Month: February 2022

Enlarge (credit: Penk/Github)

If someone is using a handheld PC these days, it's almost certainly a smartphone. But a Raspberry Pi has a way of bringing out an enthusiast's retro side. Add in some old console parts and a true mechanical keyboard, and you've got a DIY PC that can fit in the palm of your hand.

Called the Penkesu and shared via GitHub by a user known as Penk Chen, the project is described as "a homebrew retro-style handheld PC." It uses a 7.9-inch touchscreen with a 400 x 1,280 resolution and a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. Other electronic parts include a 3.7 V Li-Po battery and Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C for power.

Materials used. (credit: Penk/Github)

Chen 3D-printed the PC's chassis and shared the corresponding STL files and STEP file. The maker also used replacement hinges for the Game Boy Advance SP to allow the PC to fold shut.

Enlarge / Sony's latest true wireless earbuds, the LinkBuds. Their drivers are shaped like rings in order to allow ambient sound in naturally, the idea being to let you stay persistently aware of your surroundings. They look like donut holes, so here's an actual donut for scale. (credit: Jeff Dunn)

On Tuesday, Sony announced its newest set of fully wireless earbuds, the Sony LinkBuds.

The earbuds feature a unique "open ring" design built to let in ambient noise alongside your music, with the goal of keeping wearers aware of their surroundings at all times. That puts the earbuds in opposition to Sony's other high-profile wireless earbuds, the more awkwardly named WF-1000XM4, which feature active noise cancelation to block out as much external sound as possible.

The LinkBuds cost $180 and are available to order starting today, with shipping beginning on February 17. I've had the earbuds on hand for a few days now; here are some impressions from my testing.

Enlarge (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Microsoft announced that Windows 11 would be getting a few updates of note this month, and today, those updates are available for most Windows 11 PCs to install. The full list includes a preview of Windows 11’s virtualized Android apps, new versions of Notepad and Media Player (the latter of which replaces Microsoft Groove), and a handful of updates to the Taskbar that add new features and restore a couple of old ones.

To get the taskbar improvements, you’ll need to go to Windows Update and manually install the 2022-02 Update Preview; otherwise, you’ll get it automatically in the next few weeks. The Media Player and Notepad app updates will be downloaded via the Microsoft Store with no extra effort involved, unless you’ve manually switched off Microsoft Store app updates. And running Android apps in Windows 11 requires slightly higher system requirements than Windows 11 itself, including an 8th-gen-or-newer Intel Core i3 processor or a 3000-series-or-newer AMD Ryzen CPU, an SSD instead of a hard drive, 8GB or more of memory, and virtualization support that has been enabled in your PC’s firmware.

If you already knew these updates were coming, the most interesting bit comes toward the end of Microsoft’s blog post, where the company says it plans to keep bringing new features to Windows 11 through a “variety of update mechanisms.” The promised “continuous innovation” fits with the company’s plans to make its Windows 11 preview builds more experimental in 2022. It also signals an ongoing shift toward a more web-browser-y model of small-but-frequent feature updates rather than holding back big changes for once-per-year servicing updates as Microsoft generally did during the Windows 10 era.

Enlarge / Google Chrome OS Flex. (credit: Google)

Whether you have an aging Windows PC in the classroom or a dated Mac in your home office that can't handle macOS 12 Monterey, Google wants to turn it into a Chromebook. Google today announced early access to Chrome OS Flex, which makes the Chrome OS operating system found on Chromebooks downloadable onto a Mac or Windows PC.

Chrome OS Flex is basically the official Google version of CloudReady, which Google acquired when it bought Neverware in 2020. Flex allows individuals, schools, or businesses to download Chrome OS onto a USB drive for free (CloudReady charges a fee and annual subscription rate to schools and businesses, respectively) and install it onto their Mac or Windows PC. The OS could also be booted from a USB drive instead of installed or launched via network deployment by an IT department.

Google is positioning Chrome OS Flex as an answer to old Mac and Windows PCs that might not be able to handle the latest version of their native OS and/or that might not be owned by folks with budgets to replace the devices. Rather than buying new hardware, consumers or IT departments could install the latest version of Chrome OS Flex.