If you’re a fan of Apple products then today is your lucky day: You can get one of Apple’s new 12.9-inch iPad Pro tablets with 256GB of storage space with a $78 discount. If you aren’t an Apple fan, there’s also a strong deal on a Dell Vostro laptop.
Apple designed this version of its iPad Pro with its in-house designed A12X Bionic processor that offers excellent performance. This model also has a large 256GB storage capacity, which will let you store a large amount of MP3s and videos. Right now it’s marked down from $1,149.00 to $1,070.70 on Amazon.
LG’s C9 series TVs come equipped with the company’s customized Alpha9 Gen 2 processor that works to improve image quality and create a better picture than lesser competing TVs. As it is an OLED TV, it also has superior contrast to create deep blacks and rich colors, and it supports a comprehensive set of smart TV functions for streaming content. Right now it’s marked down from $2,499.99 to $1,499.00 from PCMag’s online store.
Dell upgraded this laptop with one of Intel’s new 10th generation Core i5-10210U processors that has four CPU cores clocked at 1.6GHz. The system also comes with a fast NVMe SSD storage device and a 1080p display, which makes it well suited for just about any type of work or any non-gaming activity. You can get it now from Dell marked down from $981.43 to just $536.22.
This model of Dell’s XPS 8930 desktop comes with an Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1660 graphics card that is perfect for running games with max settings at 1080p resolutions. The system also comes with a capable hexa-core processor and 8GB of RAM. You can get this system marked down from $1,099.99 to a more affordable $699.99 from Dell with promo code XPSDTAFF01.
This unique piece of audio hardware works as a viable alternative to both headphones and wireless speakers. It’s designed to rest gently around your neck and play rich audio directed towards your ears. This speaker can last up to 12 hours and it’s resistant against sweat and rough weather conditions. Right now it’s marked down from Amazon from $299.00 to $149.00.
Help keep your home safe with Ring’s Floodlight Camera. In addition to having two motion activated lights, this devices also features an HD camera to let you see who or what sets off the lights, be it a burglar or just a stray cat. Ring also built this device with a siren alarm and a two-way communication system. Currently it’s marked down from $249.00 to $189.00 on Amazon.
Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information.For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.
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Microsoft is set to unveil a new round of Surface computers tomorrow, but there won’t be many surprises after the latest leak. Serial leaker Evan “@evleaks” Blass has posted images (in a protected account) and basic details of three new Microsoft devices, one of which is an ARM-powered version of the company’s popular Surface Pro computer.
The most notable changes to the Surface lineup come with the new Surface Pro 7. The overall design hasn’t changed, though. The Surface Pro is still a tablet-like device with a keyboard cover and a kickstand. It’s more portable than the Surface Laptop or the Surface Book, but you need a flat surface to balance the kickstand. Your lap just won’t do. The ports are different this time around, with Mini DisplayPort going away in favor of a universal USB Type-C. Microsoft will also outfit the device with the latest 10th gen Intel Core CPUs.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the leak is the alleged ARM-powered Surface (above). It’s unclear if Microsoft will brand this as a Surface Pro — it has the same basic design, but the bezels are narrower and the frame isn’t as thick. It looks like the closest thing Microsoft has had to an iPad competitor.
We don’t know what sort of ARM chip is in the new Surface device, but it seems like the perfect fit for Qualcomm’s 8cx. That 8-core chip was designed specifically for larger devices like the surface that need more power than a smartphone. No computers have shipped with the Snapdragon 8cx yet, but Samsung announced its new 8cx-powered Galaxy Book S last month. So, the new Surface could be among the first to launch with the chip.
The new fabric-free Surface Laptop.
The Surface Laptop exists for those who want a more conventional computing experience and aren’t keen to spend big on the Surface Book. The new third-gen version of the device drops the Alcantara fabric for a smooth metal chassis. It will reportedly come in both 13 and 15-inch sizes, both powered by AMD hardware. The Surface Laptop also sports a new USB Type-C port.
There may still be a surprise waiting for us during the Surface unveiling. Rumors have pointed to a potential dual-screen Surface computer code-named Centarus. Blass briefly acknowledged the device, saying it was “not pictured.” That could mean it exists but he has no images to leak or the device is a fantasy. We’ll find out tomorrow.
