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For anybody who is so strapped for cash that the cost is a deciding factor, they're better off playing games on a previous-gen system they got at a pawn shop. Graphics, ease of use, versatility, battery life, branding -- none of those things actually matter.

If cost is the deciding factor, PC wins hands down. You'll need a computer for school or work anyways*, so the hardware is already there**. As for the games, there are lot's of cheap ones on Steam during a sale. Then there's GoG with lots of classics at $1-2 each. Of course, piracy is always an option too. I doubt even the cheapest previous-gen console can beat $0.

* I've never tried to make presentations or write essays on a console, but I imagine it's rather tedious.
** Most games don't need an expensive PC. Integrated graphics works just fine for many popular games.

No, the sales lag stemmed from multiple problems. The announcement of the Xbox One was a PR disaster. From the always-on requirement to the heavy DRM which discouraged used games, MS had to roll back many of "features" of the Xbox One as consumers revolted. At launch, the Xbox One was more expensive and less powered than the PS4. While the differences were arguably not deal breakers, the bad PR had turned many against getting the Xbox One over the PS4.

Since launch the problem, MS has released the Xbox One X which is more powerful than the PS4 Pro; however, the problem now is the lack of good exclusive games compared to the PS platform. For example, in 2018 one of the most hyped games for the Xbox One was Sea of Thieves which many found to be incomplete, repetitive, and boring for a $60 cost. I can't think of one good Xbox One exclusive in 2018. For the PS4, there was God of War, Spider-man, Days Gone, etc. While there have been good games on the Xbox One, few of them were exclusives like Red Dead Redemption 2 which was on both platforms. Right now there are few reasons to choose the Xbox One over the PS4.

It is expected to be priced lower than Apple's cheapest iPhone, the XR, which starts at $749.

That's odd. I bought a bottom-end unlocked iPhone SE at Target in December for about $200. Required that I buy one month of pay-as-you-go service for an additional $30. Have they gone up that much since?

a quick search tells me retail is $399, but I can get one for $125: https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

Stop ruining his fantasy world with 'facts' ...

It is expected to be priced lower than Apple's cheapest iPhone, the XR, which starts at $749.

That's odd. I bought a bottom-end unlocked iPhone SE at Target in December for about $200. Required that I buy one month of pay-as-you-go service for an additional $30. Have they gone up that much since?

a quick search tells me retail is $399, but I can get one for $125: https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

It was always a naive solution put forth by idealistic technologists.

No, it was an intentionally broken solution put forward by corporations who wanted to give lip service to privacy but who knew damned well this would be abused and ignored ... it was always meaningless.

They did this to stave off someone trying to pass laws instead of the bullshit voluntary compliance it always was.

Did we really expect the ad companies who are already abusing data collection to the fullest extent possible

Nobody but the companies who proposed this, the rest of us all knew it was a lie from the start. The problem is to the average user, it sounded like it would work.

The reality was, it was never intended to work, and it never did.

This is from 2012, and pretty much spells out how the DNT was always useless.

Do Not Track was always a lie, and it was never put forward by 'idealistic technologists', it was an idea put forward by greedy assholes. It was a complete fiction from the get go.

There is an upper end to how much you can charge for solar panels in solar farms.
At some point the buyer will go for a solution with mirrors and molten salt. instead.

So it will most likely be an issue for solar panel manufacturers in China.
Both residential customers and power plants have other options.

Are you kidding? I really can't tell if this is meant as sarcasm or not, 10/10 troll right there!

These things print money like you wouldn't believe. Almost two decades ago when these things were in their nascent stages a system would have cost $75k to $85k and maybe $5k a month to maintain. I would be surprised if the costs weren't down to around $20k by now and the maintenance costs have to be cheaper unless the system is being regularly vandalized. Anyways there are a number of red light cameras near my home and I see them go off probably 50% of the time I'm at those intersections. Even if we go with the most expensive numbers from 18 years ago, $145k for the first year of ownership and operation. A system would only need to issue 10 $40 tickets each day to turn a profit. I guarantee that any of these speed or red light systems are going to issue at least that many tickets each day just from idiot drivers that aren't paying close attention let alone people deliberately speeding or running lights. Higher fines just make the situation that much more juicy.

https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehic...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

Damn you contry's getting paranoid. That fear is going to cost you way more than illegal immigration does.

