double the anticipated number.
“It is a whopper!” Santelli told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday.
Economists expected that there would be an additional 250,000 jobs in July, prompting Santelli to say: “528,000! 528,000, basically double the expectations! And 528,000 is the best number since February when we were over 700,000, revisions to the last two months are 28,000.”
Maria Bartiromo, the Fox Business news anchor, was similarly stunned when the latest jobs figures were announced on Friday morning.
“Wow, that’s pretty incredible,” Bartiromo, a strident critic of the Biden administration, said live on the air as she was told about the numbers.
While the strong jobs market and the record low levels of unemployment persist, analysts said that it does not necessarily bode well for the Fed’s efforts to bring down sky-high levels of inflation.
The major indexes on Wall Street fell in response to the latest jobs report as investors gird for more aggressive interest rate hikes by the central bank.
“The tinder-box hot job market indicates that the Federal Reserve’s resolve to fight inflation is not bearing fruit yet,” Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University, told The Post.
Son cited labor shortages in key sectors of the economy including airlines, leisure and hospitality, and restaurants.
“The lethargic labor participation rate shows that workers are not yet worried about a recession and willing to wait for better opportunities,” Sohn said.
“It is a whopper,” Santelli said upon learning that the US added 528,000 new jobs in July.Twitter/@SquawkCNBC
“The 5.2% wage gain from a year ago is not enough to entice them to get back to work.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.05% as of 10:23 am on Friday while the S&P 500 fell 0.08%. The Nasdaq shed 0.04%.
“This is a job market that just won’t quit,” Becky Frankiewicz, the president and chief commercial officer for ManpowerGroup, told The Post.
“The economic indicators are signaling caution, yet American employers are signaling confidence.”
Jeffrey Roach, the chief economist for LPL Financial based in Charlotte, told The Post: “The decline in unemployment and the participation rate will frustrate central bankers since a tighter labor market adds inflation risk to the economy.”
Married At First Sight’s Ella Ding is left red-faced after airport security rifle through her carry-on luggage and make SHOCK discovery
By Caleb Taylor For Daily Mail Australia
Published: | Updated:
Married At First Sight’s Ella Ding has had an unpleasant brush with airport security.
The reality star revealed on Wednesday she suffered an embarrassing drama after her luggage set off metal detectors on the way to Los Angeles.
‘When you go through security – and your bag has to get searched – I remembered I had my vibrator in my carry on,’ Ella, 28, wrote, sharing her tale of woe to Instagram.
Married At First Sight’s Ella Ding was left red-faced on Wednesday after an embarrassing security blunder at the airport
The brunette bombshell went on to explain she decided to tell security she was carrying a self-care device, prior to them investigating her luggage.
‘Kid you not, I thought it was that, so I said, ”I have my vibes in there sir,”‘ she recalled.
Ella was left red-faced when her luggage was opened and it was revealed her podcasting microphone had set off the detector.
The reality star finished her social media purge by saying she clearly didn’t need to mention her vibrator in the first place.
The reality star revealed she suffered an embarrassing drama after her luggage set off metal detectors on the way to Los Angeles
Ella’s run in comes after she warned women not to get too attached to their sex toys.
She discussed her former ‘obsession’ with her favorite vibrator in the latest episode of her podcast, Sit With Us, alongside fellow MAFS star Domenica Calarco.
‘It was like a secret obsession of mine. I used to get so excited to get into bed and spend time with it,’ she explained.
‘Before I would go on a date I would get off. I became addicted to it, heavily reliant on it. And the settings heavily increased,’ she continued.
The Married At First Sight bride discussed her ‘obsession’ with her favorite vibrator in the latest episode of her podcast, Sit With Us, alongside Domenica Calarco (right)
‘So you gotta be careful, because I basically made my clit desensitized to anything from a man,’ Ella admitted.
‘It just wasn’t feeling good because I got so used to the pressure and strength from the vibrator. I used it religiously for five years straight, six times a night.
‘I had to put it away. I said to myself, you have to stop using this, because it was making it harder to be with a man with no toy.’
Ella says she then had to train herself to return to old fashioned methods of achieving orgasm.
