Month: October 2021

Review: Locke and Key comes back better than ever with action-packed S2

Netflix has already renewed the series for a third season.

The present generation of Locke descendants—Tyler (Connor Jessup), Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), and Kinsey (Emilia Jones)—still have a lot to learn about the magical keys that are their birthright.

Enlarge / The present generation of Locke descendants—Tyler (Connor Jessup), Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), and Kinsey (Emilia Jones)—still have a lot to learn about the magical keys that are their birthright.

The Locke siblings face a demonic dynamic duo intent on bringing chaos to our world and must defend themselves, armed with only a handful of magical keys, in the second season of Locke and Key. In our 2020 year-end TV roundup, I wrote that Netflix's adaptation of the comic book series, by Joe Hill and Gabe Rodriguez, successfully brought "the fabled Key House and the darkly fantastical world of the comics to vivid life." The second season is even better: it's faster-paced, it has intriguing character arcs, and it delves a bit more into the history and mythology behind Key House and its magical keys.

(Spoilers for season 1 below. Some season 2 spoilers, but no major reveals.)

Longtime fans of the comics can attest to the powerful allure of the basic premise: three traumatized siblings whose father was recently murdered return to dad's ancestral home, Key House, with their mother and discover that the house is filled with hidden magical keys that "whisper" to the children until they find them. The TV series preserves that allure. Only kids can hear the keys whispering, and any adults who witness the "magic" of the keys in use quickly forget what they've seen. There is an Anywhere Key that can turn a door into a portal to anywhere in the world, for instance, and a Ghost Key that lets your spirit leave your body. A Head Key provides access to one's inner self, and an Identity Key allows you to change your appearance.

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Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey is a 4.1 pound notebook with Tiger Lake-H and NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti Max-Q

The new Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey is a notebook the blurs the lines between gaming and portability machines. Weighing just 4.1 pounds and measuring just 0.7 inches thick, it’s pretty compact for a 15.6 inch notebook with discrete graphics. But the laptop packs a 45-watt Intel Core i7-11600H hexa-core processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Max-Q […]

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The new Samsung Galaxy Book Odyssey is a notebook the blurs the lines between gaming and portability machines.

Weighing just 4.1 pounds and measuring just 0.7 inches thick, it’s pretty compact for a 15.6 inch notebook with discrete graphics. But the laptop packs a 45-watt Intel Core i7-11600H hexa-core processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Max-Q graphics, and an 83 Wh battery.

Samsung says the new Galaxy Book Odyssey will be available starting November 11 for $1400 and up. While that kind of money can certainly buy you a notebook with a higher-performance processor, more powerful graphics, or a bigger battery, I think what makes the Galaxy Book Odyssey stand out is that it’s designed to straddle a line between portability and horsepower, making it more of a productivity machine that can handle some gaming than vice versa.

The laptop supports up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of solid state storage, although entry-level configurations will have just 8GB of memory and 512GB of storage.

Other features include stereo 2-watt speakers, a backlit keyboard with a number pad, an aluminum chassis, WiFi 6E support, Ethernet and HDMI ports, two USB Type-C ports, three USB 3.2 Type-A ports, a headset jack, and a microSD card slot, but no Thunderbolt ports, which seems like an odd choice.

press release

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iPhone: Anker bringt neues Magsafe-Zubehör

Für Nutzer eines iPhone 12 oder 13 hat Anker neues Magsafe-Zubehör parat: Unter anderem gibt es eine clevere Ladestation für iPhone und Airpods. (iPhone 13, iPhone)

Für Nutzer eines iPhone 12 oder 13 hat Anker neues Magsafe-Zubehör parat: Unter anderem gibt es eine clevere Ladestation für iPhone und Airpods. (iPhone 13, iPhone)

343 shows first Halo Infinite campaign footage in over a year

Featuring Cortana’s replacement and a “sadistic Spartan killer” chasing Master Chief.

The first and last time we saw footage of Halo Infinite's campaign mode way back in July of 2020, we were a bit underwhelmed by what we saw. Now, with the game's delayed launch just a few weeks away, Microsoft and 343 Industries have released a six-minute video showcasing more details of the anticipated sequel's story and gameplay.

A voiceover confirms that the traditional Halo story following the partnership between Master Chief and Cortana is "now a distant memory" in Infinite. Instead, John-117 is now hoping to retrieve and work with a new and extremely uninformed AI codenamed The Weapon. Together, the two will explore Zeta Halo to find an answer to the core questions driving Infinite's story: "What happened to Cortana?" and "What did she do that was so wrong?"

The new trailer highlights what the studio says is a campaign structure that offers "more freedom than ever before." There's a brief glimpse at a section of the game's open world "Tacmap," complete with the kind of color-coded mission markers you'd expect from a different sort of game. Completing some of those missions will grant Master Chief control of Forward Operating Bases, which seem key to advancing the story and offering new perks. Through it all, Master Chief will be pursued by "a sadistic Spartan killer named Jega 'Rdomnai," who seems to come from the Covenant's red-tinted Banished faction.