Personally, I don't think the USA should be so paranoid over illegals. But considering the government is actually shut down at the moment over the issue of border security, it's really no stretch to imagine a border patrolled by a fleet of drones.

As a side note, what crack smoking moderator decided my post was "flamebait"? Pointing out that good ol' Uncle Sam would love to use this technology for border security isn't flamebait, it's the logical progression of the path we're already on.

billions?

I want it to make very large consumer sets viable. 200 inch sets can't be shipped without damage.

I think the hope for the future there is MicroLED. They just showed a huge 219 inch set and because it's made up by tiles the price may not go crazy with size. Like now an 80" TV is way more expensive than 4x 40" TVs, but with tiles it should be proportional to screen size. They also showed a smaller 75" version that's closer to market. Of course they still haven't revealed any pricing info and it's probably going to be very pricey to begin with, but the scaling possibilities are extremely interesting. If it's as seamless as it looks I could imagine there being a good number of affluent buyers who could just pick up 9 of those 75" screens and put them in a 225" configuration. They do say the stitching is now much less visible than last year's demo and invisible from a normal viewing distance. It all sounds good except it's not an actual product yet...

and now they can well afford to give it some love again, so I hope they do.

Not going to happen.

Epic stops UT development

However, it seems reasonable that Microsoft would try all updates with commonly-sold hardware before releasing the updates.

Bahahhahahaha

But I'm not one to not provide references to hysterical laughter:
https://www.windowscentral.com...
https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

While I give MS a pass for not testing their updates on Lenovo devices, afterall there's a shitton of custom stuff out there, they deserve to rot in hell for not testing their own.

A fan of the car itself would want it to drive as much as possible like it did the first day out of the factory.

In that case a fan of the car would probably want to do some conversion, modification / modernisation. People who drive their cars are often the ones who swap engines or do something in order to retain or beat the original performance of the car. People who keep it stock own show ponies and are often okay with the fact that after 40 years regardless of maintenance these things don't actually drive like they used to, and when they do they realise how poor their drive actually was.

This is nothing new either: https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

At least those Nokia Windows phones were tough:

https://satwcomic.com/you-got-...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

TBH, they may not have been that bad if Google hadn't blocked them from running any Google services from a native app.

In mid-2017, Digital Trends reported that "Internet Archive will ignore robots.txt files to keep historical record accurate". At the time of the article, Archive.org already disregarded robots.txt files on U.S. government and military sites, but confirmed that they planned to "do this [ignore robots.txt] more broadly".

Did the expansion of this policy actually happen? Archive.org doesn't seem to have commented further.

DT Link

This project seems to make more sense for Canadians & rural America :
  Elon Musk StarLink

Bitlocker has known issues. That's not a judgement on how serious they are, but it does disqualify it from being called good.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/...
https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

I think that's the lawyers talking...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

The solution for rural broadband is LEO satellite access. There are multiple companies working on this, including SpaceX. This will be available in a few years. Problem solved.

SpaceX Starlink

Here's a link, for those who might be interested.
It's worth a read. It pulls no punches and is quite funny.

Actually, only 40% of US households still had landlines as of late 2015. It’s almost certainly a smaller percentage now.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

The Apple Watch has plenty of bugs in it I can imagine not just this one

Citation, please.

Learn to internet, son. I found this link on the first page of search results for "apple watch bug list". When you figure out how to use google, you can stop asking so many stupid questions.

Unfortunately, the article you linked-to is NOT DATED, and the only reference to any date whatsoever was September 2017 and WatchOS 4.01; so there is no way to know for sure whether this is a list of already-addressed issues by the time WatchOS 5.0 (and the Apple Watch Series 4) came out a few weeks ago, or not.

Hint: Already-Addressed issues are no longer called "issues".

So, it seems that YOU are the one that needs to learn to internet.

The Apple Watch has plenty of bugs in it I can imagine not just this one

Citation, please.

Learn to internet, son. I found this link on the first page of search results for "apple watch bug list". When you figure out how to use google, you can stop asking so many stupid questions.

He said please. Sheesh.

Thanks, AC!

At least SOMEONE has manners, LOL!

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

The Apple Watch has plenty of bugs in it I can imagine not just this one

Citation, please.