Google’s ATAP group is responsible for some of the company’s most forward-looking technologies, like the touch-sensitive fabric known as Project Jacquard. Google partnered with Levi’s two years ago to launch a custom denim jacket with Project Jacquard fibers in the sleeve, and now there are two more outerwear options. The new jackets are less expensive and more visually similar to Levi’s regular garments. They also feature a more refined Jacquard tag that could eventually connect to more clothing.
Google first demoed Jacquard at I/O 2015 alongside the Project Soli radar gesture system that’s set to debut in the Pixel 4. Google managed to bring Jacquard to the market faster in 2017, but it only came to a single jacket produced by Levi’s. That Commuter Trucker Jacket cost a whopping $350, and it had just a small touch-sensitive section on the sleeve. With the Jacquard app, you could configure your phone to respond to taps and swipes on the sleeve. The jacket could control music playback, launch apps, and more.
The new jackets with Jacquard support are the Classic Trucker and the Sherpa Trucker, the latter of which has a fluffy lining to make it warmer. Again, the left sleeve has the touch-sensitive fibers woven into the denim. They look almost identical to the non-smart versions of the same products, but they’re about $100 more expensive. The Classic Trucker will cost $198 and the Sherpa Trucker will run you $248.
They have a redesigned, smaller Jacquard Bluetooth tag that plugs into a connector under the cuff. You can detach the dongle to recharge and to wash the jacket. The last Jacquard jacket was only good for about 10 wash cycles, but Levi’s says the new versions are more robust. You still can’t dry-clean them, though.
Google designed the new Jacquard dongle with the intention that people will move it between multiple smart garments. The device has more memory, allowing for multiple modes designed for different pieces of clothing. Of course, there are only these two jackets right now, but Google hopes Jacquard technology will fade into the background and become a part of people’s lives in more pieces of clothing.
Getting people to move a Jacquard dongle around between clothing items is an ambitious goal, and ATAP doesn’t have the best track record so far. ATAP was behind Project Tango, Project Ara, and Spotlight Stories, all of which failed to take off. We’ll find out how Jacquard does when Levi’s new jackets launch at some point this fall.
With the growing number of turnkey web services that allow you to automate so many common processes, the creation of alternate reality games (ARGs) with multi-platform storytelling continues to grow. However, it isn’t the ability to fake phone calls and manipulate images on the fly that make these games work but, rather, their ability to understand the people who play them. While rising fears of artificial intelligence and powerful technology compound, it’s easy to forget that social engineering has become the preferred method of hacking. One ARG, called Subtext, demonstrates through technology that we’re our greatest vulnerability.
Subtext is a game that you play with your real life. You use your phone number to text a guy trapped in a facility somewhere in the United States. It seems like a straightforward tale of science-gone-too-far, but there’s more beneath the surface of the conspiracy narrative. The game has you solve a series of puzzles that require real-world information and experiences, including phone calls and emails with employees at an artificial intelligence company called Mensera. While you know you’re playing a game, the experience still manages to create doubt from time to time and leave you wondering if a human jumped into the mix during a variety of interactions.
An early interaction with Subtext’s protagonist, Jonathan, over SMS.
William O’Connell, the surprisingly young developer of Subtext, accomplishes this feat by demonstrating an excellent understanding of human behavior and making use of that in the gameplay. ARGs already set the stage for you to believe they could be real because they can emulate common human behavior with widespread technology. Instead of watching a conversation, you can participate in one and it’s that participation that urges you to accept the game as part of your actual reality. They create a living narrative that primes you to accept a computer process as human in those moments that appear more real than you expected because they happen in a way you struggle to immediately explain.
Subtext exploits every opportunity to make you question with whom—or what—you’re communicating and does so at an ideal rhythm. It sets up situations with predictable outcomes and knows how to react to each one. It’s a game that, at times, feels more like the artificial intelligence we assume Google’s hiding in a secret underground facility than the frustratingly inconsistent experiences delivered by something more common like Siri or Alexa. Subtext, however, isn’t artificially intelligent at all. It’s organically intelligent because its creator understands how to hack the player’s mind more successfully than any modern technology.
