Dell’s newly released Vostro 7510 laptop was built for business but has a versatile feature set that just about anyone will enjoy. It has a fast Intel Core i7 processor that can multitask with ease and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 to accelerate image editing work or for playing games, and best of all the system is all sell for just $1,199.00.
Dell Vostro 7510 Intel Core i7-11800H 15.6-Inch 1080p Laptop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD for $1,199.00 from Dell (List price $2,212.85)
This high-end Vostro notebook was designed as a high quality work machine. It has powerful processing hardware including an octa-core processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 GPU. This hardware enables the system to quickly run multiple applications and render content with ease, and it can run games quite well too. The system is encased in a durable aluminum chassis and weighs just 4.1 pounds, which excellent for the amount of hardware contained inside. For a limited time you can get one of these systems from Dell marked down from $2,212.85 to just $1,199.00.
This little M.2 SSD has a capacity of 1TB and it can transfer data at a rate of up to 3,470Mbps. This makes it significantly faster than a 2.5-inch SSD, and it’s also fairly inexpensive, marked down at Amazon from $249.99 to $119.99.
Built with a large 32-inch curved panel, this monitor gives you plenty of screen space for running multiple programs at the same time. The monitor also sports a 4K resolution and it is rated to cover 99 percent of the sRGB color spectrum, which makes it a suitable option for semi-professional video editing work. Today you can buy one of these monitors from Dell marked down from $549.99 to just $359.99.
Ever wondered what it’d be like to have Alexa in your car? Well, now you can! Echo Auto is a simple device that connects wireless to your smartphone and provides you with the service of an Amazon Echo and Alexa anywhere you go. You can get one now from Amazon marked down from $49.99 to just $19.99.
Note:Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information.For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.
Everyone loves a tech upgrade. Buying a new computer and setting it up is one of life’s simple pleasures, almost as good as using the new device for the first time and discovering just how much better it is than the old one – faster, smoother, clearer. What’s not a joy of life is transferring all your data and files from one computer to the next. Often there seems to be no simple way to do so, with only clunky systems or expensive professionals to help you out.
But now there’s a bundle of products specifically designed for just such a purpose, making your life easier when you upgrade or switch your devices. The PC Transfer Kit Bundle feat. PCmover Professional, DiskImage, & SafeErase is now on sale for the reduced price of $24.99, a significant discount of 80 percent off the full ordinary purchase price of $129, meaning you can upgrade your tech and move your files much easier, and much more affordably.
The bundle includes several key products. First is PCmover Professional (rated four stars out of five on Amazon) – the only software recommended by Microsoft, Intel, and all major PC manufacturers to handle all your migration needs. It’s designed to reduce the time needed to deploy PCs, and also lower the cost of PC refresh projects. It will automatically transfer everything desired from one PC to another, saving you hours of involved effort. The bundle also includes a non-expiring license to DiskImage, which will prevent unforeseen data loss using advanced backups of your apps, files, and settings. Lastly, a non-expiring license to SafeImage lets you permanently and safely erase your data for complete protection when needed.
Microsoft took the wraps off Windows 11 a few months ago, but it didn’t have a firm timeline for rolling out the new software. Now, it does. Microsoft says Windows 11 will start hitting compatible PCs on Oct. 5. However, you might have to wait much, much longer to install it on your machine. Or you could just buy a new Windows 11 PC, which seems to be what Microsoft would prefer.
The launch of Windows 11 comes more than six years after Windows 10, the longest gap between versions in the company’s history. Previously, the record for the longest-lived version of Windows was held by XP, which launched five years and change before Windows Vista arrived. Unlike in those days, Microsoft has been aggressively updating Windows 10, and it seemed like the company might never bother to release a “new” version of the OS when it could just keep mutating Windows 10. We don’t know if Windows 11 is in for another extended run, but it does include a raft of improvements over Windows 10, as you’d expect for a numerical increase.
Windows 11 will look a bit different with a lighter default theme and a simpler Start Menu. The live tiles are gone, and you’ll now get Microsoft 365 file integrations. On the functional side, window management gets a fresh coat of paint with Snap Layouts and Snap Groups. If Windows doesn’t include the features you need, you can always install third-party apps, and you’ll be able to do so more easily in Windows 11. After years of artificially limiting the scope of the integrated Store, Microsoft is lightening up in Windows 11. Going forward, developers will be able to provide Win32, PWAs, and even Android apps alongside the UWP apps Microsoft has been pushing for years.
The Surface Pro 7 is one of the few machines slated for an early update to Windows 11.
You can, of course, install the beta of Windows 11 now if you join the Insiders program. The final version might be a wait, though. Microsoft says it will start rolling out the free update on October 5th, but it will be a phased release. The update will be made to “new eligible devices” first, according to the company, meaning computers that have been designed as “Ready for Windows 11.” Over time, the OS will make its way to “in-market” devices. So, it could be mid-2022 before your particular machine is authorized for the update.
I would not be surprised if there is a workaround to trigger the update early, but maybe that’s not the best idea given Microsoft’s caution. Alternatively, you can just buy a new machine that does have early access to Windows 11. Microsoft even provided an extensive list of hardware that will be on the VIP list, including the Surface Pro 7, Acer Swift 5, and Asus Zenbook 14.
Over the last two weeks, we’ve written multiple stories about SSD manufacturers who have shipped SSDs with different real-world performance levels than the drives initially debuted with. On Monday afternoon we sat down for a discussion with Crucial regarding its SSD policies in general and the P2 in particular. Here’s what we found out.
