The 2020 forced companies to change their approach and press the accelerator on digital. According to Alex Pope of Vertiv, however, there will be no digital transformation without digital resilience, and it will be essential to invest in the security
of Alberto Falchi published on 29 December 2020 , at 17: 01 in the Innovation channel Vertiv
“ There will be no Digital Transformation without Digital Resilience “. This is the thesis of Alex Pope, VP Integrated Rack Solutions EMEA of Vertiv , who underlines how this 2020 led to budget cuts that impacted the channel, the repercussions of which will also be evident in the 2021. To face the new challenges, Pope insists on the importance of finding the correct balance between digital transformation needs – significantly accelerated by the use of smart working – and resilience. Operational resilience, but also cyber resilience. Companies are looking for flexible solutions that help them face new challenges, including those of cybersecurity, and are looking for collaborations, partners to help and guide them in this process. An important business opportunity for the channel: “ Customers will look for partners to guide them in this process to ensure that current and future projects, they are safe, resilient and adaptable to the new challenges that may arise “, explains Pope. “ In this case, the partners have the real opportunity, through consultancy, to offer added value to their customers, guaranteeing their safety and the evolution of their IT infrastructure, in anticipation of the business landscape of 2021 and the following years “.
Security is only one of the aspects to be taken into account, however, and for the 2021 Pope also predicts a growth of edge computing , in addition to redefinition of relations within the channel .
Edge computing spending increases
The difficulties generated by pandemics have pushed companies to transform their business by focusing even more on digital, looking for new solutions that can improve workflows and decision-making. Driving this transformation is undoubtedly the cloud: in the first quarter of 2020 there was an increase in the cost of 37% on the “cloud” and these investments also had an impact on the edge portion. According to a research by Canalys, 35% of partners said they saw the growth of client investments in the edge. For 35% of clients, this was the first investment made on the edge. And it probably won’t be the last: “ As businesses look to AR, VR and a host of other IoT technologies as a means to engage and communicate remotely, it is agreed that the growing demand for Edge infrastructure will undoubtedly increase in the 2021 “, underlines Pope.
The new Vertiv Partner Portal
Remote work and the rush to digital have had a clear impact on relationships in the channel, highlighting its importance especially in times of crisis. Being able to meet in person was not always possible, which accelerated the use of IT also to manage relations with all the actors involved, and which prompted Vertiv to introduce a new Partner Portal , a platform that allows easy access to the tools most used by partners: clear contact information, online training courses and an intuitive and accessible overview of partner and point levels of the Vertiv Incentive Program (VIP).
Despite the difficulties experienced in the last year, the forecasts for 2021 are optimistic. According to Robin Ody, Senior Analyst at Canalys , investments are expected to grow, both on the cloud and on the edge , driven by the need to guarantee the possibility of working remotely: 5G, under this profile, could be a further growth driver.
“ As companies need to plan their flexibility for the future, channel partners and customers are adapting together “, concludes Pope” The sudden discomfort of the pandemic forced greater understanding from customers, while the Channel quickly figured out how to offer the best possible support; however, partners need to keep in mind that customers may not be as tolerant in the future. into a new normal and businesses are getting used to uncertain times. The Channel must continue to meet evolving customer expectations, and be prepared for the upcoming challenges that lie ahead “.
In some days, Google will close the cloud printing service Cloud Print , something we already knew would arrive from 2019, but now that we finally get to this point, it is confirmed that Cloud Print will serve the same purpose as Android Things , which we were recently talking about.
Although it is true that, for most users, this closure is likely is nothing more than a minor inconvenience when or they find that Cloud Print is still their default print option , they can avoid that surprise when checking your print settings in apps like Chrome.
Google launched Cloud Prin t in 2010 as a way to make it easier for people with Chrome devices OS printing your documents, although it came at a time when the compatibility with printers in Chrome OS was not exactly optimal.
However, in 2017 the company added a native print option, something that allows us to connect any Chrome OS device to any compatible printer in our local network without a connection to the cloud, although apparently it was too late, as this closure shows.
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Jordi Bercial
Avid enthusiast of technology and electronics . I messed around with computer components almost since I learned to ride. I started working at Geeknetic after winning a contest on their forum for writing hardware articles. Drift, mechanics and photography lover. Don’t be shy and leave a comment on my articles if you have any questions.
Quoting the classic, we can say that “nothing can last forever.” This also applies, and perhaps even primarily, to the services offered by the giants of the technology-related industry. This is perfectly illustrated by the history of the Adobe Flash plug-in, which has been extinguished relatively recently. Another solution used in web browsers, which we will soon say goodbye to, is Google Cloud Print. It’s a cloud printing support tool that, although it is a decade old, has yet to come out of its beta phase. Today we know that it will never be called the final product. The company will disable access to Google Cloud Print before January 1 2021. How to prepare for it?
At the end of the year, Google will terminate its Cloud Print cloud printing service, which has accompanied users of Google Chrome and Chrome OS computers for the past decade.
Google Stadia in Poland now officially . Who will benefit from this platform?
Chrome OS has been extremely limited for years, preventing users from conveniently using printers. This is a real problem that Google solved in 2010 by providing the Cloud Print service. Many users used this tool as the default, but in 2017, the Mountain View giant attempted to add printer support to this platform. So the service ceased to matter and we soon learned that the company was planning to expire it. However, the deadline was distant, while the time is passing and the date is approaching inevitably.
Year In Search 2020 – What we searched for most on Google in 2020 ?
Google Cloud Print will be finally retired on January 1 2021. Then users will lose access to it. It is worth preparing for this in advance and choosing another solution as a default. By the way, I will remember the tool itself warmly, as it allowed for convenient printing from any device connected to the network. No installation, no unnecessary fiddling. Oh, the perfect method for the average Kowalski. Considering the intensity with which Google juggles its services, this whole thing shouldn’t surprise anyone.
(Pocket-lint) – Yes, it really is only a few months since the last MacBook Air hit the streets. But while this new end-of-2020 model looks and feels the same as the one from earlier in the year, what’s inside is quite different.
That’s because the MacBook Air now runs exclusively on Apple’s own processors, dubbed Apple Silicon. The Apple M1 chip inside shares more in common – actually a lot in common – with Apple’s A-Series iPhone and iPad chips than any Intel processor. It’s the same M1 that’s now available in the Mac mini range as well as the 13-inch MacBook Pro (although there’s still an Intel model available of the latter for now).
Apple Silicon is here: What does the Apple M1 mean for your next Mac?
The transition to Apple Silicon follows on from 15 years of Macs using Intel processors and, while we’re not sure what’s happening at the top-end of the range, it’s safe to say that all low-to-mid-level Macs will be running Apple Silicon by the end of 2021. So what difference does it make and is now the right time to jump in?
