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The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go is a budget Chromebook with one stand-out feature: it’s one of only a handful to support cellular networks. Samsung quietly introduced the laptop last month, and now it’s available for purchase from Samsung…
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Go is a budget Chromebook with one stand-out feature: it’s one of only a handful to support cellular networks. Samsung quietly introduced the laptop last month, and now it’s available for purchase from Samsung.com for $300. Unfortunately the only model available at the moment is a WiFi-only model with rather mediocre […]
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As sea levels rise, our defenses against flood damage might not work as planned
Enlarge / An image of the Bay Area at night shows why protecting some regions will likely lead to damaging floods elsewhere. (credit: NASA)
Protecting the coasts in the United States from the impacts of climate change comes with a hefty price tag. But new research shows that using sea walls to safeguard land can just make the rising tides a problem somewhere else.
The paper, published in PNAS, looks into the effect of erecting sea walls in one location and what that means for other places along the coast. Using the San Francisco Bay as a case study, it also assesses the economic impacts of flood scenarios in the nonprotected regions. According to the paper, defending individual parcels of the shore can increase flooding elsewhere by as much as 36 million cubic meters. This can result in $723 million in damages for a single flooding event in the most dire situations—costs can even exceed the damages that would have resulted otherwise in the protected region.
As the sea level around the world rises, humans are inevitably going to be putting up structures to protect themselves—and, in the case of the US, that includes 350,000 structures near the coast. But this can have detrimental effects on those places we choose not to protect.
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Homeopath: “It is like an energy medicine… made from the disease particles themselves.”
Enlarge / Vials containing pills for homeopathic remedies are displayed at Ainsworths Pharmacy on August 26, 2005, in London. (credit: Getty | Peter Macdiarmid)
Federal prosecutors have arrested a homeopathy practitioner for an alleged scheme involving sham COVID-19 immunization pellets and falsified COVID-19 vaccination record cards, the Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
Juli Mazi, 41, of Napa, California, allegedly sold unproven and potentially dangerous vials of pellets for $243 in some cases that she fraudulently claimed could provide "lifelong immunity" to COVID-19. What the pellets actually are or contain is unclear. One person who spoke with federal investigators said they became ill after taking the pellets. In Mazi's sales pitches, she said that the pellets contain a "very minute amount of this [COVID-19] disease," while fraudulently claiming that FDA-authorized COVID-19 vaccines contain "toxic ingredients."
Along with the mystery pellets, Mazi allegedly provided customers with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards, which she either partly filled out or left blank. She instructed customers to write on the card that they had received a Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and then date the immunization as the time they took their pellets—or a date that would otherwise not raise suspicion. Mazi even provided customers with Moderna vaccine lot numbers, which the CDC confirmed were real lot numbers for Moderna vaccines. The lot numbers corresponded to vaccine supplies distributed in the Napa area, of which none were allocated to Mazi, who is not federally authorized to receive or administer COVID-19 vaccines.
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Apart from the rolling feature, it’s almost identical to an LG CX or C1.
The LG Signature OLED R rolled up. [credit: LG ]
LG has finally revealed pricing for its 65-inch rollable OLED TV, dubbed the LG Signature OLED R: $100,000. The price was revealed briefly on LG's website.
Apart from the rolling feature, the TV offers little over other OLED TVs. The Signature OLED R doesn't even feature the best picture quality that LG's OLED lineup has to offer. The high-end, non-rollable G1 sets (which cost a little under $3,000) can achieve greater peak brightness, which is key to making a big impression with HDR content. The rollable version instead offers similar performance to 2020's high-end OLED sets. (The peak brightness upgrade was exclusive to the G series in the 2021 lineup.)
The LG C1 is arguably the most comparable set from the 2021 lineup in terms of picture quality, and the 65-inch version of that TV retails for just over $2,000. That means you'll be paying almost 50 times more for the ability to roll your TV's screen down like a car window.
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Valve is getting into the handheld gaming space with the launch of the new Steam Deck. It’s basically a gaming computer that you can hold in your hands… or a PC that looks a bit like a Nintendo Switch. The Steam Deck went up for pre-order starting July 16th, with prices starting at $399 for a […]
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Valve is getting into the handheld gaming space with the launch of the new Steam Deck. It’s basically a gaming computer that you can hold in your hands… or a PC that looks a bit like a Nintendo Switch.
