Month: May 2022

Android 13 is coming to phones and tablets this fall… but also to Android TV devices. Among other things, Android 13 for smart TVs will bring support for picture-in-picture mode, allowing you to keep watching video from one app or service while interacting with another or while browsing for the next thing you want to watch. But developers will need to update their apps to take advantage of the new APIs, so this week Google released Android 13 Beta 2 for Android 13.

In other recent tech news from around the web, Valve continues to bring new and improved features to the Steam Deck with every software update (and the software updates are frequent), the designed of the MNT Reform open hardware laptop is testing a new module with a faster processor, and OnePlus has introduced its most affordable true wireless earbuds to date.

More details in Google’s What’s new in Android TV and Google TV presentation from Google I/O: https://t.co/5hXJXrlwj2

— Liliputing (@liliputingnews) May 12, 2022

Steam Deck update brings support for per-game performance profiles, saving custom settings to save custom settings for screen refresh rate and CPU/GPU performance for each game for the best frame rates and/or battery life. https://t.co/bhQbzg4ir3

— Liliputing (@liliputingnews) May 12, 2022

The MNT Reform was designed to be a modular, open hardware laptop and while it originally shipped with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, the chip is on a removable module. Now the developer is testing a dual-core Cortex-A72 module. https://t.co/uiuIQiBhQ3

— Liliputing (@liliputingnews) May 12, 2022

OnePlus launches the Nord 2T 5G and Nord CE 2 Lite 5G budget phones in Europe, plus the OnePlus Nord Buds, a $40 pair of true wireless earbuds with 7 hours battery life (but no ANC). https://t.co/0NFD5rtZBR

— Liliputing (@liliputingnews) May 12, 2022

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: Picture-in-Picture coming to Android TV, Steam Deck gains per-app performance profiles, and more appeared first on Liliputing.

The Unihertz Titan Slim is a modern smartphone with one significant retro feature: it has a physical keyboard that looks like something ripped off of a BlackBerry phone.

Now available for pre-order through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign, the Titan Slim is the latest in a line of niche phones from Unihertz, a company that also offers models with extraordinarily small screens or rugged designs, and BlackBerry clones like the Titan and Titan Pocket.

Unihertz is charging about $249 for the Titan Slim during crowdfunding, and expects to begin shipping the phone to backers in September, 2022. But early reviews have already started to arrive and they’re not particularly great.

While the phone is one of the only modern options for physical keyboard fans (unless you count a few recent models with horizontal keyboards), the Titan Slim isn’t exactly, well… slim. It measures half an inch thick, making it one of the thickest phones around.

The phone’s key distinguishing feature also disappoints some BlackBerry fans since the modifier keys are in the top row rather than the bottom, making them hard to reach (especially for folks who’ve built up muscle memory on a BlackBerry) and resulting in a weird bottom row that has a space bar squeezed between the V and B keys.

The phone also has a 5:3 aspect ratio display, which means that Android apps that expect a 16:9 or wider aspect ratio may not play well with the screen. Reviewers also found the phone’s camera and processor performance to be underwhelming.

But at least it’s not an expensive phone, so maybe the relatively affordable price tag will be enough to make the phone appealing to long-term QWERTY keyboard die-hards. That certainly seems to be the case, as more than 1,900 people have backed the crowdfunding campaign in its first two days, pledging nearly $500 thousand, or ten times the goal that Unihertz had set for the campaign.

The post Unihertz Titan Slim smartphone with BlackBerry-style keyboard hits Kickstarter for $249 and up appeared first on Liliputing.

FriendlyELEC has been selling a line of single-board computers under the NanoPi brand name for years, with some models designed to let you build your own network-attached storage device, some designed for use as headless computer or routers, and others just designed to be dirt cheap. The company’s latest is the NanoPi R5S, a little […]

The post NanoPi R5S is a tiny router board or mini PC with RK3568 and 3 Ethernet ports for $59 and up appeared first on Liliputing.

The Epic Games Store is giving away 3 PC games for free this week: Jotun: Vallhalla Edition, Prey, and Redout: Enhanced Edition. If you’ve been taking advantage of Epic’s weekly giveaways since they began a few years ago, you might already have the first two games in your library, but the third is a new one for me.