You don’t have to look too far to see how easily we’ll accept an automated process for a human when the person who created it understands the necessary ingredients for a specific sliver of reality. Lenny (seen above) is one of William’s favorite examples because it excels at convincing telemarketers it’s an old man. Subtext accomplishes the similar goal of socially engineering an experience that convinces players of its reality. Like Lenny, the game creates a series of circumstances that make your behavior far more predictable and then uses that to make you do what it wants.
In a time where social engineering is the malicious hacking method of choice, it’s to your benefit to experience that mental magic in a game rather than real life. Subtext is fun, but it also serves as a great demonstration of how people can use technology to hack you more easily than your machines. If you want to check it out, purchase the game on Itch for $7—which mostly serves to cover the operational cost. The experience unfolds over about three days and takes 2-3 hours to complete. If you just want to get your feet wet, you also try a meta-demo for free.
AMD has announced a pair of bundles for its Ryzen and Radeon products that should sweeten the deal for anyone looking to buy either through the holiday season. On the CPU side of things, AMD’s sales have boomed in the retail channel, and the company has had some trouble meeting full demand for its products. GPU-side, we haven’t heard as much. The reports we’ve heard about graphics market share so far this year have suggested AMD gained n Q2, but this was prior to Navi’s launch. Either way, the new bundles sweeten the deal for anyone considering Team Red hardware.
First off, anyone who buys a qualifying Ryzen or Radeon product during this promotion will receive a three-month free pass to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. That’s a $30 value, and an interesting way to sample some games you’ve wanted to play without paying full price. This specific offer applies to some hardware that is not covered in the deals below, including the Ryzen 5 3600, Ryzen 5 3400G, and the Ryzen 5 2000 series. The RX 560 is also included in this offer.
Equipped to Win
On the CPU side of things, AMD gamers can receive either one or two games, depending on what they buy. If you buy a Ryzen 7 3800X, Ryzen 9 3900X, or Ryzen 9 3950X (when available), AMD will give you copies of both Borderlands 3 and The Outer Worlds. The Outer Worlds is a new single-player RPG from Obsidian Entertainment and has been billed as something of a spiritual successor to Fallout New Vegas. It was developed by Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, who worked together on the original Fallout and on the infamous cult-classic Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. The game itself is said to be closer in length to a KOTOR 2 than a Fallout or Skyrim, with a main quest ~30-40 hours long.
Borderlands 3 is Borderlands 3. It’s a loot shooter, where you shoot a lot of other people in the face.
Basically everyone in Borderlands is like this. This guy is just explicit about it.
If you buy a Ryzen 7 3700X, Ryzen 5 3600X, Ryzen 7 2700X, or Ryzen 7 2700, you can get either Borderlands 3 or The Outer Worlds, but not both. AMD’s official name for this promotion is “Equipped to Win.”
Raise the Game
The “Raise the Game” promotion for Radeon products covers the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT, as well as the RX 590, 580, and 570 cards. It’s also applicable to “select Radeon-powered PC desktops and laptops.” Gamers who buy these products will receive a copy of either Borderlands 3 or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Unlike the CPU-side, there is no purchase-based split in reward for this promotion. The rewards are the same at every tier.
Better Together
If you buy a Ryzen and a Radeon, you’ll get one of two offers, depending on your choice of CPU. If you buy one of the more expensive chips on the list (Ryzen 9 3000 series, Ryzen 7 3800X) you get all three games. If you buy one of the cheaper CPUs and any Radeon, you can choose two of the three: Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Borderlands 3, or The Outer Worlds. You do not receive an additional three months of Xbox Live Game Pass if you choose this method.
These offers are pretty solid cherries to offer on top of an excellent base product. 7nm Ryzen is an excellent CPU, while the Radeon RX 5700 and 5700 XT are the best competition AMD has offered Nvidia in years. The RX 570, 580, and 590 are older cards, but the prices on them are extremely competitive. RX 570 is down to $129 for 4GB and $139 for 8GB cards, the RX 580 is $169 / $179, and the RX 590 is down to $190. The RX 570 is a particularly strong offer overall, though it does have higher power consumption than its Nvidia counterpart at the same price.
