Month: January 2022

Daily Deals (1-12-2021)

CES 2022 may have been the coming out party for Intel’s new 12th-gen mobile processors and AMD’s new Ryzen 6000 mobile chips. But you can’t actually buy any laptops with those processors yet. The good news is that if you’re in desperate need of a new notebook and don’t want to wait, retailers are offering […]

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CES 2022 may have been the coming out party for Intel’s new 12th-gen mobile processors and AMD’s new Ryzen 6000 mobile chips. But you can’t actually buy any laptops with those processors yet.

The good news is that if you’re in desperate need of a new notebook and don’t want to wait, retailers are offering some pretty solid deals on models with 2021 specs. Case in point: the Microsoft Store has dozens of Windows laptops and PCs on sale at the moment. Lenovo has hundreds on sale. And while HP’s selection is more limited, there are some stand-out deals.

HP Envy 13

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

Laptops

Tablets

Other

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FTC has a “plausible claim” that Facebook is an illegal monopoly, judge says

Judge says the FTC has “cleared the bar” with its new filing.

A worker picks up trash in front of the new logo in front of Meta's headquarters on October 28, 2021, in Menlo Park, Calif.

Enlarge / A worker picks up trash in front of the new logo in front of Meta's headquarters on October 28, 2021, in Menlo Park, Calif. (credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust suit against Facebook may proceed, a federal judge has ruled. The company had filed a motion to dismiss the case, which the judge denied.

US District Judge James Boasberg had invited the FTC to refile the case after throwing out its initial attempt when he found it lacking. “Second time lucky?” Boasberg wrote in yesterday’s opinion. Apparently.

“The core theory of the lawsuit remains essentially unchanged,” he said of the FTC's refiling. “The facts alleged this time around to fortify those theories, however, are far more robust and detailed than before, particularly in regard to the contours of Defendant’s alleged monopoly.”

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Ships from 1,581 ports may go to Antarctica, bringing unwanted guests

Antarctica is more connected than we thought, and it needs better biosecurity.

Tourist boats could potentially bring invasive species to the Antarctic region.

Enlarge / Tourist boats could potentially bring invasive species to the Antarctic region. (credit: Andrew Peacock)

Right now, the Antarctic and the waters around it are surprisingly free of invasive species. According to new research, however, that situation might change in the not-too-distant future, thanks to a shocking level of connectivity with ports across the world. Ships can accidentally carry a large array of marine life, which can in turn colonize new places (like the world’s polar south), outcompete native life, and generally wreak havoc on an ecosystem. New research has traced the paths of the various research vessels, tourist ships, and fishing boats that chug along through the icy waters of the Antarctic.

According to Arlie McCarthy, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the British Antarctic Survey, these watercraft all carry with them a risk of unwanted visitors. And the visitors may have more chances to relocate than we once thought.

“We know from other cold areas in the world, including the Arctic, that things growing on the hulls of ships absolutely do get transported from place to place, and it is one of the major sources of marine introductions around the world,” McCarthy told Ars. “We also know that ships going into Antarctica do have things growing on them. What we didn’t know until this point was good detail on where those ships go.”

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NVIDIA Shield software update brings Android 11 and 4K HDR cloud gaming

The NVIDIA Shield TV continues to be one of the most powerful Android TV devices close to seven years after the first model was released. It’s also one of the longest-supported Android devices to date. While NVIDIA has released a few hardware refreshes over the years, the company continues to push software updates for all models, […]

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The NVIDIA Shield TV continues to be one of the most powerful Android TV devices close to seven years after the first model was released. It’s also one of the longest-supported Android devices to date. While NVIDIA has released a few hardware refreshes over the years, the company continues to push software updates for all models, including the original 2015 version.

And now NVIDIA is rolling out its Shield Software Experience Upgrade 9.0, bringing Android 11 and several other new features to all members of the Shield TV family.

While NVIDIA has a strong track record of delivering regular software updates for its Shield TV devices, the latest is a pretty big one, as it brings a major Android update along for the ride… or two major Android updates, depending on how you count.