Meanwhile, Lenovo is offering an extra 5% off select purchases when you use the coupon EXTRA5 at checkout, Amazon has is selling the entry-level iPad mini for $90 off, and you can save $30 on an Apple TV 4K (or $5 on a Roku Express HD, but that’s a much cheaper media streamer to start with).

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

PC Games

• Jotun: Valhalla Edition PC game for free – Epic Games Store
• Prey PC game for free – Epic Games Store
• Redout: Enhanced Edition PC game for free – Epic Games Store

Tablets

• Apple iPad mini w/64GB for $409 – Amazon
• Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 w/SD870/8GB/128GB/HDMI input for $380 – Lenovo (coupon: EXTRA5)
• Lenovo Tab P11 Plus w/Helio G90T/4GB/128GB for $180 – Lenovo (coupon: EXTRA5)

Media Streamers

• Apple TV 4K w/32GB for $150 – Amazon
• Roku Express HD for $24 – Amazon

Other

• JBL Charge 5 portable Bluetooth speaker for $120 – Woot
• HP Envy x360 13″ convertible w/Ryzen 7 5800U/16GB/512GB for $900 – HP
• Star Wars digital comics for $1 and up – Amazon

The post Daily Deals (5-12-2022) appeared first on Liliputing.

The Epic Games Store is giving away 3 PC games for free this week: Jotun: Vallhalla Edition, Prey, and Redout: Enhanced Edition. If you’ve been taking advantage of Epic’s weekly giveaways since they began a few years ago, you might already have the first two games in your library, but the third is a new one for me.

Meanwhile, Lenovo is offering an extra 5% off select purchases when you use the coupon EXTRA5 at checkout, Amazon has is selling the entry-level iPad mini for $90 off, and you can save $30 on an Apple TV 4K (or $5 on a Roku Express HD, but that’s a much cheaper media streamer to start with).

Here are some of the day’s best deals.

PC Games

• Jotun: Valhalla Edition PC game for free – Epic Games Store
• Prey PC game for free – Epic Games Store
• Redout: Enhanced Edition PC game for free – Epic Games Store

Tablets

• Apple iPad mini w/64GB for $409 – Amazon
• Lenovo Yoga Tab 13 w/SD870/8GB/128GB/HDMI input for $380 – Lenovo (coupon: EXTRA5)
• Lenovo Tab P11 Plus w/Helio G90T/4GB/128GB for $180 – Lenovo (coupon: EXTRA5)

Media Streamers

• Apple TV 4K w/32GB for $150 – Amazon
• Roku Express HD for $24 – Amazon

Other

• JBL Charge 5 portable Bluetooth speaker for $120 – Woot
• HP Envy x360 13″ convertible w/Ryzen 7 5800U/16GB/512GB for $900 – HP
• Star Wars digital comics for $1 and up – Amazon

The post Daily Deals (5-12-2022) appeared first on Liliputing.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | PA Thompson)

A federal appeals court has reinstated a Texas state law that bans "censorship" on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, allowing Texas to enforce the law while litigation continues.

A US District Court judge had granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law in December, ruling that it violates the social networks' First Amendment right to moderate user-submitted content. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the injunction to the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and a panel of three judges issued a ruling Wednesday that stayed the preliminary injunction.

The ruling did not explain the judges' reasoning. "It is ordered that appellant's opposed motion to stay preliminary injunction pending appeal is granted," the ruling said. The panel ruling was not unanimous, but it didn't say how each judge voted.

Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments

• 

  Lego Optimus Prime in both robot and truck form. [credit: The Lego Group ]

If you're tired of having to choose between your Lego bricks and your Transformers at playtime, Hasbro and the Lego Group have teamed up to solve your problem. A new Optimus Prime kit, due out on June 1 for $169.99, is both a 1,508-piece Lego set and a fully functional Transformer with 19 points of articulation.

In addition to transforming from a robot into a truck, the Optimus Prime kit includes a jetpack, an ion cannon, and an Energon axe and cube—everything your Lego Optimus Prime will need to fight Lego Decepticons if any ever make it to Earth.

Optimus Prime comes with the accessories you'd expect, also in Lego form. (credit: The Lego Group)

The Optimus Prime collaboration is the latest Lego set aimed at a very specific audience: formerly Lego-loving kids who have grown up and acquired a source of disposable income. Past entries in this series include a scale-model Lego Nintendo Entertainment System with a "working" TV, a folding question block set that recreates some of Super Mario 64's most recognizable worlds in miniature, and the entirety of the Lego Art lineup.

Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Enlarge (credit: Jeff Dunn)

It's once again time for a new Dealmaster. Our latest roundup of the best tech deals from around the web includes a nice discount on Apple's latest iPad Mini, which is currently down to $409 at Amazon and Walmart. While that's $10 more than the all-time low we saw earlier this month, it's the best discount we've seen otherwise, still coming in at $90 below Apple's MSRP and about $50 below its recent street price online.

We gave the new Mini a positive review upon its launch last September, praising its refreshed, iPad Pro-inspired design, solid performance aided by Apple's A15 chip, accurate display, and respectable front and rear cameras, among other features. In general, it does what it sets out to do: be a small iPad that works about as well as any other modern iPad. Just note that it's really only for people who specifically want the more diminutive 8.3-inch display; the roomier iPad Air and iPad Pro are generally better suited to the kind of multitasking and productivity-focused updates Apple has been pumping into iPadOS in recent years, and the M1 chip in those tablets is more performant (albeit to the point of overkill in some cases).

The $329 iPad, meanwhile, still does the job for more casual uses at a much lower price, though its design is far more dated. The iPad Mini is meant for a particular niche, in other words, but if you really want a higher-quality, one-handed tablet for e-reading, web browsing, or doodling with an Apple Pencil, the Mini is the one to get, and this deal makes its typically high price a bit more approachable.

Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The Beelink Mini S is a compact computer with an 15-watt Intel Celeron N5095 quad-core processor based on Intel’s Jasper Lake architecture, 8GB of RAM, and support for up to two displays and up to two internal storage devices.

It’s now available from Beelink for $229 and up. And if it looks familiar, there’s a good reason for that: the Beelink Mini S appears to be a slightly smaller, slightly cheaper alternative to the Beelink U59 that launched last year.

The two computers have the same processor, and similar basic specs. Both have Celeron N5095 processors, 8GB of DDR4-2400 memory, support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.0, and a set of ports that includes:

• 2 x HDMI
• 4 x USB 3.0 Type-A
• 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
• 1 x 3.5mm audio
• 1 x DC power

But the Beelink U59 also has a USB Type-C port that can be used for video or data, which means that model can support up to three displays.

Omitting the USB-C port on the Mini S appears to have allowed Beelink to shrink the chassis a bit, although you wouldn’t know that from the measurements listed on the Beelink website, which would seem to indicate that the new model is larger, even though pictures show that it should be the same size or smaller, since it has fewer ports.

Anyway, it’s a bit cheaper than the U59, with a lower starting price… although that may be due to the fact that the entry-level model also has less storage. Here’s the price list for Beelink’s two N5095-powered mini PCs:

• Beelink Mini S with 8GB/128GB for $229
• Beelink U59 with 8GB/256GB for $239
• Beelink Mini S with 8GB/256Gb for $249
• Beelink U59 with 16GB/500GB for $309

via AndroidPC.es

The post Beelink Mini S is a small, cheap desktop with Celeron N5095 Jasper Lake appeared first on Liliputing.

Enlarge / The RTX 3080 Ti. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

After years of hinting, Nvidia announced yesterday that it would be open-sourcing part of its Linux GPU driver, as both Intel and AMD have done for years now. Previously, Linux users who wanted to avoid Nvidia's proprietary driver had to rely on reverse-engineered software like the Nouveau project, which worked best on older hardware and offered incomplete support at best for all of Nvidia's GPU features.

"This release is a significant step toward improving the experience of using NVIDIA GPUs in Linux, for tighter integration with the OS, and for developers to debug, integrate, and contribute back," says a blog post attributed to several Nvidia employees. "For Linux distribution providers, the open source modules increase ease of use. They also improve the out-of-the-box user experience to sign and distribute the NVIDIA GPU driver. Canonical and SUSE are able to immediately package the open kernel modules with Ubuntu and SUSE Linux Enterprise Distributions."

Nvidia is specifically releasing an open source kernel driver under a dual MIT/GPL license and is not currently open-sourcing parts of the driver that run in user space. This includes drivers for OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenCL, and CUDA, which are still closed source, in addition to the firmware for the GPU System Processor (GSP). Nvidia says these drivers "will remain closed source and published with pre-built binaries," so it doesn't sound like there are immediate plans to release open source versions.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments