Month: January 2022

Here’s why some games aren’t “verified” for Steam Deck compatibility

But the vast majority of games are at least “playable,” with no graphics issues.

Pictures of the Steam Deck.

Enlarge / The Steam Deck, from Valve. (credit: Valve)

Back in October, Valve laid out the specific review guidelines that a Steam game would have to follow to earn an optional "Deck Verified" badge on its Steam Store page. Now, the results of the first of those verification reviews are starting to leak out, and they're showing some minor input and interface issues across a handful of games running on Steam Deck.

While the Deck Verified badges have yet to show up on the Steam Store itself, the metadata surrounding the program is already being added to the Steam backend for some titles ahead of the Steam Deck's planned launch next month, as picked up by services like SteamDB. Of the 86 games with verification review results so far, 41 have at least one issue preventing them from receiving a full "Verified" badge.

First, the good news: Almost all of those un-verified games are still rated as "Playable" under Steam's guidelines. Only five reviewed games so far have received the dreaded Steam Deck "Unsupported" badge from Valve. Four are virtual reality games, which fail for the simple listed reason that "Steam Deck Does Not Support VR Games." The fifth, Persona 4 Golden, seems to fail because in-game videos use a problematic Windows Media Player codec that could be difficult to implement through Steam Deck's Linux Proton compatibility layer. "Valve is still working on adding support for this game on Steam Deck," the game's metadata says.

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Airline CEOs make U-turn, now say 5G isn’t a big problem for altimeters

After stalling for almost two years, FAA cleared 78% of planes in the past week.

An airplane cockpit seen during flight.

Enlarge / Airbus 320 cockpit. (credit: Getty Images | Skyhobo)

The Federal Aviation Administration's fight against AT&T's and Verizon's new 5G deployment appears to be coming to a temporary close, with the FAA having cleared about 78 percent of US planes for landing in low-visibility conditions. Airline CEOs are striking an upbeat tone, with one saying the process of ensuring that airplane altimeters work in 5G areas is "really not that complicated."

Over the past week, the FAA announced clearances for 13 altimeters that can filter out 5G transmissions from the C-band spectrum that is licensed to wireless operators, accounting for those used by all Boeing 717, 737, 747, 757, 767, 777, 787, and MD-10/-11 models; all Airbus A300, A310, A319, A320, A330, A340, A350, and A380 models; and some Embraer 170 and 190 regional jets. More approvals will presumably be announced soon, bringing the US closer to 100 percent capacity.

Unfortunately, there could be another showdown in about six months, when AT&T and Verizon lift temporary 5G restrictions around airports—we'll cover that later in this article. For now, airline CEOs appear to be satisfied, even though the FAA hasn't said definitively that altimeters will continue working after the temporary 5G limits around airports are lifted.

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Supply chain attack used legitimate WordPress add-ons to backdoor sites

If your site is using add-ons downloaded from AccessPress Themes, it may be infected.

Supply chain attack used legitimate WordPress add-ons to backdoor sites

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

Dozens of legitimate WordPress add-ons downloaded from their original sources have been found backdoored through a supply chain attack, researchers said. The backdoor has been found on “quite a few” sites running the open source content management system.

The backdoor gave the attackers full administrative control of websites that used at least 93 WordPress plugins and themes downloaded from AccessPress Themes. The backdoor was discovered by security researchers from JetPack, the maker of security software owned by Automatic, provider of the WordPress.com hosting service and a major contributor to the development of WordPress. In all, Jetpack found that 40 AccessPress themes and 53 plugins were affected.

Unknowingly providing access to the attacker

In a post published Thursday, Jetpack researcher Harald Eilertsen said timestamps and other evidence suggested the backdoors were introduced intentionally in a coordinated action after the themes and plugins were released. The affected software was available by download directly from the AccessPress Themes site. The same themes and plugins mirrored on WordPress.org, the official developer site for the WordPress project, remained clean.

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Lilbits: Samsung could merge its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note smartphone families, Framework Laptop’s firmware goes open source, and more

Rumors that Samsung would phase out its Galaxy Note line of smartphones have been making the rounds for years. But with recent Samsung phones adding S-Pen support, they’ve been picking up steam. Now Samsung is adding fuel to the fire by hinting that the new Galaxy S22 smartphone expected to launch in February will be […]

The post Lilbits: Samsung could merge its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note smartphone families, Framework Laptop’s firmware goes open source, and more appeared first on Liliputing.

Rumors that Samsung would phase out its Galaxy Note line of smartphones have been making the rounds for years. But with recent Samsung phones adding S-Pen support, they’ve been picking up steam. Now Samsung is adding fuel to the fire by hinting that the new Galaxy S22 smartphone expected to launch in February will be the “most noteworthy” S series phone yet. Recent leaks suggest the Galaxy S22 Ultra will even have a silo for storing the S-Pen when you’re not using it.