First, regarding the P2 specifically: The 1TB and 2TB versions of this drive have always been QLC drives with large SLC caches. They were never produced with TLC NAND like the smaller capacities were. Crucial does not seem to have communicated this distinction to the press, however. StorageReview’s December 2020 review specifically identifies the 2TB drive as “an M.2 form factor SSD (leveraging TLC NAND).”
But whether this distinction was clearly communicated or not, Crucial says they did not ship TLC versions of the P2 1TB or 2TB to market. I didn’t personally buy the “bad” version of the 2TB P2 drive; I mistakenly believed the performance of the TLC 500GB drive could be used to extrapolate the performance of the 2TB QLC drive. Generally speaking, in any given drive family, the larger drives are faster than the slower variants. That might be the case while the SLC cache is available, but it stops being true as soon as the P2 2TB exhausts that cache.
When the performance of the P2 QLC drive drops, it drops. The variation between the two types of P2 is too wide to silently slip into the market as a replacement product. (Photo: Tom’s Hardware)
Second, Crucial did not intentionally ship one type of drive to reviewers and another type to customers. According to Crucial, it sampled reviewers with the same drives it was shipping to customers at the time it was shipping them. The company pointed out that P2 reviews have continued to be posted over a span of time, which is true. It has not attempted to hide the performance of the P2 family in any way. In fact, Crucial made a particular point of emphasizing that it stood behind the drive’s performance as published in its own specifications. The company has provided this explanation in the past when questioned about its habit of switching NAND configurations behind the scenes.
I have no reason to doubt that Crucial stands behind the drive specifications it publishes, an example of which is shown below:
Each of the question marks gives a little additional context for the listed statistic if you click on it. That’s a nice touch. A couple of sentences explaining the meaning of certain statistics to help buyers trying to wade through unfamiliar terminology is a great idea. But let me be clear: Whether Crucial stands behind its published specifications has never been in question.
A Familiar Problem With a Problematic New Twist
The question of whether a manufacturer’s official specifications accurately capture the performance of a given product isn’t new, and it’s not unique to Crucial or even the SSD market. In this case, the TLC-equipped P2 and the QLC-equipped P2 at the same capacity perform very differently when the SLC cache is exhausted. With the 1TB and 2TB drives, the problem is that the drive’s performance is sometimes better than the smaller variants (while within the SLC cache) but then can be much worse once that area of NAND is depleted.
So it’s not whether Crucial stands behind its published specifications. We believe it does. The problem is that Crucial’s published specifications do not capture some meaningful and important data on how drive performance can vary between different drives that are currently sold under the exact same SKU.
I emphasized to Crucial that reviewers and the technical press more generally need more information about these situations and that we also need review hardware that reflects all the configurations people are seeing in-market, especially if those configurations change over time. That may mean sampling more versions of the drive for testing as configurations evolve and it may mean more transparency around what sorts of performance variation customers can expect.
The company representatives I spoke with were receptive on this point. Although they could not promise anything specific during our conversation, I think there’s a reasonable chance for improved communication and a better long-term picture of how a given SSD’s performance does or does not change.
The best way for Crucial to resolve this problem is to launch separate SKUs when it intends to build a drive variant with meaningfully different performance in a meaningful workload. The second-best way would be to add some additional specifications to its product and then stand behind those as well.
As a simplified example: If Crucial wants to vary its SSD drive configurations in a manner that impacts performance during very large file transfers, a fair file copy size to evaluate would be between 25 percent and 33 percent of the new drive. A 500GB P2 might be tested with a set of files between 125GB – 165GB, while a 2TB drive’s performance would be tested with a 500GB – 660GB file set. We can safely assume that a reasonable percentage of people buying a new SSD today have an existing set of data they want to migrate to their new drive. If NAND, controller, or firmware changes will impact that process, an SSD’s specifications should include some promises around that type of performance as well. My suggestions of 25 – 33 percent are not set in stone, as it might make sense to grow the file set size by a smaller percentage of the drive size when dealing with large capacities, but it’s a workable idea.
It would be more straightforward to launch a “P2T” and a “P2Q”, but including file copy test results in existing specifications and adjusting future drive design to achieve parity in these metrics as well would also be a step towards resolving this problem.
None of the people I spoke to at Crucial were in a position to wave magic wands and instantly tell me what adjustments the company would be making, but the representatives promised that a discussion on these topics was occurring. I emphasized to Crucial that reviewers need to know the benchmarks and results we publish will still be accurate a few years down the line, and that we test more than just the manufacturer’s stated specifications. Our readerships rely on us to deliver the additional nuance that manufacturers don’t capture in their spec sheets. Not communicating these changes erodes both reader’s trust in publications and a publication’s trust in manufacturers. It’s a corrosive cycle that ultimately benefits no one.
Now that we know Crucial is just one of several manufacturers who have had issues with what I’ll politely call “performance variation,” it’s clear that there needs to be a wider conversation regarding what kind of variance is acceptable in a product, where consumers need to be able to expect consistency, and when and how all this information gets communicated.
There is currently an unacceptable level in the consumer SSD market as a whole. It affects too many important workloads and use-cases to dismiss. It is clear that a QLC drive with a large SLC cache has very different performance characteristics under certain circumstances compared with a traditional MLC or TLC drive.
Crucial, Western Digital, and Samsung may not have set out to deliberately bait-and-switch customers, but the performance variations in some of these products are more than large enough to leave people feeling distinctly bait-and-switched. Performance metrics on the 500GB P2 Crucial sampled in 2020 didn’t map well at all to the performance of the 2TB P2 I bought in the spring of 2021. The behavior of Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus is materially different depending on which version of the drive you own.
