Month: February 2019

Enlarge / An artist's impression showing the binary star system of Sirius A and its diminutive blue companion, Sirius B. (credit: NASA, ESA and G. Bacon)

Sirius, a binary system, is the brightest star in the night sky. The larger of the two stars, Sirius A, is about 25 times more luminous than the Sun, and Sirius is relatively nearby, at less than 9 light years from our Solar System.

On Monday night, for a few areas of South and Central America, as well as the Caribbean, Sirius will probably briefly disappear. This will occur as a small asteroid passes in front of the star, occulting it for up to 1.6 seconds, according to the International Occultation Timing Association. (Yes, the acronym is IOTA).

In this case, the asteroid 4388 Jürgenstock will have an apparent diameter just an iota bigger than Sirius. The angular diameter of the asteroid is about 0.007 arcseconds (an arcsecond is 1/3,600th of a degree of the night sky), whereas the angular diameter of Sirius is 0.006 arcseconds. Thus, as the asteroid passes in front of Sirius, the star will briefly dim, perhaps completely, before quickly brightening again. Sirius may appear to blink once, slowly.

Enlarge / Wow, many book, so elite. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

The battle of the business notebooks is in full swing as HP tries to one-up Lenovo—and itself—all in one go. HP scored a winner with an updated 13-inch Elitebook x360 it released last year. Now it's full-speed ahead with the new Elitebook x360 1040 G5, the newest version of HP's 14-inch business notebook. The 13-inch model is smaller and lighter overall, but HP offers upgraded features in this larger convertible and promises a 14-inch display in a 13-inch chassis.

We liked the 13-inch Elitebook x360, so I was looking to answer a few questions in testing the Elitebook x360 1040: Does it succeed in all the ways its 13-inch counterpart did? Is it better than the smaller option? And did HP create a device that can dethrone Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 laptops and convertibles as the kings of commercial ultrabooks? Let's find out.

Look and feel

HP is pushing the fact that the Elitebook x360 1040 fits a 14-inch screen in a 13-inch chassis. That's impressive, but it also means that the company didn't change much about the convertible's external design. The same brushed aluminum coloring covers the entire laptop, accented only by diamond-cut edges that appear shiny and sharp when they catch the light. The metal hinges have a slightly curved, rectangular shape to them, allowing the screen to swivel 360 degrees from laptop to tent to tablet mode.

Enlarge / Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon is on sale for Presidents' Day. (credit: Valentina Palladino)

Greetings, Arsians! The Dealmaster is back with another holiday deals roundup. This time we're coming at you with a wide range of Presidents' Day sales, because George Washington was definitely thinking of what 4K TV deals he could score as he was crossing the Delaware.

Kidding. But the day officially known as Presidents' Day—which, fun fact, does not occur on Washington's actual birthday—has, like most holidays, become an excuse for retailers to push discounts on all sorts of items in their inventory. Many of these deals apply to things like home goods, clothing, and mattresses, but tech is fairly well represented, too.

Per usual, a lot of these sales are junk, but the Dealmaster has rounded up a sampling of the worthwhile tech deals currently available around the Web. Our list includes discounts on Amazon and Apple devices, 4K Roku TVs, big-name video games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Marvel's Spider-Man, Lenovo ThinkPads, a sitewide 15% off coupon at Rakuten, and much more. Have a look for yourself below.