Topps Blog: February 2021

Friday, 26 February 2021

ET Deals: $125 Off Samsung’s New Galaxy S21 5G Smartphone, New Apple iPad Air 64GB 10.9-Inch Tablet for $549

The Samsung Galaxy S21 5G is Samsung’s official new flagship smartphone with performance that rivals the best phones money can buy. The phone has only been out for a short time, but you can now buy one with a $125 discount.

Samsung Galaxy S21 5G 128GB Unlocked Smartphone ($674.99)

Samsung’s Galaxy S21 5G smartphone features top-tier performance that rivals the best phones currently on the market. It comes equipped with a trio of cameras including one that can record video in 8K, and it also has a 6.2-inch Dynamic AMOLED display as well as a long lasting 4,000mAh battery. This phone sells regularly for $799.99 but you can buy one today from Amazon for just $674.99.

Apple iPad Air 64GB 10.9-Inch Wi-Fi Tablet ($549.00)

Apple’s new iPad Air features a 10.9-inch display and is powered by Apple’s powerful A14 Bionic chip that makes it exceptionally fast. The tablet is also compatible with Apple’s Magic Keyboard that can essentially turn this device into a compact laptop, making it a highly versatile device. Currently you can get one from Amazon marked down from $599.00 to just $549.00.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake PS4 ($30.00)

Final Fantasy 7 is arguably the most popular entry in the Final Fantasy franchise, and the new remake promises to be just as good but with updated game mechanics and HD image quality. If you are a die-hard fan of the Final Fantasy series, you can order the remake from Amazon now marked down from $59.99 to just $30.00.

Dell Vostro 5000 Intel Core i7-10700 Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD and 2TB HDD ($1,007.09)

Dell’s Vostro computers were designed as office and business solutions, and this Vostro 5000 is no different. It’s equipped with an Intel Core i7-10700 processor and 16GB of RAM, which gives the system solid performance that’s perfect for a wide range of office and work tasks. This model also ships with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card that gives it plenty of power for running modern games. Dell is offering these systems for a limited time marked down from $2,041.43 to $1,007.09 with promo code STAND4SMALL.

Featured Deals

Samsung Galaxy S21 5G 128GB Unlocked Smartphone for $674.99 from Amazon (List price $799.99)
Apple iPad Air 64GB 10.9-Inch Wi-Fi Tablet for $549.00 from Amazon (List price $599.00)
Final Fantasy VII Remake (PS4) for $30.00 from Amazon (List price $59.99)
Dell Vostro 5000 Intel Core i7-10700 Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD and 2TB HDD for $1,007.29 from Dell with promo code STAND4SMALL (List price $2,041.43)
DJI Mini 2 Fly More Combo for $586.89 from Amazon (List price $599.99)
Xerox VersaLink C400/DN Color Printer w/ Amazon Dash Replacement for $369.21 from Amazon (List price $599.00)
Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch $114.99 from Amazon (List price $249.99)
Western Digital Black SN850 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD for $119.99 from Amazon (List price $149.99)
Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Intel Core i7-1165G7 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ 12GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD for $699.99 from Dell with promo code 50OFF699 (List price $879.99)
Dell Vostro 15 7500 Intel Core i7-10750H 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD for $1,129.00 from Dell (List price $2,070.00)
Seagate IronWolf 10TB NAS Internal 3.5-Inch 7,200RPM HDD for $249.99 from Amazon (List price $283.99)

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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Report: Stadia Missed Active User Targets by Hundreds of Thousands

Google launched its Stadia cloud gaming service in late 2019, but already the bloom is off the rose. A series of increasingly concerning tales from Google’s game division has come to light in the weeks since Google killed its internal studio, and the latest tidbits are perhaps the most damning. According to a report in Bloomberg, Google blew millions of dollars to get games like Red Dead Redemption 2, but it still missed active user targets by hundreds of thousands of units.

Stadia is similar to platforms like Amazon Luna and Microsoft xCloud, but both of those services have rolled out more gradually. Google tried to hit the ground running after testing the streaming technology with Project Stream. According to Bloomberg’s sources, Stadia management took a game console approach rather than starting small, but the service’s poor game library and traditional pay-per-game model didn’t catch on.

Many of the sources interviewed for the Bloomberg report say this approach was flawed from the start. Several members of the team urged the company to launch Stadia as a beta — both Gmail and Maps Navigation were in beta for years after launch, allowing Google to tune the services based on how people used them. But Stadia manager Phil Harrison wanted the service to duke it out with consoles right away.

The Stadia app as seen on Android in early 2021.

Google is said to have dropped huge sums of money to get AAA titles like Assassin’s Creed and Red Dead Redemption 2 to further this goal — we’re talking tens of millions for each game. That’s enough to develop a new game from scratch, but a handful of premium games isn’t going to hack it when gamers on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox get hundreds of new games every year. The result was a substantially smaller player base than Google expected, to the tune of hundreds of thousands. The resultant oversupply of Stadia controllers is allegedly why Google was giving them away so readily late last year.

While Google was paying out the nose for AAA games, the company’s Stadia Games and Entertainment division was working on games that could only happen in the cloud. Sources claim they were building experiences that transcended the memory and processing limits of local hardware, but then Google got cold feet. That’s when the company pulled the plug on SG&E early this month. Without exclusive content, Stadia’s future as a distinct platform is in doubt. Google hinted that it might license Stadia’s tech to other companies — that might be Stadia’s destiny.