The previous NVIDIA Shield software was based on Android 9, and the company skipped over Android 10 to deliver the new Android 11 update.

Among other things, Shield Experience Upgrade 9.0 with Android 11 brings:

  • Support for aptX-compatible Bluetooth headsets
  • Option to automatically disconnect Bluetooth devices on sleep
  • Updated Gboard (Google Keyboard) with support for voice search
  • Updated privacy features including support for granting “only this time” permission when using an app
  • Android September 2021 security patch level
  • New energy save setting for customizing power options
  • Support for 4K HDR gaming when using NVIDIA GeForce Now RTX 3080 cloud gaming
  • Stadia button support for paired Xbox, PlayStation, and Shield game controllers.
  • Google Play Movies & TV app now supports Dolby Vision HDR
  • 4K Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos support for Apple TV+ app
  • More new and updated apps

NVIDIA says Google is also running a promotion that lets Shield TV users get a free 6-month subscription to Peacock Premium by logging in with a Google account and subscribing through the Peacock Premium banner that shows up on the For You or Apps tab.

The current-gen NVIDIA Shield sells for $150, while a higher-performance Shield Pro sells for around $200 and features more memory and storage, two USB ports (the base model has none).

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Samsung postpones its Exynos 2200 chip launch

Samsung’s Exynos 2200 processor is expected to be the company’s first chip with integrated AMD RDNA 2 graphics and support for ray-tracing. And Samsung had announced plans to officially introduce the chip on January 11, 2022 about a month ahead of the launch of the company’s Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone, which is expected to be […]

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Samsung’s Exynos 2200 processor is expected to be the company’s first chip with integrated AMD RDNA 2 graphics and support for ray-tracing. And Samsung had announced plans to officially introduce the chip on January 11, 2022 about a month ahead of the launch of the company’s Samsung Galaxy S22 smartphone, which is expected to be powered by the new processor.

But January 11 came and went, and the only thing that happened was that Samsung deleted its tweets promoting a January 11 launch event. Now a Samsung official tells Business Korea that the company plans to “unveil the new application processor at the time of launching a new Samsung smartphone” instead.

It’s likely that means the Exynos 2200 will debut in February rather than this month. But it’s also possible that the company may postpone the launch of the chip even further, and use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip for the Galaxy S22 instead.

While Samsung hasn’t confirmed why it scrapped this week’s launch event without alerting the press ahead of time, rumor has it that the Exynos 2200 isn’t ready to go yet.

Ice Universe, who has a reputation for accurately leaking information about Samsung products, said in a post on Chinese social media service Weibo this week that the Exynos 2200 is a 4nm chip with RDNA 2 graphic and a target frequency of 1.9 GHz… but it runs too hot at that frequency, and the only way to get thermals under control so far has been to reduce the frequency as low as 1.29 GHz (although it may go higher before the chip is ready to launch).

What that will mean in terms of performance remains to be seen… assuming Ice Universe’s information is accurate in the first place.

via SamMobile, Ars Technica, and Tom’s Hardware

 

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Teen hacker finds bug that lets him control 25+ Teslas remotely

David Colombo says it’s the owners’ faults, not an infrastructure vulnerability.

The downside with offering APIs to interact with a car is that someone else's security problem might become your own.

Enlarge / The downside with offering APIs to interact with a car is that someone else's security problem might become your own. (credit: Getty Images)

A young hacker and IT security researcher found a way to remotely interact with more than 25 Tesla electric vehicles in 13 countries, according to a Twitter thread he posted yesterday.

David Colombo explained in the thread that the flaw was "not a vulnerability in Tesla's infrastructure. It's the owner's faults[sic]." He claimed to be able to disable a car's remote camera system, unlock doors and open windows, and even begin keyless driving. He could also determine the car's exact location.

However, Colombo clarified that he could not actually interact with any of the Teslas' steering, throttle, or brakes, so at least we don't have to worry about an army of remote-controlled EVs doing a Fate of the Furious reenactment.

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