The Steam Deck went up for pre-order starting July 16th, with prices starting at $399 for a model with entry-level specs. But customers can pay more if they want additional (and faster) storage. The Steam Deck should begin shipping in December February, 2022.
The Steam Deck features a 7 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel touchscreen LCD display sandwiched between two game controllers. The screen has a 60 Hz refresh rate and supports up to 400 nits of brightness.
Under the hood, the Steam Deck features 16GB of LPDDR5 memory, 64GB to 512GB of storage, and an custom low-power AMD processor which features:
Valve says the custom chip is code-named Aerith, and while it only have 1GB of dedicated video memory, it can access up to 8GB of shared LPDDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 88 GB/s.
While it’s a low-power chip designed for use in a handheld, Valve says it performs the same whether the Steam Deck is running on battery power or plugged in, and the company didn’t put any artificial performance constraints on the processor… but recommends developers consider capping frame rates on their games in order to extend battery life.
The Steam Deck may only have the graphics performance of an entry-level discrete GPU like NVIDIA’s GeForce MX450, that processing power should go a long way on a device with a 1280 x 800 pixel display since there’s no need to render 1080o or higher res graphics. And Valve is also allowing developers to upload versions of their games to Steam that are optimized for lower-resolution displays in order to reduce the storage needs and speed up download times for Steam Deck users.
The Steam Deck measures 298 x 117 x 49mm (11.7″ x 4.6″ x 2″) and weighs 669 grams (1.5 pounds) and packs a 40 Wh battery that Valve says should be good for up to 7-8 hours of web browsing or several hours of game play.
You can charge it via a 45W USB Type-C power adapter, and the Steam Deck’s USB-C port also supports DisplayPort 1.4 Alt-mode, meaning you can connect it to an 8K/60Hz display, a 4K/120Hz display if you want to game on the big screen. Alternately you can connect up to two 4K/60Hz displays.
Other ports include a 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card reader, and the Steam Deck has dual microphones and dual speakers.
The game controllers feature most of the usual buttons you’d expect including dual analog sticks, X, Y, A, and B buttons, shoulder trigger buttons, and a D-Pad. But there are also trackpads on each side of the screen, which can come in handy if you’re playing games that normally require a mouse. This is a carry-over from Valve’s discontinued Steam Controller.
There are also View & Menu buttons which could be useful for navigation.
If you’re wondering what exactly you’ll be navigating, other than games, it’s Steam OS. Valve’s computer will ship with a custom GNU/Linux distribution based on Arch Linux and featuring the KDE Plasma desktop and Valve’s custom user interface.
Steam OS first debuted years ago when Valve was making a push to work with third-party PC makers to deliver “Steam Machines,” or compact desktop computers that customers could use like game consoles, but with support for PC games downloaded from the Steam store.
Steam Machines never really took off. But Valve did port the Steam game client to work with Linux, encouraged many developers to port their games to Linux, and even built on existing open source tools to release Proton, a tool that allows many Windows PC games to run on Linux without any modifications at all.
And that all could give Valve an edge in the handheld gaming PC space over competitors… and there are competitors. In recent years two Chinese companies have released a number of handheld gaming computers that feature the guts of laptop stuffed into compact chassis designed to be carried around.
GPD and One Netbook have sort of dominated this space, with a little recent competition from AYA, but their devices are also aimed at enthusiasts willing to drop as much as $1,000 on a handheld gaming device from a Chinese company with limited presence outside of their home countries.
You can see how the Steam Deck stacks up against the competition in our comparison table.
Valve’s Steam Deck is a little more expensive than a Nintendo Switch (even the new OLED model). But it’s cheaper than most GPD or One Netbook devices, and it’s also backed by a company that’s made a name for itself in gaming. Steam OS may not support all Windows PC games, but it will support many of them.
And since the Steam Deck is basically a PC, you can install Windows or other operating systems on it, as IGN confirmed.