Meanwhile Lenovo is preparing to launch a new Legion-branded gaming phone, and it’ll work with optional accessories including a set of detachable shoulder buttons. RISC-V processor designer SiFive has announced that due to supply chain issues, the SiFive HiFive Unmatched computer board will be discontinued after it goes out of stock, but the company is shifting its focus to next-gen boards. And the makers of the Framework modular laptop have open sourced the notebook’s firmware.

Here’s a roundup of recent tech news from around the web.

Samsung could merge its Galaxy S and Note lines soon [Samsung]

Samsung strongly hints that the Galaxy S22 it will launch in February will have S-Pen support and ultimately replace the Galaxy Note series altogether as the “most noteworthy S series device” from Samsung to date.

Lenovo teases gaming attachments for the upcoming Legion Y90 gaming phone [GSM Arena]

Lenovo’s next gaming phone may be compatible with a set of optional detachable shoulder trigger buttons. The Legion Y70 is also expected to have a 144 Hz AMOLED display, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor, dual USB-C ports, and active cooling.

Open Sourcing our Firmware [Framework]

Framework has open sourced the Embedded Controller firmware for its modular laptop. The EC firmware handles low level functions including power sequencing, keyboard & touchpad interfacing, and LEDs. You can now find the source code at GitHub. 

Kobo firmware update lets you setup without logging in [MobileRead]

Kobo’s latest firmware adds a “sideloaded mode” that lets you set up its eReaders without a network connection. Not intended for continued use, some features are unavailable until you can get online and sign into a Kobo account.

SiFive Discontinues Its HiFive Unmatched RISC-V PC Boards Following “Supply Chain Issues” [Hackster.io]

SiFive says its HiFive Unmatched dev boards with Freedom U740 RISC-V CPU cores are close to sold out. Due to supply chain issues, rather than make more, the company will shift focus to next-gen HiFive boards with newer chips.

WCH CH32V307 RISC-V development board features 8 UART ports controlled over Ethernet [CNX Software]

This $11 RISC-V dev board has a 144 MHz 32-bit RISC-V processor, Gigabit Ethernet, 2 x USB 2.0 Type-C ports and 8 UART interfaces.

Ubuntu MATE 21.10 for GPD Pocket 3 [Ubuntu MATE]

Keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter and Facebook and follow @LinuxSmartphone on Twitter and Facebook for the latest news on open source mobile phones.

The post Lilbits: Samsung could merge its Galaxy S and Galaxy Note smartphone families, Framework Laptop’s firmware goes open source, and more appeared first on Liliputing.

Google Labs starts up a blockchain division

Google Labs tackles “high-potential, long-term projects,” and that includes blockchain.

A large Google logo is displayed amidst foliage.

Enlarge (credit: Sean Gallup | Getty Images)

Here's a fun new report from Bloomberg: Google is forming a blockchain division. The news comes hot on the heels of a Bloomberg report from yesterday that quoted Google's president of commerce as saying, "Crypto is something we pay a lot of attention to." Web3 is apparently becoming a thing at Google.

Shivakumar Venkataraman, a longtime Googler from the advertising division, is running the blockchain group, which lives under the nascent "Google Labs" division that was started about three months ago. Labs is home to "high-potential, long-term projects," basically making it the new Google X division (X was turned into a less-Google-focused Alphabet division in 2016). Bavor used to be vice president of virtual reality, and Labs contains all of those VR and augmented reality projects, like the "Project Starline" 3D video booth and Google's AR goggles.

Just like "algorithms," "AI," and "5G," "blockchain" is often used as the go-to buzzword for rudderless tech executives hoping to hype up investors or consumers. A blockchain is really just a distributed, P2P database, sort of like if BitTorrent hosted a database instead of pirated movies and Linux ISOs. The database is chopped up into blocks, and each new block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, forming a chain of records that protect each other against alterations. On a traditional database, transactions are verified by the database owner, but on a blockchain, nobody owns the database, so each transaction needs to be verified by many computers. This is the big downside of blockchains: everyone's constant transaction verifications use a massive amount of electricity and computing power.

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T-Bao TBOOK MN22 is a mini PC with AMD Athlon 3150U

Chinese device maker T-Bao’s TBOOK MN22 is a small form-factor desktop computer that measures about 4.7″ x 4.7″ x 2″ and which can drive up to three 4K displays, supports PCIe NVMe storage as well as an optional hard drive, and which sells for around $270 and up. Powered by an AMD Athlon Gold 3150U […]

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Chinese device maker T-Bao’s TBOOK MN22 is a small form-factor desktop computer that measures about 4.7″ x 4.7″ x 2″ and which can drive up to three 4K displays, supports PCIe NVMe storage as well as an optional hard drive, and which sells for around $270 and up.

Powered by an AMD Athlon Gold 3150U processor, the little computer isn’t exactly a speed demon. But it should offer performance that’s competitive with Intel’s current-gen Pentium Silver N6005 Jasper Lake processor.

