Month: April 2022

Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) gaming laptop now available for $1650 and up

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop has earned a reputation in recent years for striking a good balance between performance and portability, and the 2022 edition kicks things up a few notches thanks to the move to AMD Ryzen 6000 series processor and Radeon RX 6000 series discrete graphics. Asus has also finally added […]

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The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop has earned a reputation in recent years for striking a good balance between performance and portability, and the 2022 edition kicks things up a few notches thanks to the move to AMD Ryzen 6000 series processor and Radeon RX 6000 series discrete graphics. Asus has also finally added a webcam.

First announced during the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) gaming laptop is now available in the US for $1650 and up.

The notebook features a 14 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS LCD display with a 120 Hz refresh rate and 3ms response time and Dolby Vision HDR support. There are four speakers, 3 microphones, and a 720p IR webcam with support for Windows Hello face recognition.

Asus offers several different configurations of the ROG Zephyrus G14, including models with AMD Radeon RX 6700S or 6800S graphics, but each model has a Ryzen 9 6900HS processor and at least 16GB of RAM and 1TB of solid state storage.

At launch, it looks like only a few stores are carrying the laptop, but here are some of the first models I’ve found available for purchase:

I’d expect additional retailers (and possibly additional configurations) to be announced in the coming months.

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 (2022) is powered by a 76 Wh battery and supports a 240W AC adapter or 100W USB Type-C adapter.

Some models also have what Asus calls an AniMe Matrix lid, which features a grid of hundreds of tiny LED lights that can be used to display text, graphics, or animations on the lid. Models without that feature weigh 1.65 kilograms (3.64 pounds) and measure 18.5mm (0.73 inches) thick, while models with the LED light grid are 1.72 kg (3.79 pounds) and 19.5mm (0.77″).

Ports on all models include:

  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C
  • 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A
  • 1 x HDMI 2.0b
  • 1 x 3.5mm audio
  • 1 x microSD card reader

Other features include a backlit keyboard with RGB lighting, support for WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2, DDR5-4800 memory (8GB or 16GB onboard plus a SODIMM slot for expansion), and an M.2 2280 slot for PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

via NotebookCheck

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Samsung launches a lower-powered, cheaper Galaxy Chromebook 2-in-1

With Galaxy Chromebooks at up to $1K, the Chromebook 2 360 has mid-tier pricing.

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360

Enlarge / Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360. (credit: Samsung)

Samsung released its latest Chrome OS device today, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360. While some Samsung Chromebooks occupy the upper echelon of Chromebooks in terms of prices and specs, its newest offering is a step down.

The Galaxy Chromebook 2 360's nomenclature may be a bit confusing. The Galaxy Chromebook 2, which is currently available with a starting MSRP of $550, also has a 360-degree hinge, despite lacking "360" in its name. But the Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 starts at the lower price of $430, making it a more attainable option for students or for those looking for a secondary device.

The new Chromebook only comes in silver.

The new Chromebook only comes in silver. (credit: Samsung)

The most obvious difference is the display size. The new Chromebook has a smaller 12.4-inch LED panel, while the older Galaxy Chromebook 2 uses a 13.3-inch QLED panel, which applies quantum dots to bring a large color coverage claim of 100 percent DCI-P3. Samsung hasn't made any specific color claims for its latest Chromebook.

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This is the oldest known use of the Maya calendar

It was almost destroyed by a construction project 2,200 years ago.

Black and white sketch of pyramid and raised platform.

Enlarge / An artist's sketch of what the 300-200 BCE temple complex at San Bartolo looked like in its heyday. (credit: Stuart et al. 2022)

Amid rubble buried beneath a Maya pyramid in Northern Guatemala, archaeologists found a broken bit of plaster with a glyph painted on it. A bar-and-dot symbol for the number “7” is drawn above a deer head, representing “7 Deer,” a date in the 260-day Maya calendar system. At around 2,300 years old, the painted plaster is the oldest known use of the calendar system once used by cultures across Mesoamerica, including the Aztec and the Maya—and still used by many Maya communities today.