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Enter To Win $10,000 In Cryptocurrency and More While Donating To A Good Cause

Cryptocurrency is a mysterious new world. And just because you don’t fully understand it, doesn’t meant you can’t have some fun and get involved! If you’ve been hoping to make some crypto-cash in Bitcoin and Ethereum, we have a way that’s as easy as doing a good deed thanks to the Complete Bitcoin (BTC) Investment Giveaway. You have the opportunity to not only win cryptocurrency, but also snag a cool gadget and online courses schooling you in the world of crypto, simply by making a charitable donation.

By donating to the Complete Bitcoin (BTC) Investment Giveaway you’re entered to win $8,000 worth of Bitcoin, $2,000 worth of Ethereum on Coinbase, a Ledger Nano x Hardware Wallet to keep your crypto assets secure (worth $119), The Complete Stock and Cryptocurrency Investment Toolkit Bundle (worth $1,815), The Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Mastery Bundle (worth $99), and The Complete Cryptocurrency Investment Bundle (worth $479), all coming in at a massive total value of $12,512.

With each entry you’ll be donating to the Playing for Change Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that uses music education to create positive change for children and communities in need all around the world. This organization, that was founded in 2017, also provides jobs to musicians and administrators in different communities.

Ready to try your luck? There are plenty of denominations to donate, all of which help a great cause and go toward the Playing for Change Foundation. Purchase 100 entries to win for $10, 250 entries to win for $25, 1,000 entries to win for $50, 1,500 entries to win for $75, 2,500 entries to win for $100 or 4,500 entries to win for $150.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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Sony Will Unlock the PS5’s Expandable Storage by This Summer

Sony will allow PlayStation 5’s to finally use their M.2 slots by the summer. The new updates will also unlock support for higher fan speeds, which probably isn’t great news to everyone who likes the current noise profile on the Xbox Series S|X or PlayStation 5, but it may be necessary given what we’ve heard about the current power consumption on both consoles.

The storage announcement is straightforward: Sony will finally allow players to expand past the default storage capacity in their systems, provided you buy a PCIe 4.0 drive that meets system requirements. These drives have never been named or announced, however, and the base PS5 is more capacity-constrained than the Xbox Series X. After setup, you have ~667GB to use on the PlayStation 5 right now, and about 800GB on the Xbox Series X. This gives the Xbox Series X 1-3 additional games worth of capacity unless you’re specifically focused on older or smaller games. PS5 owners can alleviate some of this by storing PS4 games on external media.

Xbox Series S|X owners have the option to expand the internal storage by up to 1TB for $219 while PlayStation 5 owners may be able to beat that deal in the long term by using a qualifying PCIe 4.0 drive. Over time, storage costs for the PlayStation 5 should be cheaper than Xbox, based on the fact that the latter uses expansion cards manufactured by Seagate while Sony will (hypothetically) be open to a range of manufacturers and products over time.

The cooling fan adjustment is interesting, though we have no further detail on it. A report from the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) states that the PS5 uses just 80-105W during last-generation game testing, but 180-200W while playing Astro’s Playroom. Data from Cnet confirms similar numbers, with a 2x – 4x increase in power consumption on next-generation platforms when higher-end games are being played.

Some of these numbers are going to depend on frame rate. Older games that are still locked to 30fps when played on new platforms will use less power because of improvements to underlying efficiency. It would actually be interesting to see somebody dust off an original Xbox or OG Xbox 360 and compare power consumption when playing titles on that platform versus in emulated mode on the Xbox Series S|X, just to see the power consumption figures.

Sony has talked about releasing fan profiles on a game-by-game basis before, so it could be that the company is going to leverage some of that tuning in its next major release. It’s also possible that these settings adjustments are based on data that’s come back in from the millions of PlayStation systems being deployed across the world.

Incidentally, I took a look around for any update on the late-November story about VRAM possibly overheating on the PlayStation 5 due to the fact that one VRAM IC isn’t apparently cooled by the case design. While the initial news made a splash in late November, there’ve been no public updates or reports of further problems since.

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Framework Unveils Modular Laptop Coming This Summer 2021

User-expandable, customizable laptops have been a holy grail of computing for a long time, but they’ve remained more fiction than reality. Intel’s NUC laptop line offers some limited customization, but concepts like I/O flexibility have remained just that — concepts. A new startup named Framework argues it can change the entire playing field for mobile computing and launch an entirely new port ecosystem with its new Framework Laptop.

The Framework Laptop is a 13.5-inch machine with a 3:2 2256×1504 resolution and a chassis weighing just 2.86 pounds. The webcam is supposedly a “fantastic” 1080p60 model and offers hardware privacy switches. The battery offers 55Whr and the system will support 11th Gen Core CPUs with support for WiFi 6E, 64GB of RAM, and 4TB or more of PCIe Gen 4 storage.

I’m dubious about the webcam claims, but only because laptop webcams are universally terrible. I’d love to be wrong on this. The rest of the system specs sound capable enough. Framework touts its commitment to upgradability, promising you’ll be able to swap the mainboard for other, faster variants in the future and that you’ll be able to order replacement components for all of its high-use hardware, including the battery, screen, keyboard, and bezels.

The Framework Laptop’s big claim to fame is the user-customizable I/O ports it offers. Framework promises that the machine will offer four I/O bays with launch support for USB-C, USB Type-A, HDMI, DisplayPort, microSD, and either a 250GB or a 1TB drive.

