Miscellaneous Tech News
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Privacy group asks court to reconsider FTC’s $5 billion Facebook deal
The settlement does nothing to address the underlying issues, EPIC says.
A group of privacy and consumer organizations is asking a federal court to slow its roll on approving the Federal Trade Commission's $5 billion settlement with Facebook, saying it doesn't do nearly enough to protect individuals.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed the motion to intervene (PDF) with the US District Court in Washington, DC, on Friday, asking the court to let it and other privacy advocacy groups file comments in a "careful review of the fairness and adequacy" of the proposed settlement. -
Samsung won’t let Android tablets die, announces the Galaxy Tab S6
Would you believe Samsung is removing the headphone jack from tablets?
Samsung is still not giving up on the Android tablet market. Today the company announced the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6, its latest high-end tablet, for $649.
The Samsung Tab S6 features a 10.5-inch 2560×1600 OLED display, a 2.84GHz Snapdragon 855, and a 7040mAh battery. The base version has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, with a higher tier of 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. For cameras, there's an 8MP front camera, while the rear gets a 13MP main camera and a 5MP wide-angle lens. The device is down to 5.7mm thick and weighs 420 grams. This is Samsung's first-ever tablet with an in-screen fingerprint reader. Interestingly, it's an optical reader instead of the ultrasonic tech that the Galaxy S10 uses.
Somehow, on a 10-inch tablet, Samsung couldn't find room for a headphone jack. Even Apple, which ditched the headphone jack two years ago, still puts a headphone jack on iPads. Samsung is apparently declaring war on the headphone jack with this round of updates—the Galaxy Note 10, launching next week, is expected to dump the headphone jack, too. -
Multi-monitor wallpapers with Hydrapaper
When using multiple monitors, by default, means that your desktop wallpaper is duplicated across all of your screens.
However, with all that screen real-estate that a multiple monitor setup delivers, having a different wallpaper for each monitor is a nice way to brighten up your workspace even more.
One manual workaround for getting different wallpapers on multiple monitors is to manually create it using something like the GIMP, cropping and positioning your backgrounds by hand. There is, however, a neat wallpaper manager called Hydrapaper that makes setting multiple wallpapers a breeze. Hydrapaper is a simple GNOME application that auto-detects your monitors, and allows you to choose different wallpapers for each display. In the background, it achieves this by simply composing a new background image from your choices that fits your displays, and sets that as your new wallpaper. All with a single click. -
Command line quick tips: More about permissions
Each set has r, w, and x entries for whether a particular user (owner, group member, or other) can read, write, or execute that file. But there’s another way to express these permissions: in octal mode.
A previous article covered some basics about file permissions on your Fedora system. This installment shows you additional ways to use permissions to manage file access and sharing. It also builds on the knowledge and examples in the previous article, so if you haven’t read that one, do check it out. -
Android Auto’s biggest upgrade ever is finally rolling out
It has a darker design and more multitasking capabilities.
Earlier this year at Google I/O, Google announced a big upgrade to Android Auto, its smartphone-powered car interface and competitor to Apple's CarPlay. Now, around three months later, the interface is finally rolling out to the general public via an app update. This version of Android Auto represents the interface's first major upgrade since its launch in 2014. -
Russia denies OneWeb's satellite internet request
A firm that plans to launch hundreds of satellites into orbit to provide worldwide internet coverage has failed in its latest attempt to get approval in Russia.
OneWeb, whose headquarters are in the UK, was seeking to use a certain band of radio frequencies in Russia. However, the State Commission for Radio Frequencies has denied it permission to do so. OneWeb has been trying to get approval for its Russian operations since 2017. The company was founded by US entrepreneur Greg Wyler. It launched its first six satellites, out of a proposed 650, into orbit in February. In 2017, Russia's communications authority Roskomnadzor blocked OneWeb from offering services in the country. And the Federal Security Service (FSB) said that the satellites could be used for espionage. -
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InstaGram is down. WhatsApp might be as well. Facebook platforms definitely experiencing an issue internationally.
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AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is such a hit it almost outsold Intel’s entire CPU range
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@nadnerB said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is such a hit it almost outsold Intel’s entire CPU range
Wow
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@nadnerB said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is such a hit it almost outsold Intel’s entire CPU range
"To put this in a plainer fashion, for every single processor sold by Intel, AMD sold four."
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Intel reveals final details on Ice Lake mobile CPUs
Ice Lake boasts significant power savings and much-improved integrated devices.