Design
Dimensions: 304 x 212mm / 41-161mm thick / Weight: 1.29kg
As with the 2019 and early 2020 models, the external design of the first M1 Macbook Air is the same. We’ve remarked elsewhere how surprised we are that Apple didn’t take the opportunity to create a radical new Mac with the change to its own processor design. After all, we could have had a replacement for the old MacBook, which was sort of like a sub-MacBook Air.
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But we didn’t get that and so we move on. Apple is perfectly capable of pushing the envelope on design – just look at the AirPods Max – but clearly with the portable Mac it feels that its distinguished and hardy aluminium unibody is something to stick with. And why not? This is a hugely successful design that remains modern-looking, even though we’re now nearly 13 years on from Steve Jobs pulling the original from an envelope.
Once again there are two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports – which can sometimes limit you a little, but in reality it’s increasingly a rarity. The notable thing here is that they support the new USB 4 standard. The 3.5mm headphone jack remains but it’s surely now on borrowed time on the Mac.
The keyboard is the same again as the early 2020 MacBook Air, but that keyboard brought serious improvement over earlier generations, with the introduction of the Magic Keyboard with an older-style scissor mechanism. It’s very comfortable to type on for long periods and has much better travel than older ‘butterfly’ MacBook Pro keyboards. While many lauded the Magic Keyboard as a revelation, the fact is you should expect a fantastic keyboard to be part of a laptop like this. It’s a minimum requirement.
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Touch ID is in the top right corner of the keyboard, meaning quick and easy login with a fingerprint, but we really hope that Face ID will come to the Mac in 2021. You’ve been able to use your face to log into Windows 10 since 2016, so Apple is trailing behind here – in particular as the technology already exists in its phones.
Display
13.3-inch Retina Display, 2650 x 1600 resolution
Can drive up to one 6K external display
True Tone support, P3 wide colour
Again you get the well-known 13.3-inch Retina display, giving you the same resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels as the 2019 and early 2020 versions. True Tone ensures the display adapts to your environment, while there’s also support for the P3 wide colour gamut – which is new for the Air this time around.
The Air’s display no longer has a huge bezel, but it does feel like Apple needs to match some of the PC designs coming out with near-borderless displays, which aren’t even that new – the Dell XPS 13 has had a super-thin bezel for half a decade now. We’ve said that bezel design needs to be refined for other Macs, too, particularly the iMac, and perhaps we will see some movement here over the next year or so.
Pocket-lint
We found there was no problem driving our external 4K display via USB-C, but you can only connect a single 4K, 5K or 6K display at 60Hz (yes, you can drive Apple’s Pro Display XDR if you really want to – wouldn’t that be a dream?). The recent Intel version was capable of driving two 4K displays, or a single 5K display or a single 6K display over Thunderbolt, so the M1 is a rare and slight downgrade in that regard which will be noticed by some.
When we talked about the changes we wanted to see from Apple Silicon Macs, one of them was the hope that the Mac would support touch. Apple seems very set against touch for the Mac – and is persisting with the Touch Bar on the MacBook Pro – yet tells us that an iPad is a computer and that it can do anything. As a differentiator between product lines, it makes sense.
But there’s now (more than) a generation of kids who are totally used to touch and are pretty bemused they can’t touch a laptop’s screen, especially if they’ve done it with Windows 10, iPads and smartphones. Every time we’re using a Mac, someone in our family tries to touch the screen to flick through pictures or webpages – and that has to say something about what should happen with the Mac. Of course, Apple will have been thinking about this, but our opinion is that a change needs to happen sooner rather than later.
Performance and battery life
Apple M1 processor (3GHz; 8-core – 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores)
7 or 8-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine
256/512GB storage (up to 1TB, 2TB)
8GB RAM (upgradeable to 16GB)
Battery cited at 15 hours
There are two versions of the Air available: one with seven-core graphics (more on that shortly) and a 256GB SSD; another with eight-core graphics and 512GB of storage. You can upgrade the storage in either version to a maximum of 2TB (an eye-watering upgrade in terms of cost though).
Pocket-lint
Both versions of the Air have 8GB of RAM as standard (upgradeable to 16GB, which is the limit of what Apple Silicon can currently support, it seems). The two options also house identical CPUs – the eight-core Apple M1 with CPU cores based on the latest ARM design. And they don’t use fans either – so are silent in operation.
The M1 shares a huge amount with Apple’s A-Series processors and, more specifically, the A14 Bionic found in the iPhone 12 and 2020 iPad Air. Like that chip, the M1 is based on TSMC’s 5nm manufacturing process – which means it’s super-efficient. No non-Apple computer yet has a chip based on that process. Intel is still floundering with getting to 7nm, while Qualcomm hasn’t yet announced PC silicon based on 5nm.
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Like the A14 Bionic there are four performance cores and four cores designed for power efficiency. This results in serious performance. Like others, we have been blown away by the raw capability on show here, because everything you expect to take time – like an installation or processing of video – happens so quickly. One negative, however, is that unlike the MacBook Pro with the M1 chip, performance will throttle over time to keep things cool and that’s why pros will still want to go with the Pro.
Pocket-lint
We don’t normally do benchmarks on Pocket-lint (unless it’s for a gaming laptop or rig), but as this is the first time a chip has made its way into the wild it makes sense for a quick comparison. Our Geekbench 5 benchmark results show simply steaming performance (1731 single-core, 7475 multi-core score). A simple look at the Mac charts for Geekbench 5 shows you that on single-core performance the M1 is faster than any Mac Pro. And on multi-core performance the new M1 systems fall only behind the Intel Xeon Macs (Mac Pro and iMac Pro) and the 2019/2020 iMacs with Intel’s high-end Core Core i7-10700K and i9-9900K (check out our 2020 iMac review).
Raw performance is certainly not an issue then. And the efficiency of the ARM-based design has another benefit we had expected – longer battery life. Apple cites up to 18 hours video playback and 15 hours using the web. We found you could eke the battery out to last around 11 hours, but 10 is more common for serious use with video calls and lots of apps open and working in the background – which is still a great innings when many Windows machines will score around seven hours.
A note about the graphics. As we mentioned, the 256GB version of the Air has seven-core graphics, while the 512GB version has eight-core. There’s a pretty simple reason for this: with the manufacturing of any silicon, a certain percentage of product won’t come up to snuff, probably through defective cores. Those ‘bad cores’ can then be shut off and the product sold as a different version, hence the seven-core variant.
Pocket-lint
There’s support for the latest Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 6 standards, while the 720p FaceTime HD camera is now enhanced with some smarts from the image signal processor (ISP) on the M1 platform – it’s clearly better than in previous generations, as skin tones are better, colours are generally improved and the room looks brighter – but we still feel that Apple should upgrade the camera to a Full HD one.
Apple Silicon app support and macOS Big Sur
Support for non-native Apple Silicon apps via Rosetta 2 translator
All Apple apps are Apple Silicon-ready
Affinity, Google Chrome, Microsoft Office and other key apps have support
Others on the way, including full Adobe Creative Cloud compatibility
The key question with the move to Apple Silicon processors is if Apple could avoid the issues it had when it moved from Power PC to Intel processors around 2005. Could apps really work seamlessly on a completely new processor this time? The short answer is yes, Apple has avoided the major issues.