Internally, every module converts over to a USB-C interface. This is confirmed by an additional photo on the Framework website, where a tight zoom shows an internal USB-C connection on one side of the laptop, and by a photo from the blog post (below) showing the edge of the laptop motherboard with two metal connectors on the edge.

This is a clever concept. Framework wants to create an ecosystem of interchangeable hardware. Instead of paying for an HDMI-to-USB-C cable, you can just use the HDMI cable you’ve already got and pair it with the appropriate port. Want four simultaneous HDMI outputs? You can do that. Want four USB-A outputs? Extra storage? Bees? You can have all of them except the bees. You can, at least, have three of them — I’ll explain more below.

Framework makes it very clear that their long-term goal is to lower e-waste. The company’s rationale for its unique product, beyond the customization options it offers, is that it will also allow end-users to lower their device footprints by upgrading only when and what is needed. If you’ve ever had to throw away an entirely good laptop because one part failed, you can see the attraction.

Be advised, the Framework Laptop does not support an internal GPU. There has not yet been word on whether it will support an eGPU or not. Hypothetically it should be capable of doing so, but that depends on Framework.

The Framework Laptop Probably Won’t Be Inexpensive

Framework makes a lot of arguments in favor of customizability and reusability but says absolutely nothing about price points or cost. Do not expect this laptop to be inexpensive.

The first reason is that we’re being told semiconductor shortages could run the rest of the year. Nothing is cheap right now. Even allowing for this, however, the Framework Laptop is going to face some challenges. Launching a product ecosystem around a brand-new startup company is going to be one. The Framework Laptop won’t sell in tremendous volumes relative to what Dell or HP moves and makes it harder for the company to lock in low pricing. Moreover, the laptop is not a portstravaganza in and of itself. Ports have largely vanished off consumer systems, but you can still get them on enterprise and workstation models — Dell’s Precision 7750 workstation offers an SD card slot, three USB Type-A ports, mini-DisplayPort, HDMI, RJ-45, and dual Thunderbolt / USB-C ports. If what you need is ports, you can beat the Framework easily. This system is designed specifically for people who need four customizable ports and low weight as opposed to every single port standard still in use simultaneously.

Also, while Framework is advertising the fact that the system has four customizable ports, it’s not clear if the system includes a separate barrel plug for power. I’m inclined to think it doesn’t; a lot of laptops have switched to USB-C for this and there’s no mention of one. It also works against Framework’s stated goal of maximally reducing e-waste. If I’m right, the Framework Laptop more realistically offers a 1+3 port arrangement, with the option to use all four ports simultaneously so long as the battery holds out. If you specifically need all four ports to be available at all times in addition to charging, this may not be the laptop for you. ET has confirmed with Framework Laptop that this is the case.

I want to like the Framework, but the company is facing tough odds. Efforts to bring modular products to market like Moto Mods or Google’s Project Ara variously limp along or fail (respectively). Sometimes, the companies backing them just quit. Regardless of the reason, few are successful.

It’s hard to imagine this system coming to market without carrying a substantial premium over more conventional laptop designs. It’s even harder to imagine its Expansion Card system won’t be pricy compared with just plugging a cable into a regular laptop’s USB-C port. There’s nothing wrong with building a laptop explicitly intended to minimize long-term e-waste, but the Framework’s long-term success will depend on how successfully the system pushes past this metric and into the realm of “Objectively great machine.”

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EA Will ‘Allow’ BioWare to Pull Dragon Age 4’s Unnecessary Multiplayer

Earlier this week, news broke that saddened the hearts of at least a few dozen people: The moderately-awaited overhaul to BioWare’s Anthem, dubbed Anthem Next, will not be released. Now, we’ve got fresh BioWare news that manages to be both positive and somewhat alarming. EA will “allow” the Dragon Age 4 development team to remove multiplayer from the game.

If you’re scratching your head trying to remember all those delightful online adventures you had in Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age Inquisition, it’s not just you. Dragon Age has historically been a single-player series, though Inquisition did feature a small multiplayer co-operative campaign.

It turns out DA4 may have been saved by the way Anthem tanked. Up until last fall, EA had apparently mandated that multiplayer be front-and-center to the Dragon Age 4 experience. It was the catastrophic response to Anthem that seems to have changed their minds, combined with the success of the single-player title Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

Not Every Game Needs Multiplayer

Since 2012, EA has been on a corporate mission to stuff multiplayer into every title it builds. Like the mandate that all game development takes place on the Frostbite engine, no matter how poorly it fits the title, EA has been laser-focused on integrating multiplayer into its properties, regardless of player preference.

Battlefront II became a much better game than it was in the beginning. It didn’t start off well.

One of the biggest reasons why people disliked Anthem was the lack of content and the flimsiness of the story. BioWare is one of a handful of companies in the industry known for well-crafted RPGs. BioWare always made it clear that Anthem was supposed to take the company in a new direction, but a lot of people clearly expected the company to meld that new direction with the storytelling it’s known for. EA CEO Andrew Wilson gave an interview back in 2019 in which he acknowledged this:

We brought together these two groups of players who were making this emotional value calculation on two different vectors…One was traditional BioWare story driven content, and the other was this action-adventure type content. About the 30 or 40 hour mark they really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, ‘Oh, hang a minute.’ Now the calculation is off. It’s off because I’ve got a friend who sits in this other category of player. They want to play the game a certain way. I want to play the game a certain way. The promise was we can play together, and that’s not working very well. Oh, by the way I’m used to 100 hours of BioWare story, and that’s not what I got.’ Or, ‘I expected that this game would have meaningfully advanced the action component that we’d seen in games like Destiny before, and I don’t feel like it has.’