Compared to 9th-generation Core mobile CPUs, Ice Lake features an 18% improvement in Instructions Per Clock cycle (IPC), but it offers a decrease in maximum clock rate. This means maximum performance is basically a wash, but we should expect substantial gains in battery life, assuming notebook manufacturers don't scale down battery capacities in response. TDP itself is also significantly improved: Coffee Lake mobile i5 CPUs were rated at 45W/35W, while the new Ice Lake U-series i5s and even i7s are down to 25W/15W. -
@mlnews said in Miscellaneous Tech News:
Intel reveals final details on Ice Lake mobile CPUs
Ice Lake boasts significant power savings and much-improved integrated devices.
Compared to 9th-generation Core mobile CPUs, Ice Lake features an 18% improvement in Instructions Per Clock cycle (IPC), but it offers a decrease in maximum clock rate. This means maximum performance is basically a wash, but we should expect substantial gains in battery life, assuming notebook manufacturers don't scale down battery capacities in response. TDP itself is also significantly improved: Coffee Lake mobile i5 CPUs were rated at 45W/35W, while the new Ice Lake U-series i5s and even i7s are down to 25W/15W.wow... nice.
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Polar Ignite review: Clever fitness perks marred by too many compromises
It's a powerful fitness watch, but the $229 Ignite misses the mark as a smartwatch.
Polar has had some catching up to do in the smartwatch space as Fitbit, Garmin, and Apple continuously improve upon and release new products. Polar has always had solid wearable options for serious athletes, but now the new Ignite smartwatch wants to reach a wider group of users. At $229, the Polar Ignite is more affordable than the Vantage M or V smartwatches, but it has more capabilities as a GPS watch than something like Polar's A370 fitness band. It's also more attractive and versatile thanks to a round, lightweight case and interchangeable bands. It seemingly provides a good balance of style and fitness prowess like Garmin's Vivoactive 3 or Fitbit's Versa does, but spending a week wearing the Ignite has proven that Polar should have paid more attention to small yet crucial details that can make or break a $229 smartwatch. -
Apple releases macOS 10.14.6 Supplemental Update to fix sleeping Macs
This is one of the last macOS updates we'll see before Catalina.
It was just over a week ago that Apple released macOS 10.14.6, but the company has already pushed out a Supplemental Update. Released today, the update fixes a heretofore not-widely-known issue involving sleep mode on Macs. Typically, when Apple releases an OS update, it updates its security page with details about security changes and fixes that it chooses to disclose. But there's no entry for that today—the only entry on the security update tracker for today is for iCloud for Windows 10.6.1. But even that "has no published CVE entries." -
Google confirms “Play Pass” subscription service for Android apps
Screenshots show $4.99 a month service for "hundreds" of apps and games.
Google is testing a new "Play Pass" subscription service for the Google Play Store. The company confirmed testing of the new service to Android Police, after the site was sent screenshots of the subscription service by a user.
Screenshots show the service would have users sign up right inside the Play Store, allowing them to pay a monthly fee for access to "Hundreds of premium apps and games." The promo mentions "no purchases, no ads, and in-app purchases unlocked" for "a curated catalog spanning puzzle games to premium music apps and everything in between." -
Google publishes sustainability plan for hardware, but its impact is uncertain
The tech giant added new sustainability targets, but their value is hard to gauge.
Google says it is embarking on new plans to make its hardware greener. Anna Meegan, head of sustainability for consumer hardware at Google, wrote a blog post outlining the company’s goals for improving the environmental impact made by its devices.
Google’s sustainability commitments include making 100% of shipments to or from customers carbon neutral by 2020 and including recycled materials in 100% of Made by Google products starting in 2022. The industry giant also wants to maximize the amount of recycled content wherever possible. The final commitment is a more general statement that Google “will make technology that puts people first and expands access to the benefits of technology.” -
8chan is all the way down—“It’s DNS. It’s always DNS.”
To find the what, why, and where of a dead site, you start with its DNS.
Earlier today in the Ars Technica staff Slack channel, a call went out—"is 8chan down for other people? I can't get it to load anymore." This brings up the interesting question of how to check where and why a site might be down, as well as whether it can even load for anyone.
But first a little background.
When Cloudflare finally had enough of 8chan and fired it, the site—notoriously a haven for mass shooters and their fans—immediately jumped ship for BitMitigate, the same CDN that hosts far-right white nationalist site The Daily Stormer. The site also changed DNS and Web hosting to Epik, which is the parent company to BitMitigate and the host of far-right social media platform Gab. -
I guess that's a step or two better than SMS messages, but really - no OTP option?
Now to see if they have already solved the single account issue (In the past I tried setting up a billing account and an admin account and was told by support that wasn't an option).
2FA without multiple accounts seems like a crazy risk.
