Month: February 2023

The Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, with S-Pen and outrageously slim bezels. (credit: Samsung)

If you're looking for a premium Android tablet, Samsung's Galaxy Tabs are terrific options. Not only do the latest Galaxy Tab S8 models compete head to head with the rival iPad in terms of design and build quality, but Samsung's slate also comes with a few features not available on Apple's tablet, including a desktop DeX mode, various screen sizes and resolutions, and integration into the Samsung and Windows ecosystems.

Here are some of the best deals we've found for Samsung's slate if you're in the market for a premium, high-end Android tablet:

Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra for $969 ($1,100) at Amazon: The Ultra version of Samsung's current Galaxy Tab S8 series, with its 14.6-inch display, is one of the largest consumer tablets on the market today. While the large size may make the slate feel unwieldy to use hand-held as a tablet, it's great for content consumption and makes photos and videos shine. And the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra isn't just all play and no work, as the large screen makes this a perfect laptop replacement, especially when paired with the keyboard folio, to create and edit documents and spreadsheets, manipulate photos, and do Internet research. Turn on DeX desktop mode and you'll even have moveable and resizeable desktop windows, similar to macOS and Windows. The slate comes with 128GB of storage and 8GB of memory.

The glassy-winged sharpshooter drinks huge amounts of water and thus pees frequently, expelling as much as 300 times its own body weight in urine every day. Rather than producing a steady stream of urine, sharpshooters form drops of urine at the anus and then catapult those drops away from their bodies at remarkable speeds, boasting accelerations 10 times faster than a Lamborghini. Georgia Tech scientists have determined that the insect uses this unusual "superpropulsion" mechanism to conserve energy, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications.

A type of leafhopper, the glassy-winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca vitripennis) is technically an agricultural pest, the bane of California winemakers in particular since the 1990s. It feeds on many plant species (including grapes), piercing a plant's xylem (which transports water from the roots to stems and leaves) with its needle-like mouth to suck out the sap. The insects consume a lot of sap, and their frequent urination consumes a lot of energy in turn, because of their small size and the sap's viscosity and negative surface tension (it naturally gets sucked inward). But the sap is about 95 percent water, so there's not much nutritional content to fuel all that peeing.

“If you were only drinking diet lemonade, and that was your entire diet, then you really wouldn’t want to waste energy in any part of your biological process,” co-author Saad Bhamla of Georgia Tech told New Scientist. “That’s sort of how it is for this tiny organism.”

Enlarge / Dell's 2023 XPS desktop. (credit: Dell)

Dell has begun refreshing its popular XPS lineup of desktops and laptops with the latest mobile processors and GPUs. These updates mostly focus on chip upgrades, suggesting only mild improvements to the series that shouldn't make owners of last year's models very envious.

Dell's XPS 17 and 15 laptops will be available on March 2, a Dell rep confirmed to Ars Technica. Dell will offer each with up to an Intel Core i9-13900H but also support i5 and i7 options.

Intel's 13th Gen H-series mobile chips don't bring massive upgrades over their 12th Gen counterparts. The i9-13900H has six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 20 threads, and 24MB of cache. It supports clock speeds of 1.9-5.4 GHz. The i9-12900H we tested in last year's Dell XPS 15 has similar specs but clock speeds of 1.8-5 GHz.

Enlarge / Dell's 2023 XPS desktop. (credit: Dell)

Dell has begun refreshing its popular XPS lineup of desktops and laptops with the latest mobile processors and GPUs. These updates mostly focus on chip upgrades, suggesting only mild improvements to the series that shouldn't make owners of last year's models very envious.

Dell's XPS 17 and 15 laptops will be available on March 2, a Dell rep confirmed to Ars Technica. Dell will offer each with up to an Intel Core i9-13900H but also support i5 and i7 options.

Intel's 13th Gen H-series mobile chips don't bring massive upgrades over their 12th Gen counterparts. The i9-13900H has six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 20 threads, and 24MB of cache. It supports clock speeds of 1.9-5.4 GHz. The i9-12900H we tested in last year's Dell XPS 15 has similar specs but clock speeds of 1.8-5 GHz.

Enlarge / Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony at the Eternal Flame and the Unknown Soldier's grave in Alexander Garden in Moscow, Russia, on February 23, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Pavel Bednyakov)

A Russian court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 2 million rubles (about $27,000) today for failing to delete alleged "misinformation" about the Russian military from Wikipedia, Reuters reported. It's the third fine Russia has issued against the Wikipedia owner since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

"Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Russia introduced sweeping new laws restricting what people can report about the conflict, fining or blocking websites that spread information at odds with the Kremlin's official narrative. ... The latest fine was imposed after the authorities accused Wikipedia of 'spreading misinformation' in articles about Russian military units," Wikimedia Russia told Reuters.

Wikimedia has consistently fought Russia's attempts at censorship. After receiving a demand to remove content about the invasion of Ukraine on March 1, 2022, Wikimedia said it "will not back down in the face of efforts to censor and intimidate members of our movement."

Enlarge / Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a ceremony at the Eternal Flame and the Unknown Soldier's grave in Alexander Garden in Moscow, Russia, on February 23, 2023. (credit: Getty Images | Pavel Bednyakov)

A Russian court fined the Wikimedia Foundation 2 million rubles (about $27,000) today for failing to delete alleged "misinformation" about the Russian military from Wikipedia, Reuters reported. It's the third fine Russia has issued against the Wikipedia owner since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine a year ago.

"Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Russia introduced sweeping new laws restricting what people can report about the conflict, fining or blocking websites that spread information at odds with the Kremlin's official narrative. ... The latest fine was imposed after the authorities accused Wikipedia of 'spreading misinformation' in articles about Russian military units," Wikimedia Russia told Reuters.

Wikimedia has consistently fought Russia's attempts at censorship. After receiving a demand to remove content about the invasion of Ukraine on March 1, 2022, Wikimedia said it "will not back down in the face of efforts to censor and intimidate members of our movement."