Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order late Monday prohibiting all state entities, including private businesses, from requiring people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
The Republican governor also noted that he has added the issue to the legislature’s special session so that his executive order can become law.
His executive move bucks the vaccination efforts of the Biden administration, which last month announced sweeping mandates that would apply to federal employees, health care workers, and private businesses. The order is also a reversal for Abbott, who had previously steered clear of interfering with the decisions of private businesses. As the Houston Chronicle notes, it was just in August that Abbott’s spokesperson, Renae Eze, said that "private businesses don't need government running their business."
This week, that situation changes with the game's first official patch on PC in 12 years. The patch is designed to do only one thing: remove all GFWL dependencies.
The 5.4MB patch for the game's Steam version went live on Tuesday and was accompanied by a brief patch note that merely states, "If Fallout 3 was previously installed on Steam, we suggest uninstalling and reinstalling the title." Anecdotal reports suggest that any Fallout 3 fans who still have the PC version installed via Steam will need to do just that, as the patching process may stop the game from booting.
Apple would like you to mark another date on your calendar. The company's next product announcement event will take place on Monday, October 18, at 10 am PDT, just over a month after its last event. As ever, we'll be following along with our typical liveblog and in-depth coverage as the announcements happen.
The company's September announcements focused on iPhones, iPads, and the Apple Watch, as well as new software updates for those devices. We expect the October event to be devoted largely to the Mac lineup—namely, long-rumored Apple Silicon refreshes to the MacBook Pro lineup, possibly with a faster Mac mini or a larger-screened iMac thrown in. The 16-inch MacBook Pro in particular is long overdue for a refresh—Apple added some new GPU options in mid-2020, but the laptop's other specs haven't been touched since late 2019.
We also expect to hear about a release date for macOS Monterey, which has remained in beta as Apple's other OS updates have rolled out to the public. Monterey is a relatively minor update compared to Big Sur's splashy redesign last year, but our in-depth review will cover the changes, just like every year.
Companies are under increasing pressure to quantify and reduce their footprints.
Enlarge/ A container ship sails off the coast of Thailand. (credit: iStock)
Finding sources of pollution across vast supply chains may be one of the largest barriers to eliminating carbon pollution. For some sources like electricity or transportation, it's relatively easy. But for others like agriculture or consumer electronics, tracing and quantifying greenhouse gas emissions can be a time-consuming, laborious process. It generally takes an expert around three to six months—sometimes more—to come up with an estimate for a single product.
Typically, researchers have to probe vast supply chains, comb the scientific literature, digest reports, and even interview suppliers. They may have to dive into granular details, estimating the footprint of everything from gypsum in drywall to tin solder on circuit boards. Massive databases of reference values offer crude shortcuts, but they can also introduce uncertainty in the estimate because they don’t capture the idiosyncrasies of many companies’ supply chains.
Enter IBM, which has placed a massive bet on offering artificial intelligence services to businesses. Some services, like the company's Watson healthcare effort, didn’t live up to the promise. But IBM has refocused its efforts in recent years, and today it announced a new suite of tools for businesses to tackle two significant challenges posed by climate change: emissions reduction and adaptation.
Nvidia reduziert die Leistung, bei AMDs und auch Intels Grafikkarten gibt es keine solchen Beschränkungen, was Crypto-Mining anbelangt. (Grafikhardware, Intel)
Nvidia reduziert die Leistung, bei AMDs und auch Intels Grafikkarten gibt es keine solchen Beschränkungen, was Crypto-Mining anbelangt. (Grafikhardware, Intel)
Windows Package Manager is a utility that lets you install Windows applications from a command prompt, much the way you can with most Linux distributions.
Up until recently though, you could only install applications that were listed in Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager Community Repository. But starting with Windows Package Manager version 1.0, Microsoft added support for third-party app repositories. And starting with version 1.1, you can also install apps from the Microsoft Store.
Windows Package Manager is a utility that lets you install Windows applications from a command prompt, much the way you can with most Linux distributions.
Up until recently though, you could only install applications that were listed in Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager Community Repository. But starting with Windows Package Manager version 1.0, Microsoft added support for third-party app repositories. And starting with version 1.1, you can also install apps from the Microsoft Store.
Microsoft released Windows Package Manager version 1.1 on October 5th, and it’s available for Windows 10 and Windows 11.
If you’ve already installed the utility, then you may have already received the latest version through an automatic update. If you haven’t, then there are three ways to install the Windows Package Manager:
Once installed, you can open a command prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Terminal and use the “winget” command (without quotes) to search for applications, get more information about them, install them, or remove them, among other things.
For example, type “winget” and hit return to get a list of commands. Try “winget install netflix” to install the Netflix application from the Microsoft Store, or “winget uninstall netflix” to remove it.
Windows Package Manager is a utility that lets you install Windows applications from a command prompt, much the way you can with most Linux distributions.
Up until recently though, you could only install applications that were listed in Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager Community Repository. But starting with Windows Package Manager version 1.0, Microsoft added support for third-party app repositories. And starting with version 1.1, you can also install apps from the Microsoft Store.
Windows Package Manager is a utility that lets you install Windows applications from a command prompt, much the way you can with most Linux distributions.
Up until recently though, you could only install applications that were listed in Microsoft’s Windows Package Manager Community Repository. But starting with Windows Package Manager version 1.0, Microsoft added support for third-party app repositories. And starting with version 1.1, you can also install apps from the Microsoft Store.
Microsoft released Windows Package Manager version 1.1 on October 5th, and it’s available for Windows 10 and Windows 11.