When Microsoft launched Windows 10 back in 2015, it offered the option to use an online account instead of a local computer account. Four years later, it’s clear the company wishes it had never done this. For nearly half a decade, Microsoft has made a variety of changes to the Windows setup process, including repeatedly rewording the option to create a local account or hiding it altogether, as it did with the Windows 10 1809 Update.
Windows 1903 dialed the hiding back after user outcry, but now Microsoft is at it again. Attempt to set up an account on the latest version of Windows, and you’ll be greeted by the following:
“Domain join instead” is now offered where “Create a Local Account” once sat, as Hot Hardware has covered. This is not a one-time change that Microsoft made. This is not a test. This is an ongoing blatant attempt to gaslight and annoy users into creating the account type that Microsoft prefers they use rather than the account type they might want.
I am not going to bother going through the differences between an online, Microsoft-hosted account and a local account. Those differences have absolutely nothing to do with how Microsoft is repeatedly sabotaging and changing the mechanism for selecting a local account as opposed to an online one. The only point in play here is the fact that some users want local accounts and Microsoft very obviously does not want people to have local accounts. Whether because of legacy applications, corporate demands, or IT security requirements, it is apparently necessary for offline accounts to remain possible, but the company clearly doesn’t want them to be used.
This is what is known as a “dark pattern.” In the context of a UI, humans use patterns to look for recognizable elements and clues about how things function. A dark pattern, therefore, is a pattern purposefully designed to obfuscate and hide valuable information, in the hopes that people will not figure out how to use the application properly. A company with a permission form that switches from opt-out checkboxes to opt-in checkboxes in the same document is using a simple type of dark pattern. Displaying checkboxes that are grayed-out so as to appear un-selectable would be another hypothetical dark pattern — a user might not even attempt to click into them, assuming that because they are grayed-out, they are unusable.
A classic dark pattern. The top section is opt-out, the following is opt-in. If you only read the top section, you’ll opt-in to the following section below it and receive information from third parties you did not wish to receive. Credit: The Verge
Dark patterns are tricks. They hide the truth in a deliberate way while preserving plausible deniability. A number of web services use these sorts of tricks to lock you into subscribing to newsletters, signing up for more expensive services, or otherwise handing over data and personal information. Microsoft is using them to lock you into the kind of account it wants you to have.
The phrase “Domain join instead” is incomprehensible to the majority of individual users setting up their PCs. A small group of people will know that domains have something to do with corporate accounts and will choose not to explore this option out of the mistaken belief that the information it contains isn’t applicable to them. Most people will conclude that “Domain join instead” and “Use a local account” have nothing to do with each other exactly as Microsoft intends because Microsoft has hidden account options behind words that most people do not associate with the process of creating a local account. People are far more familiar with the idea of online versus offline than they are with the idea of a “domain joined” account versus an “online” account. The only reason to make a change like this is to deliberately harm end-user understanding.
Microsoft talks a big game about making Windows more intuitive and approachable. Perhaps the company should amend its marketing to make it clear that it can only be trusted not to misrepresent the contents of dialog menus when you are using its software in the manner it prefers.
It would be one thing if this was the first time Microsoft had changed this option. It isn’t. The company has previously removed it altogether, forcing end-users to disconnect from the internet or repeatedly enter bad email addresses in order to restore it. The company has already demonstrated profound bad faith on this point.
There’s already anecdotal information this latest dark pattern is working. On HotHardware, user TheEgg writes: “I was actually dealing with this over the weekend while setting up a PC for a family friend. Sat there for a good 10 minutes trying to figure out how to bypass needing to create a dummy MS account; eventually turned off the PC to be solved later.”
There is no justification for this repeated obfuscation. At best, it speaks to the colossal arrogance of a corporation who believes it knows better than its own users what settings they ought to use and is willing to tiptoe up to outright lying to force end-users to do its bidding. At worst, it magnifies every single accusation of bad faith leveled against Microsoft and its data collection and privacy practices as they concern Windows 10. I have tried to strike a middle ground on these issues by criticizing Microsoft strongly when I felt it made mistakes but also acknowledging when the company made moves that were friendlier to privacy and reduced data collection. It is much harder to do so when the company continues to make decisions that hide these basic choices.