Learn to internet, son. I found this link on the first page of search results for "apple watch bug list". When you figure out how to use google, you can stop asking so many stupid questions.

He said please. Sheesh.

The Apple Watch has plenty of bugs in it I can imagine not just this one

Citation, please.

Learn to internet, son. I found this link on the first page of search results for "apple watch bug list". When you figure out how to use google, you can stop asking so many stupid questions.

You know what they say about any product named "pro?" It's not for pros

And Microsoft says Hold My Beer

You are obsessed. Your jowls are shaking, spittle is dripping off your chin. Righteous indignation of a diehard Apple apologist.

And Apple watch is a piece of junk that nobody should waste their hard earned money on. If you need a smartwatch then buy Samsung, Fitbit, Xiaomi or Huawei, companies that actually care about making a good looking, usable product. Oh, and Apple products tend to explode.

Hope it didn't Vita itself with high development costs.

Reports are that Switch Dev Kits are $500 or less. This is why there's so many indie games on it, like Axiom Verge or Celeste. A bunch of AAA devs took a wait-and-see attitude and when sales took off they started working on Switch games. Meanwhile the indies could afford $500 dev kits and got their less complicated games running on it quickly.

The Audi TT goes the other way - no center console screen at all - still making my mind up about it, but definitely better than the reverse!

>>preaching to the converted

Casting zealotry stones in a glass house, are we?

This only happened with apple iconography:

digitaltrends.com/apple/apple-causes-religious-reaction-in-brains-of-fans-say-neuroscientists/
https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

cnet.com/news/scientists-apple-makes-your-brain-go-all-religious/
https://www.cnet.com/news/scie...

disinfo.com/2011/06/apple-products-trigger-the-same-parts-of-the-brain-as-religion
https://www.disinfo.com/2011/0...

geek.com/apple/apple-fanaticism-similar-to-religious-devotion-according-to-scientists-1381035/
https://www.geek.com/apple/app...

cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/05/19/apple.religion/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/g...

WHATEVA, ANDROYD CULTZ has always been a shitty deflection, sorry. They're not the ones circlejerking.

Orly?

https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

Looks like only sample quantities, I doubt that any product currently ships with it.

You just love to make declarations that are easily proven wrong

OK, prove your point then. I hope you understand the difference between announced and available. Show me where I can get this part on Newegg.

Looks like only sample quantities, I doubt that any product currently ships with it.

You just love to make declarations that are easily proven wrong, don't you?

Nobody can deny that Intel is having major problems with 10nm production, but you just can't resist projecting your biases onto a reality that stubbornly refuses to conform, can you?

Compare the specs... the 7 is slightly thinner, is lighter, same RAM, same screen resolution, more SSD choices, stronger battery(!), and is cheaper (for same storage). The 8 has some added features, like new CPU, but do you need them provided the battery will last less?

But unlike China, South Korea actually has decent wages, which I thought was the point.

Doesn't help much when Samsung poisons their workers. https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

Will a whole new architecture need to be designed?

Speaking as a layman in terms of processor engineering, it's more than a mask tweak but less than a new architecture. Given that Intel already has to tear up its entire 10nm fab line to fix the yield issues, this processor re-engineering will probably be done in parallel without delaying Ice Lake any more than it already is, but that is scant comfort. Intel already has hardware fixes for Whiskey Lake laptop processors. Chances are, Intel will just grin and bear it with their desktop and server parts. For the laptop parts, they might have sacrificed some performance for the Meltdown fix. It's going to be really hard to tell, given all the other factors involved. For desktop/server parts it would be really easy to tell, which is maybe why Intel won't bother.

Let me remind you what I said:

OpenStreetMap is not a serious competitor to Google Maps. Nobody is, last I checked.

One does not have to be a perfect replacement for a service right now to be a serious competitor. Just like cars were initially not a perfect replacement for carts, and yet were serious competition.

Plus, I'm not entirely convinced that OpenStreetMap would ever really get thorough terrestrial virtual presence even in major cities anyways... lacking the commercial incentive to go out of the way and take photographs exhaustively through every side street in major cities like Google does.

