Month: May 2018

LG

LG's has launched its first new OLED TVs in 2018. The C8 and E8 are both 4K HDR TVs with absolute black levels and LG's new Alpha 9 (a9) video processor. Both models are available in the US and Europe starting today. Current prices are as follows:

• LG C8 55-inch: $2,500
• LG C8 65-inch: $3,500
• LG C8 75-inch: $9,000
• LG E8 55-inch: $3,000
• LG E8 65-inch: $4,000

Apart from new Google Assistant integration for voice commands, the a9 is the key differentiator from last year's models. LG claims this artificial intelligence processor reduces what few significant picture-quality weaknesses OLED tech has, like color banding. It doesn't change the maximum brightness, though, which comes in at "up to 1,000" nits according to LG. In practice, OLEDs won't get as bright as competing LCDs, though these levels are adequate for current HDR content.

Enlarge / Protesters take part in a net neutrality rally at a Verizon store December 7, 2017 in New York. (credit: Getty Images | Don Emmert)

A California bill that would impose the nation's strictest state net neutrality law is being replicated in the New York state legislature.

In California, the bill was approved last month by two Senate committees despite protest from AT&T and cable lobbyists, and it needs to go through one more committee before getting a vote of the full state Senate. Today, a lawmaker in New York said he has teamed up with the California bill's author to introduce an equivalent bill in the New York legislature.

The "bicoastal effort to restore the rights of an open and free Internet through net neutrality legislation" would cover nearly one-fifth of the American population if both states enact the proposed law, the California and New York state senators said in their announcement.

Enlarge / Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the F8 Facebook Developers conference on May 1, 2018 in San Jose, California. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

On Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company is working on a tool that would allow users a "simple way to clear your cookies and history."

While the company didn't say so explicitly, this move seems to be in response to the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.

Last month, it was revealed that a 2014 survey app that required Facebook login credentials allowed the survey creator and his team access to their friends' public profile data. In the end, this system captured data on 87 million Facebook users. This data trove wound up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, a British data analytics firm, and ultimately, the Donald Trump presidential campaign.

Enlarge / An artist's view of the Starliner spacecraft en route to the International Space Station. (credit: Boeing)

A new report provides some insight into the challenges that SpaceX and Boeing are facing when it comes to flying commercial crew missions, and it also suggests both companies may be nearly two years away from reaching operational status for NASA.

The assessment of large projects at NASA, published on Tuesday by the US Government Accountability Office, found that certification of the private spacecraft for flying astronauts to the International Space Station may be delayed to December 2019 for SpaceX and February 2020 for Boeing.

"Both of the Commercial Crew Program's contractors have made progress developing their crew transportation systems, but delays persist as the contractors have had difficulty executing aggressive schedules," the report states.

Greetings, Arsians! Courtesy of our friends at TechBargains, we have another round of deals to share. Today's list is headed up by the lowest price we've seen on Crucial's MX500 solid-state drive: its 500GB variant is now available for $115 at Amazon, down from its usual $125-130 range.

This isn't the sexiest gadget around, but replacing an old hard disk drive with a good SSD is one of the simplest and most impactful upgrades you can make to speed up an aging laptop or new desktop. The MX500 here isn't a performance king for its size—Samsung's 860 EVO is typically found to be faster and more power efficient in this class of SATA drives—but it's not significantly far off in real-world use, and here it's going for $25 less. It comes with a five-year (or 180TB written) warranty and supports native encryption as well. Feel free to pay more for the EVO if you want a better performer (and don't want to pay more for a stronger NVMe drive), but the MX500 is a solid value for mainstream purposes today.

If you're not in the mood to tinker with your PC, however, we also have deals on various gaming laptops and accessories, iPads, wireless exercise headphones, 4K TVs, and much more. Check it all out for yourself below.