Pocket-lint
That’s thanks to Rosetta 2, a code translator, helping non-native apps run on Apple Silicon systems. Bizarrely it isn’t installed as default – presumably if you just use Apple’s own apps you won’t need it. But if you open an app that isn’t ready for Apple Silicon, you’re prompted to install.
For an ever-increasing number of apps from the Mac App Store and Apple’s native apps, everything works fine. But for stuff from other vendors, more work is needed. That work is happening, of course, but if you rely on even a couple of lesser-known apps you may want to wait until you know there is native M1 support.
Zoom, for example, worked absolutely fine on Rosetta 2. Yet the company has been quick to announce an Apple Silicon version. Native Apple Silicon support doesn’t guarantee any problems, however – Google had to work to fix Chrome after the ARM version crashed repeatedly, which was a major pain for us the first few days we used this Mac. Generally though, apps are stable using Rosetta 2.
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Apple Silicon-enabled Affinity apps, including Affinity Photo, run brilliantly, as does Microsoft Office (also now updated for Apple Silicon). But other big-vendor apps are lagging behind. Adobe Creative Cloud has yet to fully move across, even if Lightroom already has support.
Now, if you compare apples with oranges and look at Microsoft’s rambling attempts to cater for ARM-based Windows PCs, the Apple Silicon transition is already a dream. The Windows Store is a car crash in comparison to the Mac App Store and, while you can easily live off apps from the Mac App Store, the same can’t be said of its Windows equivalent.
macOS Big Sur is generally very stable providing you’re using at least the 11.1 version – the 11.0 version wasn’t so hot, with some apps quite slow, a couple of issues with USB-C docks and so on. While the Apple Silicon support is the big story with Big Sur, the design has been overhauled. This isn’t the radical change that Apple first billed, but the design is more like iPadOS than ever.
Pocket-lint
That isn’t a bad thing, because the new design elements are largely familiar, while the OS does feel genuinely fresh to use.
Verdict
While there’s a question mark over whether you should jump to Apple Silicon quite yet, there’s little doubt that Apple has seriously powered up the Air with its move to Apple Silicon. So much so that it’s hard to suggest you should plump for the MacBook Pro 13-inch over it – you have to really need the fan for sustained high performance over a longer time.
If you’re looking for an excuse to upgrade and the performance isn’t enough, consider the battery life. Obviously, a lot of us aren’t travelling so much at the moment, but the longevity of this Air really is a fresh experience. And this is a great laptop in many other ways, of course – the screen is super, the design robust, and the keyboard actually works well.
In the ultraportable market there’s little to compete. Of course, there are cheaper PCs, but they all have a compromise versus the Air, either in terms of performance or portability. It’s clear, then, that the M1 chip spells a bright future for Apple.
Also consider
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MacBook Pro (2020)
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The step-up model does cost more and gives you a fan instead for sustained workloads, but it’s mostly identical to the Air. One extra benefit is that it does give you even longer battery life (yes really) and so for some that could be worth the cost alone – it’ll take you up to the thick end of 20 hours.
Read our MacBook Pro review
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Dell XPS 13
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“Dell has once again proven it’s the laptop master” is what we said in our verdict on this laptop. And it’s a serious rival to both the MacBook Air and Pro. But considering the power of the M1, the XPS 13 has a real fight on its hands. But if you’re looking for the closest Windows 10 equivalent to the Air, this is the one. And it’s got a thin bezel, too!
Apple macOS 11 Big Sur: All the key new Mac features explored
For a long time, Qualcomm has been the most important player in the smartphone market, responsible for the diverse portfolio of Snapdragon processors. MediaTek chips were also quite popular, more than Samsung’s Exynos or HiSilicon’s Kirin, but due to changes in China and India, the manufacturer managed to gain the position of a global leader. Thus, Qualcomm fell to second place. However, the Counterpoint Research report takes into account a certain variable that may cause the Americans to regain their lost podium place very quickly. At stake is the growing importance of the 5G standard, which is appearing in a large number of new smartphones.
According to the latest report, MediaTek has become a global leader in the production of chips for smartphones. In Q3 2020 he won as much as 31 percent.
MediaTek Dimensity 700 officially – support for two SIM cards with 5G
Let’s start with the numbers, because they determine the division of the mobile chip market for smartphones . In the third quarter of the year, MediaTek became the segment leader with the result 31 percent. Qualcomm was immediately behind him with the result 29 percent. The next players were Samsung, Apple and HiSilion, who took equal 12 percent. market and Unisoc (4 percent). The success of MediaTek is justified by the increase in demand for reasonably priced Xiaomi products in India and China. The company used a peculiar “loophole” in the US ban on Huawei. Qualcomm, which gave way to the group’s position, may, however, quickly recover.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 678 – The manufacturer presents a new mobile platform for mid-priced smartphones
It turns out it is apparent that Qualcomm continues to occupy a key position in the sale of chips for smartphones that support the new 5G standard. As interest in these units grew in the fourth quarter of the year and I believe it will continue to climb, the company is likely to regain its “rightful place”. The importance of 5G networks is growing month by month, which is influenced by cloud services, which are not limited to streaming audio and video. Today we also use streaming for backups and games.
The end of the year is the period of summaries of the past months. It’s no different in the case of Cloud Imperium Games studio, whose founder, Chris Roberts, decided to share an extensive letter to Star Citizen fans on the official blog. He discussed, among other things, what progress has been made on the much-anticipated simulator, which is still in the alpha stage of development, and plans for the future. Unfortunately, as predicted, the game will not see the light of day soon, having the status “will come out when it’s ready”. In the entry, Chris Roberts also mentioned the Squadron story campaign 42, which is to precede the premiere of the ambitious Star Citizen space simulator. Except that this mode should not be expected soon …
Star Citizen’s story campaign, baptized as Squadron 42, “will come out when it’s ready”. Chris Roberts, founder of Cloud Imperium Games studio, suggested that he does not want to make mistakes with the premiere of Cyberpunk 2077.
Star Citizen Alpha performance test. Very cosmic requirements?
Work on Star Citizen has been going on for almost a decade and there is no end in sight. The waiting was to be made even more pleasant by the independent fictional campaign of Squadron 42 with a star cast (including Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Andy Serkis and Gillian Anderson ). Unfortunately, we have bad news for you. There is still a lot of work ahead of Cloud Imperium Games, and this mode is far from complete. Squadron 42 “will be ready when ready.” It will be released only when all the content is at a sufficiently high level, and the game and the technology used are fully developed.