And if the little computer doesn’t have enough horsepower for the titles you want to play, you can always use it to stream games from a more powerful PC using Steam’s remote play service.
I don’t expect GPD or One Netbook to give up without a fight. But positioning the Steam Deck as a mobile gaming PC with a starting price of $399 will put a lot of pressure on those companies to offer lower-cost devices and/or features that Valve’s handheld doesn’t match.
That said, the entry-level version of the Steam Deck has just 64GB of eMMC storage. If you want more & faster storage, you have to pay extra. Here are the pricing options:
All three models have an M.2 2230 socket, so you could theoretically buy the cheapest model and add your own SSD. But Valve does say that the SSDs are “not intended for end-user replacement,” suggesting that you’ll have to open the case and potentially void your warranty to perform upgrades, since there’s no easy access slot. Upgrades are possible, but not necessarily easy.
The good news is that Valve says you can also expand storage via an SD card, and the company says that while games load more slowly from eMMC or SD card storage than from an NVMe SSD, the performance hit isn’t that big:
All three models also come with a carrying case, but the most expensive model also comes with “premium anti-glare etched glass” and has an “exclusive virtual keyboard theme” if that’s something you think you’ll need.
Valve’s Linux-based Steam OS is another key feature that helps set the Steam Deck apart from the competition. Shipping a handheld gaming PC with a custom operating system focused on gaming gives Valve more control over the user interface and performance of its device, while also helping keep costs down since the company doesn’t have to pay for a Windows license.
The Steam Deck will ship with a new version of the operating system called Steam OS 3 with an updated user interface that’s been optimized for small, handheld devices.
Among other things, there’s a new home screen layout, a universal search feature, a notification area that can be accessed with the press of a hardware button, and a mobile-friendly virtual keyboard. There’s also a new Steam Input configurator.
And although many Windows PC games don’t natively support Linux, Valve has been a leader in both encouraging developers to create native Linux ports and developing Proton software that allows many Windows titles to run on Linux without any additional work from developers.
The company is also now giving developers the option to take advantage of new APIs that will make PC gaming a little more console-like. For example, instead of just synchronizing user’s saved data to the cloud when they exit games, developers can now add an option for saving when a Steam Deck is suspended, allowing users to suspend and resume the Steam Deck without losing any data and quickly get back to where they left off when the system wakes up.
While Steam OS 3.0 is made with the Steam Deck in mind, the new user interface will also replace Steam’s Big Picture UI for the company’s desktop clients in the future, making the Steam experience more unified across platforms and allowing Valve to roll out updates more quickly.
Other features built for the Steam Deck will also be coming to the company’s desktop clients. For example, the new controller settings configurator will have the same user interface on desktop and laptop systems as it does on handhelds.
Valve will also sell an official dock accessory that’s basically a USB-C hub and stand that gives you additional ports including HDMI, DisplayPort, and Ethernet jacks. Pricing and availability details haven’t been announced yet.
The Steam Deck will be available in the US, Canada, UK, and European Union at launch, before eventually expanding to additional markets.
| Valve Steam Deck Specs | |
| Display |
|
| CPU | AMD Zen 2
|
| GPU | AMD RDNA 2
|
| RAM | 16GB LPDDR5-5500 |
| Storage |
|
| Ports |
|
| Game controllers |
|
| Other buttons & switches |
|
| Keyboard | Virtual |
| Battery & charging |
|
| Wireless |
|
| Audio |
|
| Webcam & mic | Mic only |
| OS | Steam OS (Arch Linux with KDE Plasma) |
| Dimensions | 298mm x 117mm x 49mm 11.7″ x 4.6″ x 1.9″ |
| Weight | 669 grams 1.5 pounds |
| Docking Station |
|
| Price |
|
This article was originally published July 15, 2021 and last updated November 13, 2021.
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August’s expansion is Facebook Pay’s first step out of the Facebook ecosystem.
Enlarge / Facebook Pay is one of many payment services aiming to eliminate the "phone, laptop, credit card" shuffle by offering easily accessed one-tap payment options. (credit: Fiordaliso via Getty Images)
This August, Facebook will be making its Facebook Pay payment service available outside its own platforms for the first time. Facebook's announcement describes the move as providing a mobile-friendly, seamless checkout experience for businesses that elect to use it, pointing out that Facebook users already use the service to send money and buy items in Facebook Shops and the Facebook Marketplace.