‘It was like a secret obsession of mine. I used to get so excited to get into bed and spend time with it,’ she explained. ‘Before I would go on a date I would get off. I became addicted to it’
He said the case was unusual as public announcements by former foreign minister Marise Payne, explaining her decision, would form part of the suit.
In April, Payne announced the government had decided to impose “targeted financial sanctions and travel bans” on 67 individuals “for their role in Russia’s unprovoked, unjust and illegal invasion of Ukraine”.
“The Australian government is committed to imposing the highest costs on those who bear responsibility for Russia’s aggression in Ukraine or hold levers of power,” she said.
Merkel told the court that even if Payne’s successor as minister, Penny Wong, revoked the sanctions list or revoked the order against the billionaire, he would still pursue legal action.
loading
“We don’t know what will happen in the future. Whatever happens it will not deny these proceedings,” Merkel told Justice Susan Kenny during an administrative hearing.
“Our ultimate aim is to remove the sanction imposed… our real point is the approach the minister has taken is misconceived,” Merkel said.
It is not known whether Abramov has in the past done business with the Australian government or firms. The sanctions prevent him from traveling to Australia and doing business here.
His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also declined to comment.
Barrister Brendan Lim, acting for the Australian government, told the court he could not say whether the minister would make a new order on the sanctions.
The case is due to return to court this month.
with APA
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WINDSOR HILLS, Calif. (KABC) — Authorities on Friday identified a pregnant woman and her unborn child as two of the six people who were killed in a fiery crash after a speeding car ran a red light and plowed into cars in a crowded intersection of Windsor Hills.
Los Angeles County coroner’s officials said Asherey Ryan and her unborn son died in the collision.
Shortly after 1:30 pm, a Mercedes-Benz sedan caused a crash involving as many as six cars near a gas station in, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Several people were ejected from the cars and two vehicles caught fire. News video from the scene showed the charred and mangled cars, as well as a child’s car seat among the debris covering the street.
Surveillance showed the Mercedes careening through an intersection, striking at least two cars that exploded in flames and were sent hurtling onto a sidewalk, winding up against the gas station’s corner sign. A fiery streak led to one car. One vehicle was sheared in half.
“It looked like the whole intersection from corner to corner was on fire,” said witness Harper Washington. “A lot of sparks and electricity. I was under the impression that, really at first I thought they dropped a bomb on us. I thought another world war had started. Then I realized it was a car into the sign.”
“Once the fire went away and the booming left, I realized it was two cars there. You could see the people on fire and that’s just sad. I really pray for the people and the community.”
Bystanders tried to help but had trouble dealing with the flames.
Witness Alfonso Word choked up as he described seeing the pregnant woman and a child after the crash.
“It hurts. It does,” Word said. “Because I have a grandson. I know people that have children. For a mother to be pregnant… that child never had a chance.”
It’s been just a year since Indkal Technologies, the official licensee of the Acer brand forayed into the lucrative smart TV business in India.
Recently, the company launched another new I-series smart television in four sizes– 32-inch (HD) with prices ranging between Rs 19,990 and Rs 47,990 in the sub-continent.
I have been using the 43-inch model (Rs 34,990) for close to a week and here are my thoughts on the new Acer smart TV.
Design and build quality: The new Acer 4K TV flaunts a slim design language. It has uniform thin bezels around the sides and the top. At the base, it has a slightly thicker chin with Acer branding at the middle, but in no way harms the visual aesthetics of the television.
Also, it features premium metallic rail around the edges offering stability to the structure. On the back, it has a minimalistic design and the company has ensured all the connectivity features are on one side and the power port on the other side.
The back side view of the Acer I-series Android Smart TV. Credit: DH Photo/KVN Rohit
Each port is clearly marked with names to help users avoid plugging the wrong type of cords. It comes with one USB 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port, one LAN port, one antenna cable port, one digital audio out optical port, three HMDI ports, a 3.5 mm audio jack port and a mini audio AV port. On the other side, it has a two-point power port (100 – 240Vac). It also supports Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band Wi-Fi (2.5GHz & 5GHz).
The company is offering both wall mount tools and also table stands with the retail box. Owners can either install it themselves or call up customer care to set them up.
