Nokia used to be the most recognizable name in the mobile industry, but that was before the modern smartphone era. Microsoft bought the company’s mobile business and promptly ruined it by launching Windows Phone hardware no one wanted. Now, the Nokia brand is back by way of hardware partner HMD, and …
Read More »Amazon, Apple Servers Completely Compromised by Chinese Hardware Backdoors
Update 10/8/18 @ 5:46pm EST: More information has come to light about this report, although it’s still inconclusive. Our original story continues below. For years, security researchers have warned that unscrupulous hardware manufacturers or foreign governments could hijack the manufacturing process, installing backdoors into equipment that would be difficult to …
Read More »Users are Reporting Lost Data After Installing Windows 10 October 2018 Update
Every time Microsoft releases a new Windows 10 update, there’s a certain number of people that have trouble installing it, or for whom the update breaks something. Most of the time, these issues are minor. My own system has a problem with repeating notifications that’s been happening since April 2018 …
Read More »Apple Now Bricks MacBook Pros to Prevent Third-Party Repair
It’s not illegal to have your devices repaired by a company that isn’t Apple — but Apple would really prefer you didn’t know that. The company has aggressively pushed for product locks in all aspects of its designs over the last few years, likely as part of a bid to …
Read More »Microsoft Halts Rollout of Windows 10 October Update
After numerous reports of data loss when upgrading to Windows 10 Build 1809 (also known as the October Update), Microsoft has paused its rollout. While the update hadn’t been pushed out to all users yet, many have already updated either as Windows Insiders or by manually downloading the update. Problems …
Read More »AMD Announces New 12-Core and 24-Core Threadripper CPUs, Performance-Boosting Memory Mode
In August, AMD announced a new 32-core and 16-core Threadripper, revamping its top-end product line and further distancing the performance gaps between itself and Intel. Now the company is extending that product family with new 24-core and 12-core products, along with a new memory access mode that should reduce some …
Read More »Intel Announces New Core i9 Family, 9th Generation CPUs
Update: Sharp-eyed readers confirmed something I’d missed — Intel’s slides do note that 9th Generation CPUs are protected at the same level as Intel’s Whiskey Lake. Original story below. After months of leaks, Intel is finally taking the lid off its 9th Generation CPU family. The new series of CPUs …
Read More »Apple Denies Bloomberg Chinese Hacking Story to Congress
Last week, Bloomberg published a bombshell story about a supply-side hardware hack that allowed a Chinese manufacturer to insert hardware modifications no larger than a grain of rice on to SuperMicro motherboards, compromising their security and allowing the machines to phone home data even when supposedly secured. This type of …
Read More »The Core i9 Gaming Benchmarks Intel Commissioned Against AMD Are a Flat Lie
Everyone in the enthusiast community knows that manufacturer-provided benchmarks must be taken with a grain of salt. One could write a book on the various ways that companies tend to shade the truth to paint their own products in a positive light. Some of these practices are defensible, at least …
Read More »LG V40 ThinQ: How 5 Cameras Push the Bounds of Phone Photography
As we’ve written before, adding zoom capability — especially telephoto — is one of the final frontiers phone photography needs to address. Digital zoom, no matter how cleverly implemented, has not been able to replicate the quality of a good optical zoom. So phone makers have started adding a second, …
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