Category: 4. Technology

was released six years ago this past Saturday. While Nintendo didn’t do a whole lot to mark the occasion, one of the game’s most dedicated players sure did. DSteves hit a remarkable milestone by becoming the first to clear 1 million SMM2 levels.

The Twitch and YouTube streamer had hoped to reach that point by the game’s sixth anniversary and got there toward the end of a . In fact, DSteves cleared 1,000 levels during that single stream.

After the 999,999th level clear, an emotional DSteves punched in the code for a custom level a player named raysfire created just for this occasion — you can try it yourself by entering the level ID QKQ-4TD-0DG. Since this is SMM2, of course there was some cheap (or should that be Cheep Cheep?) trolling from raysfire, such as a Question Block that dispensed an enemy instead of a power-up. DSteves died a couple of times while playing this level, including to Bowser fireballs that were disguised by a bunch of coins.

DSteves said on the stream it took six years and eight hours to beat 1 million SMM2 levels, and then toasted the achievement with some champagne. The vast majority of the level clears, nearly 800,000 of them, occurred in one Endless Challenge streak on Easy difficulty (just slightly more than my current streak of 581). So, DSteves didn’t exactly grind through several hundred thousand ultra-hard kaizo-style stages, but it’s still an impressive achievement.

To reach the goal, DSteves cleared an average of 456.4 levels per day. The streamer skipped more than 80,000 levels, died more than 772,000 times and hit the million mark with about 165,000 more stage clears than the player in second place (I love that SMM2 shows these stats publicly).

Despite hitting an astounding number of cleared levels, DSteves isn’t done with SMM2. The streamer was back to playing the game the following night and, at the time of writing, has now beaten 1,000,050 Super Mario Maker 2 stages.

There are a number of iPad apps that can help you explore and express your creativity. Although the iPad started off as a simple device that could be used to stream content or browse the web on the go, Apple has essentially turned its iPads into powerful machines that can be used to do things like create digital art and edit videos.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the best iPad apps for creativity that are available on the App Store. 

Before we get into the list, it’s worth noting that although Adobe’s creative apps are often top choices for creativity on the iPad, this list won’t include them because they are already quite well-known. The list will instead focus on somewhat lesser-known apps.

Procreate

Procreate is one of the most popular drawing apps for the iPad, and for good reason. The app lets you create digital paintings, sketches, and illustrations using dozens of different types of brushes. Procreate is easy to use and features built-in gesture controls, along with a simple interface. 

The app allows for high-resolution canvases up to 16K by 8K on compatible iPad Pros. It also lets you create storyboards, GIFs, animatics, and simple animations. Plus, you can import image files such as JPG, PNG, and TIFF. Procreate includes several features that are designed to help you during the creative process on your iPad, such as QuickShape, StreamLine, Drawing Assist, and ColorDrop.

Once you’re finished creating your piece, you can relive your creative journey with the app’s time-lapse “Replay” feature and share a 30-second time-lapse video on social media. 

You can access Procreate with a one-time payment of $12.99.

LumaFusion

LumaFusion is a great app for editing videos if you’re ready to graduate from iMovie. The app features numerous user-friendly features that make it perfect for aspiring videographers or indie filmmakers on a budget. 

With LumaFusion, you can create multiple layer edits with 4K ProRes and HDR media. You can add different effects, choose from dozens of transitions, and record voice-overs. The app lets you create multilayer titles and import fonts and graphics. Plus, you can fine-tune audio with Graphic EQ, Parametric EQ, Voice isolation, and more. 

The app lets you create projects with a variety of aspect ratios, including 16:9 landscape, 9:16 portrait, square, widescreen film, anamorphic, and more. 

LumaFusion is available for a one-time payment of $29.99. You can also purchase additional features, such as multicam editing and the ability to send your project to Final Cut Pro for Mac. 

Canva

Canva offers a user-friendly platform that allows anyone to create visual content, even without graphic design experience. You can use it to create presentations, infographics, videos, websites, social media posts, and more with over 250,000 templates.

Canva features tools for editing photos, personalizing content with logos and images, adding audio, and cropping and speeding up video. 

The platform also has a series of AI features that are designed to make the creation process easier. For instance, you can extend an image using “Magic Switch” or turn ideas into images with “Magic Media.”

Canva is free but offers a $12.99 monthly subscription if you want unlimited access to its AI features, premium templates, and more. 