Star Citizen: new trailer with a galaxy of celebrities and great graphics
Chris Roberts admitted that he is not going to make any compromises and the release of Squadron 42 hurriedly and cut corners would be a disservice to the whole team who put so much heart into this project. “In recent years, I have seen more than a few eagerly anticipated titles that were released before they were fixed and fully polished,” which probably goes for until the recent premiere of Cyberpunk 2077. Beta-tests announced in 2014 on Squadron 42 were supposed to start a long time ago, most recently in the second and third quarter 2020 of the year, which could not be met. However, the studio has decided not to release any new gameplay or release date – the developers want to make sure that they will be able to deliver the game quality in a timely manner before announcing it. Despite the protracted work on the simulator, fans are still willing to support Star Citizen financially. Only in 2020, the authors managed to collect over 80 million dollars, almost twice as much as last year. Unfortunately, even for Squadron 42 we can wait a few more years, let alone Star Citizen …
The 15 meter long Mayflower is a cooperation project between IBM and the Austrian association for the promotion of marine research Promare. The fully automatic trimaran should be able to scan the horizon for possible dangers, make independent decisions and change its course based on live data.
During its mission, the ship will also collect data on the state of the sea, reports Technology Review in its January issue (from the 17. 12. can be ordered at the kiosk or online). The ship is equipped with 15 solar panels, each only three millimeters thick and delivering a maximum of around 2.5 kilowatts of electrical power.
The ship is propelled by a sail fin, which drives the boat to an average cruising speed of ten knots (18, 5 km / h). In addition, two 20 – kilowatt motors can bring the Mayflower purely electrically to a speed of four to five knots. For IBM, the project is primarily an opportunity to demonstrate technical skills in Edge Computing – the operation of local AI systems.
Learning AI systems have made considerable progress in recent years, the processing of data – such as voice or videos – but still often happens in the cloud today. Despite the satellite connection, the ship will not always be online during its voyage. The AI captain must therefore process incoming data from the cameras, radar, depth gauge and position and weather data directly on board in real time.
For this purpose, a computer optimized for AI software is on board, which is equipped with special computers from Nvidia, among other things. However, IBM is not the only company working on autonomous ships.
The ship supplier Kongsberg is currently furthest. From 2021 he wants to let the electric container ship Yara Birkeland commute between two ports along the Norwegian coast – initially manned, then remote-controlled and from 2022 autonomous. The project is currently suspended due to the corona pandemic.
With the command “Enter” and the appeal “Follow the white rabbit”, already known from “Alice in Wonderland”, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) started its first rC3 (remote Chaos Communication Congress) in uncharted territory on Sunday afternoon. In addition, there was a hint from the director about the use of the online world that had been put into operation for four days: “There are still various construction sites, but the biggest corners and edges have already been sanded out.”
Popular online tickets the CCC, there is the dictum that the intergalactic hackers force with the establishment of the Congress even in the physical world it is never finished before dismantling starts. So this year initially there is not much more than the start screen available for logged-in visitors of the “remote chaos experience” from the planned “2D world”. This should enable a video chat with friends, participation in virtual workshops or the creation of a personal list of favorite presentations.
“The last bits & bytes are just falling into place,” it said on Sunday morning in an email to the lucky visitors who were able to get hold of one of the coveted online tickets for the inner halls of the platform. “The online structure is clearly different, but here we are slowly getting to the point where the gates of the rC3 are opening.”
From 8 to 16 Bit: Virtual rush too big The “Community Content” is already available with over 16 own stages, self-organized discussion groups and 256 Meetings in the form of so-called assemblies. “We had planned it as an 8-bit world,” joked the hacker “blubbel” at the official start. In view of the virtual rush, an upgrade to 14 bit was carried out, so that there is now enough space for everyone.
Bubble
(Image: CC by 4.0 rC3 media.ccc.de)
The program in the form of the “timetable” and the streaming portal are traditional for all those interested, even without a congress ticket freely available, via which the lectures are broadcast live on various online stages and then quickly made available for later retrieval. The “Video Operation Center” (VOC) had announced that “the cloud had been greatly expanded” and now offered enough storage space for all recordings. The recording management announced: “Satellite connection to Chaos Studios established”. The teams for translations and subtitles, the “Heralde” for the moderation and 256 “Engel” also stood out as more or less ready to go Heavenly helpers.
“There is also the Internet” Until In view of the comparatively low number of infections at the time, the CCC had hoped for the summer that the major event would be called “37 even in times of the coronavirus pandemic. Chaos Communication Congress “(37 C3) in Leipzig. But even then, angels, who worked full-time in hospitals, signaled that the intensive care units were full and that only smears and tests were being made.
At the beginning of September, the hackers decided with a heavy heart that a ” Superspreader event around Christmas would be irresponsible “. There is also “the Internet, where we all know our way around”. So the motto was: “We are chaos, we are nerds, are hackers. Reality has to be hacked”. Bring the caffeinated Club Mate fizzy drink, hit the keyboards, “solder, stick, flash”, we spat into our hands together.
Obligatory fax In between there was “a minor problem” with the first tickets and the long online queue. But now the master of ceremonies could make the announcement: “We have something prepared” after really hard work. Even the cat content and the mandatory fax worked. The “Infrastructure team” is ready and has “polished the fiber optics”. Fortunately, the Internet scales infinitely and it “isn’t bluetooth either,” explained Blubbel with a lot of hacker’s irony. The team for the “critical infrastructures” disinfected the hard drives themselves using a plentiful amount of anti-virus solution, so that hardly anything could go wrong.
At the beginning, however, the streaming platform had problems, initially it was not accessible. A talk planned for 14 clock only started with 20 Minutes delay.
In prior years, if you needed a last-minute gift, you might run out to the store and brave the crowds, but in this year of pandemic, that’s not a good idea. Besides, it might not even be safe or practical to visit your giftee in person. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to buy and deliver last-second gifts that arrive instantly, via email, even on Christmas day.
The easiest, but least thoughtful, thing you can do is either send money or buy an Amazon.com gift card, which is almost as universal as cash. But a better idea is to purchase a digital gift that speaks to your giftee’s love of PCs, maker gear or gaming. Here are some digital gift ideas for the tech enthusiasts in your life.
1. Newegg Gift Card
Though it sells everything from crock pots to clothing, Newegg is known for having the best selection and often the best prices for computer components. With Amazon credit, your giftee may end up buying non-tech stuff like toilet paper or cat litter, but if you give them a Newegg card, they’ll almost certainly use it to treat themselves to new hardware or software.
Newegg Gift Card ($10 and up)
2. Adafruit gift card / Adabox
(Image credit: Adafruit)
If your giftee loves doing electronics projects with Raspberry Pi, Arduino or other single-board computers — and if they don’t, they should start — a gift certificate from Adafruit could be your best option. Not only does Adafruit stock all the major computers and controllers — every version of Raspberry Pi, for example — but it also has an entire universe of add-on boards, RGB light setups, robot kits and more. The company is not just a seller: as most of its custom boards and accessories are manufactured in its New York City-based factory. The company’s Braincraft HAT won our Raspberry Pi accessory of the year for 2020.
