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Blender can now use AI to create images and effects from text descriptions
You can now use AI to create textures and even videos in Blender using text descriptions.
The best free tools and services for college students
We've rounded up some of the best free stuff for college students. Find out which freebies you have access to as a college student here.
NVIDIA's latest RTX Studio drivers make Blender four times faster
NVIDIA's latest Studio RTX driver isn't just speeding up commercial production renderers like V-Ray. If you use the free, open-source Blender 3D animation software, you'll also get a boost, NVIDIA announced. With the new driver, the Blender Cycles renderer will provide real-time rendering and boost performance by four times compared to using a CPU alone.
The best personal blender
By Lesley Stockton This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full guide to personal blenders. After spending 28 hours researching two dozen personal blenders and testing 12 models in our test kitchen, we think the NutriBullet Pro 900 Series offers the best balance of power, simplicity, convenience, and price for most people. We pureed almost 25 pounds of frozen fruit, hearty kale, fibrous ginger, gooey peanut butter, and sticky dates into thick smoothies to come to this conclusion. The NutriBullet won us over with its blending abilities, ease of use, and price. The powerful motor didn't strain blending thick mixtures, and it pureed tough kale and frozen fruit into a satisfying drinkable consistency. The blending quality is on par with midrange full-sized blenders without the bulk of a large machine. If you regularly buy a smoothie on your way to the office or class, the NutriBullet Pro will pay for itself within a month. We like the Tribest PB-150 because it's durable and offers the smallest footprint of all our picks. Although the Tribest isn't the most powerful machine on paper—it has a weaker motor and the smallest cups of all our picks—it blends really well for most food prep tasks you'd need it for. Compared to the NutriBullet and Breville Boss To Go, smoothies from the Tribest are thinner due to the extra liquid needed to get a consistent blend. But it's built to last and a solid performer if you don't mind slightly thinner smoothies. The Breville Boss To Go offers smoother blending, sleeker design, and a better travel lid than our top pick. The Boss To Go blended kale the finest, and berry seeds were the smallest of all our picks. The Breville blends thick mixtures easily without straining. The stainless steel housing and sleeker design will look good on your countertop, and the travel lid has the largest opening of all the blenders we tested for easier drinking.
The best immersion blender
By Christine Cyr Clisset, Michael Sullivan and Sharon Franke This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full guide to the best immersion blender here. Since our quest for the best immersion blender began in 2013, we've considered 63 models, interviewed two soup-making pros, and pureed gallons of soup, smoothies, and sauces. Through all this research and testing, the Breville Control Grip has remained our top pick because it produces smoother textures, has a design that's more comfortable to use, and comes with whipping and chopping attachments that actually work. The Breville Control Grip immersion blender thoroughly purees even fibrous soups and can blend smoothies made with ice and frozen berries into thick, frosty mixtures. It has a rubber handle and a power button that you press naturally as you grip, so it's comfortable to hold even for long blending times. The blending wand doesn't spatter as it purees. We also appreciate the extra-large, 42-ounce blending jar, which has a handle, clearly marked measurements, and a rubber grip to keep it firmly in place during blending. The Breville comes with both a whisk and a chopper attachment, and although it's one of the pricier hand blenders out there, we think it's far less likely to languish in a junk drawer than other, inconvenient offerings. The Braun MultiQuick 5 Hand Blender MQ505 rivals more expensive models at pureeing soup and smoothies thoroughly. It has a soft grip, but we found that pressing its small button for the entire blending time quickly grew fatiguing. In addition to a blending jar, the Braun comes with a whisk, but it doesn't include a chopper. Although cheaper options are available, we think it's worth paying a little more than a rock-bottom price to get a model that doesn't spatter. The other lower-priced models in our test—including the Cuisinart Smart Stick CSB-175, which replaced the CSB-75, our previous budget pick—were more difficult to use and created hot-liquid splashes that weren't fun or easy to clean up. The Cuisinart CSB-175 also had trouble with ice, while the Braun MQ505 was able to pulverize ice and frozen fruit with ease. When it came to blending smoothly and thoroughly in our tests, nothing beat the Philips ProMix Hand Blender HR1670/92, which turned out velvety soups and the thickest of smoothies. It's comfortable to grip even for several minutes, as your hand rests naturally as you squeeze to operate it. To increase the power level, you simply press harder, so you can easily use the blender with one hand without stopping. However, the Philips doesn't come cheap, and for the big bucks you don't get any accessories other than a 24-ounce blending cup (you can purchase the whisk and chopper accessories separately for a hefty premium). If you want the very best purees you can get from an immersion blender, and if you're willing to pay for that and nothing else, this Philips ProMix model is worth your consideration.