The lack of a commercial incentive is a double-edged sword. There are lots of places where people complain about the lack of Google StreetView coverage precisely because there's no commercial incentive. But with crowdsourced services like Mapillary and OpenStreetCam anyone interested in adding coverage can do so. Lack of commercial incentive mean the crowd contributes on what interests them, and isn't that what matters?

Plus there is commercial incentive to add coverage, in some countries at least. For instance in France cities collect taxes on advertising billboards but they need to inventory them. Sogefi can be hired to drive cars around to provide this inventory service and uses Mapillary for that, thus providing coverage in a lot of places. In another instance some towns, unhappy about the Google coverage, decided to improve the map for their territory to draw in tourists and put cameras on their garbage trucks. This type of partnership can be a cheap way to contribute pretty exhaustive street-level coverage. That said Google also has partners, among which Sogefi, so it's not like only OpenStreetMap benefits from the extra coverage.

Also, the belief that coverage will never be good enough can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And then everyone loses.

but android is getting replaced soon... https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-to-turn-on-airplane-mode/

The USB-C standard is anything but standard with a mixed bag of features and compatibility from device to device.

Bah.

That article talks about the ways in which USB-C is insufficiently standardized and what is says is technically correct, but irrelevant in practice for phone charging and connectivity. All of the problems are around super-high data rates and using USB-C for display. Charging works great. There were some problems early on with non-compliant cables, but those have largely been flushed out (note that both of your links about this problem are from 2015 -- there's a reason you didn't find recent ones), and these days as far as I can tell every USB-C device, cable and charger can be mixed and matched without trouble. Also, data rates aren't a problem unless you need 5 or 10 Gbps; not all devices and cables can manage those rates, but if USB2 rates are good enough, you can just not care.

For phone charging, USB-C is the solution, and it works very well. Apple and Samsung should suck it up and get on board.

Even among the non-Apple devices there are still issues. The USB-Micro standard is fragile, uni-directional and has skinny-ass wires that can't cary much current for fast charging. The USB-C standard is anything but standard with a mixed bag of features and compatibility from device to device.

Apple's Lightening charger is nice that it works for all of Apple's recent handhelds and is reversible, but is incompatible for all the new laptops (USB-C). The Listening cable is also only good for ~2A of current meaning that fast charging is right out. But what good is a charging cable that only works one line of devices?

USB-C *could* be great and last us for the next 10 years if only the industry could standardize the standard. It would also be great if you could count on USB-C cables actually being 100% compliant and not worry that your E-Bay special was going to toast your new phone, or burn down your house. Judging by the plethora of shitty cables out there, I would guess that the standard is simply too expensive or too difficult to comply with.

I would definitely welcome a standard that could do something about the giant box of standard, half-standard, and proprietary cables that I've accumulated. We can do it with headphones and lights and HDMI cables (sort of), why can't we do it with phone and laptop chargers?

How do you patrol a beat remotely? How do you conduct an orchestra remotely? How do you mug someone remotely?

Drone, robot, robot. Wait, that's about a robot getting mugged ;) But seriously, it's only a matter of time. Battle bots are a thing. With the right one, you could mug someone. Or perhaps just a robotic mobile gun with a hopper on top into which your victim deposits their valuables.

Not everyone has jobs programming. Most jobs have to be done in person.

Service industry jobs have to be done in person. You can't repair someone's washing machine remotely. Yet. But it is inevitable that just as cars are designed to be assembled by robots today, all kinds of things will be designed to be maintained by robots tomorrow. If your appliances were designed such that all the goodies could be accessed from the front of the machine and manipulated easily by robots, then they could conceivably be repaired first by telepresence, and later by an autonomous robot. A car designed to be assembled by robots could also be shipped to a central facility (ironically, probably on a train) and repaired by robots.

But there has to be lower limits to both weight and especially thinness.

Why? The only real concern is reliability and resistance to damage. iPads already show weight and size can still head smaller for laptops while still meeting all factors that people care about (on a recent three week trip I took an iPad Pro instead of a laptop because it was the cheapest thinnest option and could still do what I needed).

Can you truly not envision a future with a bendable "laptop" nearly paper thin? Why not?

When you need to design new keyboard keys that are worst than the previous generation

No longer true.

The very most recent keyboards are nicer than previous models now, including reliability.

In terms of performance, battery life, ease of carrying, and reliability Apple is not moving backwards, nor is any other laptop maker that is pursuing goals that actually matter to people.

