Computer SRX

Microsoft will end Surface 3 production in December, no word on a successor . Microsoft is planning to end production of its Atom-based Surface 3 tablets in December 2016. The tablet has been in short supply across retailer and even on the Microsoft Store, which the company has now confirmed to Thurrot is due to a gradual phase-out, with manufacturing ending altogether by the end of the year. Microsoft says that since launching Surface 3 over a year ago, they've seen strong demand and customer satisfaction. What the company isn't saying at this point is whether it plans to release a successor to its entry level tablet. ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley did some digging around and says Microsoft is still going back and forth as to when to introduce a Surface 3 successor. One possibility is Microsoft will try to line up a big Surface hardware release with the next major release of Windows 10 "Redstone 2", which is expected in early 2017. Priced at $500 - $600 with a keyb...

Skyrim total conversion mod Enderal to arrive next month, here's the launch trailer . Developer SureAI has confirmed that Enderal, the total conversion mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, will arrive next month. The mod promises a game that is set in its own world with its own landscape, lore and a dark, psychological storyline with what the developer calls believable characters. Like the original game, Enderal will offer an immersive open world with the added bonuses of an overhauled skill system, a housing system that allows players to design their own homes and refreshed gameplay mechanics. SureAI, a small team of 14 based in Munich that is best known for its Oblivion mod Nehrim: At Fate's Edge, claims to have poured 29,893 hours – nearly three and a half years of continuous work – into the project to date. That's some serious dedication right there, folks. Players can expect anywhere from 30 to 100 hours of playtime, we're told. Best yet, the mod will be...

Best Buy is piloting a free, in-home tech consultation service . Best Buy is already involved with in-home work courtesy of its Geek Squad and Magnolia subsidiaries. Those services, however, are only applicable when something is broken or if you need help setting up a new home theater system, respectively. But what if everything you currently own works just fine but you're interested in a potential upgrade? Now, Best Buy can help with that as well. The electronics retailer is currently piloting a free in-home consultation service in which its staff will offer advice regarding particular tech goals you may be interested in. Looking for the best way to jump into home automation, want to know more about high-efficiency smart appliances or have you always wanted to put together a multi-room audio system? These are the sort of things the service specializes in. Available in the Atlanta, San Antonio and Austin areas, the consultation comes with no strings attached. Sure, the compa...

Unwanted Windows 10 upgrade costs Microsoft $10,000 through lawsuit . Microsoft has been forced to compensate a user for the automatic and unwanted installation of Windows 10 on their computer. Teri Goldstein, the operator of a Californian travel agency, was awarded $10,000 through a lawsuit that alleged the forced installation caused her PC to become slow and unusable. Goldstein was seeking damages for lost wages and the cost of a new PC after Microsoft support failed to adequately resolve the issue. Microsoft initially appealed the judgment, but withdrew the appeal last month to "avoid the expense of further litigation". While Windows 10 has been positively received since its launch last year, many users have been complaining about Microsoft's aggressive update methods on previous operating systems, particularly Windows 7. Microsoft has been sending a never ending wave of update nags to Windows 7 users, and in some cases Windows 10 has been installed automatically....

Acer Chromebook 14 Review: The Chromebook's future looks bright . Netbooks often got a bad rap for their numerous faults but in hindsight, they had a far greater impact on the computing industry than most realize. The modern-day netbook was introduced by Asus in 2007 with the Eee PC. This new class of computing device arrived on the brink of a global financial crisis and quickly carved out a niche for itself as an affordable alternative to traditional notebooks. At their peak, netbooks accounted for 20 percent of notebook global sales but their success – at least, as Windows machines – would be short-lived. Manufacturers began churning out sub-$400 netbooks at a rapid pace, loading new systems with incrementally faster hardware in an attempt to address criticism that they were painfully slow. In mid-2009, Google acknowledged the elephant in the room – the fact that netbooks were running a Windows operating system designed for much faster hardware – and vowed to free netbooks w...

Snowden slams Russia's "Big Brother" laws as anti-terrorism bill is passed by lower house . A Russian "anti-terrorist" bill that, among other things, makes backdoors in encrypted messaging apps mandatory, has been passed by the country's lower house of parliament. On Friday, the controversial legislation looked certain to become law after a massive 325 members of the State Duma voted in its favor, with only 1 vote against. It still needs the approval of the upper chamber and President Vladimir Putin, but this seems almost certain to happen. The so-called "Yarovaya law," which was introduced as a response to the bombing of a Russian passenger jet over Egypt last October, has drawn criticism from a number of privacy advocates, including Edward Snowden, who has been living in Russia since 2013 following his NSA whistle-blowing antics. Snowden called the law an "unworkable, unjustifiable violation of rights that should never be signed....

Amazon to expand Dash button program with dozens of new brands, report claims . Amazon this week will reportedly announce that it is doubling down on its Dash button initiative, the branded widgets that allow for one-push ordering of all sorts of household goods offered by the e-commerce giant. According to documents recently reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Amazon will announce the addition of dozens of new brands to the Dash button program. Whether or not it'll be a worthwhile investment, however, remains to be seen. Amazon introduced its Dash buttons on March 31, 2015. Given the date, many assumed it was little more than an early April Fool's gag. For the uninitiated, Dash buttons are small, USB flash drive-sized gadgets with a logo and a physical button. Put one in the laundry room, for example, and when you're running low on detergent, simply press the button to queue up an order of detergent from Amazon. Market research firm Slice Intelligence suggests th...

