Geek News

Dell is refreshing its Inspiron line of notebooks for the holiday season, and instead of simply updating them with the latest eighth-generation Intel processors , the company is adding functional features. The new Inspirons come with narrower bezels, redesigned heat dissipation with vents carved into their hinges, USB-C DisplayPort compatibility and Alexa . It might not seem like the most riveting set of updates, but overall, they make the Inspiron lineup feel more modern and sophisticated. The most interesting of the new Inspirons is the Chromebook 14 2-in-1. It's Dell's first premium Chromebook for mainstream consumers, which seems like a sign that the company is taking the category more seriously. The 14-inch Chromebook is made from aluminum, which is quite sturdy, especially around the metal keyboard, though I did find it the device a bit heavy. I also ...

Nearby Cepheid Variable RS Pup In the center is one of the most important stars on the sky. This is partly because, by coincidence, it is surrounded by a dazzling reflection nebula . Pulsating RS Puppis , the brightest star in the image center, is some ten times more massive than our Sun and on average 15,000 times more luminous. In fact, RS Pup is a Cepheid type variable star , a class of stars whose brightness is used to estimate distances to nearby galaxies as one of the first steps in establishing the cosmic distance scale. As RS Pup pulsates over a period of about 40 days, its regular changes in brightness are also seen along the nebula delayed in time, effectively a light echo . Using measurements of the time delay and angular size of the nebula, the known speed of light allows astronomers to geometrically determine the distance to RS Pup to be 6,500 light-years, with a rem...

This week Jason Bateman returns in season two of Ozark , while Amazon drops the first season of its high-profile Jack Ryan adaptation. Janelle James, Josh Johnson and Matteo Lane are among several comedians adding 15 minute sets in part two of Netflix's The Comedy Lineup , while it also premieres a new film, The Laws of Thermodynamics . For movie fans there's Upgrade , while Lebron James kicks off his new series The Shop on HBO. DayZ follows the path of PUBG into the Xbox Early Access program, and college football will get rolling this weekend. Look after the break to check out each day's highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed). Blu-ray & Games & Streaming Upgrade Bride of Chucky Child's Play 2 Child's Play 3 Bound Tag The Flash (S4) Brainscan RBG B...

While Propellerhead's Reason is a staple editing tool among many musicians, you've never really had access to it on the phone -- just narrowly-focused apps . The company is giving you something a little more powerful this time around, though. It's launching a Reason Compact app for iOS that promises music creation on the move. This isn't the whole of Reason smushed into your iPhone or iPad, unfortunately, but you do get the software's "flagship" Europa synth, a smart keyboard that makes composition mobile-friendly and a note grid to fine-tune you r performance. The company isn't so optimistic as to assume that you'll create club bangers entirely on your phone. This is a "slice" of Reason, it said. Instead, you're encouraged to work on rough projects and send them to Reason 10 or Europa VST for some proper poli...

As part of its efforts to make broadband more available in rural areas, the Federal Communications Commission announced that the Connect America Fund Phase II "reverse auction" will bring broadband service to more than 700,000 homes and businesses for the first time. More than half of those wi ll have download speeds of 100Mbps or more, with 19 percent gaining access to gigabit downloads. All but a couple thousand locations will have access to download speeds of at least 25Mbps. More than 100 winning bidders will build out infrastructure in 45 states over the next decade to connect the 713,176 homes and businesses, with the FCC providing a hair under $1.5 billion in funding following the auction (there was an initial reserve price of $5 billion). The bidding process gave weighted preference to providers that offered faster speeds, lower latency and higher...

Facebook appears to have scrubbed all timeline posts that were cross-published from Twitter from its users' profiles following privacy-minded API restrictions imposed on third-party developers, according to TechCrunch . These restrictions were put in place in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal , which involved the packaging and selling of more than 87 million users' personal information to a data-mining company, that roiled the company starting back in March. As a result of those changes, with the pertinent one regarding Facebook Lpgin having been announced back on April 4th , some services, Twitter included, can no longer take direct actions on a user's profile, including posting to the timeline on his or her behalf.... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts https://ift.tt/2wkDQja ...

Today, the Wall Street Journal reported Yahoo Mail is still scanning users' emails for data to sell to advertisers. Yahoo's owner, Oath, is reportedly in talks with advertisers to provide a service that would scan over 200 million Yahoo Mail inboxes for insights on whether users are frequent fliers, self-employed, and other qualities gleaned from retail emails they receive. There are two main ways users can still protect themselves from this data mining: they can opt out and they can choose a more secure email provider. Here's how you can opt out of Yahoo Mail's scanning: Head over to the Ad Interest Manager page and select "opt out" underneath "Your Advertising Choices." The page is not located in Settings, which makes it hard to find. ... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts https://ift.tt/2PMj2...

Earlier today, Nintendo revealed a bunch of new indie games are coming to the Switch ( including the excellent Into The Breach ). But the news wasn't over: The first season of Telltale's graphic adventure/guilt simulator The Walking Dead is available today on the hybrid console in North America, Europe and Australia for $20. Season two and the side story A New Frontier will both arrive on the system later this year. The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season is now available to download on Nintendo Switch! pic.twitter.com/sANZmXSWSx — Telltale Games (@telltalegames) August 28, 2018 The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season includes the original five episodes and 400 Days add-on, both ported from the complete collection Telltale released last year with upgraded visuals and performance. It's unclear when, or if, the game will come to other r...

Samsung has introduced a portable X-series NVMe SSD with support for Thunderbolt 3. The new Samsung Portable SSD X5, with its 40Gbps bandwidth, can hit read speeds of 2,800 MB/s, which is several times faster than SATA-based portable SSDs. The Portable SSD X5 costs $399.99 for the 500GB model, $699.99 for the 1TB model, and $1,399.99 for the 2TB premium version. It ships beginning September 3rd. But since this is specifically a Thunderbolt 3 drive, laptops that only support USB won't be compatible. You'll definitely need a recent, high-end machine to use the X5 and take advantage of what it can do. Samsung The SSD is meant to handle 4K video editing, real-time 3D rendering, and high-resolution RAW files. You can... Continue reading… via The Verge - Tech Posts https://ift.tt/2wpMlbM ...

Ticketmaster has partnered with Samsung's Bixby, allowing users in North America to find and purchase event tickets through the virtual assistant. The feature is powered by Ticketmaster's API and Galaxy Note 9 users can now ask Bixby to find events by artist, team, location or date. Just say something like, "Hi Bixby, find concert tickets in Los Angeles," or, "Hi Bixby, what sporting events are happening in New York this weekend?" The assistant will provide results fitting the request and users can then purchase tickets to events available through Ticketmaster. Samsung unveiled the upgraded Bixby at its Unpacked event earlier this month and demoed the virtual assistant's event-finding capabilities. The company also announced at the event that Spotify would soon add Bixby control to its app. "Ticketmaster is constantly looking ...