Affinity Designer 2

Affinity Designer 2 is a graphic design app that combines vector design, pixel-based textures, and retouching into a single platform. It’s great for professional illustrators, web designers, game developers, and other creatives. 

The app lets you create illustrations, branding, logos, icons, UI/UX designs, typography, posters, labels, fliers, stickers, concept art, digital art, and more. It supports Apple Pencil’s precision, pressure sensitivity, and tilt functionality.

Affinity Designer 2 features gesture controls to speed up your workflow, and it lets you customize keyboard shortcuts. You can also do things like create your own custom font and zoom to over 1,000,000% for absolute precision. 

You can access the app through a one-time payment of $18.49. 

Concepts

Concepts is a great app for exploring your ideas and experimenting with designs. You can use the app to sketch plans, make notes and mindmaps, and draw storyboards and designs. 

The app features Nudge, Slice, and Select tools that allow you to easily change any element of your sketch without redrawing it. The app features realistic pens, pencils, and brushes that flow with pressure and tilt. 

Concepts gives you access to scale and measurement tools that calculate real-world dimensions, and also features a tool wheel or bar that you can personalize to your liking. 

The app’s basic features are free. Concepts offers a $4.99 monthly subscription if you want access to additional features, such as the ability to create your own brushes and premium editing tools.

Tayasui Sketches

Tayasui Sketches is a good, user-friendly sketching and drawing app. It has several different features such as a realistic watercolor brush, digital acrylic brushes, the ability to blend two colors to get the perfect shade, gradient and depth tools, and more.

The app lets you multitask by opening up another app and dragging lawyers and documents between the two. There’s also a “Zen Mode” that lets you create without distractions.

You can also upload your images to incorporate them into your creations. Tayasui Sketches lets you store your creations into personalized folders.

Tayasui Sketches’s basic features are free. The app offers a $2.99 monthly subscription that unlocks unlimited layers, new brushes and markers, an extended brush editor, the ability to backup your drawings, and more.

This story originally published in December 2024 and is updated regularly with new information.

Those of you who use Microsoft Authenticator as a password manager will have to find another option, and soon. That’s because an upcoming change will pull the plug on the ability to use the Authenticator app to store and autofill passwords.

In a recent support document, Microsoft revealed the timeline for Authenticator’s retirement as a password manager. Starting in June, you’ll no longer be able to add or import new passwords in the app, though you’ll still be able to save passwords through the autofill option. Beginning in July, you’ll no longer be able to autofill passwords with Authenticator. Come August, any passwords you’ve saved in the app will no longer be accessible.

Also: 10 passkey survival tips: Prepare for your passwordless future now

Microsoft Authenticator isn’t going away. You’ll still be able to use it for its primary purpose, namely to generate and display multi-factor authentication codes for logging in to secure websites. But its sideline as a password manager will come to an end.

OK, but what should you do if you’ve been saving and using passwords in the app?

Microsoft offers a few suggestions. Your stored passwords are synced to your Microsoft account, which means you can still use them elsewhere. For that, you can turn to Microsoft Edge. In its support document, the company explains how to use Edge to autofill saved passwords. At the same time, you can use this opportunity to review your saved passwords to remove any you no longer need or want.

But Microsoft would really prefer that you start to renounce the dreaded password and move to the more evolved passkey. If you’ve already set up passkeys for your Microsoft account, Authenticator can serve as your passkey provider. If not, now might be the time to make the switch.

There’s a reason we all hate passwords. They’re hard to create and remember, vulnerable to cyberattacks and security threats, and challenging to juggle even with a password manager. In contrast, passkeys offer a more convenient and secure alternative. Authenticating yourself with a passkey requires a PIN, facial scan, fingerprint recognition, or physical security key, all of which are more robust methods than a password.

The main drawback of passkeys is that they can be difficult to sync across multiple devices, especially between a PC and a mobile device. However, using a central repository, such as Microsoft Authenticator, can help with that obstacle.

Also: The best password managers: Expert tested

The Microsoft document on “Register passkeys in Authenticator on Android or iOS devices” explains how to set up the Authenticator app to create passkeys for any supported account. Of course, you can use other programs to generate passkeys. I use my password manager to store passkeys for different sites and accounts, and the process is quick and easy. Plus, since I use my password manager on all my devices — PCs, mobile phones, and tablets — I can access the same passkeys everywhere.