This quote is from 2019, and the Bloomberg story linked above makes it clear that DA4 only got permission to cut the multiplayer focus late into last year. In other words: A year after the CEO of EA was handing out quotes about how EA had learned its lesson with Anthem, the company was still attempting to shoehorn an explicit multiplayer focus into Dragon Age, despite the fact that DA is a single-player experience first and foremost.

DA4 entered development in 2015 but was rebooted in 2017 to focus on long-term monetization, Schreier writes. This was the catalyst for Mike Laidlaw’s departure from the game, and development has reportedly been in flux ever since. A group of BioWare leaders has been fighting with EA to turn the focus back to single-player development and the game’s success is vital after both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem both critically flopped.

Despite the above, it’s not clear either title financially flopped. EA panned Andromeda’s sales back in 2016 but sang its praises a year later. Anthem isn’t thought to have hit its 6 million copy target, but nobody knows how well or poorly it actually did. The NPD Group listed Anthem as the 10th best-selling title of 2019. For reference, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was the 10th best-selling title of 2018.

News that DA4 has dropped multiplayer is the best news I’ve heard about the game thus far. The team working on Anthem will reportedly be folded into DA4 development.

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Cyberpunk 2077 Patch Delayed Because CDPR Employees Can’t Use Their PCs

CDPR has already announced that its upcoming major February patch for Cyberpunk 2077 would be pushed back some weeks as a result of the ransomware attack the company has suffered, but it didn’t give a firm reason why. Cynics might have wondered if this delay had anything to do with the actual hack itself. Gabe Newell once delayed Half-Life 2 by a year after a hacker stole source code, only to later admit he’d used the hack as an excuse for the delay he was going to have to announce no matter what.

The good news is, CD Projekt Red doesn’t appear to be doing anything quite that cynical. The bad news, according to Bloomberg, is that the company’s developers are still locked out of their own workstations due to the ransomware attack. CDPR’s VPN (virtual private network) remains inaccessible more than two weeks after the attack.

CD Projekt Red has refused to pay the ransomer’s demands, but it apparently hasn’t found an alternative solution to its problem. We’re not suggesting that the company should automatically pay the hackers. If anything, paying these people off might demonstrate a viable market for holding game developer’s hostage, especially if the attackers could pull it off just before a game is supposed to go gold.

The Bloomberg report also sheds light on what effect the hack has had on CDPR’s developers. Staffers have been advised to freeze all of their accounts and report the potential for identity theft to the relevant authorities, based on the idea that hackers may have had access to this information. In addition, they were asked to send their computers to the company’s IT staff to be scanned for potential malware and security breaches.

This Is Not a Good Sign

This report, if accurate, implies CD Projekt Red is in worse shape than it is letting on. Staffers were reportedly told the attackers “may” have accessed their personally identifying information. This, combined with the bit about sending in their own systems, could mean CDPR hasn’t yet identified the attack vector or the exact data stolen.

CDPR hack statement.

CDPR’s initial hack announcement noted that the company had engaged the services of IT forensic specialists. The vast majority of forensic specialists can also help a company get back online after a security breach like this one, including restoring employee access to critical backend systems like the corporate VPN. If they don’t have it up and running yet, this implies some other difficulty with the investigation.

Even if CDPR had backups, there’s no guarantee those backups weren’t also encrypted. The company’s offsite or protected backups, if any exist, may have been old or otherwise incomplete. Ransomware attacks can be notoriously difficult to defend against without a robust backup strategy. Here’s hoping the delay is due to an investigative hold-up, not a lack of proper backups. If CDPR is unable to decrypt its volumes, it’ll have no choice but to pay the ransom or restart work from whatever it can cobble together.

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NASA’s Super-Fast Solar Probe Returns Amazing Image of Venus

NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe in 2018, but the spacecraft just returned an amazing shot of Venus from its most recent flyby. According to NASA, Parker spotted a previously unseen glow that could be a product of oxygen in the inhospitable planet’s atmosphere. The unexpected clarity of surface features also has scientists reassessing how sensitive Parker’s cameras are.

Parker is designed to study the sun, but it also spends a lot of time near Venus. To analyze the sun’s corona without getting fried, Parker moves at incredible speeds. It’s currently the fastest human-made object, moving at almost 300,000 miles per hour (466,000 kph) relative to the sun. With the aid of its multi-layered heat shield, Parker can blast through the super-hot corona fast enough to take readings and come out the other side unscathed. It’s moving faster now than it was at launch thanks to regular gravity assists from Venus.

It was during one of these close passes in July 2020 that NASA turned the vessel’s WISPR wide-angle camera toward the planet — the image you see above is what they got back. The camera shows a bright glow along the edge of the planet, which may be “night glow.” This comes from oxygen atoms emitting a few photons of light when they recombine into molecules on the planet’s dark side. Astronomers probably spotted the same thing on Mars recently.

Perhaps more interestingly, the image shows surface features of Venus. As you may know, Venus has a thick, choking atmosphere of carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid. Most instruments can’t see the surface at all, but Parker’s snapshot shows the dark outline of Aphrodite Terra, the largest highland region on the planet.