If you buy an Adafruit gift certificate, you can also feel good about supporting this amazing business. Founded in 2005 by Limor “Ladyada” Fried, Adafruit employs over 100 people and is dedicated to helping everyone learn more about STEM. The site has a vibrant community and over 1,000 tutorials to help you do everything from creating an LED sign to soldering or designing RGB clothes.
You can also give a subscription to Adabox, which is a blind box filled with everything you need to build an electronics project and comes out quarterly.
Adafruit Gift Certificates: Available in any denomination and emailed.
Adabox Subscriptions: Starting at $60
3. Digital Game Store Gift Card
No matter what platform your giftee plays on, there’s an associated digital store with downloadable games. PC Gamers will almost certainly find something they love in the Steam store. For console players, get a card for the PlayStation Store, the XBox or the Nintendo eShop, depending on what system they use. Most cards start at $10, but I recommend spending at least $20, the cost of many lower price games.
Xbox Gift Card ($10 – $70)
PlayStation Store Card ($10 – $75)
Nintendo eShop ($5 – $70)
Battle.net Store ($50): Lets you buy any Blizzard game (Warcraft, Overwatch, etc)
Steam Store ($5 – $100)
4. Minecraft Game or Minecoins
(Image credit: Amazon)
Minecraft is a huge hit with kids from five to fifty. The game lets you explore and create worlds filled with 8-bit adventure and you can even use it to learn about programming. The game itself is available on every platform you can imagine, even the phone, but if your giftee already has it, consider getting Minecoins. Minecoins are used to buy all kinds of add-ons within the game.
Minecoin Pack: ($9.88)
Minecraft Windows 10 Starter Edition ($29.88)
Minecraft Dungeons for PC ($19.99): New Minecraft-based game
Minecraft Java Edition ($26.95): Good for Mac or PC (even Linux)
Minecraft for Xbox One ($19.99)
5. Individual Games
(Image credit: Amazon and Microsoft)
If you know what games your giftee wants and is likely to play, you can buy them a direct download. Here are some ideas for PC gamers.
NBA 2K21 ($29.99): The ultimate basketball game, NBA 2K21 features the latest players and teams.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 ($59.99): One of the most popular games of the year, flight simulator makes you feel like you’re flying a real plane in very realistic parts of the world.
Cyberpunk 2077 ($59.99): The game of the year has been slow on XBox One and PS4, but runs great on any PC that meets the Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements.
Star Wars Squadrons ($23.99): Fly an X-Wing or a Tie Fighter.
SimCity Complete Edition ($7.49): Who wouldn’t want to build a city? Includes two different games and five content packs.
Battlefield V: Definitive Edition ($14.99): This World War II battle game looks absolutely gorgeous, whether you have a GPU that supports ray tracing or not.
The Sims 4 ($4.99): A great game for giftees who like simulation games and have older PCs, the Sims 4 will run on a CPU as old as a Core 2 Duo (over 10 years old).
6. Streaming subscriptions
Whether it’s music or movies, there’s nothing quite like the gift of content. Here are some services you can buy.
Disney+ ($69.99 for a year): A great gift for anyone who is not already a Disney+ subscriber, this service features all the Star Wars, Marvel, Disney and Pixar content you can imagine.
BritBox ($69.99 for 1 yr): The ultimate gift for fans of British TV, especially Doctor Who, BritBox is the only place in the U.S. where you can stream all 26 seasons of Classic Doctor Who. It also has all eight seasons of Red Dwarf and a slew of British mysteries.
Netflix ($25 – $200): The good thing about this card is that, even if your giftee already has Netflix, they can always use this to either upgrade their plan or pay some months in advance.
Spotify ($10 – $60): The most popular music service has something for everyone. If your giftee already has a single-user subscription, they may want to use the extra credit to move up to a family ($14.99 / month) subscription.
Hulu ($25 – $50): Get access to a slew of movies, network TV shows and original programs like The Handmaid’s Tale and Castle Rock.
HBO Max ($69.99 for 6 months): WIth all the new Warner movies coming straight to HBO Max, this makes a great gift. However, there’s no gift code so you’d have to basically do it for someone with their knowledge.
7. Online game services
Sure, your giftee has a powerful game system with lots of games, but do they have the subscription they need to play online and broadcast streams? Here are some subscriptions that can help them. Unfortunately, the best offerings here are primarily for console gamers.
XBox Live Gold ($59.99): This service not only connects you with other gamers online and lets you stream to Twitch, but it also provides free games and huge discounts.
PlayStation Plus ($59.99): If your giftee has a PlayStation 4, this membership will allow them to play multiplayer, online games, store data in the cloud and even get a couple of free titles a month.
Nintendo Switch Online ($19.99): Play multiplayer Switch games and free access to some classic Nintendo titles.
(Pocket-lint) – Having decided to wait for the console version before reviewing the game, we ended up playing Cyberpunk 2077 first around the same time as everybody else – with our Xbox copy arriving a day or so before the official release date. Therefore, this review is somewhat late.
But, by holding off in order to play across multiple format platforms, we’ve got the full picture of the experience. We’ve also had the chance to play it on PC (through Nvidia GeForce Now and natively using a rig with an RTX 3080), Stadia and PS5. And, we’ve been able to test it across Xbox Series X and S (installed on the internal SSD), plus on an Xbox One S (on its internal HDD). Boy oh boy have we found a mixed bag of results.
There is such disparity between experiences that it is almost impossible to provide a single review of Cyberpunk 2077 that will cater for all audiences across all platforms. Therefore, the mainstay of our review is based on our experience on both Xbox Series X and S, as we’ve played it for the most part across those machines. We do, however, provide the following caveats before we progress.
Platform woes
Even after the several hotfixes released so far, if you own a base Xbox One or PS4, do not buy Cyberpunk 2077 right now! From our experience on the Xbox One S, combined with the vast amount of anecdotal evidence we’ve seen online, performance is so bad at times that you’ll just want to throw your controller at the screen. Developer CD Projekt Red has promised numerous additional bug and performance fixes over the coming months, so it’s best to hold off at the very least, to see how much the game can be improved first.
If you own an Xbox One X or PS4 Pro, it is playable but still knackered enough for you to maybe think twice – at least until performance issues are addressed. Also, don’t expect anywhere near the quality or crispness of the graphics of the PC version, which perhaps goes without saying.
If you have a PS5 or Xbox Series S, you get a better experience for sure. It’s still got more bugs than an episode of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and can suffer crashes, freezing or gameplay errors, but it is playable and, in the case of the PS5, runs at 60fps.
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The Xbox Series X provides the best console experience – partly because of its SSD (like the other next-gen machines), partly because it has the most firepower. It also offers a choice between quality and performance modes, with the latter sacrificing resolution for 60fps. No next-gen version has ray tracing nor any other “next-gen” enhancement – those won’t be available for months as things stand – but this offering runs smoother and at a slightly higher res.
