Incorporating voice controls into devices and software is very trendy these days, but not all voice assistants are created equal. Microsoft’s Cortana assistant hasn’t gained much traction compared with Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, but Microsoft is still trying. It , though. Cortana will no longer inject itself into the setup process on some versions of Windows 10 because that can get pretty annoying. Microsoft announced Cortana (named after the AI in Halo) at its BUILD conference in 2013. This was an era when Apple still dominated the voice assistant market, but Google’s enhanced voice search features were coming on strong.
Missions like the Kepler Space Telescope and the newer Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have revealed thousands of exoplanets out there among the stars, but we know surprisingly little about them. To get up close and personal, we’re going to need extremely precise space telescopes. MIT scientists have proposed an innovative way to make sure those instruments remain calibrated and capable of peering at distant exoplanets. They suggest designers incorporate a smaller secondary satellite . Space researchers are anxious to get new super-sized telescopes in space because the equipment we have right now is only adept at finding planets and relaying basic information.
It has taken a few years, but USB Type-C is finally becoming common on new computers, smartphones, and tablets. This connector comes with a lot of benefits like higher power capacity and a reversible design, but there’s also greater potential for abuse and damage to your devices. That’s why the USB-IF, a trade group that promotes and oversees the USB standard, has . The USB-IF originally announced the authentication program in 2016, but it’s taken all this time to get ready for launch. Starting today, hardware makers can take advantage of the optional program to verify hardware when you plug it in.
Almost a year ago, we wrote about the then-high DRAM prices and how DDR4 was substantially more expensive than it had been earlier in the PC cycle, regardless of clock rate. Nearly 12 months later, costs have come down substantially, but a new report suggests the three DRAM manufacturers still remaining will curb their production to prevent prices from falling as far as they might otherwise. First, the good news. On January 30, 2017, that the price of 16GB of DDR4-2400 (F4-2400C15D-16GVB) had jumped from $81 in 2016 to $196 in 2017. The good news is, pricing has come down substantially on that RAM kit, as shown by this graph from CamelCamelCamel:
The rumor mill has been churning over Apple’s iPhone and the company’s strength or weakness this quarter. Yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook released a letter to investors warning that the company would come up short in Q4 2019 compared with its own previous revenue guidance. He also went into some detail on what Apple believes are the reasons for its own shortfall. Previously, Apple reported that it expected between $89B – $93B in revenue for Q4 2018 ( Hot Hardware). The company has since revised this downwards, to $84B. That’s $5B below its previous low-end target and $9B below its top-end estimate.
Humanity first visited the moon decades ago, but today is the first time a mission has . The Chinese Chang’e 4 probe set down in Von Kármán crater on January 3rd (Beijing time), marking another important milestone in the Chinese mission to explore the lunar surface. The Chang’e 4 lander is the fourth of six planned lunar missions. It was initially constructed as a backup for Chang’e 3, which landed on the near side of the moon in 2013. That was China’s first moon landing and the beginning of its second mission phase. The first consisted of the lunar orbiters Chang’e 1 and 2.
General Motors has reached 200,00 sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids as of the fourth quarter of 2018, triggering an April 1 reduction of buyer tax credits from $7,500 to $3,750. Once the cap is reached, buyers get the cap-reached quarter and the next quarter with the full credit. Then (April 1, 2019, for GM), the credit drops to $3,750 for two quarters, to $1,875 for two more quarters, and then it’s gone as of April 1, 2020. Tesla was the first automaker to bump up against the 200,000-sales cap, hitting it early in the third quarter of 2018.
New York State and Charter Communication have announced a settlement to their fraud case that will see the ISP pay $174M for various fraudulent, misleading, and consumer-hostile actions it took against its users. The new agreement appears to allow Charter to continue operating in New York State after the dispute between the state and company led NY to pull Charter’s, well, charter to operate in the state. New York’s argument . Charter (also doing business as TWC and Spectrum) “denied customers the reliable and fast internet service it had promised.” The $174M total of the settlement is made up of several components.
Financial firms and investment analysis firms are both slashing their expectations for Apple’s Q4 results as rumors of bad news stack up around the company. We at ET have been wary of banging this drum too hard — last year’s predictions of dire results for Apple’s iPhone sales didn’t really happen, despite repeated reports from various firms that the company faced demand issues around both the iPhone 8 / 8 Plus (too old) and the iPhone X (difficult to manufacture, expensive). In the end, this mostly came to naught. The iPhone X went on to be a bestseller. Apple’s three new phones, launched this year, all jacked up prices, while the company simultaneously canceled its introductory products at reasonable price points like the iPhone SE.