NASA says this could have two notable impacts on future observations. First, Parker’s WISPR camera could be more sensitive to infrared wavelengths of light than the team realized — they’re currently running laboratory tests to see how deep into the infrared Parker can see. It’s possible this could open new methods of studying dust around the sun. It also suggests there may be a wavelength of infrared light that acts as a “window” through Venus’ atmosphere. The team is looking into that as well.

And what of all the streaks in the image? Scientists are still discussing that. The current thinking is this is the result of charged particles bouncing off dust. The number of streaks varies depending on where Parker is in its orbit, but this is a lot of streaking. We might have some answers soon. Parker just completed another flyby of Venus on February 20th. The team hopes to process and release that data in April.

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Thursday, 25 February 2021

Nvidia Hints at More GPU Mining Restrictions

Getting a new GPU is almost impossible right now, with prices skyrocketing as supply continues to lag demand. Nvidia has already announced some steps to separate cryptocurrency applications into a new product category, and it’s even got a new gaming GPU that blocks high-speed crypto mining. During the company’s recent earnings call, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress hinted that more gaming GPU restrictions could be coming.

In the unfortunate event your GPU dies, you’ll be dismayed to learn the only way to get a halfway decent replacement is to pay a reseller at least 50 percent over MSRP. The demand for GPUs is particularly high right now thanks to the COVID pandemic that’s kept everyone inside for a year, as well as the surging price of cryptocurrency. The global semiconductor shortage isn’t helping, either.

Nvidia’s first real stab at addressing the out-of-control pricing was to nerf its latest RTX 3060 GPU. This card has an artificially decreased Etherium hash rate, making it less interesting to crypto miners. Nvidia hopes this will increase supply for gamers who just want to frag some noobs. It’s also planning to release a line of cryptomining processors (CMPs) that are only good for mining (they don’t even have video outputs).

Large mining rigs can contain dozens of GPUs, and not one of them is being used for fragging noobs.

In discussing the shortage, Kress noted that Nvidia has limited hash rates on GPUs “starting with the 3060.” That strongly implies future GPUs will come with similar restrictions, and the company did go out of its way recently to stress that it would not nerf any existing video cards. Nvidia’s desire to keep the gaming and mining markets separate supports the idea future cards will have mining limits, as stressed by CEO Jensen Huang. “I think proof of work is going to be around for a bit,” he said, referring to the workloads that miners run to unlock new digital money. “We developed CMP for this very reason.”

It plans to ship approximately 15 million CMP cards for industrial miners in the first quarter of the year. That might help get GPUs back on store shelves for gamers, but the trend of splitting mining and gaming might not appeal to everyone. Hopefully, Nvidia leaves at least some product lines alone — if you’re spending big on a flagship GPU, it’s reasonable to expect it to be unencumbered by artificial restrictions of any kind.

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ET Deals: $620 Off Dell Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti Gaming Desktop, Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch for $99

Today you can save $620 on an edgy looking Dell Alienware desktop; it comes equipped with a top-tier Ryzen 7 3800X processor and an Nvidia RTX 3060 Ti graphics card.

Alienware Aurora R10 Ryzen Edition AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Gaming Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 32GB DDR4 RAM and 1TB NVMe SSD for $1,599.99 from Dell (List price $2,219.99)
Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch $99.99 from Amazon (List price $249.99)
Western Digital Black SN850 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD for $119.99 from Amazon (List price $149.99)
Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Intel Core i7-1165G7 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ 12GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD for $699.99 from Dell with promo code 50OFF699 (List price $879.99)
Dell Vostro 15 7500 Intel Core i7-10750H 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD for $1,129.00 from Dell (List price $2,070.00)
Seagate IronWolf 10TB NAS Internal 3.5-Inch 7,200RPM HDD for $249.99 from Amazon (List price $283.99)

Dell Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition AMD Ryzen 7 3800X Gaming Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GPU, 32GB DDR4 RAM and 1TB NVMe SSD ($1,249.99)

This Alienware desktop features an edgy, rounded design and powerful gaming hardware capable of running most current AAA titles with maxed out graphics settings. In addition to looking cool, this system was also designed to provide improved airflow over the older Aurora desktops, which means the hardware inside will also run cooler as well. For a limited time you can get this system from Dell marked down from $2,219.99 to $1,599.99.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS Smartwatch ($99.99)

The Garmin Vivoactive 3 is an attractive, durable wearable that hits the sweet spot between fitness tracker and smartwatch functionality. Marked down nearly 50 percent, it’s currently an absolute steal. The watch can last for up to seven days on a single charge and it has a wide range of other features, including a program for counting reps while lifting weights. Currently, you can get one of these watches with a huge discount that drops the price from $249.99 to just $99.99.

Western Digital Black SN850 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD ($119.99)

This WD M.2 SSD has a capacity of 500GB and it can transfer data at a blistering fast rate of up to 7,000MB/s. These speeds are only possible when used in an M.2 slot with PCI-E x4 lanes, but when in the proper slot it can operate far faster than most SSDs on the market. It’s also fairly affordable too for such a fast drive as it has been marked down from Amazon from $149.99 to $119.99.

Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Intel Core i7-1165G7 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ 12GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD ($699.99)

Dell designed this modern laptop with one of Intel’s new Core i7-1165G7 processors and a fast 512GB M.2 NVMe SSD. The notebook also features an LED-backlit keyboard, which makes the system look cool as well as being useful while typing in the dark. The system also utilizes Intel’s new Iris Xe graphics processor, which is twice as fast as the company’s older iGPU technology and can run some modern games with low settings. If you’ve been looking for a computer for work or for your child to do online classes, this system should work well for you. Currently, you can get this system from Dell marked down from $879.99 to $699.99 with promo code 50OFF699.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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This Decentralized VPN Cybersecurity Hardware Kit Is Now On Sale For Over 30 Percent Off

Since the whole world seems to have moved online, it’s more important than ever to protect your online activity. We’re all working, learning, playing and even ordering groceries via the internet thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, so there are plenty of opportunities for hackers to gain access to our vital data. VPNs are a great solution, but paying subscriptions for them isn’t always ideal for our budgets.

Want all the benefits of a VPN without pesky monthly or yearly fees? Protect yourself with the Deeper Connect Nano Decentralized VPN Cybersecurity Hardware and only pay once. Though the Deeper Connect Nano typically retails for $299, it’s available now for 33 percent at just $199.99.

The Deeper Connect Nano is a decentralized VPN and 7-layer firewall solution that can protect all of your IoT devices and important online data. Its plug-and-play design makes connecting to your own free, secure, and private internet easy, all without a subscription. Your data will no longer be able to be logged, leaked, hacked, or subpoenaed, and you’ll enjoy the added benefits of blocked ads and trackers and the ability to watch content without any geographical restrictions.

A high-speed internet connection means you’ll be able to browse and stream online without bottlenecks, and smart routing will automatically change your IP address based on the viewing content. And if you have any kiddos in the house you’ll like this next perk — parental control makes sure your kids aren’t exposed to adult or violent content while they’re on the internet. You’ll quickly see why this handy product was successfully funded on Indiegogo, as it serves many purposes for a one-time charge.

Purchase the Deeper Connect Nano Decentralized VPN Cybersecurity Hardware just once and start reaping all the benefits. It’s available now for just $199.99.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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BioWare Axes Anthem Overhaul, Will Keep Game Running in Current State

BioWare has announced it will not be overhauling Anthem as previously stated. The news is unlikely to sit well with the handful of people still playing the game and it indicates that the trend towards games that are “too big to fail” may be a little less entrenched than we previously thought.

Anthem is BioWare’s troubled third-person looter shooter / role-playing game that was roasted on release for repetitive play, poor design choices, and for what one reviewer called a “tediously repetitive grind.” Despite all of this, Anthem apparently sold well — back in 2019, the NPD Group reported it was the 5th best-selling game for 2019, though they don’t appear to have released the actual numbers. Estimates have ranged from 3-5 million copies moved, and that was several years ago. The game may not have met publisher expectations, but 3-5 million in sales certainly isn’t bad.

The idea that BioWare could turn Anthem around isn’t crazy. Titles like No Man’s Sky and Fallout 76 launched in rotten condition, but have received a steady stream of improvements and additional content. No Man’s Sky has gone from a title I wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole to a game I’ve bought and spent some time in. My significant other plays it more than I do, but I’ve watched it evolve from over her shoulder as well as covering it for ET. The game has been built out and expanded to the point where it’s a fundamentally different title than what Hello Games launched back in 2016. Fallout 76 hasn’t made as many changes as NMS, but it also wins credit for significant improvements since launch. Anthem was expected to be the next major title to win accolades for a wholesale post-launch revamp.

The writing may have been on the wall since Casey Hudson left BioWare last December. When Hudson launched the revamp in February 2020, he promised BioWare was “specifically working to reinvent the core gameplay loop with clear goals, motivating challenges, and progression with meaningful rewards—while preserving the fun of flying and fighting in a vast science-fantasy setting.” 10 months later, Hudson departed BioWare, along with Dragon Age 4’s executive producer, Mark Darrah.

Anthem won praise for its graphics, but the gameplay loop was lacking.

Jason Schreier of Bloomberg posted a story on Feb 8 declaring that Anthem’s future was under serious review by various EA executives. At the time, some 30 people were reportedly working on the game, with expectations that the staff would need to at least triple in order to finish Anthem Next in a reasonable period of time.

BioWare’s blog post is straightforward. “[W]e’ve made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (aka Anthem NEXT). We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today.” The rest of the post mourns the situation that brought this decision about and declares BioWare will instead focus its efforts developing Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles, while also providing “quality updates” to Star Wars: The Old Republic.

BioWare’s pledge to keep Anthem running as-is may or may not be the kiss of death for the game. It’s not clear how large the active player base is, but anyone still playing n the hopes that Anthem Next would dramatically overhaul it for the better is likely to quit at this point. The phrase “as it exists today” implies there will be no future content releases or DLC for the title, since those plans had been put on hold back in 2019 to create what BioWare eventually called “Anthem Next.” BioWare’s blog post does not mention any plan to release the full DLCs that were originally planned and given that the game’s player base is thought to be low, there may not be a financial incentive to develop the content in the first place.

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The US Air Force Quietly Admits the F-35 Is a Failure

The Air Force has announced a new study into the tactical aviation requirements of future aircraft, dubbed TacAir. In the process of doing so, Air Force chief of staff General Charles Q. Brown finally admitted what’s been obvious for years: The F-35 program has failed to achieve its goals. There is, at this point, little reason to believe it will ever succeed.