I myself set up the Acer TV with the table stands. The company offers two screws for each stand. They are made of polycarbonate material and are sturdy too. Once the screws are tightened into their places, the TV stands stable on the flat surface and doesn’t wobble.
User-interface and performance Setting up the Acer I-series Android TV was way easy. You don’t have to be tech-savvy to do it. Once you switch on the TV, you will be asked to pair the TV Remote via Bluetooth wireless connection. It was able to instantly detect the controller.
The next step is to connect your Android phone via the Home app and just invoke Google Assistant and say the phrase– ‘Hey Google, set up my TV’. And, just follow the instructions on the TV screen and the phone’s display and you will be done with full set-up in around 15 minutes if not less.
It comes with Chromecast built-in and runs Android 11 TV OS and the user interface is very simple. It is easy to find apps and event contents thanks to a card-like presentation on the home screen. Also, the TV supports more than 5000 apps including OTTs such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar+Disney, and many more.
Also, users can even make video calls through the Google Duo app. And, cast the phone’s home screen on the TV too.
Inside, the Acer TV comes with a 64-bit class quad-core processor backed by an ARM Mali G31 graphics processor, 2GB RAM and 16GB storage.
On the front, the TV features a 43-inch UHD (Ultra High Definition) display panel with 3840×2160p resolution. It supports Wide Color Gamut+ and HDR10+ with HLG promises the TV reproduces multimedia content with objects in the scene look more natural and vibrant in terms of colors are brighter in a good way for an immersive viewing experience.
caption
Acer TV supports 4K Upscaling technology. Even if the content is 1080p or less, the TV can upgrade the motion picture quality for better viewing. It also comes with Digital Noise
Reduction, Micro Dimming, Intelligent Frame Stabilization Engine (IFSE), Dynamic Signal Calibration (DSC) and Super Brightness, ensure the colors of subjects in the movie or any multimedia content come off vibrant to the eyes.
It also features a Blue Light Reduction feature. Similar to the technology we see in the smartphone when activated, it will reduce the blue light emission and lessen the strain on the eyes while binge-watching content during the night.
Does it succeed in delivering the goods? Yes, it does a remarkably fine job. I had a really good time with Acer I-series TV watching nature documentaries. As you can see from the photos of the television, the colors look rich, the green looks greener (other shades too, look real) and the black is darker. The details within the shadows of the objects too are distinguishable, offering a wonderful viewing experience.
Acer I-series Android Smart TV from a side angle. Credit: DH Photo/KVN Rohit
Also, there is less reflection when viewed from side angles.
Another notable aspect of the new Acer TV is the high fidelity 30W speakers, which is very rare among affordable smart TVs, which often come with inferior speakers (max 20W) due to cost-cutting.
Here, Acer TV with the Dolby Audio system delivers really good audio quality. With the volume set to high, it lives up the whole living room and there was very less distortion.
As far as the remote is concerned, it is very handy and the keys are tactile and responsive. The buttons are easy to reach for the fingers even for people with small hands.
The remote has direct shortcut buttons for four popular OTT apps– Netflix, YouTube, Prime Video and YouTube.
If your house has four or five members, I recommend Wi-Fi router speed be at least 100Mbps for buffer-free streaming of high-quality multi-media content and other smart devices such as phones and laptops, which can still be able to get stable wireless internet connectivity.
final thoughts
Overall, the new Acer I-series TV is a really good value-for-money smart television.
However, there is stiff competition in the smart TV business in India. As per Counterpoint Research report (Q1,20220, the top two Xiaomi (& Redmi with 14 per cent share ) are Samsung (13 per cent share) are fighting neck-to-neck and others LG (8 per cent), OnePlus (7 per cent), and Sony (5 per cent), are intensifying the competition.
The rest of 53 per cent market share is shared by TCL, Vu, Realme and others. But, with the new I-series, Acer can make a mark in the industry, provided they create awareness among the consumers, as most of them identify the Taiwan-based company as just a computer maker.
The new Acer I-series TVs cost– Rs 19,990 for 32-inch model, Rs 34,990 for 43-inch TV, Rs 40,990 for 50-inch television and Rs 47,990 for the 55-inch model.
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