There isn't much meat in Facebook's announcement, which mostly rehashes feel-good bullet points that apply to the entire online financial industry, not just Facebook Pay—for example, the system's use of encrypted storage and the fact that businesses accepting Facebook Pay don't need to manage customers' card or bank account numbers. While these features sound good at first blush, they're both de rigueur, not innovations—the majority of online stores already use third-party payment processors that manage credit card and bank account numbers for them.
Facebook pledges that Pay users' credit card and bank account information won't be used to "personalize their experience" or target advertisements. The company also says that payments and purchases will not be shared with a user's friends or to a user's profile or feed. It's worth noting that these are explicitly separate promises, though—Facebook isn't promising that payments and purchases won't be used for "personalization" or ad targeting.
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Orders confirmed to start at 12pm PT/3pm ET. Here’s what to know before you buy.
Enlarge / The new Nintendo Switch OLED Model. (credit: Nintendo)
After an initial unveiling last week, Nintendo’s Switch OLED model will be available to preorder through various retailers in the US starting on Thursday. In a tweet, the company said that orders for the new console variant will begin at 12pm PT/3pm ET.
If you're hoping to grab one, here are the retail listings that are up as of this writing. We’ll add more as we see them, but given the intense demand for recent gaming hardware like the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Nvidia's RTX graphics cards, we don't expect stock to be available for long:
The new OLED Switch costs $350 and will ship from October 8. That’s compared to $300 for the base Switch model and $200 for the handheld-only Nintendo Switch Lite.
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Chinese device maker Chuwi’s next Android tablet is a 10.8 inch model with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, support for a digital pen and a detachable keyboard, and a 4G LTE modem with support for dual-SIM, dual-standby. The Chuwi Hipad Pro …
Chinese device maker Chuwi’s next Android tablet is a 10.8 inch model with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, support for a digital pen and a detachable keyboard, and a 4G LTE modem with support for dual-SIM, dual-standby. The Chuwi Hipad Pro will be available from the company’s AliExpress Store starting August 3 for about $300 and […]
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Preorders kick off on July 16, but you’ll need an older Steam account.
The Steam Deck, from Valve. [credit: Valve ]
On Thursday, Valve took the wraps off its new Switch-like portable PC, now dubbed the Steam Deck, confirming that it is indeed the hardware Ars Technica wrote about earlier this year. The device will begin shipping later this year at a starting price of $399.
The hefty-looking console, which is 11.7 inches long (compared to 9.4 inches for the default Switch with Joy-Cons), will launch at three price points, differentiated by built-in storage capacity, higher SSD speed ratings (jumping from default eMMC storage to a pricier NVMe protocol), and differently tempered glass on its screen. Those upgraded versions will cost $529 (256GB) and $649 (512GB, "anti-glare etched glass"). Both pricier bundles include a carrying case.
All models will have the same AMD-powered combination of a four-core Zen 2 CPU and a RDNA 2 GPU, which Valve describes as a "custom" APU. Each model also includes 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, a 40 Whr battery (guaranteeing "2-8 hours of gameplay" on a single charge), and a 7-inch, 1280x800 touchscreen LCD.
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Semiconductor group says carmakers can expect upturn in supplies over coming weeks
Enlarge / TSMC's headquarters, seen here, are in Hsinchu, Taiwan. (credit: Sam Yeh via Getty Images)
Carmakers can expect a sharp upturn in chip supplies in the coming weeks, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) said, signaling that a global shortage may have moved past its most crippling stage.
In the first six months of 2021, TSMC increased its output of micro-controlling units, an important component used for car electronics, by 30 per cent compared with the same period last year, the world’s largest contract chipmaker told investors on an earnings call on Thursday. MCU production is expected to be 60 per cent higher for the full year than in 2020, it added.
“By taking such actions, we expect the shortage to be greatly reduced for TSMC customers starting this quarter,” said CC Wei, TSMC’s chief executive.
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