I used to love the large full travel clicks keyboards myself but in recent years more and more like the short travel keys Apple has been offering on a variety of devices. I still have my older keyboards but do not use them. I just bought a $200 keyboard in fact, but ended up returning it once I came to this realization that I really didn't want that anymore...

Yeah, take a look at this:

https://www.ephemera-inc.com/Can-t-we-give-old-white-men-their-own-little-count-p/1378.htm

That's just plain bigotry, folks.

Isn't it funny how bigotry is a wonderful and proper thing as long as it is the far left that espouses the bigotry and racism?

This is an example of why I consider that left or right is not a ruler, but a circular continuum. Starting out is the middle facing us. As people go left or right, and the further they go left or right, the eventually meet in the back with the same abount ot hatred, racism, and bigotry. They will scream and yell how they are not at all alike, but at the core, they have the same outlook, merely about different groups.

More reading material:

https://thebristolcable.org/20...

http://feministing.com/2013/01... This little gem was feminists pissed that the OBlama administration was too white!

Stop reading books by White cisgendered men!!!!! https://www.xojane.com/enterta....

CBS is too fucking White!! http://ew.com/article/2014/07/...

Google is going to stop hireing white guys https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

And just when we figured that Hootie and the Blowfish meant that racism was gonna - Nooooooo! Too many white men in bicycling!!! https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

So yeah, while the feminists and their sycophants strut around like they are so inclusive, so tolerant, so benign, they really need a uniform that suits their actual sexism and racism. I would suggest a rainbow tapestry gown and a pointy hood, modeled after their conservative doppelgängers, the Ku Klux Klan.

Yeah, take a look at this:

https://www.ephemera-inc.com/Can-t-we-give-old-white-men-their-own-little-count-p/1378.htm

That's just plain bigotry, folks.

Isn't it funny how bigotry is a wonderful and proper thing as long as it is the far left that espouses the bigotry and racism?

This is an example of why I consider that left or right is not a ruler, but a circular continuum. Starting out is the middle facing us. As people go left or right, and the further they go left or right, the eventually meet in the back with the same abount ot hatred, racism, and bigotry. They will scream and yell how they are not at all alike, but at the core, they have the same outlook, merely about different groups.

More reading material:

https://thebristolcable.org/20...

http://feministing.com/2013/01... This little gem was feminists pissed that the OBlama administration was too white!

Stop reading books by White cisgendered men!!!!! https://www.xojane.com/enterta....

CBS is too fucking White!! http://ew.com/article/2014/07/...

Google is going to stop hireing white guys https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

And just when we figured that Hootie and the Blowfish meant that racism was gonna - Nooooooo! Too many white men in bicycling!!! https://www.digitaltrends.com/...

So yeah, while the feminists and their sycophants strut around like they are so inclusive, so tolerant, so benign, they really need a uniform that suits their actual sexism and racism. I would suggest a rainbow tapestry gown and a pointy hood, modeled after their conservative doppelgängers, the Ku Klux Klan.

My wish list would be:

1) Ryzen processor. 2) long battery life 3) AMD graphics (plays nice with free software) 4) sweet price point

Other stuff like SSD and generously expandable memory go without saying

So, like this then.

I believe this is what they want...
Ryzen7 2700U
Vega Graphics
and it starts with a 256GB PCIe ssd with a 512GB option

My wish list would be:

1) Ryzen processor.
2) long battery life
3) AMD graphics (plays nice with free software)
4) sweet price point

Other stuff like SSD and generously expandable memory go without saying

So, like this then.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/android-distribution-news/

Please provide a link. I want to try the Raspberry Pi you recommend.

Only Raspberry Pi computers should connect to the internet? Why Raspberry Pi isn't vulnerable to Spectre or Meltdown

Intel CPUs are not safe: Intel reportedly gears up to patch 8 Spectre Next Generation CPU flaws. (May 3, 2018)

Computers running Windows 10 with internet access are not safe. Some of the huge number of shockingly ugly problems with Windows 10:

Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made.

7 ways Windows 10 pushes ads at you...

Microsoft is infesting Windows 10 with annoying ads.

Years of bugginess: Windows 10 bugs

Problems this year: Windows 10 problems 2018

Update problems this year: Windows 10 update problems 2018