“Its persistence in many communities up to the present day stands as a testament of its importance in religious and social life,” wrote University of Texas archaeologist David Stuart and his colleagues in their recent paper about the glyph. “Our ability to trace its early use back some 23 centuries stands as another testament to its historical and cultural significance."

7 Deer, 2,300 years ago

The Maya calendar combines the numbers 1 through 13 with 20 words for animals, plants, or concepts. Those 20 words rotate in a set order; for instance, Deer is always followed by Rabbit, Water, Dog, Monkey, and Grass. When the numbers paired with the days reach 13, they start over, so 13 Rabbit would be followed by 1 Water, 2 Dog, and so on. (Pop quiz: What’s the day after 7 Deer?)

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PineBuds are wireless earbuds with user-flashable firmware from open hardware maker Pine64 (coming… eventually?)

Pine64 has made a name for itself with a series of open hardware devices including Linux-friendly laptops, smartphones, tablets and single-board computers as well as other devices with user-flashable firmware including an inexpensive smartwatch and even a soldering iron. Now the company is taking aim at Bluetooth audio devices. The company plans to launch a […]

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Pine64 has made a name for itself with a series of open hardware devices including Linux-friendly laptops, smartphones, tablets and single-board computers as well as other devices with user-flashable firmware including an inexpensive smartwatch and even a soldering iron.

Now the company is taking aim at Bluetooth audio devices. The company plans to launch a set of PineBuds true wireless earbuds with all the hardware you need for features like active noise cancellation. But unlike most earbuds, which rely on proprietary firmware, the PineBuds will allow users to flash their own firmware. They may also just be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Pine64’s audio roadmap.

PineBuds prototype (true wireless earbuds with user-flashable firmware)

The company first hinted that it was working on a set of wireless earbuds in an April Fools’ day post on the Pine64 blog. But given much of the other content of that post, you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole thing was a joke.

It turns out the PineBuds are real though, and they’ll be a set of Bluetooth 5.0 true wireless earbuds with touch-based inputs that can be used for controls, 3 microphones on each bud that can be used for voice calls and voice assistants and for noise cancellation, and a charging case that not only includes a battery for topping up the earbuds, but which also exposes UART connections that will allow you to flash firmware to the earbuds when connected to a PC with a USB cable.

Pine64 says this will allow developers to create custom firmware that can do things like alter the touch controls, change sound signature profiles, adjust resonance for a specific user’s ear canals, or use the earbuds as hearing aids.

It’s unclear when the PineBuds will go on sale or how much they’ll cost. But the first step is getting developers onboard – Pine64 designs and produces open hardware, but the company typically works with the independent developer community to create software for those products.

The company is positioning the PineBuds and other new audio projects as a “small” project that will be almost completely community-driven, which means it’s more akin to the PineTime smartwatch and Pinecil soldering iron than the company’s larger product categories like smartphones, laptops, and single-board computers.

Before the PineBuds are ready to ship, Pine64 will release a PineSound development board that users the same Bestechnic BES2300 Bluetooth 5.0 audio chip as the headphones. The board is obviously larger than the earbuds, and exposes additional ports and pins that will help developers test the platform.

PineSound Developer Board

The PineSound board has a 3.5mm audio jack, 4.4mm and 2.5mm balanced jacks, coaxial & optical inputs and outputs, an SMA connector, a USB-C port, and ports for connecting an LCD display and touch input.

Since Pine64 considers the PineSound board and PineBuds earbuds to be a community-driven project, decisions about if and when they’re ready to move from developer-only products to items that are ready for production and sale will be set with input from members of the development community. And if and when that ever happens will most likely depend on whether a developer community evolves and grows around the platform in the first place.

Not all of Pine64’s small, community-driven products have been great successes, after all. The company’s PineCube open source camera never really took off in a big way, although a dev kit is still available for $30.

It’s not hard to imagine that open source, customizable earbuds could be a bigger success though, especially as they’d most likely help flesh out Pine64’s growing ecosystem of open hardware products. Perhaps one day you’ll be able to pair them with a Linux smartphone like the PinePhone, a smartwatch like the the PineWatch, or other devices like the PineNote E Ink tablet.