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Samsung Galaxy Book pro 360 5G is compact convertible notebook with an AMOLED display and S-Pen support

Samsung’s new Galaxy Book Pro 360 5G is a 2.43 pound notebook with a 13.3 inch AMOLED touchscreen display, a 360-degree hinge, a Samsung S-Pen for pressure-sensitive input, and, as the name suggests, support for 5G cellular networks. Powered by an Intel Tiger Lake processor, the notebook also has a Thunderbolt 4 port, stereo 4 watt […]

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Samsung’s new Galaxy Book Pro 360 5G is a 2.43 pound notebook with a 13.3 inch AMOLED touchscreen display, a 360-degree hinge, a Samsung S-Pen for pressure-sensitive input, and, as the name suggests, support for 5G cellular networks.

Powered by an Intel Tiger Lake processor, the notebook also has a Thunderbolt 4 port, stereo 4 watt speakers, and a 63 Wh battery, which is larger than you typically find in a notebook this light. The Galaxy Book Pro 360 5G should be available starting November 11 for $1400 and up.

While the starting price seems a little high for a notebook that will ship with an Intel Core i5-1130G7 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, it’s not like there are a lot of cheaper options in the 5G-ready thin and light space.

Folks willing to splurge for better specs will also be able to pick up a model with up to an Intel Core i7-1160G7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.

Both models have aluminum bodies that measures 11.91″ x 7.95″ x 0.45″ and both feature support for WiFi 6E as well as 5G sub-6 GHz network bands. Ports include one Thunderbolt 4 port, two USB Type-C ports, a headset jack, and a microSD card reader.

The notebook has a 720p webcam and dual array microphones, and it ships with Windows 11.

If you don’t need 5G, Samsung also launched a WiFi-only version of the Galaxy Book Pro 360 earlier this year. That model weighs just 2.29 pounds and comes with more powerful Core i-51135G7 or Core i7-1165G7 processor options and has a starting price of $1000.

There’s also a 3.1 pound version with a 15.5 inch display that sells for $1100 and up.

press release

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Magisk adds Android 12 support, drops MagiskHide

Magisk is an open source set of tools that allow users to root and customize Android devices by installing modules and modifying boot images, among other things. Now developer John Wu has announced the release of the first Magisk Canary (pre-beta) build with support for Android 12. But the new software also drops support for […]

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Magisk is an open source set of tools that allow users to root and customize Android devices by installing modules and modifying boot images, among other things. Now developer John Wu has announced the release of the first Magisk Canary (pre-beta) build with support for Android 12.

But the new software also drops support for MagiskHide, a popular feature that up until recently had allowed users to hide the fact that their phones were rooted from certain apps.

zgfg (xda-developers forum)

For example, many banking apps and some multimedia apps won’t work properly on rooted devices. MagiskHide allowed your device to trick those apps into thinking it wasn’t rooted, allowing you to continue using them.

There are a few reasons Wu says he dropped support for MagiskHide in the latest build. One is that Google has made it trickier to hide the root status with the rollout of hardware key attestation feature that’s becoming more widely used.

The other reason is that Wu now works for Google’s Android Platform Security team, and while he has the go-ahead to continue to working on a utility that lets power users root and customize their Android devices, it would be a conflict of interest for him to continue developing software that’s explicitly designed to circumvent Android security features.

That said, third-party developers are still free to develop Magisk modules (or other software) that attempts to hide root access. There are already some available, although Wu thinks they’ll stop working eventually (although it’s always possible somebody will find other methods that Wu hasn’t thought of in the future).

In addition to dropping MagiskHide and adding support for Android 12, the latest Canardy Build introduces the new Zygisk feature, which should lead to improved performance, as well as a few other features and improved support for some devices. You can find more details in the changelog.

via @topjohnwu and xda-developers (1)(2)

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Hertz to purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3s for its rental fleet

Some of Hertz’s fleet will be powered by a new, larger Panasonic battery.

Hertz to purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3s for its rental fleet

Enlarge (credit: Hertz)

Car rentals will be going greener, at least at Hertz, which will purchase 100,000 Tesla Model 3 electric sedans over the next 14 months. The rental car company announced the move Monday morning, saying that over 20 percent of its rental fleet will consist of BEVs by the end of 2022.

To power its BEVs, Hertz will install "thousands of chargers" at its locations around the world. Hertz customers will also be able to recharge the Teslas at the electric carmaker's 3,000-plus level 3 chargers in the US and Europe.

"Electric vehicles are now mainstream, and we've only just begun to see rising global demand and interest," said Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields in a statement. "The new Hertz is going to lead the way as a mobility company, starting with the largest EV rental fleet in North America and a commitment to grow our EV fleet and provide the best rental and recharging experience for leisure and business customers around the world."

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