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The best LCD microscopes to bring your magnification capacity to a new level

LCD microscopes are helpful in various situations from inspecting jewelry to repairing minuscule circuit boards. These tools are upgraded from their old-school ancestors to give you tiltable and light-adjustable screens, micro USB slots, and other features that help you get the job done. We searched far and wide for the best LCD microscopes on the market and came up with this list to help you discover a fitting choice.

LCD microscopes boast advanced features like screen-to-screen connectivity, memory card compatibility, adjustable display settings, and even video capability. The average microscope is powered by rechargeable batteries, though some are charged through USB. Magnification capacity depends on each model, with powerful microscopes reaching up to 1,000 times and mini products maxing out at 220 times. Take a look at our favorite picks.

SKYBASIC LCD Digital Microscope

Best Overall

The SKYBASIC, PC-compatible microscope is the best overall choice for work purposes like banknote examination and circuit board inspection. Its magnification range is an impressive 50 times to 1,000 times, standing its ground against lab-grade microscopes. During use, adjust the LED illuminator from eight different modes to find your best view.

Koolertron Full-Color LCD Digital USB Microscope

Best Easy Viewing

Koolerton’s LCD microscope features a built-in 4.3-inch screen designed for easy viewing. Additionally, the adjustable height stand improves magnification accuracy. Transfer images to your monitor or smart TV via USB cord once you download the camera software.

Koolertron LCD Digital USB Microscope

Best Multipurpose

Koolerton’s LCD microscope has a magnification range of 10 times to 220 times and an adjustable LED control to help you set a preferred brightness level and measuring scale. The dual gooseneck lights offer added illumination for a wide range of uses like insect study, watch repair, and jewelry inspection. An ultraviolet filter eliminates stray light and undesired reflection during use.

LCD microscopes are useful for many occupations and hobbies such as watch repair, insect study, and jewelry appraisal. Whether you’re a professional looking for a dependable microscope or a recreational user searching for a mix of the best quality and value, you’ll discover that there’s a microscope on our list just for your very purpose.

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Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards
Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

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AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

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4 simple pieces of tech that helped me run my first marathon
Garmin Forerunner 955 Solar displaying pace information.

The fitness world is littered with opportunities to buy tech aimed at enhancing your physical performance. No matter your sport of choice or personal goals, there's a deep rabbit hole you can go down. It'll cost plenty of money, but the gains can be marginal -- and can honestly just be a distraction from what you should actually be focused on. Running is certainly susceptible to this.

A few months ago, I ran my first-ever marathon. It was an incredible accomplishment I had no idea I'd ever be able to reach, and it's now going to be the first of many I run in my lifetime. And despite my deep-rooted history in tech, and the endless opportunities for being baited into gearing myself up with every last product to help me get through the marathon, I went with a rather simple approach.

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