Today you can save over $600 on a gaming desktop from Dell that comes equipped with an Intel Core i7 processor and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti graphics card. This makes the system well suited for gaming at 1080p and 2K resolutions. Intel Core i7-11700 Gaming Desktop w/ Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM and 512GB NVMe SSD + 1TB HDD for $1,368.67 from Dell with promo code SAVE17 (List price $2,009.99) w/ 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $599.99 from Amazon (List price $699.00) External SSD for $142.99 from Amazon (List price $199.99) 1080p Streaming Media Player for $21.99 from Amazon (List price $29.99) M1 Chip 13.3-Inch Laptop w/ 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $849.99 from Amazon (List price $999.00) 31.5-inch 2K Curved Gaming Monitor for $344.99 from Dell (List price $549.99)
Bless the astronomers who have been watching the night skies and documenting what they saw since time immemorial. Twelfth-century Chinese and Japanese astronomers described a “guest star” as bright as Saturn, which appeared suddenly and lingered for six months. Their careful reports placed the heavenly visitor between two Chinese constellations, Chuanshe and Huagai. But then the guest star disappeared, seemingly without a trace. Now, an international team of modern astronomers and astrophysicists has hunted down and identified the mysterious guest star. And it’s a hat trick of awesome. The report is really a triple discovery. First, the study identifies a strong contender for the identity of the guest star that spawned the 1181 supernova.
Microsoft has a Surface hardware event on the agenda for Wednesday, Sept. 22, but an FCC filing might have just spilled the beans. The document reveals some notable details on the alleged Surface Duo 2, a follow-up to Microsoft’s first Android phone in 2020. That device was criticized for missing several table stakes features, but the Duo 2 might have what it takes, based on the documents by Windows Central. Microsoft chose to launch the Duo without 5G connectivity, NFC, or Wi-Fi 6 support. All of those features were standard for high-end phones at the time, but Microsoft seemed more interested in playing around with a new (or revitalized) form factor than competing on specs.
Protecting yourself online is one of the most basic and essential things you can do to ensure you and your personal information remain safe while connected to the internet. Especially if you use unsecured networks like public Wi-Fi, you are at risk every time you log on and connect to the world wide web. Putting some protections in place – such as a virtual private network (VPN) – which can prevent nefarious interests on the internet from stealing your information or compromising your devices, will allow you to use your connections without needing to worry. Right now, you can get for the reduced price of $519, a significant reduction in the price of 25 percent off the full ordinary purchase price of $699.
The Surface Duo 2 isn’t the only piece of making the rounds today. What appears to be a Chinese-language ad for the Surface Pro 8 has appeared on Twitter, promoting the computer’s Thunderbolt 4 ports and 120Hz screen, neither of which are available on the current Surface Pro devices. The ad features a computer that we can only assume is the Surface Pro 8 — it looks almost identical to the Pro 7 in this image. Looking closer, you’ll see this laptop has lost the old USB-A ports. The Pro 8 is now ready for the future with a pair of Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports.
Apple’s MacBook Air laptops equipped with the company’s revolutionary M1 chip offer excellent performance for a wide range of tasks, and you can get one now with an $150 discount. M1 Chip 13.3-Inch Laptop w/ 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD for $849.99 from Amazon (List price $999.00) 31.5-inch 2K Curved Gaming Monitor for $344.99 from Dell (List price $549.99) External USB 3.0 HDD for $94.99 from Amazon (List price $139.99) 4K HDR Streaming Media Player for $28.97 from Amazon (List Price $39.99) 43-Inch 4K USB-C Monitor for $869.99 from Dell (List price $1,159.99) PCI-E Gen 4 NVMe SSD for $149.99 from Amazon (List price $249.99)
Opponents of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party were dealt a blow today as both Apple and Google gave in to Russian demands. According to representatives of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the companies have complied with government calls to remove Navalny’s tactical voting app from their stores. That means citizens who have not already downloaded the app will find it much harder (or impossible) to get it, and the opposition’s efforts to gain ground against Putin’s United Russia party could suffer, . On Friday, Russia began a three-day vote that will fill out the country’s parliament. United Russia has taken a hit in the polls, dropping to just 30 percent approval.
An internal Facebook report that leaked this week shed light on what concrete steps the company was willing to take in the aftermath of the US 2016 presidential election. While Facebook promised significant changes to its moderation and fake content detection algorithms after Russian propagandists and other bad actors swamped the service, this 2019 report shows just how little value those promises held. The report’s author, data scientist Jeff Allen, left Facebook not long after compiling this document — his fourth in a series — because he felt his findings had been “effectively ignored” by the company, to Technology Review.
On Friday, the computer industry passed a quiet milestone. Ampere — launched on September 17, 2020 — has never been widely available in-market at its official MSRP. This, of course, has not stopped Nvidia from making an absolute killing on GPU hardware over the past 12 months, but it has starved the retail channel of affordable hardware. The great irony to all of this is that when Jen-Hsun announced consumer Ampere, he specifically promised that Nvidia had heard the complaints around Turing and was adjusting pricing to deliver a better value. The global pandemic is scarcely Nvidia’s fault but the situation is ironic.