If you’ve already installed the utility, then you may have already received the latest version through an automatic update. If you haven’t, then there are three ways to install the Windows Package Manager:
Once installed, you can open a command prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Terminal and use the “winget” command (without quotes) to search for applications, get more information about them, install them, or remove them, among other things.
For example, type “winget” and hit return to get a list of commands. Try “winget install netflix” to install the Netflix application from the Microsoft Store, or “winget uninstall netflix” to remove it.
Content recommendations and watch lists will finally be personalized per user.
Enlarge/ Multiple-profile support on Google TV. (credit: Google)
After launching in October of last year, Google TV is finally getting one of its most requested features: multi-user profile support.
Google TV is a revamp and rebranding of Google's Android TV OS. It's not clear if there are any hard rules, but the Android TV branding seems to stop at version 9 for commercial devices, and for Android 10-and-up-based set-top boxes and smart TVs, the operating system is called "Google TV."
Google TV's flagship feature is the new home screen, which is designed around a content-recommendation engine. Instead of the usual grid of streaming app icons, Google TV displays the shows themselves on the home screen, prioritizing what matters—the content—and deprioritizing which service it comes from. The problem with Google TV's recommendation approach is that the system has gone a full year without profile support, so every user of the TV affects the single list of recommended content.
Many of Windows' built-in apps have already moved to being updated through the Microsoft Store rather than through regular Windows Updates. This gives the company more flexibility when deciding when to update apps, though one side effect has been that many of Windows 11's pre-installed apps still haven't been fully updated for Windows 11. But long-term, it also means you don't need to wait for a new Windows update to benefit from updated apps.
For WSL, this means you won't need to install major, potentially disruptive Windows updates (like, say, Windows 11) just to take advantage of new WSL additions. Microsoft specifically calls out "GUI app support, GPU compute, and Linux file system drive mounting" as the kinds of major features that can be added via Microsoft Store updates, in addition to less flashy updates like new Linux kernel versions.
The Kubuntu Focus family of Linux laptops is growing. A 3rd-gen Kubuntu Focus M2 laptop with a 15.6 inch display, 45-watt Intel Core i7-11800H Tiger Lake processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series graphics is now available for $1945 and up. But if you’re in the market for something smaller and/or cheaper, the Kubuntu team also introduced the […]
The Kubuntu Focus family of Linux laptops is growing.
A 3rd-gen Kubuntu Focus M2 laptop with a 15.6 inch display, 45-watt Intel Core i7-11800H Tiger Lake processor, and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30-series graphics is now available for $1945 and up. But if you’re in the market for something smaller and/or cheaper, the Kubuntu team also introduced the 14 inch Kubuntu Focus Xe this summer. It sells for $895 and up.
Both laptop ship with Kubuntu 20.04 LTS software pre-installed. It’s an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that features the KDE desktop environment rather than the GNOME-based user experience you’d get from a standard Ubuntu installation.
Kubuntu Focus M2 3rd-gen
The entry-level configuration of this high-performance laptop features Intel’s 8-core, 16-thread Core i7-11800H processor, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 graphics, 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, and a 250GB SSD.
But you can configure the system with up to RTX 3080 graphics, 64GB of RAM, and 4TB of storage (there’s room for two SSDs).
Standard features include a 15.6 inch, 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS LCD display with a 144 Hz refresh rate and a matte anti-glare coating, a 73 Wh battery, a 1MP webcam, support for WIFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and ports including:
1 x Thunderbolt 4
3 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
1 x HDMI
1 x Mini DisplayPort
1 x Gigabit Ethernet
1 x 3.5mm mic or S/PDIF port
1 x 3.5mm headphone/mic jack
1 x DC power input
The laptop has a backlit keyboard with a number pad, stereo speakers, and an aluminum alloy chassis that measures 14.1″ x 9.4″ x .78″ and the system weighs about 4.4 pounds.
If the price seems high, you can also save some money by picking up a 2nd-gen model instead, which features a 10th-gen Intel Core i7-108750H processor, NVIDA GeForce RTX 3060 or RTX 3070 graphics, and DDR4-2933 MHz RAM. Prices for Kubuntu Focus M2 Gen 2 start at $1645.
Interestingly, the 2nd-gen model has an SD card reader, while the newer Gen 3 version does not.
Kubuntu Focus Xe
This 14 inch laptop is designed for folks looking for a thin and light mobile computing device rather than a workstation-class computer. But it still has some pretty decent specs even for the $895 entry-level configuration, including a 1920 x 1080 pixel matte IPS LCD display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and a 28-watt Intel Tiger Lake-U quad-core, eight-thread processor with Iris Xe graphics.
The starting price will get you a model with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 250GB of storage, but the Kubuntu Focus Xe is available with up to a Core i7-1165G7 chip, 64GB of graphics, and 2TB of storage.
Memory and storage should are also user upgradeable, since they come in DDR4-3200 SODIMM and M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen4x4 modules, respectively.
The laptop has a 49 Wh battery, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, a 1MP webcam (with a physical privacy shutter) and ports including:
1 x Thunderbolt 4
1 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C (no video out or power input)
2 x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A
1 x HDMI 1.4b
1 x 3.5mm mic/headphone
1 x Gigabit Ethernet
1 x SDXC card reader
Other features include a backlit keyboard, stereo speakers, and a chassis with an aluminum top and keybaord deck, and a plastic bottom. The Kubuntu Focus Xe measures 12.8″ x 8.9″ x .69″ x and weighs 3.2 pounds.
Nvidia reduziert die Leistung, bei AMDs und auch Intels Grafikkarten gibt es keine solchen Beschränkungen, was Crypto-Mining anbelangt. (
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