Uber adds another driver-oriented perk with complementary Pandora One subscription . Uber on Monday launched its second streaming music integration, this time focusing its attention on drivers first courtesy of a new partnership with streaming Internet music provider Pandora. As per the new deal, Uber drivers will receive a six-month subscription to Pandora One, the company's ad-free premium service that retails for $4.99 per month. The offer, the latest in a series of driver-oriented perks, is only available to drivers in the three countries in which Pandora operates: Australia, New Zealand and the US. Uber drivers can access their complementary service within the Uber driver app and connect to their car's stereo system either wirelessly via Bluetooth or with a physical auxiliary cable. If you recall, Uber joined forces with Spotify in late 2014 in a move that allowed riders with Spotify accounts to play their tunes through their Uber driver's car speakers. The Pa...

Google unveils an open hardware platform to make coding toys for kids . Google has announced a new initiative called Project Bloks to teach kids the principles of coding, but with actual toys they can interact with in the physical world. The project is billed as an open hardware platform comprising three core components the "Brain Board", "Base Boards" and "Pucks", which when connected together create a set of instructions that can be sent to connected devices, things like toys or tablets, over wifi or Bluetooth. The Brain Board houses the main processing unit and is built on top of a Raspberry Pi Zero, controlling and providing power to the rest of the connected units. The Base Boards act as a conduit for a Puck's command to the Brain Board, they are modular and can be connected in sequence and in different orientations to create different programming flows and experiences. And lastly, the Pucks come in the form of dials, switches, arrows, button...

HP's Chromebook 11 G5 offers up 12.5 hours of battery life, starts at $189 . HP on Monday expanded its Chromebook lineup with a new 11-inch model boasting an impressive 12.5-hour battery life and a touchscreen display. The new Chromebook 11 G5 features an 11.6-inch HD (1,366 x 768) panel that's powered by an Intel Celeron N3060 dual-core processor and Intel HD Graphics 400 with up to 4GB of dual-channel DDR3 RAM. The memory will be soldered to the board so if you select the 2GB single-channel option, note that it won't be upgradable. HP's latest will be offered with your choice of 16GB or 32GB of local eMMC storage in addition to a two-year subscription to Google Drive with 100GB of storage. Buyers will also be able to choose between a non-touch version and an IPS touch-enabled variant covered in Corning Gorilla Glass NBT. Connectivity-wise, you'll get 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, an internal M.2 slot for WLAN, a USB 3.1 connector, an HDMI 1.4 po...

How Torrenting Works: A Book Photocopying Analogy [Infographic] . Carl Cheo Follow me on Twitter here. This article contains minimal technical terms to make understanding BitTorrent easier for non-technical users. BitTorrent, also known as torrenting, is a protocol that allows fast downloading of large files. So how is it different from normal file downloads? When you download a file from the Internet, a server has to upload the file at the same time. What if the file is huge and thousands of people are downloading at the same time? The server, which is just a more powerful version of your computer, has limited upload speed too. Therefore, a typical file downloading is not an ideal solution to serve large files to huge amount of users. BitTorrent comes in handy in this situation. Each user that downloads the file has to upload his/her downloaded part to other users at the same time. It is a form of peer-to-peer file sharing. Now, anyone can share a large file on the ...

40 Key Computer Science Concepts Explained In Layman's Terms . To make learning more fun and interesting, here's a list of important computer science theories and concepts explained with analogies and minimal technical terms. It's like an ultra-fast-track computer science degree program for everyone, just to get you to understand the general concepts. Important notes: Explanations without specified source are self-written. Correct me if you spot any inaccuracies. Suggest a better one if possible! Headings are linked to their respective Wikipedia articles. Please refer Wikipedia for more serious and detailed explanations. Analogies are awesome, but not perfect . If you want fully understand the concepts, you need to boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there. Also, check out this infographic if you're just getting started with programming. Core Concept #1 – Algorithms and Data Structures 1.1 – Big O Notation Say you o...

Early Footages And Videos Of Wildly Successful Tech Founders . Carl Cheo Follow me on Twitter here. After receiving great response from my recent article about early emails and forum posts from successful tech founders, I thought you guys would like this too. Here's a list of early interviews, talks, and documentaries of famous tech founders who created billion-dollar companies. Jack Ma (Alibaba) – 1999 In a small apartment, Jack Ma delivers his vision and plan for Alibaba to his friends. He said "our competitors are not in China, but in America's Silicon Valley." 15 years later, Alibaba is already bigger than Amazon, Facebook, and IBM. Bill Gates & Steve Jobs (Microsoft) – 1983 Steve Jobs hosted a "Macintosh Software Dating Game", asking questions about software development to decide which "software magnate" that impresses him the most. Steve Jobs referred Bill Gates as "software CEO number 3". 1 month later,...

40 Incredibly Useful Computer Tips & Keyboard Shortcuts . Expect to see shortcut keys like Ctrl + Alt + Del and Alt + F4? Nah. This is a list of no common sense and little-known computer tips you will actually use . Google Chrome 1. To open Chrome's built-in task manager: Press Shift + Esc . Extremely useful when Chrome freezes. 2. To remove specific suggestion: Select the suggestion, then press Shift + Delete . Go and delete your how to shave my embarrassing searches now. 3. To drag multiple tabs to a new window: Press Ctrl + Click on tabs you want to move. Do the same to move multiple tabs to an existing window. 4. To scroll horizontally: Press Shift + Scroll . Any Browsers 5. To access your address bar directly: Press F6 or Ctrl + L . 6. To access blocked web page: Go to Google Translate, paste the URL, select source language as other language, select destination language as the web page's language, click Translate . Free web proxy. 7. To...