Not much else is clear about the larger market right now. We do not currently have a full understanding of which products may have been affected from various manufacturers beyond the P2 (Crucial), SN550 (WD), and 970 EVO Plus (Samsung). Intel is currently the one manufacturer that has told us it does not and has never engaged in this practice.
The two companies we have had conversations with, WD and Crucial, have both indicated a desire to improve the current situation. We’ll see what comes of it. The current status quo is unacceptably confusing for all concerned.
SpaceX's Dragon approaching the ISS following a previous launch. (Photo: SpaceX)
SpaceX’s Dragon approaching the ISS following a previous launch. (Photo: SpaceX)
A SpaceX ship just finished making its way to outer space with an eclectic collection of fresh fruit, equipment, and Girl Scout experiments.Over the weekend, the company used its own Falcon 9 rocket to send a Dragon cargo ship from the Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station, where it will stay until the end of September, according to CBS News. At 3:14 a.m. on Sunday, a set of nine 1D Merlin main engines in Falcon’s first stage launched the Dragon atop 1.7 million pounds of thrust.
The first stage then detached, returned to the lower atmosphere, and landed safely on SpaceX’s new autonomous droneship (dubbed “A Shortfall of Gravitas”) at sea. According to a SpaceX Dragon mission management director who spoke to CBS News, the droneship was designed to independently travel to position, receive and secure the rocket, and travel back to port for offloading. For this launch, the droneship was towed to the touchdown point, but in the future, it will recover rockets on its own.
Each phase of the Dragon launch. (Infographic: SpaceX)
Eleven minutes and 45 seconds after liftoff, the Falcon’s second stage caught preliminary orbit and released the Dragon cargo ship, which was planned to dock at the ISS at 11 a.m. the same day. Astronaut Shane Kimbrough confirmedvia Twitterat 12:32 p.m. that the Dragon had reached the ISS safe and sound with plenty of “goodies” aboard.
SpaceX’s Dragon has made more than 20 journeys to the ISS, but the cargo it brought with it on this trip is particularly delightful. Part of its 1,058 pounds of supplies includes fresh fruit, like lemons, avocados, and cherry tomatoes. With 2,305 pounds of new science gear, the teams aboard the ISS will be able to investigate the mitigation of bone deterioration in weightlessness and space’s long-term effect on a number of building materials, among other experiments. In an effort to build interest in STEM among girls and women, a troop of Girl Scouts was able to load up experiments focusing on how produce and brine shrimp can be grown as food sources in space. The Dragon also carried with it almost 1,000 pounds of equipment and extra parts.
When the Dragon returns to Earth, it will bring along equipment and high-resolution camera footage from a spacewalk planned for September 12. The spacewalk was originally planned for the end of August, but one of the astronauts, NASA’s Mark Vande Hei, developed a pinched nerve and had to postpone. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet will now be stepping in for Vande Hei.
None have been best-sellers, but Google continues to turn out an interesting series of smartphones that appeal to Android purists — especially budget-conscious ones. Although I’ve been very happy with my Pixel 4a, particularly given its $350 price, I couldn’t resist taking the plunge on a $450 Pixel 5a 5G. After my first week with the phone, I’m really pleased. That said, if you took it away and made me go back to the 4a, the ultra-wide camera might be the only specific thing I’d immediately miss. Here’s what I’ve experienced so far.
Speedy, Full-Featured, 5G Phone for Under $500
Google has never sold all that many Pixel devices. They typically aren’t marketed by carriers (other than Google itself), and never have the flashiest specs. But they have usually been a good value for money if you want a pure Android experience, rapid access to new versions and updates, and the latest Google software wizardry. So far, the Pixel 5a is no exception. Like the original Model T, it comes one way: black, with 6GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, and a dual rear camera.
I was happy to see the addition of an ultra-wide rear camera and an IP67 waterproof rating. If you can use an eSIM on one carrier, there also appears to be good dual-SIM support. For a full briefing on the specs of the Pixel 5A, head over to the review from our sibling publication PCMag.
Pure Android, Pure Google, Easy Upgrade
Upgrading to a new Android phone has gotten easier over the years. In particular, moving from one Pixel to another is as close to trouble-free as I’ve ever experienced, especially if you use a password manager. I cabled my 4a to my 5a and essentially everything came across. As a pleasant surprise, even my Bluemail accounts migrated automatically (except for passwords).
This level of convenience may seem pretty ordinary, but I happened to be setting up a Note 9 on the same day. What a difference. The Note was full of Samsung bloatware, and confusing prompts about things like backing up photos to Samsung instead of Google, using Samsung’s Find My Device instead of Google’s, and tons of “specially-designed-for-Galaxy” versions of apps that all need to bug you with their TOS. That experience reminded me of why I used to sideload custom ROMs on my phones. Of course, if you’re already bought into the Galaxy ecosystem, then the situation might be reversed, and you’ll have a much easier time upgrading to another Galaxy device.
The Ugly Side of Connected Devices
While the process of upgrading from one phone to another has improved over the years, most of us have more and more connected devices — wearables, IoT appliances, and that smart water pump you forgot the password to. In my case, the simplest devices to access from my new phone were ones that use Wi-Fi and have password-manager-friendly apps. Some devices insist on having opaque login pages, which at best means hunting down the password manually, and at worst resetting it if it was never stored.
