Month: April 2017

Enlarge / On a laptop like this, Windows 10's new Game Mode could give your multitasking system a much-needed gaming performance boost.

In selling the potential of Windows 10's dedicated Game Mode (included as part of this week's Creators Update), Microsoft has promised that prioritizing processes and grouping threads would lead to an FPS boost of 2 to 5 percent in games that max out the high end of the CPU/GPU power curve. When we tried Game Mode for ourselves on a fast system, we didn't feel any particular difference in either average or minimum frame rates. But further testing shows that Game Mode has the ability to deliver much more significant improvements: on slower machines, it can even boost games from being unplayable to (just about) acceptable.

PC World recently ran the numbers on a handful of Windows 10 games that take advantage of Game Mode: Bioshock Infinite, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Gears of War 4. On a top-of-the-line Surface Book laptop (sporting a low-end GTX 965M graphics card), the new mode only led to modest improvements in average frame rates, whether the game was running alone or with a lot of background tasks open. That matches the findings of other benchmarkers who found little effect from Game Mode.

Things were different when the magazine looked at the minimum frames per second for games running in Game Mode. When those games were running by themselves, the improvements were still hard to notice. But with background tasks like a YouTube browser window, Spotify, and AVG antivirus running, Game Mode caused a significant bump in minimum frame rates for each game. In the case of Bioshock Infinite, the minimum frame rate jumped by nearly a factor of two, from 5.92fps to 10.65.

Enlarge (credit: BSIP )

Bacteria-busting toothpastes that help prevent cavities in your teeth could be making small dents in the community of microbes in your gut—possibly allowing antibiotic-resistant bacteria to fill in—preliminary data suggests.

In a small study, women who switched to brushing with toothpaste that contained the antimicrobial triclosan saw a troubling shift in the microbes in their guts as well as a slight change in drug resistance, Stanford researchers report.

The data is preliminary—it has not been peer-reviewed or published in a journal yet—and the study was small, including women and infants from only 39 households. But, the findings fall in line with several other studies that found that triclosan and other common antimicrobials can cause subtle disruptions in all-powerful gut microbiomes.

Enlarge / Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth during an interview in 2011. (credit: Getty Images | Gallo Images)

Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth will once again be the CEO of Canonical as the company reduces its staff and narrows its focus to profitable projects.

Canonical CEO Jane Silber announced her departure yesterday, seven years after then-CEO Shuttleworth asked her to take over the company's top spot. She previously served as Canonical's chief operating officer.

"I originally agreed to be CEO for five years and we’ve extended my tenure as CEO by a couple of years already," Silber wrote. "We’ve been preparing for a transition for some time by strengthening the executive leadership team and maturing every aspect of the company, and earlier this year Mark and I decided that now is the time to effect this transition. Over the next three months I will remain CEO but begin to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team. In July, Mark will retake the CEO role and I will move to the Canonical Board of Directors."

Enlarge / John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, debuts a customized Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid in January 2017. (credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images News)

SAN FRANCISCO—During a Wednesday court hearing, a federal judge said that if an Uber engineer accused of a massive data theft from his former employer is going to invoke his Fifth Amendment right to protect against self-incrimination and not hand over materials demanded as part of a recent subpoena and upcoming deposition, then he must at least explain himself privately to the judge.

"What I’ve told you is that you can submit the privilege log to me, in camera, without giving it to anyone else and I can evaluate it, which aspects, if any would be incriminating," US District Judge William Alsup said, addressing a lawyer representing the engineer, Anthony Levandowski, during the hearing. "I’m not ruling against the ultimate assertion of the privilege, but you’ve got to do more than just say in court, Fifth Amendment—you have to do a privilege log and go through the process."

The case pits Waymo against Uber, which in turn is in a tense situation with one of its own employees, Levandowski, the head of its self-driving division.

Enlarge (credit: US Air Force)

The last of the gunfighters will not be hanging up its holster anytime soon. While the Trump administration has been playing Let's Make a Deal with Lockheed Martin and Boeing over the future of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Department of Defense has decided to extend the life of yet another old warhorse to fill the gap. At least 300 F-16 Fighting Falcons will receive structural and avionics upgrades that will allow them to fly until at least 2048, thanks to a Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) with Lockheed Martin.

Obama administration had already made plans for the A-10 Thunderbolt to stay in service until 2022 to fill the close air support role, and had plotted an upgrade to the F-16 as well since 2012. But the task of pulling the trigger on the F-16 upgrade was left to the Trump administration. "Following F-16 Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) structural modifications, the US Air Force could safely operate [F-16C and D] Block 40-52 aircraft to 2048 and beyond," Air Force officials said in a release.

The F-16 was a product of a push by a group of analysts within the Air Force known as the "Fighter Mafia" for a lightweight fighter—a counterpart to the F-15 Eagle in what was referred to as a "high-low mix" (with the expensive, high-tech F-15 being the "high"). The F-16 was the  winner of a "fly-before-buy" bake-off—an approach to procurement that many critics of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter may be nostalgic for.