Microsoft either needs to have the guts to remove the local account option altogether — and deal with the blowback it’ll deservedly get — or stop trying to hide important configuration options behind layers of obfuscating bullshit. It is long past time to cease this half-measure sabotage and provide people with a reasonable setup experience that doesn’t play “Hide the options” with the customer base.
No, the fact that Microsoft is hiding options and playing cute with its UI during setup doesn’t mean the company is harvesting PII (personally identifiable information) from customer data. The problem — which evidently hasn’t percolated its way up to the C-suites just yet — is that every time the company pulls this stunt, it convinces a segment of the population that they are willing to do nastier things. Given the flood of data breaches and deliberately poor practices pouring out of Silicon Valley like the breached dam of the world’s largest sewage-treatment facility, I can’t blame them.
But I’m tired of writing articles about how Microsoft is once more screwing with its customers, only to turn around in days to months and write Yet Another Article about how no, Microsoft has “learned” things now and become a kinder, gentler, company. It would be nice to make it through a six month period without having to write any articles about nasty, consumer-hostile actions Microsoft has taken like this one. Evidently, the company actually learned nothing from its Get Windows 10 debacle.
Microsoft’s motivations are irrelevant. What matters is how this constant stream of changes has played in the community, and the overwhelming response from the community is that it knows exactly what Microsoft is playing here and doesn’t like it one bit.
Knock it off. I’d like to stop using this stupid image of a corrupt salesman. I’d like to stop writing articles about how, once again, Microsoft is screwing with its users. I’d like to focus on the technical improvements and enhancements to the OS rather than things that go perennially wrong. Software bugs are a fact of life in any application. These aren’t bugs. They’re deliberate attempts to mislead people.
Microsoft is clearly trying to force people into using non-local accounts without actually going so far as to remove the option. The company refuses to have an honest discussion about its own use of dark patterns to achieve this goal. That’s all the reason I personally need to never use an online Microsoft account. Any company working this hard to seize access to user data doesn’t deserve it.
Scientists have had a hard time agreeing on how many planets there are in the solar system. Most experts will tell you there are eight that we know of, but some people like NASA’s Jim Bridenstine (and Jerry Smith) think Pluto should be among them. There’s increasing evidence of another planet out there at the extreme edge of the solar system, but a new analysis suggests that may not be a planet at all. Instead, it could be a tiny black hole.
Most of the evidence for Planet 9 comes from the study of trans-Neptunian objects, or TNOs. These chunks of ice and rock like Pluto and Makemake have extremely long and often irregular orbits. As we learn more about the outer reaches of the solar system, it has become apparent that some of those orbits are a bit more irregular than they should be. The orbits of numerous TNOs like “The Goblin” and Sedna look like they’ve been nudged by a large, undiscovered object. That could be Planet 9, or perhaps it’s not a planet at all.
Based on observations of TNOs, the mystery object should be between five and fifteen Earth masses. That’s by no means tiny, but no one has even identified a candidate object yet. Jakub Scholtz at Durham University in the UK and James Unwin at the University of Illinois have published a preprint paper that suggests Planet 9 is actually a primordial black hole.
Black holes formed from dying stars are much more massive than the proposed object, but primordial black holes are different. We have no direct evidence these objects exist, but many cosmologists believe quantum fluctuations in the early universe may have compressed matter into tiny black holes that couldn’t form in the universe today. A primordial black hole of five Earth masses would be about five centimeters across and wouldn’t show up in visible light or infrared, which could explain why we have yet to spot a planet.
The paper includes an actual-size illustration of the proposed primordial black hole.
One of the prime hypotheses for Planet 9 is that it was a rogue planet captured by the sun. The study authors point out if that type of capture is possible, it’s also possible for the sun to capture a primordial black hole. Well, assuming they exist — the best we have right now is some analysis of gravitational lensing from the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE) that suggests there are small, dense objects in the galaxy thatcouldbe primordial black holes.
If Planet 9 is indeed a black hole, how does that change the search? The authors say current scanning methods won’t do any good. Such an object might have clumps of dark matter around it, and the interaction of dark matter with regular matter might produce a detectable gamma-ray source. The pair plan to comb through data from the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope in the future in search of such a signal. For now, Planet 9 remains a mystery.
Top image: Simulated view of a black hole in front of the Large Magellanic Cloud/Alain r. (CC BY-SA 2.5)
