If you’ve been drooling over the handful of markets that have gained access to gigabit internet speeds in the past few years, Verizon’s recent Fios update is something that you’ll likely be excited about. In quite a few heavily populated areas, Verizon is now offering a gigabit internet, phone, and television bundle for just $79.99 for a limited time. • With no need for a yearly contract, you can get your first 12 months for just $79.99 per month (plus any applicable fees/taxes). And if you sign up for a two-year agreement, you can get all of that plus a year of HBO and two years of multi-room DVR service for $79.99 per month (plus any applicable fees/taxes).
If you have an e-reader collecting dust on a bookshelf somewhere, forgotten in the same place you’ve had it tucked for the last umpteen months, you’re not alone. Recent data from the Publisher’s Association indicate a major market trend back toward treeware, as ebook and e-reader sales continue to slump from their 2011 peak. It’s not clear whether the enduring popularity of tablets might be responsible for some of this change; if tablets have usurped some e-reader market share, that could explain things. to Euromonitor International, a consumer research group, sales of e-readers like the Kindle and the Nook have declined by more than 40 percent since 2011.
Looking for a single service to download and stream your favorite tunes to your PC, smartphone, and tablet? Amazon is offering up an excellent deal on its Music Unlimited service, so now’s the time to act. Get access to tens of millions of songs, entirely without ads, and your first month is gratis. Better yet, new subscribers get a bonus $10 credit too. • Usually, Prime members would pay $7.99 per month, and non-members would pay $9.99 per month for the service. If you’re a Prime subscriber, your first month is free, and then you can use the $10 credit to pay for the next month and a portion of the third month.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been observing Saturn since 2004, but mission control has been careful not to get too close to the ringed planet for fear of damaging the probe. Now, Cassini is nearly out of fuel, and it’s time to take some risks. Cassini began altering its trajectory early this week for the “Grand Finale,” a series of orbits that will take the spacecraft closer to Saturn than ever before. The have been sent back to , and they’re stunning. They’re also just the start — Cassini has 21 more close orbits planned. Cassini made one last close pass of Saturn’s moon Titan recently, which sent it off on a trajectory that allowed it to pass between Saturn and the innermost ring.
A few years back, Nintendo launched a low-cost follow-up to its 3DS. The 2DS was a slate instead of a clamshell, and it dropped the 3D capabilities Nintendo built into the 3DS, all while selling for a lower price ($129 at launch compared with $170 for the 3DS at the time). Now, Nintendo has released a new budget-oriented version of its 3DS XL, the New 2DS XL. The New 2DS XL drops the slate form factor that the 2DS favored and returns to a clamshell design. As the name implies, the “2DS” still can’t handle the stereoscopic 3D effects that the 3DS uses — though these were generally limited to eye candy and minimal changes, unless you consider high battery life consumption to be a feature.
Microsoft announced its quarterly results last night, and the figures were generally good, with revenue of $23.6 billion (up 6%), increased operating income, and higher earnings per share. The one ugly spot was More Personal Computing — the business segment that includes Windows 10, Bing, Surface devices, Windows Phone, and the Xbox business. Here’s how Microsoft’s CFO, Amy Hood, described the : [R]evenue was $8.8 billion, declining 7 percent, as Phone and Surface results offset healthy growth in Windows, search, and gaming. Our OEM business grew 5% this quarter. OEM Pro revenue grew 10%, ahead of the commercial PC market, mainly due to a higher mix of premium SKUs…
NASA finally unfurled the James Webb Space Telescope! The JWST has been undergoing acoustic and vibration testing for months, but it’s been fully opened because now it’s time for the next phase of testing. That will take place at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX. There, mission techs and scientists will test and calibrate the telescope’s instruments. The James Webb Space Telescope is the scientific successor to the Hubble telescope. Behold here the completely opened telescope mirror in all its glossy, high-tech beauty: Bears a certain resemblance to an extremely sciencey daffodil. Image: NASA While the JWST has yet to launch, there’s no turning back for Cassini: its flyby of Titan early this week altered its orbit in a way that means it can’t avoid crashing into Saturn this September.
When AMD launched Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 5 earlier this year, it recommended that reviewers test with Windows 10’s power plan set to “High Performance,” as opposed to the “Balanced” configuration we typically prefer for testing and that Windows uses by default. Now, the company has released a new chipset driver that will add and automatically activate a power profile that gives Ryzen more control over its own power states. The problem initially occurred because of a mismatch in how AMD’s SenseMI technology operates compared with Windows’ native power management. SenseMI is AMD’s brand name for a set of technologies related to power management, fine-grained clock speeds, and prefetch behaviors.
Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant and the Echo smart speaker it runs on have been one of the company’s most popular products since it launched back in 2014. Today, Amazon unveiled a follow-up device, this time with an integrated camera alongside a microphone. This new product, dubbed the Echo Look, is being billed as a personal style guide for taking snapshots of your daily fashion. What sets it apart from your typical selfie stick is its integration with Amazon’s Alexa. Here’s Amazon’s description: With Echo Look, you can take full-length photos of your daily look using just your voice.