Blend-Off: Vitamix vs. Blendtec
By Lesley Stockton This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full Vitamix vs. Blendtec guide here. Vitamix and Blendtec are the two biggest names in high-powered home blenders. In our testing, we've always preferred Vitamix. We still get asked about Blendtec, though, maybe thanks to its popular "Will It Blend?" campaign, which features a Blendtec pulverizing iPhones and other objects that would taste bad in smoothies. The image of a phone turned to dust is a compelling demonstration of raw power, but pulverizing a phone and making a good smoothie are two very different tasks. To prove it, we pitted the Blendtec Designer 675 against the Vitamix 5200 (our top-pick blender) in a series of tests, and the Vitamix won every time. The Vitamix was much better at smoothies, soups, nut butters—the things you'd need a kitchen blender for, in other words. We chose to compare those two models because they offered roughly similar features and control schemes. The 5200 is Vitamix's original variable-speed model, and it offers the power and performance Vitamix blenders are known for. Vitamix blenders with preset blending programs are more expensive, and we don't think they're worth the extra cost. Meanwhile, lower-end Blendtec machines have only preset blending programs, and the Designer 675 is the lowest-priced model that offers manual speed control in addition to those settings.
What's the best blender for smoothies?
By Lesley Stockton This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here. A thick and velvety smoothie is one of the most difficult things you can demand from a blender. You're expecting four tiny blades powered by a motor no bigger than a coffee mug to make frozen fruit, ice, fibrous greens, and gloppy peanut butter into soft serve in a minute. So rather than asking about the best blender for smoothies, the better question to ask is: What's the best blender? And that's because if a blender can turn out juice-bar-quality smoothies day after day, it will most likely liquefy almost anything else you'd want to with ease.
The best blender
By Christine Cyr Clisset and Lesley Stockton This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here. After researching dozens of blenders, talking with five experts, and testing 22 models over the course of five years, we're confident that the Oster Versa Pro Performance Blender offers the best value for most people. It performs as well as some blenders that cost twice as much, and it blows cheaper blenders out of the water. With both variable speed and preset options for things like soup and smoothies, it has one of the most user-friendly and versatile control panels we've seen.
This mocap suit records Hollywood-quality animation at indie film prices
Conventional motion capture rigs -- the ones that use visual markers and arrays of infrared cameras -- cost tens of thousands of dollars, making them prohibitively expensive for everyone but major studios. But a new, cameraless system from Danish startup Rokoko, called the Smartsuit Pro, aims to make Hollywood-quality motion capture affordable for everybody.
The Daily Grind: Which two MMOs would you mash together?
Remember our MMO Blender series? It was pretty fun; we cherry-picked a whole bunch of mechanics from various games and smashed them together into one game. That is not exactly what we're asking for today. We don't want you to cherry-pick mechanics; we want you to pick two distinct games and shove them together without regard for what gets broken. No plucking crafting from Ryzom and combat from TERA; just pile both of them together into one big mass. Yes, parts of it would probably be messy. But what would a fusion of Final Fantasy XI and Guild Wars look like? Or WildStar and Star Trek Online? Just take two games, maybe two of your favorites, maybe two that each has half of the features you'd like, maybe even two that you dislike separately. Smash them together and tell us about the resulting collision. Which two MMOs would you mash together? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Mini TARDIS really is bigger on the inside, thanks to augmented reality (video)
Once in a while we'd come across some cool DIY projects inspired by Doctor Who, the world's longest-running sci-fi TV show, but nothing beats this little TARDIS that would actually make you gasp out the classic line: "It's bigger on the inside!" Greg Kumparak, a former writer of sister site TechCrunch, initially built nothing more than just a convincing model of the iconic blue police box (with a functioning light at the top) by hand, but soon afterwards he wanted to somehow give it an interior as well. By utilizing the Blender 3D creation suite (which was a first for Kumparak), Unity 3D engine and Qualcomm's Vuforia AR SDK, the result is an Android app that renders the 3D interior atop the random wave-like pattern -- visible once the door's removed -- on the TARDIS in real time (no pun intended). Once you've seen the demo video after the break, you'd probably agree that Kumparak's only one sonic screwdriver away from becoming an honorary Time Lord. For more detail on how and why this project was put together, head over to Kumparak's blog post.