According to Brown, the USAF doesn’t just need the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) fighter, a sixth-generation aircraft — it also needs a new, “5th-generation minus / 4.5th-generation aircraft.” Brown acknowledged some recent issues with the F-35 and suggested one potential solution was to fly the plane less often.

“I want to moderate how much we’re using those aircraft,” the general said. “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our high end, we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight… We don’t want to burn up capability now and wish we had it later.”

Ferrari Would Not Consider This Comparison a Compliment

These statements may not seem provocative, but they represent a huge shift in the Air Force’s stance regarding the F-35. The F-35 originated from what was originally known as the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, a multi-national development effort between the United States, the UK, and multiple other partner nations. The explicit purpose of the JSF program was to create a single aircraft that could replace a wide range of air, ground, and strike fighter capabilities. Today, the F-35 exists in three variants. The F-35A provides conventional takeoff/landing and is operated by the USAF, the F-35B provides short-takeoff and vertical-landing (STVOL) capabilities for the US Marines, and the F-35C is designed for carrier operations and is operated by the US Navy.

The DoD and Lockheed-Martin have spent years painting the F-35 as a flexible, multi-role aircraft capable of outperforming a range of older planes. The rhetoric worked. The F-22 Raptor, F/A-18 Hornet, and several jets in the Harrier family were retired because the F-35 was supposed to replace them. The Air Force fought to replace the beloved A-10 Warthog with the F-35 on the grounds that the latter was, somehow, a superior replacement.

This jet flew home. The F-35 has not proven itself to be equivalently robust. Credit: USAF

The F-16 was supposed to be replaced by the F-35. Back in 2010, Lockheed expected the F-35 to replace the F-15C/D variants as well as the F-15E Strike Eagle. That’s six different aircraft covering all three roles (air-to-air, strike, and ground). The F-35 was explicitly developed and designed to be a flexible, effective, and relatively affordable aircraft with sophisticated logistics management systems that would reduce downtime and boost reliability.

This aircraft wasn’t supposed to be a Ferrari. It was billed, explicitly, loudly, and repeatedly, as the single platform that could fill any mission requirement and satisfy virtually any mission profile outside of something a B-52 might handle. Instead, the Air Force, Marines, and Navy have all adjusted plans at various times to keep older aircraft in service due to delays and problems with the F-35.

To say the F-35 has failed to deliver on its goals would be an understatement. Its mission capable rate is 69 percent, below the 80 percent benchmark set by the military. 36 percent of the F-35 fleet is available for any required mission, well below the required 50 percent standard. Current and ongoing problems include faster than expected engine wear, transparency delamination of the cockpit, and unspecified problems with the F-35’s power module. The General Accountability Office (GAO) has blamed some of this on spare parts shortages, writing:

[T]he F-35 supply chain does not have enough spare parts available to keep aircraft flying enough of the time necessary to meet warfighter requirements. “Several factors contributed to these parts shortages, including F-35 parts breaking more often than expected, and DOD’s limited capability to repair parts when they break.

There have been so many problems with the F-35, it’s difficult even to summarize them. Pilot blackouts, premature part failures, software development disasters, and more have all figured in various documents over the years. Firing the main gun can crack the plane. The Air Force has already moved to buy new F-15EX aircraft. Multiple partner nations that once promised F-35 buys have shifted orders to other planes. The USAF continues to insist it will purchase 1,763 aircraft, but the odds of it doing so are increasingly dubious. The F-15EX costs an estimated $20,000 per hour to fly. The F-35 runs $44,000. Lockheed-Martin has promised to bring that cost down to $25,000, but it’s been promising that for years. Former Air Force pilots have not been kind in their recent evaluations of the aircraft’s performance and capabilities.

Brown indicated he’s not interested in buying more F-16s, because not even the most advanced variants have the full scope of features the USAF hopes to acquire. This would presumably also disqualify the “F-21” Lockheed-Martin recently announced for the Indian market. Instead, Brown wants to develop a new fighter with fresh ideas on implementing proven technologies.

Congress will have a voice in this discussion, so it’s far from a done deal, but after over a decade mired in failure, someone at the DoD is willing, however quietly, to acknowledge that the F-35 will never perform the role it was supposed to play. As for how much it’ll actually cost to build that 4.5th-generation fighter, all I’ll say is this: The F-35 was pitched to Congress and the world as a way of saving money. Today, the lifetime cost of the aircraft program, including R&D, is estimated to be over $1.5 trillion. The price of a supposedly cheaper 4.5-generation plane could easily match or exceed the F-35’s flyaway cost by the time all is said and done, though hopefully any future aircraft would still manage to offer a much lower cost per hour.

Feature Image by Staff Sgt Joely Santiago, USAF.

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NASA’s Juno Spacecraft Spots Asteroid Impact on Jupiter

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has been puttering around the Jovian system for the last few years, taking images and measurements of the solar system’s largest planet. Juno reached the end of its pre-planned mission recently, but NASA renewed it for at least a few more years. There’s a lot to see on and around Jupiter, like the asteroid impact that Juno captured in 2020.

Jupiter is a massive planet with correspondingly massive gravitational pull. As such, it gets hit by a lot of space debris. However, Rohini Giles of the Southwest Research Institute says most of these small impacts are tiny and so short-lived that it’s uncommon to see them. Giles is the lead author of a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters that lays out the case for this rare impact detection.