This is true of Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform too. The experience is very similar to Xbox Series X, including the option to favour either resolution or frame rate. It is seemingly a touch more stable on Stadia too, but mostly comparable to the best console experience.
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The PC version is undoubtedly the best, depending on your setup. It is especially spectacular with ray tracing switched on. However, you can read plenty of glowing reviews of that version elsewhere, so we won’t dwell on it.
Here instead are our honest thoughts of Cyberpunk 2077 running on console, based on a decent enough experience of it running on next-gen Xbox hardware.
Hidden treasures
Perhaps the saddest thing about everything we’ve mentioned so far is that underneath the litany of bugs, glitches and performance issues, Cyberpunk 2077 is a bold, ambitious, impressive open-world role-playing game (RPG). It is hard to fully recommend right now, especially on lower-powered machines, but it has the story, voice acting, branching mission structure, and creativity of a triple-A masterpiece.
It is also stunning looking, even without true next-gen enhancements, with an art style that makes the very best of an high dynamic range (HDR) telly. Yes, there are plenty of graphical issues when you look closely, and the world is more sparsely populated (with pedestrians and vehicles) than previously promised, but Night City still fills you with awe from the first time you travel through it.
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The gameplay is fun and fluid, too, with the developer’s decision to opt for a first-person perspective clearly being the right choice. It gives you an impression of virtual reality without needing a headset, and is much more immersive than The Witcher 3, say. We do suggest you switch to an included third-person mode for driving, as it can be hard to navigate the streets otherwise, but everything else works well.
As do the game mechanics. Based on a pen-and-paper role-player from the 80s, the game embraces stats and attributes, but disguises them enough to not bamboozle you with numbers. You get simple yet effective character creation tools at the start, to determine your initial attributes and skills, plus what you look like and the angle of the dangle of your bits and bobs.
The rest of the RPG elements are par for the course kind of stuff. For example, levelling up your character through earning experience gives you points to assign to both attributes and perks – the abilities you’ll need to improve weapon mastery, hacking, health, and so on. Plus, you have the obligatory inventory where you can change clothing for armour bonuses and your weapon loadout.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a little different to most (bar Deus Ex and a couple of others that spring to mind) in that it also allows you to change the cybernetics installed in your body. These provide additional modifiers for combat, tech use and the like.
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Where CD Projekt Red gets it right is that while it all sounds complex, these are each intuitively implemented. You won’t feel like you are being constantly pulled out the meat of the game just to tweak a stat here or change a jacket there. And weapons are so easily attained in missions you will have plenty to swap in and out without ever needing to buy anything.
We also generally ignored the crafting options – which give you the ability to build and improve your own weapons and items – as the loot found in the game in plentiful enough to not have to bother.
Mission street
Another area we feel the developer gets things right is in mission variety and structure. The game has a main plot thread running right down the middle, but also hundreds of side missions and objectives that pop up throughout. Indeed, we were 40 hours into Cyberpunk before we realised we weren’t even halfway through the main story.
What’s more, these missions are rarely as simple as “pick up from location A and deliver to point B” – which most open-world adventures are generally criticised for. Instead, they feature stealth, driving, first-person shooting, melee combat, puzzle solving, detective work, and often a combination of any or all of them. Many also allow you to complete them in different ways, depending on your character and playstyle.
In addition, your character type can determine the general path you’ll take through the game, what missions you are offered and some of the dialogue options you get to choose from. At the beginning, you get to choose your background – your Lifepath – between three alternatives and each will not only give you a different first 40 minutes or so, but also affect moments further down the line.
We have so far played as a Streetkid, for the console playthrough, and Nomad, which allowed us to experience something else when we started again on Stadia. There is also Corpo, which puts you in the shoes of someone who works for the largest tech corporation around. This initial choice enables second or third playthroughs to feel a bit different, although it’s worth pointing out that the main story itself maintains a similar course no matter which Lifepath you choose.
Certainly though, it’s a further example that the ambitions of CD Projekt Red cannot be questioned. Its application is another story.
A bug’s life
It’s hard to continue to wax lyrically without addressing the issues. While there is so much to like about Cyberpunk 2077, it is currently hampered by bugs that rip you from the otherwise cleverly crafted immersion. Some of them are glitches that are more visual – such as a character hovering in mid-air rather than sitting on a nearby chair – but others have direct effect on gameplay – like a boss fight being impossible to complete because of the boss himself disappearing into a wall mid-battle.
CD Projekt Red has already pushed two major patches to mend mission-breaking bugs, which has made things reasonably better, but there is so much more to be done and even on subsequent playthroughs, we’ve still encountered issues.
We mostly ran the game from an SSD on the Xbox Series X and S, and both presented a very decent form of the game (bugs aside). Indeed, in the high quality 30fps mode on Series X, it is also very good looking – not quite a 4K presentation, but still crisp and clear.
The SSD also ensured that not only were loading times speedy between fast-travel locations, graphics pop-in was almost unnoticeable. It didn’t suffer the horrible lag before textures appear on objects and pedestrians, as experienced on current-gen consoles.
We did run the game from an external HDD too as a test (after all, this is just an Xbox One game running in backward compatibility through next-gen machines) and sure as eggs is eggs, there were some issues with the graphics. But, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as on the Xbox One S – likely thanks to the faster processing on Series X/S consoles.
From the SSD certainly, the game is very playable, looking decent and smooth in frame rate. That gives us hope that, once more bug fixes arrive, Cyberpunk 2077 will start to resemble the game we’d hoped for.
Indeed, everything is there for it to be a properly top tier game, it just needs the finesse that a few more months of development would have afforded. Sadly, we were among those lamenting the continual shifts in release dates. With hindsight, we wish CD Projekt Red had delayed further still.
Verdict
So much of Cyberpunk 2077 is superb. The combat belies the studio’s relative inexperience with first-person play, the story is gripping and soulful, and the voice acting and characterisations are simply next level.
Its use of Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand is much more than a gimmick, adding a sense of indie sci-fi flick to the proceedings, while Night City itself is a beautifully crafted character in itself, providing an open-world setting that delights round every corner – especially if you’re a Judge Dredd fan.
But it is also broken. So much so on the base PS4 and Xbox One consoles that we cannot fathom why they were released in that state, or even ever released at all.
On next-gen through PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, there are issues still, but it’s such a better game and, once serviced by more stable updates (including the promised next-gen enhancements), will likely reach the pedestal we’ve all been putting it on throughout its development.
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We’ll revisit it then and could even change our score to match the opinions of those playing it on PC. The lucky beggars.
The HP Omen Spacer is a reliable gaming keyboard for grown-ups. Backlighting is limited to red and white with very few customization options, and the key caps could be more premium. But the keyboard offers comfortable typing and good battery life.