The Athlon Gold 3150U is a 15-watt dual-core chip with support for hyperthreading for up to four logical CPU cores. First launched in early 2020, the chip is manufactured on a 14nm processor and has a base frequency of 2.4 GHz, support for boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, and AMD Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics.

In other words, while it’s comparable to an Intel Jasper Lake part, it will lag behind most recent Intel Core i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 or better chips when it comes to more demanding tasks.

But the system would probably make a decent home media center PC, digital signage system, or even (very) lightweight gaming system thanks to a set of ports that includes:

  • HDMI 2.0
  • DisplayPort
  • 1 x USB Type-C (with DisplayPort Alt mode)
  • Gigabit Ethernet
  • 3 x USB 3.0 Type-A ports
  • 2 x USB 2.0 ports
  • 1 x mic input
  • 1 x audio line output

The computer also has a wireless card that supports WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.1.

Banggood is selling a T-Bao TBOOK MN22 for $370 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. But it’s also available for purchase in a few different pricing/configuration options at AliExpress.

For example, I found one seller that’s offering models with prices ranging from around $270 (for 4GB RAM and 128GB storage) to $380 (for 16GB RAM and 512GB of storage).

Note that these systems all say they come with pre-installed, but there’s no word on whether it’s a licensed version of Windows – something that you shouldn’t take for granted when placing an order for PCs that ship straight from China.

via AndroidPC.es

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Daily Deals (1-21-2022)

Woot is running a “Best of Tech” sale with discounts on a handful of products including audio and home security gear. But you can find even more deals in Woot’s latest Garage Sale. Meanwhile Walmart is offering selling Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 Lite for $269, which is a pretty good deal for this Android tablet […]

The post Daily Deals (1-21-2022) appeared first on Liliputing.

Woot is running a “Best of Tech” sale with discounts on a handful of products including audio and home security gear. But you can find even more deals in Woot’s latest Garage Sale.

Meanwhile Walmart is offering selling Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 Lite for $269, which is a pretty good deal for this Android tablet with a 10.4 inch display, an Exynos 9611 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a Samsung S-Pen.


Prefer a tablet that comes with a pen and a keyboard? A Lenovo Tab P11 bundle is on sale for $300 and Lenovo’s tablet features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Tablets

Smartphones

PCs

Audio

Other

The post Daily Deals (1-21-2022) appeared first on Liliputing.

Daily Deals (1-21-2022)

Woot is running a “Best of Tech” sale with discounts on a handful of products including audio and home security gear. But you can find even more deals in Woot’s latest Garage Sale. Meanwhile Walmart is offering selling Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 Lite for $269, which is a pretty good deal for this Android tablet […]

The post Daily Deals (1-21-2022) appeared first on Liliputing.

Woot is running a “Best of Tech” sale with discounts on a handful of products including audio and home security gear. But you can find even more deals in Woot’s latest Garage Sale.

Meanwhile Walmart is offering selling Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S6 Lite for $269, which is a pretty good deal for this Android tablet with a 10.4 inch display, an Exynos 9611 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a Samsung S-Pen.


Prefer a tablet that comes with a pen and a keyboard? A Lenovo Tab P11 bundle is on sale for $300 and Lenovo’s tablet features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Tablets

Smartphones

PCs

Audio

Other

The post Daily Deals (1-21-2022) appeared first on Liliputing.

Machine to melt Moon rocks and derive metals may launch in 2024

“These are the kinds of things that America needs to do to remain a leader in space.”

If all goes well, this is how Lunar Resources' extractor could appear on the lunar surface in a few years.

Enlarge / If all goes well, this is how Lunar Resources' extractor could appear on the lunar surface in a few years. (credit: Lunar Resources)

In recent years, much has been said about mining water ice in shadowed craters at the Moon's South Pole for use as rocket propellant. Enthusiasm for this idea has led NASA to begin planning the first human missions of its Artemis Program to land near the South Pole instead of the mid-latitudes.

However, a Houston-based company says there is value in the gray, dusty regolith spread across the entire lunar surface. The firm, Lunar Resources, is developing technology to extract iron, aluminum, magnesium, and silicon from the Moon's regolith. These materials, in turn, would be used to manufacture goods on the Moon.

"There are all of these valuable metals on the Moon, just there for the taking," said Elliot Carol, chief executive officer of Lunar Resources.

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Netzneutralität: Google und Meta verteidigen sich gegen Telekom-Vorwürfe

Die beiden großen Internetkonzerne Google und Meta verweisen im Gespräch mit Golem.de auf ihren Beitrag zur weltweiten Infrastruktur wie Seekabel und Connectivity. (Telekom, Web Service)

Die beiden großen Internetkonzerne Google und Meta verweisen im Gespräch mit Golem.de auf ihren Beitrag zur weltweiten Infrastruktur wie Seekabel und Connectivity. (Telekom, Web Service)