According to Giles, the bright flash from late 2020 stood out in the data. Juno spent a lot of time scanning Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field and aurorae, but the flash on April 10, 2020 had a different spectral signature. It lasted just 17 milliseconds, but that was much longer than Transient Luminous Events (TLEs) that are common in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere. The spectral characteristics were also quite different, as indicated by the probe’s Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS).

The conclusion reached by Giles’ team is that this bright flash (shown above) came from an asteroid or comet that fell into Jupiter’s atmosphere and exploded as it heated up. Based on the brightness of the flash, the team estimated the object had a mass of 550 to 3,300 pounds (249 to 1,496 kilograms), making it far too small to leave signs on the gas giant. In 1994, the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 smacked into Jupiter, but it was more than a mile across. Teams following up after that impact found visible scarring and X-ray emissions that took months to vanish.

These impacts can have major effects on even large planets. Fifteen years after Shoemaker-Levy 9, that object was still responsible for 95 percent of the water in Jupiter’s stratosphere. If the unnamed 2020 impactor caused any local effects, Juno couldn’t detect them. Juno has a few more years to keep an eye out for more space rocks running into the planet, though.

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Wednesday, 24 February 2021

ET Deals: Over $900 Off Dell 2020 Vostro 15 7500 Core i7 Laptop, Seagate IronWolf 10TB HDD for $249

Today you can get a highly versatile laptop from Dell with over $900 marked off the retail price. This system is perfect for work, but it also has a 100 percent sRGB compatible display for editing images and a GPU that’s powerful enough to keep the average gamer happy.

Dell Vostro 15 7500 Intel Core i7-10750H 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD for $1,129.00 from Dell (List price $2,070.00)
Seagate IronWolf 10TB NAS Internal 3.5-Inch 7,200RPM HDD for $249.99 from Amazon (List price $283.99)
Dell UltraSharp 27 U2719D 2560×1440 27-Inch Display Gift Card for $389.99 from Dell (List price $499.99)
Eufy RoboVac 30C for $199.99 from Amazon (List price $299.99)
Dell Alienware AW3420DW 3440×1440 34-Inch 120Hz Curved G-Sync Gaming Monitor for $924.99 from Dell (List price $1,519.99)
Dell XPS 13 7390 Intel Core i7-10510U 13.3-Inch Laptop w/ 8GB LPDDR3 RAM and 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD for $699.99 from Dell with promo code 50OFF699 (List price $1,049.99)

Dell Vostro 15 7500 Intel Core i7-10750H 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD ($1,129.00)

The new Vostro 15 7500 laptop is a true jack-of-all-trades. Dell’s Vostro systems are oriented as business solutions, and this system is no different, but it also has fairly strong gaming capabilities. Its 100 percent sRGB display is also well suited for editing images. No matter what you need a laptop for, this system should fit the bill. Currently, you can get this system from Dell with a hefty discount that drops the price from $2,070.00 to just $1,129.00.

Seagate IronWolf 10TB 7,200RPM 3.5-Inch HDD ($249.99)

Seagate built this 3.5-inch hard drive to hold an unusually large amount of data. With a storage capacity of 10TB, this drive is able to hold more data than an average person will need for many years to come. It’s also currently marked down from $283.99 to $249.99 from Amazon.

Dell UltraSharp 27 U2719D 2560×1440 27-Inch Display ($389.99)

This 27-inch IPS work display has a resolution of 2560×1440 and excellent color accuracy that covers 99 percent of the sRGB color spectrum. Dell is also offering it discounted from $499.99 to $389.99.

Eufy RoboVac 30C ($199.99)

If you are like me, then you hate taking time out of your busy work and gaming schedule to clean up around your house. Although this device can’t fold your laundry and put it away for you, Eufy’s RoboVac 30C is a nifty little device that can help save you time by keeping your floors clean so that you don’t have to. With a powerful 1,500Pa suction vacuum built in, this devices will roam your home removing any dust, hair, or misc. other dirt that gets tracked in. It is also able to connect to your home’s Wi-Fi, after which it can be controlled via your Smartphone as well as by Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant voice control services. Currently this vacuum is marked down from $299.99 to just $199.99.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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This Top-Rated VPN Is Now On Sale For A Whopping 93 Percent Off

It’s 2021, and it’s time to get serious about your internet safety. We’re all spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, which means nefarious hackers could be accessing our precious data at any time without our knowledge. If you want to keep your information safe, it’s time to invest in a good VPN.

With dozens of VPNs on the market, it can be difficult to discern which VPN is right for you. If you’re looking for a VPN with plenty of privacy and security features that protects you while you use the internet, iProVPN is the right fit. A lifetime subscription to this service that can be run on up to 10 devices would typically set you back $600, but right now it’s available at 93 percent off at the amazingly low price of just $39.99.

With iProVPN you’ll enjoy AES 256-bit encryption, which scrambles your data to prevent third-party intervention. It includes the benefit of unlimited bandwidth, allowing you to download or stream movies in the highest quality without worrying about those pesky data limits. Want to watch something that’s not allowed in your country? iProVPN has you covered, allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions and government censorship.

An internet kill switch is available with I proven, letting you stop activities from leaking if the VPN connection is disrupted at any time, while an AdBlocker makes your time online a breeze as it shuts down those intrusive and annoying ads as you browse.

You’ll also have the added benefits of split tunneling, which lets you access native content while only selected traffic can pass through the VPN server, and up to 10 simultaneous connections that have access to this VPN protection at a time.

Get this lifetime subscription for up to 10 devices today for just $39.99.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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