For
Comfy, magnetic wrist rest
Mature look
Long battery life
Against
No media keys
Mediocre keycaps
Limited backlight colors, customization
Brown switches only
If you can live without a numpad, a tenkeyless (TKL) keyboard design is a great balance between functionality and efficiency. You get some extra space to move your mouse around, which is particularly good news for PC gamers, and reclaim some desk space without having to sacrifice basic functions, such as arrow keys, like 60% keyboards have you do. Chop off the cord, and the design gets even more efficient and the desk space even more aplenty. It’s no wonder this keyboard is named the HP Omen Spacer.
The Omen Spacer has an MSRP of $160 but is on sale currently for a more appropriate price of $100. At $160, it’d be competing with the pricier members of our Best Gaming Keyboards and Best Wireless Keyboards lists. That’s despite the Omen Spacer lacking much in the way of premiums, even the all too common per-key RGB. But not everyone needs millions of colors and extra keys built in their mechanical keyboard. The Omen Spacer is a mature keyboard that’s purely about getting to business — whether that business is work or play.
HP Omen Spacer Specs
Switches
Cherry MX Brown
Lighting
White and black backlighting
Onboard Storage
5 macro keys with Fn
Media Keys
With FN
Interface
2.4 GHz USB Type-A dongle or USB Type-A cable
Cable
USB-C to USB-A detachable, braided
Additional Ports
None
Key Caps
Plastic
Construction
ABS plastic
Software
HP Omen Gaming Hub
Dimensions (LxWxH)
Keyboard: 14.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches (369.3 x 139.4 x 36.1mm)
Wrist rest: 14.5 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches (369.3 x 104.1 x 17.8mm)
Weight
Keyboard: 2.1 pounds (952.5g)
Wrist rest: 0.6 pounds (272.2g)
Extra
Wrist rest, USB extender
Design of HP Omen Spacer
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With a notable price tag, there’s a lot that has to be done for the Omen Spacer to look like it’s worth the cost. HP makes its attempt without the colorful LEDs available in a countless range of colors. Instead, the Omen Spacer’s backlighting is red and/or white only. In a world where the ability to pick the color of each individual key is commonplace among gaming keyboards, especially expensive ones, this stands out.
If you download HP’s Omen Gaming Hub software (more on that in the Features and Software section), you can choose among premade effects that are mostly white except for the WASD and arrow keys. Other effects, such as MOBA, turn off all the lights except for on certain clusters, like white for 1-6, Shift and Ctrl and red for WASD. The WASD and arrow cluster can only be red, never white. Some will rejoice at this scaled back approach to gaming peripheral lighting, and the Omen Spacer is still a looker. But for others, it’ll be hard to ignore the lack of customization options that similarly priced and cheaper gaming keyboards offer.
The Omen Spacer’s chassis is all plastic — ABS substrate to be exact. It feels solid and sturdy and carries a matte painted finish. In terms of build and look, it’s a decent replacement for something better known for durability, like aluminum. However, for this price an all-plastic keyboard is a little underwhelming.
Indeed, the plastic theme, in a more mundane way, carries over to the key caps. They’re each stamped with a modern font that’s both slender and strong and looks unique whether lit up in backlighting or not. The key caps themselves are built comfortably with comfortable grooves for your fingers, but they also attract fingerprint smudges. Also, I noted a small chip in my Esc key’s black finish after a few weeks of heavy use. It’s possible I scraped it with another piece of hardware, but this does show that it’s possible to chip the paint off the key caps if you’re not careful enough.
A handy battery indicator helps you know when you’ve turned the keyboard on or off (or if the battery’s running low). The power switch on the top edge also shows green when on, and combined with the battery indicator it helps alleviate any confusion when charging the Omen Spacer or pairing it with your PC.
Speaking of, a USB-C port lives next to the power button, allowing you to charge or use the keyboard with its braided USB-C to USB-A cable. HP also includes an extender that you can insert the helpfully Omen-stamped USB Type-A 2.4 GHz dongle into to further reduce potential connection uses.
The Omen Spacer lives up to its name and saves you desk space by skipping dedicated media controls or macro keys. Instead, you get five macro keys (labeled P1-P5) on F1-F5 that you can program and activate by holding the Fn key. Volume and media track control also lives in the FN row. This is better than nothing but not as easy to manipulate as a volume roller, for example, especially since there’s no left Fn key (as is common with TKL keyboards).
At 14.5 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches without its wrist rest, the Omen Spacer is less long and less wide than other TKL keyboards. Take the Logitech G915 TKL, another wireless TKL. It’s 15.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches, keeping a short height with its low profile mechanical switches. There are trimmer TKLs though, such as the wired Roccat Vulcan TKL Pro (14.2 x 5.3 x 1.3 inches).
There’s a subtle Omen logo engraved on the keyboard’s bottom edge that you’ll almost never see, especially if you use the included wrist rest. Other than that, superfluous details are at a minimum, keeping the design straightforward and efficient.
Although this wouldn’t have taken up much space, the Omen Spacer also leaves out flip-out feet. I usually keep my keyboards flat in an attempt to help keep my wrists flat, and I found the Omen Spacer’s height comfortable. However, those who like some flexibility or, perhaps, plan on using a thicker wrist rest than the one that comes in the box will be disappointed.
The wrist rest you get magnetically attaches to the bottom of the keyboard and offers a nice, soft faux leather feel and some plush. After a couple weeks of heavy use, I could see the leather starting to wrinkle a little, especially where I keep my left wrist. And it’s easy for debris to crawl into the border around the fake leather. It may start looking a little scraggy down the line, but this wrist rest is still better quality and more comfortable than many that come free with gaming keyboards.
Typing Experience on HP Omen Spacer
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Keeping with its simpler approach to the wireless gaming keyboard, the Omen Spacer is only available with one type of mechanical switch: Cherry MX Browns. These tactile switches have 4mm total travel with a 2mm actuation point, 4mm total travel and require 55g of force to actuate. It’s an excellent option for frequent typists and a good balance for gaming too. But there’s no opportunity for linear switches, which are popular for gaming, or clicky switches, which are popular for making a lot of noise.
We’re happy to see full-size switches from a trusted brand, which will help make for a familiar experience for the many mechanical keyboard fans who’ve tried out tactile brown switches. Logitech’s G915 TKL wireless keyboard uses low profile switches from Logitech, and you’ll find some of the best wireless keyboards opt for Cherry copycats, such as Outemu switches. Another TKL competitor, the Corsair K63 Wireless is only available with linear Cherry MX Red Switches, so HP’s offering is a good alternative for those who like this form factor but prefer to feel a reassuring bump as they press each key.
The Omen Spacer’s key caps don’t offer much resistance. They have comfortable grooves that fit my fingertips nicely, but there’s some mild slipperiness to them that made typing slightly more exhausting. But with the keys’ Cherry MX Brown switches and significant amount of space between them, typing was a delight. On the 10fastfingers.com typing test I hit my average speed but dropped about 2% in accuracy, possibly because I still needed to adjust to the distance between the keys.