Re-pairing Bluetooth devices is another time-consuming and frequently annoying process, especially if you’ve forgotten how to put your devices in pairing mode or whether to pair each of them through Android or through their app. Fitbit handled this really well, as the device is connected to a user, so once I logged in (and shut off my old phone for a bit) the 5a found my Sense right away. Garmin required that I “add a new device” and manually pair it. My various earbuds were a mixed bag. My Pixel Slate seems permanently confused about which phone to use since I have so many of them laying around. Overall, I’d love to see transferring device information become as easy as app migration has.
Ergonomics of the Pixel 5a
The 5a is slightly larger than my 4a, which is slightly larger than the 3 it replaced. It’s still fairly narrow, which means it isn’t any harder to use with one hand, and it’s well balanced. So overall, a bit more heft is probably worth it for the sake of the larger screen, dual cameras, and bigger battery. I don’t like using a substantial case, though, so I would have preferred the initial rumor that the 5a would come with Gorilla Glass 6 instead of Gorilla Glass 3. On the bright side, two great features of the 4a that the 5a have kept are a headphone jack and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. I’m a huge fan of back-side fingerprint sensors. They are easy to press when you pick up the phone. Power button sensors are also fine, but under-display sensors seem annoying and a source of extra work for me.
Succumbing to the Dark Side: The Lure of Larger Phones
For years I’ve tried to hold the line on the move to ever-larger phones. It’s one reason I purchase the “a” version of Google’s devices (plus, I’m cheap). But it has gotten harder and harder. On the Apple side, my colleague Joel was willing to use his old cracked-screen iPhone forever until Apple finally updated the SE to a newer version. Yet, somehow, starting from my original HTC Aria each new phone I wind up buying is slightly larger than the last. It’s not that I mind a big screen, it’s that I really like the ability to stick my phone in a shirt pocket without it looking massive or falling out. Plus, a narrow phone is easier to use with one hand.
Danger: This is Not a Phone for Vloggers
For some inexplicable reason, first the Pixel 5 and now the Pixel 5a overheat when recording 4K video at 60fps. With my phone, recording 4K @ 60fps would shut it off, or I’d get warnings about reduced video quality due to overheating within a minute or two. If you then try to switch to 30fps with the camera already hot, the phone still complains. The back of the phone does feel hot at that point, but the phone itself continues to operate normally otherwise. I did find that if I started at 30fps, and never tried 60, I could record long clips without overheating. I certainly hope Google can fix this issue, as it has the potential to ruin the appeal of the phone for many users.
Photo captured with a Google Pixel 5a and processed on the phone. (Photo: David Cardinal)
In contrast, I’ve been really happy with the quality of photos I’m getting from my 5a. It’s quick and produces natural colors. Plus I get the ultra-wide camera I really need for many of my photo projects. I’m still carrying my Nikon D850 for serious work, but increasingly I’m traveling with just a phone or two for photography.
I’m Not Sure How Much I Care That It’s a 5G Phone
Even in 2021, I’m not sure I would have paid extra for a 5G-capable phone given where I live (where the last reliable G we got was 2), and where I travel (other than for tradeshows, mostly rural or backcountry). But I’m happy enough to have it, as we’re increasingly going to have it inflicted on us. So it doesn’t bother me that it doesn’t have support for mmWave 5G, but it is capable of speeds around 100Mbps. In consolation, about half the time AT&T shows our pathetic home wireless coverage as “5G E.”
Overall, The Right Phone for Me
Obviously, the 5a doesn’t have some of the new goodies like the Tensor chip planned for the Pixel 6, and it isn’t as beefy as a Samsung flagship. But the Pixel 5a 5G packs a massive amount into a sub-$500 phone, including a refreshingly hassle-free Android experience. Speaking of which, I’m looking forward to when I can update mine to the Android 12 beta I have been running on my 4a. All in all, I’m really happy I purchased it.
When Sony launched its revised PlayStation 5, one thing users picked up on is that the new system is 11.6 ounces (330g) lighter than its predecessor. This is nearly a pound of weight. Enthusiast investigations have found where Sony managed to trim nearly 3/4 of a pound off the system, given that the chassis is identical. The new PS5 uses a significantly smaller heatsink. This, potentially combined with a redesigned fan, is leading to systems that run hotter than previously.
The YouTuber who broke this news, Austin Evans, opened both versions of the console and measured the air outflow temperature, which has increased by 3-5 degrees Celsius. This is not the same thing as a measure of the actual SoC temperature, but we can assume that the temperature on the die has increased by at least that much, possibly more.
Unfortunately, Evans reaches the wrong conclusions. The fact that the new console is exhausting hotter air is not enough to establish whether the actual CPU is running hotter. What we need are direct measurements of the core components like the CPU, SSD, and RAM.
Furthermore, there are reasons to suspect that Sony’s changes improved the cooler rather than harming its cooling ability. This is not proven — we don’t know either way — but we’ll walk through the evidence suggesting this system could be better cooled despite a higher exhaust temperature.
Here’s what the new heatsink looks like versus the old:
Image by Austin Evans
It’s true that the heatsink on the new unit is much smaller and lighter than it was previously, but there are also some hints that it may be more efficient. The unit has been substantially redesigned. The old PS5 heatsink had six heat pipes coming off the rightmost block in the image above. Of the six heat pipes, we can see that four route under the heatsink and attach to the cooler segment in the upper left. The other two heatpipes are not visible and presumably terminate in the middle-left heatsink. The round cut-out is where the intake fan sits — that’s important for the purposes of this analysis.