Sonim's rugged XP3300 Force does not blend
Our old friend Tom Dickinson is back with a brand new edition of Will It Blend?, but it seems his ultra-destructive Blendtec blender has met its match -- the equally rugged Sonim XP3300 Force we tested at MWC. Now, Sonim doesn't have a perfect track record, and Tom definitely let the smoke out here, but apparently the leftover wreckage was still functional. Better luck next time, blender!
The iPhone 4: it blends
Another Apple product launch, another episode of Will it Blend? No cheating this time as far as we can tell, but the production values have certainly gone through the roof for the inevitable iPhone 4 edition and yes, just like everything else they've put in a blender, it blends. See for yourself after the break. [Thanks, O'Neill]
Will it blend? iPad edition (update: he cheated!)
Getting sick of the iPad? Then let our old friend Tom Dickinson do what he does best. If you've somehow missed all of his Blendtec videos in the past, be warned that they aren't for the faint-hearted gadget fanatics -- especially this latest edition where Tom forcefully folds the pad to fit it into his gadget muncher. When you're ready, march on for some "pad smoke" after the break. Update: Commenter ernie pointed out that the aluminum back was missing when Tom folded the iPad. Come on, Blendtec, just blend the metal already!
Big Buck Bunny Blu-ray disc busts out 3 PiP streams, BD-Live
After giving HD DVD a proper send-off with Terminator 2: Ultimate HD-Edition, the Imagion AG team has thrown itself fully into the b's like Paul Pierce, preparing the Blu-ray release of Big Buck Bunny, another open source creative commons-licensed movie from the creators of Elephants Dream. How do you top being the first to do PiP on Blu-ray? With three separate picture-in-picture tracks give us a look at the original storyboards, 3D renders or the original rough renders from the production team's Blender software. The dynamicHD-live portion should be familiar to fans of the T2 release, using BD-Live access to TuneHD.net for constantly updated news, Big Buck Bunny-related websites and calibration settings. The disc packs in both BBB and Elephants Dream and should be shipping soon.
Found Footage: Blending an iPhone 3G
Sure, we all worry about dropping our precious electronics (like our iPhones, iPods and Macs), however, the folks at Blendtec laugh in the face of danger. That's because they tend to blend things. Very expensive things. Like this iPhone 3G. On an iPhone/iPod touch? Click here to watch this video in YouTube.app.
Jacek Antonelli's special blend
Jacek Antonelli, whom you already likely know as the creator of the Blender BVH animation exporter for Second Life, has released an excellent tutorial on getting to grips with Blender and the exporter, so that you can get into this excellent free tool for creating animations. Her tutorial is simple, straightforward, witty and well-illustrated. If you create Second Life animations, but don't use Blender -- or you want to get into creating animations for Linden Lab's virtual world, you owe it to yourself to take a look at this.
New release: Blender animation exporter
Jacek Antonelli has released a new version of her Blender animation exporter that allows use of Blender's sophisticated (and free) animation suite to create animations for Second Life. This release focuses primarily on the user-interface, improving the layout to make things a whole lot easier for those who are not already Jedi-masters of the Blender package; and a mighty good change it is, too, as you can see above.
From Blender to BVH via Antonelli
One of the more sophisticated animation tools out there is Blender, a cross-platform, free suite of 3D creation tools. Blender allows a lot of animation tricks that are normally only found in packages costing hundreds or thousands of dollars. The eclectic, artistic, and highly-animated Jacek Antonelli has released a script, scene and animation skeleton that allows users to create and export high-quality animations from Blender into the BVH format used by Second Life.
The USB blender will blend
Are you that guy in our comments always asking the now wearisome question, "Will it blend?" Yeah? Good, this is for you. The Brando USB blender, $25 and an earful of 70's game show jingles as punishment for your deeds. Oh, and because you're that guy you should heed Brando's warning: do not eat the balls. Good advice for any occasion, really.[Via Pocket-lint]