And if that happens, it’s also easy to imagine Pine64 expanding its line of wireless audio products to include over-ear headphones, wireless speakers, or other hardware.

via Pine64 April 2022 update

 

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Kosten für Ukraine-Krieg: Diskussion über Steuererhöhung

Neuen Solidaritätszuschlag vorgeschlagen, um Kosten des Ukraine-Krieges und der geplanten Aufrüstung zu decken. Gewerkschaften und Linke wollen Vermögensabgabe.

Neuen Solidaritätszuschlag vorgeschlagen, um Kosten des Ukraine-Krieges und der geplanten Aufrüstung zu decken. Gewerkschaften und Linke wollen Vermögensabgabe.

TikTok under US government investigation over child sexual abuse material

Short-video app accused of being “perfect place for predators” by DHS.

TikTok logo next to inverted US flag.

Enlarge / = (credit: SOPA Images | LightRocket | Getty Images)

TikTok is under investigation by US government agencies over its handling of child sexual abuse material, as the burgeoning short-form video app struggles to moderate a flood of new content.

Dealing with sexual predators has been an enduring challenge for social media platforms, but TikTok’s young user base has made it vulnerable to being a target.

The US Department of Homeland Security is investigating how TikTok handles child sexual abuse material, according to two sources familiar with the case.

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Samsung Galaxy Chromebook2 360 now available for $430

The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is a convertible Chrome OS notebook with a 12.4 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel touchscreen display, a 360-degree hinge, and a low-power Intel Celeron N4500 dual-core processor. First announced in March, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is now available for $430 and up. The starting price will get you a […]

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The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is a convertible Chrome OS notebook with a 12.4 inch, 2560 x 1600 pixel touchscreen display, a 360-degree hinge, and a low-power Intel Celeron N4500 dual-core processor.

First announced in March, the Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 is now available for $430 and up.

The starting price will get you a model with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC storage, but there’s also a higher-priced 8GB/128GB model.

Designed with the education market in mind, the laptop has a spill-resistant keyboard. But it’s also available for the general public, with features including support for WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, and optional support for 4G LTE on some models.

The notebook has a 45.5 Wh battery and comes with a 45W USB-C power adapter. Ports include two USB Type-C ports, one USB 3.2 Type-A port, a microSD card reader, a headset jack, and a microSD card reader. It has a 720p webcam.

The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 360 measures 288 x 207 x 17mm (11.3″ x 8.1″ x 0.7″) and weighs 1.28 kg (2.8 pounds).

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Two versions of the trolley problem elicit similar responses everywhere

People are very utilitarian when they’re less directly involved.

Image of a streetcar

Enlarge (credit: Alexander Spatari)

The trolley problem is a staple of discussions about ethics. The basic version is very simple: a trolley is barreling down a track toward a group of five people who remain blissfully unaware of their impending doom. You stand next to a switch that could redirect the trolley to another track, where it will kill a smaller number of people. Do you throw the switch?

Most people take a very utilitarian view of things and say they'd throw the switch. But there are plenty of variations on the trolley problem that suggest there's more than pure utilitarianism involved in the decision-making. Changing the number of people on the alternate track or changing how directly involved you have to be in killing someone will both shift the frequency of different answers—at least in industrialized societies.

Documentation of the response to the trolley problem in other cultures has been relatively spotty, raising the question of whether we can reveal any ethical universals using it. So an enormous team of researchers decided to find out, surveying over 27,000 people in 45 countries. Although the work didn't exactly go as planned, it did provide a hint of at least one ethical tendency that's pretty universal across cultures.

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"Partygate": Wie fest sitzt Johnson im Sattel?

Seine Unterstützung der ukrainischen Regierung im Krieg hat dem britischen Premierminister viel Zuspruch gebracht. Aber die Probleme in Großbritannien spitzen sich dennoch weiter zu – und Johnsons Stuhl wackelt.

Seine Unterstützung der ukrainischen Regierung im Krieg hat dem britischen Premierminister viel Zuspruch gebracht. Aber die Probleme in Großbritannien spitzen sich dennoch weiter zu – und Johnsons Stuhl wackelt.