With the deadline looming for Microsoft Authenticator’s retirement as a password manager, now is as good a time as any to start migrating to passkeys.

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For a better way to stream from your laptop or attend online courses, meetings and interviews, a webcam is ideal. Today’s webcams have better color, AI features and even 4K resolution support, so you always have a clear video feed. And we’ve spotted the Insta360 Link 2 webcam bundle for just $150 at Amazon — that’s $50 cheaper — just ahead of this year’s major summer shopping events (Fourth of July and Prime Day). This price also represents a new low for this bundle.

The Insta360 Link 2 webcam is compatible with PC and Mac devices and requires a simple USB-C connection.

The Insta360 Link 2 webcam has AI algorithms that cancel ambient noises for clear sound and fewer distractions, which is perfect for online teaching, presentations and streaming. It focuses on you so that anyone in your online meetings or hangs gets crisp video, thanks to Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF).

Insta360’s Link 2 has three modes for optimal lighting and focus: whiteboard, desk view and portrait mode. Need more privacy? You can blur or change your background — which is especially handy for parents who don’t want toys or clutter to distract viewers. This bundle includes the webcam, a USB-C cable, a USB-C to USB-A adapter, a magnetic mount and four recognition markers.

On the lookout for a webcam but aren’t sure if this deal is for you? Check out our list of the best gear for online classes or meetings, where we’ve curated multiple webcams and accessories. We’re also keeping up with Fourth of July and upcoming Prime Day deals across all categories, so check back with us.

Why this deal matters

This Insta360 Link 2 webcam offers 4K resolution, clear images and distraction-free sound-canceling AI algorithms that can reduce extraneous noise while presenting or streaming. Plus, this bundle includes a USB-C cable, adapter and magnetic gimbal so you can start using it right away. At a massive $50 off, this deal is perfect for streamers, instructors and people who want to stand out during professional video calls.

A small company called Songscription launched last week with AI models that automate music transcription, turning an audio file of a song into sheet music within minutes. Operating on a freemium model, the product is geared toward both professional and hobbyist musicians.

“We hope to make playing music more enjoyable,” Andrew Carlins, CEO of Songscription and a student in Stanford’s MBA/MA in Education program, told TechCrunch. “We imagine a future where a rural Nebraska high school band teacher [will be] able to get sheet music for the songs their students want to play, [and] that said music will be arranged specifically for the instruments in the band and offered at the individual level of play of each student.”

At launch, Songscription can transcribe music for several different instruments, though the piano model is most reliable. In the future, the company hopes to add different transcription outputs (e.g., guitar tabs), as well as arrangements for a full band as opposed to just one instrument.

This kind of product could be useful for a musician who records a song they’re working on, then uploads it to get the sheet music — that way, they can skip the step of having to manually transcribe their work. And for those who can’t read and write sheet music, Songscription will also generate a piano roll, which shows a digital representation of the music being played on a virtual piano.

Users can also automate music transcription directly from YouTube links. Uploading a file requires users to check a box to confirm that they have the rights to transcribe the file, but it would be easy to simply check the box and get free sheet music for copyrighted songs.

“For music learners … since you are allowed to listen to a song, write down the notes by ear, and perform it on your home piano (as long as you don’t charge for a performance), it isn’t fully clear that using a tech-enabled platform to give you a head start crosses any legal boundary, although we understand the field is evolving and our application may enter a gray area,” Carlins said.

The legality around much of how we engage with these creative AI tools is up for debate, though recent court decisions seem to be favoring tech companies over artists. However, Songscription isn’t creating new, AI-generated music — it’s providing a tool for musicians to speed up the process of making their own guitar tabs or sheet music.

“Since our platform allows users to edit the scores, we position ourselves as an augmented music notation software that helps people speed up the process of transcription,” Carlins said.

The underlying architecture of Songscription’s AI model is based on a paper that co-founder Tim Beyer published, alongside researcher Angela Dai.

In order to get the training data necessary for creating this kind of AI model, Songscription works with some musicians who were willing to share or sell their piano performances and sheet music. The company also used public domain sheet music, though the majority of the training data is synthetic, Carlins said. In that case, Songscription would convert the sheet music into audio, then alter the files to simulate real-world conditions with background noise or reverb.

Just seven months after it was founded, Songscription has raised pre-seed money from Reach Capital and will participate in Stanford’s StartX accelerator.