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The Epic Games Store has been giving away at least one free PC game per week since the store first launched in 2019, and now that there’s a mobile version of the store Epic is bringing free games to Android as well. Folks in the European Union ca…
The Epic Games Store has been giving away at least one free PC game per week since the store first launched in 2019, and now that there’s a mobile version of the store Epic is bringing free games to Android as well. Folks in the European Union can also use the mobile app to score […]
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LCD screens, dominant in laptops and tablets, tend to get turned way up.
If you know how OLED displays work, you know about one of their greatest strengths: Individual pixels can be shut off, offering deeper blacks and power savings. Dark modes, now available on most operating systems, aim to save power by making most backgrounds very dark or black, while also gratifying those who just prefer the look.
But what about on the older but still dominant screen technology, LCDs? The BBC is out with a small, interesting study comparing the light and dark modes of one of its website pages on an older laptop. Faced with a dark mode version, most people turned up the brightness a notable amount, sometimes drawing more power than on light mode.
It's not a surprise that dark modes don't do anything to reduce LCD power draw. However, the study—not peer-reviewed but published as part of the International Workshop on Low Carbon Computing—suggests that claims about dark mode's efficiency may be overstated in real-world scenarios, with non-cutting-edge hardware and humans at the controls.
Lenovo fails for not providing shoppers sufficient laptop repairability information.
Apple and Lenovo had the lowest laptop repairability scores in an analysis of recently released devices from consumer advocacy group US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. While Apple's low marks are partially due the difficulty involved in disassembling MacBooks, Lenovo appears to be withholding information from shoppers deemed critical to right-to-repair legislation and accessibility.
The report, US PIRG's fourth annual “Failing the Fix” [PDF], calculated repairability scores for PCs and smartphones from popular brands in the US. The report examines "the top 10 most recent devices from each brand that were available for sale directly from manufacturers in January 2025." If a brand's website didn't allow people to sort by newest release, US PIRG picked devices by sorting "by 'Bestselling' or something similar," per the report's methodology section.
US PIRG's analysis included finding each device's French Repairability Index scores on PC makers' French websites and on third-party retailer sites. US PIRG calculated PC makers' grades by averaging "the total French score and the isolated disassembly score from each device." It weighed disassembly scores more heavily because it believes "this better reflects what consumers think a repairability score indicates." Next, the group subtracted half a point each for membership in TechNet or the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), industry groups that oppose right-to-repair legislation, and added a quarter point "for each piece of Right to Repair legislation supported by the testimony of the manufacturer in the last year."
“There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars.”
In a remarkable statement Thursday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the International Space Station should be deorbited "as soon as possible."
This comment from Musk will surely set off a landmine in the global space community, with broad implications. And it appears to be no idle comment from Musk who, at times, indulges in deliberately provocative posts on the social media network X that he owns.
However, that does not seem to be the case here.
“There is very little incremental utility. Let’s go to Mars.”
In a remarkable statement Thursday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the International Space Station should be deorbited "as soon as possible."
This comment from Musk will surely set off a landmine in the global space community, with broad implications. And it appears to be no idle comment from Musk who, at times, indulges in deliberately provocative posts on the social media network X that he owns.
However, that does not seem to be the case here.
Amazon-owned platform says “costly” historical archives don’t drive “engagement.”
Popular Amazon-owned game streaming platform Twitch announced Wednesday that it will be imposing a 100-hour limit on the archived video highlights users can preserve permanently on the site. And while Twitch says that only 0.5 percent of users will be affected by these new limits, gamers are warning that the move threatens to eradicate large swaths of recent gaming history from the Internet.
Highlights, in Twitch's own words, are a way for Twitch streamers to "show off your best moments to new viewers who land on your channel page." Unlike VOD recordings of full Twitch broadcasts—which are deleted automatically after seven days (or 60 days for Twitch partners)—these highlights provide a more permanent way to maintain an archive of important moments for many Twitch streamers.
That seeming permanence is set to end on April 29, though, when Twitch says it will start to delete content from channels with more than 100 hours of highlights, starting with the least-viewed highlights.
Fire tablets and Fire TV devices will still have access to apps, though.
After 14 years of trying and failing to gain a smartphone foothold, Amazon has announced it will discontinue its app store. Anyone who has content in Amazon's store will be able to access it for now, but all bets are off beginning on August 20, 2025. As part of the pull-back, the company is also discontinuing the Amazon Coins digital currency.
The Amazon Appstore made waves when it launched in 2011, offering an alternative to what at the time was known as the Android Market. Amazon even scored some early exclusives and gave away a plethora of premium content and Coins to anyone willing to do the legwork of installing the storefront on their Android phone.
That level of attention didn't last, though, and the Appstore today has hardly evolved from its humble beginnings, lacking most of the content and features people have come to expect from a mobile app store. If you want to check out the store on your phone before it goes away, you'll have to sideload the client by downloading an APK from Amazon. This process isn't hard, but it proved to be a significant barrier to entry for getting people into the Amazon ecosystem.
Für Macbooks, Tablets, Smartphones und mehr: Das meistverkaufte USB-HDMI-Kabel bei Amazon ist aktuell fast um die Hälfte reduziert. (Technik/Hardware, Amazon)
Für Macbooks, Tablets, Smartphones und mehr: Das meistverkaufte USB-HDMI-Kabel bei Amazon ist aktuell fast um die Hälfte reduziert. (Technik/Hardware, Amazon) Ein kompakter Workshop der Golem Karrierewelt vermittelt IT-Verantwortlichen, wie sie IT-Governance-Strukturen effizient aufbauen und mit dem COBIT-Framework Best Practices in der Unternehmens-IT etablieren. (Golem Karrierewelt, Server-Applikationen)
Ein kompakter Workshop der Golem Karrierewelt vermittelt IT-Verantwortlichen, wie sie IT-Governance-Strukturen effizient aufbauen und mit dem COBIT-Framework Best Practices in der Unternehmens-IT etablieren. (Golem Karrierewelt, Server-Applikationen) The FAA has not concluded its investigation, but a resolution is expected soon.
A little over a month after SpaceX's large Starship launch ended in an explosion over several Caribbean islands, the company is preparing its next rocket for a test flight.
According to a notice posted by the Federal Aviation Administration, the eighth test flight of the Starship vehicle could take place as early as February 26 from the Starbase launch site in South Texas. The launch window extends from 5:30 pm local time (23:30 UTC) to 7:09 pm (01:09 UTC).
Company sources confirmed that this launch date is plausible, but it's also possible that the launch could slip a day or two to Thursday or Friday of next week.