In the new heatsink design, we still see six heatpipes but they run different places. The middle-left cooler is longer now, as is the far-left cooler. We still see four heat pipes route underneath the middle-left block to connect to the far left block, but the pipes are now much longer, implying Sony is using this long run to dissipate more heat into that particular section of the heatsink. Both the new and the old heatsink are complex enough that it’s fair to ask what measuring the temperature of “the heatsink” means, as the top far-left end is going to be a very different temperature than the area directly over the CPU core, no matter what.
If you think about the lower left-hand side of the heatsink relative to the air intake, it’s not getting much cool air at all compared with other parts of the heatsink. Sony appears to have improved the efficiency of its heatsink by positioning more of it to be cooled directly by the intake fan. A much larger proportion of the heatsink is now cooled directly by the intake fan.
It’s plausible that the reason the exhaust temperature is higher is that air is now being circulated more effectively, leading to fewer hot spots. If an area of the CPU heatsink wasn’t being cooled very effectively, the temperature in that area might not be reflected in the original design’s exhaust temperature. Improving air circulation this way might lead to higher exhaust temperatures but cooler internal temperatures.
Image by Austin Evans
All else being equal, we would expect the PS5 with the higher exhaust temperature to also have a hotter heatsink and a toastier CPU. But all else is not equal in this case. The new heatsink is much lighter, but Sony clearly didn’t just hack off parts of the previous design. They rerouted the heatpipe network and they run the pipes farther, possibly in an attempt to distribute temperature more evenly and to expose more of the heatsink to the new fan. The new PS5 also has a different fan than the old one, with differently shaped and longer blades. The internal temperature of the system may have gone up because the CPU is not being cooled as effectively, or it may have risen because more of the components in the system are being cooled more effectively. It will take more than the exhaust temperature to resolve this question. A higher overall heatsink temperature even after accounting for the new shape would tell us more.
Larger, heavier heatsinks should not automatically be assumed to outperform smaller heatsinks. The shape and size of a heatsink and the presence or absence of features like fins and heat pipes matter more than either the weight or the mass of the heatsink itself. Warmer airflow could be a sign that components in the system are no longer being cooled as effectively or a sign that chips that were previously too hot are now dumping more heat into the air and keeping less of it themselves. Having watched Microsoft struggle with the Xbox 360 and RRoD, Sony’s engineers are hopefully still well aware of the dangers of a similar mistake.
Being a fan of both wearables and Android is tough. Apple has clearly seen huge success with the Apple Watch, but it only integrates with the iPhone. On the Google side of the fence, we have Wear OS. Samsung recently hopped back on the Wear OS bandwagon with a new version of Google’s software, but other device makers are stuck with the old version. Case in point, Fossil just announced its long-awaited Gen 6 smartwatches running the old version of Wear, with price tags on par with the latest from Samsung.
With Samsung’s return to Wear OS, Google finally has reason to pay attention to its wearable platform. It seems like Samsung has some sort of exclusivity period for Wear OS 3.0 because the new Gen 6 Fossil watches still run the old Wear OS 2 software. That means you won’t get the enhanced health features or new apps like the long-overdue version of YouTube Music for watches.
If you haven’t been paying attention to Wear OS in recent years (and who could blame you?), it may seem strange that Fossil has any notable impact on wearables. However, it has almost single-handedly kept Wear OS afloat all these years. When Motorola, ZTE, Asus, and others pulled back from wearables, Fossil kept pumping out smartwatches—technically, many copies of the same few watches with different cases, but that’s beside the point. Almost all Wear OS devices over the past few years have been from Fossil.
The Fossil Gen 6 comes in seven different styles, from bulky and masculine to slightly less bulky and feminine. Inside, they all have the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100+. That chip is among the best you’ll find in a smartwatch not built by Apple, featuring four Cortex A53 cores, an improved GPU, and an always-on co-processor for low-power mode. It’s probably faster than the usual War OS fodder, but the features won’t be any different.
Despite being shut out of Wear OS 3, Fossil is still charging a premium for these devices. The various styles are priced between $300 and $320, which is what you’d pay for a Samsung Galaxy Watch4 with the new Wear OS. That seems like a tough sell for Fossil, but it will probably start putting these devices on sale in the not-too-distant future, as it usually does. Google has suggested that its wearable partners will be able to update to Wear OS 3 in the second half of next year. So, don’t pick up the new Fossil watches hoping to see the next generation of Wear OS any time soon.
Apple’s Series 6 smartwatch has built-in hardware for tracking your blood oxygen level and heart rate. These features as well as a built-in fitness tracker make the Watch Series 6 an excellent accessory for any exercise routine. This model is also up to 20 percent faster than its predecessor, the Watch Series 5. You can now get one of these watches from Amazon marked down from $399.00 to $319.00.
Dell’s Vostro 3500 is oriented towards business use with a fast Intel Core i7 processor and a 512GB NVMe SSD for storing and quickly loading files. The system also has a full keyboard with a number pad and a 1080p display that’s ideal for writing text documents and answering emails. For a limited time you can get this system from Dell marked down from $1,355.71 to just $729.00, which makes it an exceptional deal.
This drives lets you carry around 14TB of data in a compact package that transfers data relatively quickly over USB 3.0. Right now it’s marked down from $379.99 to $274.56 on Amazon.
This eight-piece Ring Alarm kit comes with a motion sensor and four contact sensors to detect people walking around and opening doors in your home. The system also comes with a speaker that works as an alarm, a keypad for arming and deactivating the system, and a range extender to keep the various components connected. The bundle also comes with a 3rd gen Echo Dot that can be used to control the security system with voice commands. You can get it from Amazon right now marked down from $289.98 to $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.
Arduino has many applications, and it’s a rewarding way for coders to apply their skills and create their own machines. The open source platform allows users to build Arduino boards, which can sense and react to inputs, such as light on a light sensor, button presses, or even digital messages like tweets. Reactions include activating a motor, turning on a light, or publishing something online – like a reaction tweet. Arduino is an interesting and engaging pursuit, and it’s easy to learn the basics.
Right now, you can get The Ultimate Arduino Coding Power Course Bundle for the reduced price of $39.99, a significant reduction of 98 percent off the full ordinary purchase price of $2,600. Learn all about Arduino and its applications with this comprehensive course designed to take you from beginner to expert, with practical applications of the Arduino platform.
The e-learning bundle includes 13 comprehensive courses split up into 633 easily digestible lessons that span 59 hours of content. Start by getting a firm grounding with the introductory course for beginners, including creating an interactive obstacle detection application, building an Arduino circuit with hardware components, and programming Arduino with C/C++. Move on to more complex and demanding topics such as Arduino Bluetooth, simulation and block coding, Raspberry Pi, and more than 30 building projects to practice your skills.
The courses are all taught by highly rated instructors such as Ashraf Said (rated four stars out of five), a teacher with 13 years of instructional experience through his business Educational Engineering Team, and who is a specialist at diving deep into a topic and presenting it through easy to understand, bite-size videos.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A Tesla owner in Orlando collided with a parked police vehicle early on Saturday morning. The cruiser was on the side of the road, lights flashing while the officer helped the driver of a stranded Mercedes. According to the Tesla driver, her car was in Autopilot mode, but it failed to see the police vehicle and ended up hitting both the cruiser and the Mercedes. An investigation is underway, but this doesn’t look great as Tesla faces questions from government regulators about this very issue.
Tesla rolled out Autopilot to Model S owners in 2014, and the feature has since become a major selling point of its vehicles. Even the cheap Model 3 and Model Y have Autopilot functionality, but you can also upgrade to “Full Self-Driving,” which adds features like lane changing, summon, and traffic sign identification. Even the regular Autopilot implementation lets you set a destination and let the car handle highway driving.
Following the accident, the driver told authorities that the vehicle was “in Autopilot.” Police are investigating, and Tesla will probably have its say as well. But even if this is true, the driver is going to be held responsible. Tesla’s self-driving technology is not true self-driving. It’s what’s known in the industry as SAE level 2 automation. That means that the car can control speed and lane position at the same time, and can also take corrective actions like applying the brake. However, the driver must remain aware of their surroundings to take over from the car at a moment’s notice, and that seems to be the issue.
A person driving along and watching the road will always notice emergency vehicles with flashing lights, so you would expect a computer vision system that is always watching from multiple angles could do the same. We’re starting to understand that these systems are still not perfect, but they’re so good so much of the time that people become complacent. Humans are simply not as good at “monitoring” activities as we are at actively taking part in things. When someone does need to take over from Autopilot, they might not realize until it’s too late.
Self-driving cars don’t become trulyself-drivinguntil SEA level 3. At that point, the car should be able to handle an entire trip under certain conditions, and it will proactively alert the driver if they need to take over. While Tesla does not meet this threshold, the marketing and features (they even call it “Full Self-Driving Capability”) can make people feel like they’re getting a true autonomous experience. Perhaps that’s a dangerous illusion.
Sustainable and autonomous shipping methods are getting much, much bigger. The first-ever crewless electric cargo ship, called the Yara Birkeland, is set to embark on its first voyage in Norway by the end of 2021. Its manufacturer,Yara International, hopes to use the ship to replace 40,000 truck journeys per year.
Yara originally planned on setting the Birkeland on its maiden voyage in 2020 after three years of development, but thanks to the pandemic, the company was forced to postpone the trip. In November, Yara finally received the ship from the Norwegian shipyard where it had been stored and resumed testing and preparation. The company said it had to overcome some challenges specific to autonomous logistics, but that construction of the ship itself—including the fitting of its 7 MWh battery and navigation systems—experienced few delays.
A model of the Yara Birkeland at launch. (Photo: Yara International)
At 80 meters long and 15 meters at the beam, the Birkeland is hardly the largest ship at the shipyard. According toYara, it’s capable of carrying 120 TEU—twenty-foot equivalent units, for those who don’t have their sealegs—and possesses a deadweight of 3,200 metric tons. (For perspective, a majority of smaller cargo ships can carry anywhere from10,000 to 12,000 TEU.) None of this is to say that the Birkeland won’t make waves in the shipping industry; innovation has to start somewhere, and no one needs an electric, crewless version of the Suez Canalblockagefrom earlier this year. Once it’s set sail, the Birkeland will travel at a modest speed of six to seven knots, though it can reach a maximum of 13. Its two 900 kW Azipull pods and dual 700 kW tunnel thrusters will propel it from Herøya to Brevik while three remote control centers monitor the trip.
Yara’s autonomous electric ship is the sustainable advancement that nobody quite asked for but thatthe world needs. While a crewless cargo ship isn’t as flashy as, say, delivery drones and self-driving Teslas, it’s a development that will hopefully help to mitigate theshipping industry’s current responsibility for 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. There’s also the chance that shipping vehicles not reliant on human labor will help to reduce shipping costs over time—though whether that’s a pro or a con depends on where you stand, as automating a piece of a supply chain almost always results in the loss of jobs.
Microsoft created a great deal of confusion earlier this year when its initial guidance indicated systems older than three years old would not be allowed to upgrade to Windows 11. It turns out there’s more nuance to the situation than Microsoft initially stated.
Following the results of our testing, we are making a small number of additions to the compatible processor list (explained further below), but otherwise will maintain the minimum system requirements as originally set. We have concluded that the compatible 64-bit processors selected, 4GB of memory, 64GB of storage, UEFI secure boot, graphics requirements and TPM 2.0 are the right minimum system requirements to deliver on the principles we established to best support you.
The only systems officially being added to the “Compatible” list are the Intel Core X-series and Xeon W CPU families and — specifically — the Intel Core i7-7820HQ, which powers Microsoft’s Surface Studio 2. According to Microsoft, “After carefully analyzing the first generation of AMD Zen processors in partnership with AMD, together we concluded that there are no additions to the supported CPU list.” The company has also updated the PC Health Check app to deliver more nuanced advice.
But that doesn’t seem to be the final word.
When Windows 10 shipped, Microsoft offered free upgrades for a year before publicly ending the program — except, Microsoft never actually publicly ended the program. You can still download and install Windows 10 using an old OS key. It works perfectly. Officially, the program is long over. Unofficially, it’s still going.
MS appears to be doing something similar here. Officially, Windows 11 will not be available for upgrade unless you own an 8th Gen or later Intel CPU and a Zen+ chip (not Zen 2) from AMD. Unofficially, it may be a different story.
Before we dive into that, small clarification: Despite claiming to have worked with AMD extensively, Microsoft apparently has no idea what Zen 2 actually is. The company continues to refer to chips from AMD’s 2000 series as Zen 2, despite the fact that they are classified as Zen+ processors. This isn’t trivial to the conversation, because Zen and Zen+ are very nearly the same core with identical motherboard compatibility, yet “Zen” isn’t supported while “Zen 2” (Zen+) is. For a company that claims to have worked closely with AMD, it doesn’t appear to have worked closely enough to read an AMD product sheet. Zen+ CPUs are supported in the same motherboards as Zen, but one qualifies and one does not.
Luckily, it may not matter. The Verge is reporting that “[A] restriction to install the OS will only be enforced when you try to upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11 through Windows Update. This means anyone with a PC with an older CPU that doesn’t officially pass the upgrade test can still go ahead and download an ISO file of Windows 11 and install the OS manually.”
If true, this substantially changes the calculus for users. Windows 11 will be available as an upgrade to those with older hardware; Microsoft just doesn’t intend to advertise the fact. In keeping with this supposed plan, Microsoft doesn’t list any information about how you’ll be able to sneak older equipment onto Windows 11 — just a bunch of poorly articulated data on how Windows 11 supposedly prevents kernel errors. Specifically:
Devices that do not meet the minimum system requirements had 52% more kernel mode crashes. Devices that do meet the minimum system requirements had a 99.8% crash free experience.
So, two things about that. First of all, if your OS doesn’t crash 99.8 percent of the time, a 52 percent increase in kernel mode crashes is actually trivial. To calculate that, we calculate (0.2+(0.2*.52)). That works out to 0.304, which means old hardware is stable 99.696 percent of the time instead of 99.8 percent of the time. This is not a large shift. Microsoft is sowing FUD on the topic.
Second, it’s not clear which specific improvements in Windows 11 would improve these metrics. Because Microsoft doesn’t identify if these failures are occurring in recent equipment or literally across all Windows 10 devices not eligible for an official upgrade, it’s possible that some of these systems use much older DRAM. A paper from Google some years back found that DRAM is responsible for far more errors than many users realize, and that much of what we think of software crashes may be DRAM errors. Given this, it’s possible that increased error rates on older systems can be chalked up to outdated drivers, DRAM errors, or other minor causes of low-level instability. Again, we’re talking about a shift from 99.8 percent to 99.7 percent stability over an unspecified period of time. You’d be hard-pressed to find that difference in any manual record of reboots for a system or even a group of systems. 0.1 percent variance would vanish into noise without an enormous amount of information.
Assuming it’s true that Microsoft intends to allow users to manually upgrade, our question is why the company didn’t just announce this to start with.
Microsoft has repeatedly doubled down on Windows 11’s hardware requirements. It repeatedly insisted that no, there would be no bypass, no back doors. Roughly a month ago, during a Reddit AMA, Microsoft’s Aria Carey stated: “We’re still going to block you from upgrading your device to an unsupported state since we really want to make sure that your devices stay supported and secure.”
If The Verge is right, no they aren’t. I’d feel better to see Microsoft publicly confirm The Verge’s statements, but having watched how the company handled long-term Win 10 upgrades, it’s possible it does not intend to do so. This option may just exist quietly and indefinitely throughout the lifespan of the product.
If that’s the case — and especially if it was always planned this way — we’d like to see Microsoft either play its cards a little less close to the chest, or at least offer a little more ambiguity than it has here. If you intend to leave a quiet upgrade option, say things like: “The following machines will be officially supported for Windows 11. Additional plans for other hardware will be announced a later date,” and put that in the launch announcement. The technical press is capable of parsing the difference between “officially” supported and “unofficially supported.” It’s not a new distinction.
So that’s where things stand at the moment. Enthusiasts with older hardware will be able to install or upgrade Windows 11, but will not be offered the upgrade via Windows Update.
The current betas and Insider versions do not allow installation to a machine if that machine is not connected with a TPM 1.2 or 2.0 module. This can be bypassed in several ways, but right now this unofficial support is still locked out. Since Microsoft hasn’t commented yet directly, it’s possible enthusiasts will still need to jump through several hoops to get hardware running.
The near-term improvements of Windows 11 over Windows 10 look pretty small. Windows 11 and Windows 10 will both support features like DirectStorage, for example. There is one area where we know Windows 11 will offer superior performance over Windows 10: hybrid computers. CPUs based on Lakefield and Alder Lake will deliver at least slightly improved performance in Windows 11 thanks to that operating system’s improved support for hybrid CPUs. Chips like Alder Lake will run Windows 10 if you prefer to stick with that version of the OS, but they ought to run a bit faster on Windows 11.
If the only difference between official and unofficial Windows 11 support is whether the OS gets offered to you in Windows Update, that’s a pretty fair solution to us. Now please stop obfuscating local account setup.
The onetime CEO of ARM China, Allen Wu, has reportedly seized control of ARM’s Chinese business venture, ARM China. Mr. Wu is accused of attempting to launch his own company, Alphatecture, by leveraging his position at ARM China to do so. Companies were reportedly offered discounts on ARM China products if they would invest in Alphatecture. Investors and ARM agreed to oust Wu for this behavior in a board vote, 7-1, but Wu still possessed the seal of the company, which makes him its legal representative as far as Chinese law is concerned.
Wu hired security to keep ARM employees from entering ARM China, fired employees who did not wish him to take over the company, and has sued ARM China to declare his own dismissal as CEO illegal. This means Allen Wu (person) is suing Allen Wu (ARM China). As Devin Patel reports, ARM has responded by refusing to transfer any IP from its new products. The newest CPU core ARM China has access to is the Cortex-A77.
Wu has responded in turn by holding an event declaring that 安谋科技 (this appears to mean ARM Limited) is an enormous success, and that it would soon ship a new “XPU” line of products consisting of AI accelerators and processing units, image signal processors, security processors, and video processors. Most of this equipment is targeting the IoT market.
Patel claims that Softbank’s “short-sighted profit-driven behavior” is at the root of this problem. In 2018, Softbank agreed to cede control of ARM’s Chinese operations to the ARM China joint venture. ARM/Softbank owns 49 percent of the company while the Chinese own 51 percent. The Chinese government’s goal for the merger, according to Nikkei Asia, was “[T]o secure sources of technology, especially for some sensitive chips that later go into government or other security uses,” an anonymous chip executive stated. “China does not need to worry whether other countries like the U.S. could somehow pressure Arm to provide less support for Chinese companies.” This Asia Nikkei story goes into detail on how SoftBank’s agreement left it with very little control.
It is not clear how much pressure was put on SoftBank to form the merger, but this looks like one of the most blatant examples of IP theft that we’ve seen. The Chinese arm of a company has gone rogue and refused to obey the ruling of its own board. The head of that company is essentially treating it as a personal fiefdom, and Chinese authorities do not appear to have taken meaningful action to reign in Mr. Wu. While ARM China does not currently have access to the ARMv9 instruction set or any additional ARM IP, it appears that the company will attempt to use previously transferred assets to bootstrap its own transformation into an “independent” company.
Nvidia may or may not be able to come to some kind of agreement with the renegade corporate entity as part of its effort to buy ARM, but that effort will need to clear EU scrutiny before Nvidia gets involved in any conversation. The EU has recently said it will investigate the ARM-Nvidia marger. Nvidia has said it will work “with the European Commission to address any concerns they may have.” ARM had no comment on this story.
It has been a long, long road, but NASA has now officially completed work on the James Webb Space Telescope. This follow-up to Hubble has been in some phase of development since the late 1990s, and the cost has ballooned to $10 billion, but we’re mere months away from the culmination. NASA is packing the telescope up, and its next stop is French Guiana, where it will leave Earth behind forever.
The Hubble Telescope has had an incredible run, but even with constant monitoring and hardware redundancy, the instrument doesn’t have much time left. The last Hubble servicing mission took place in 2009, and problems are becoming more frequent, like just a few months ago when the observatory went offline due to a power supply failure. When deployed, the Webb Telescope will be able to pick up where Hubble left off, peering at more distant, dimmer objects thanks to its 6.5-meter Korsch-style segmented mirror. The mirror is so large that it has to fold up to fit inside the ESA’s Ariane 5 rocket that will hoist it into space.
NASA says it has completed all the engineering checks on Webb’s systems, and the hardware is fully assembled. The next order of business is to get it ready for its ocean journey to the launch site. After arriving, teams will swarm over the instrument to ensure it survived the trip. They will also remove numerous bright red flags marked “remove before flight.” These act as protective covers for sensitive components during the assembly and testing phase. Ground teams will also fuel Webb with the hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer it will use to maintain its position during operation.
The complexity of the project has pushed the total cost 20 times higher than the $500 million NASA proposed back in 1997. The cost crept up year after year, tapering off only slightly in the last few budget cycles as work wrapped up. The launch date has also been pushed back numerous times, including three different dates in 2021. Currently, Webb is scheduled to launch in late 2021, but there’s no firm date. The previous Halloween timeline was the last official date, so we’re now looking at November or December.
After reaching orbit, Webb will deploy its solar arrays and wait for commands from the ground. NASA will spend several weeks bringing systems online and running tests, and then Webb will get underway to the Sun-Earth Lagrange point, also known as L2. At this location, almost a million miles from Earth, the telescope will extend its sunshield and spend a few months cooling off. If all goes as planned, the chilled Webb telescope will be able to peer deeply into the infrared, spying more detail than Hubble ever could.