There’s a plasticky feel to each press, from the slightly slicked top of the key caps to the more hollow plastic sound of the arrow keys and plastic rackety sound of the spacebar. Despite it being quieter than something with Cherry MX Blue switches or a lot of metallic dinging when bottoming out (that sound is rare on this keyboard), the Omen Spacer is far from silent.
Note that out-of the box, there’s no Scroll Lock button. You have to download the keyboard’s software to change that. Otherwise, Scroll Lock is replaced with a button for bringing up the keyboard’s software with a single button or toggling the backlight brightness (low, medium, brightest or off) with Fn.
Gaming Experience on HP Omen Spacer
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
After a couple of weeks using the Omen Spacer regularly, I didn’t experience any obvious connectivity issues with the 2.4 GHz dongle, and the lack of a cable didn’t obviously impact the keyboard’s responsiveness either. It’d take a very keen eye to notice any lag, and I encountered zero dropped connections. I had no need for an extender, but that’s also an option if your PC is particularly far from the keyboard.
HP says the USB-A dongle uses its bespoke Warp Wireless technology. Even when pairing it with my best gaming headset that also had a 2.4 GHz dongle and a Bluetooth wireless mouse, I had no issues. There’s nothing particularly special about the Omen Spacer’s wireless connection. It’s a reliable dongle connection just like many gaming vendors are offering today. But I can at least confirm that Warp worked well in the HP Omen Vector wireless mouse too (you’ll also find HP Warp branding in the upcoming HP Omen Frequency wireless headset).
HP opted for just one mechanical switch option here, Cherry MX Browns. Many gamers prefer linear switches because hitting keys quickly or repeatedly is easier without having to press through a bump. There’s no linear option here, but Cherry MX Browns may have their own gaming advantage. Some people enjoy them for how easy they are to double-tap, especially compared to stiffer, clicky switches, like Cherry MX Blues. They reset at 2mm, which is just slightly quicker than Cherry MX Red’s reset point (under 2.5mm). But Browns also require more force to actuate (55g versus the Red’s 45g). It’s all about preference, but if you plan on doing a lot of typing in addition to gaming, these switches can be a good fit.
In Overwatch, the amount of space between the keys made it easy for me to keep track of my fingers without having to take eyes off the screen. However, the keys are a little wobbly. That made times when I was resting fingers on a key / move, anticipating the perfect moment to strike, a bit more uncomfortable, as it was harder to keep my finger still and ready. The key caps’ slight slickness didn’t help either but probably won’t be too much an issue, unless your hands get very clammy.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Outside of its red and white backlighting patterns that cater to different game genres, the Omen Spacer uses other features to appeal to gamers. Handy for gaming (and productivity, depending how you use it) are the keyboard’s five P-keys that you can program to your liking, including macro programming moves or in-game actions or launching programs. You have to download the software to program the keys, and they’re not as seamless as having dedicated macro keys, but those would also take up more space.
The Omen Spacer is also able to read all key inputs, even if you’re pressing every key simultaneously, and it’s easy to disable the Windows key by hitting Fn and Print Screen or opening the keyboard’s software.
Battery Life of HP Omen Spacer
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The longevity of the Omen Spacer’s battery will, of course, depend on how much you blast the backlight (off, 25% brightness, 50% or 100%). You can check the battery status via the Omen Gaming Hub app, and the battery indicator on the keyboard will turn orange once battery life is low.
With all keys lit at 100% brightness, my test unit lasted 17 hours and 20 minutes before it died.
That number, not surprisingly, jumps dramatically with the lighting off, where I had my Omen Spacer on for about 59 hours and 15 minutes with heavy use, and its battery meter still said 60%. (Although, battery life could have been as low as 51%, since the meter only moves in 10% increments, and we can’t guarantee battery life drains at a consistent pace regardless of current battery remaining.)
HP claims up to 75 hours battery life with the Omen Spacer and 6 hours of playtime after 5 minutes of charging. That’s a big jump over the 15 hours peak Corsair claims with the K63 Wireless and Logitech’s 40 hours for the G915 TKL. Given the amount of time we got out of the Omen Spacer without any backlighting, we’d say that 75 hour figure is definitely reasonable if not modest.
Features and Software of HP Omen Spacer
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If you download HP Omen Gaming Hub, you’ll first be met with excessive ads. Once you find the small amount of space actually dedicated to controlling the keyboard, you can access the battery meter, as well as various settings.
The Omen Spacer has one onboard memory profile, allowing you to carry over functions programmed into the five P-keys (F1-F5) across PCs without software. You can carry RGB settings and additional profiles across systems by downloading the software, making a login and turning on cloud sync.
The Omen Gaming Hub’s Lighting section offers control over the backlight’s brightness (0%, 25%, 75% or 100%). You can also choose among different templates, but remember that the WASD and arrow keys will either be red or have no backlight. There are also animated effects — Ripple, Breathing and Left or Right Wave with the option to pick between a speed of “slow,” “medium” or “fast.”
The Key Assignments menu lets you pick what holding down Fn and F1-F5 does. That makes it easy to program moves in games, keyboard shortcuts, app launches and more, but not as easy as being able to do it with one button press instead of two.
You can make different profiles for individual games or apps, but they won’t launch automatically with the game. Omen Gaming Hub lets you assign a picture and name to each profile though.
There’s also an option to turn on Game Mode (disables the Window key) and 128-bit encryption, which is said to be unbreakable by humans (it’d take about 1.02 x 1018 years to crack it, according to security vendor Comodo). The latter, according to HP’s software, “offers more security but may add latency.” This is probably for overkill, especially if you’re using this keyboard for gaming rather than high-security work. But I always had the feature on during gaming and didn’t notice any obvious latency with it activated either.
Bottom Line
When did gaming keyboards (and the rest of gaming peripherals, for that matter) get so gaudy? The HP Omen Spacer proves that not all of them have to be. You can still get a serious looking keyboard with premium mechanical switches and features you want on the battlefield, like a trim build, macro functionality and even an above-average wrist rest freebie.
But the Omen Spacer also leaves somes choices out. It’s only available with tactile switches, no smooth, linear switches or clicky ones. Per-key RGB is also common among rivals but missing here.
Alternative TKL wireless gaming keyboards also come at a price though. The Corsair K63 Wireless has a cheaper MSRP ($110) and uses Cherry MX Red switches and dedicated media keys but has a blue-only backlight. The Logitech G915 TKL, meanwhile, is almost in a different class, from its luxurious dedicated media keys, aluminum accent, low profile design and Bluetooth. Its price tag is much higher ($180-$230), but you also get your choice of tactile, linear or clicky low profile switches.
If you don’t need Cherry switches, there are budget TKL wireless options, including the $85 Keychron K2 or its hot swappable twin. The Redragon K596 Vishnu is $73 at this writing and has media keys.
But the HP Omen Spacer will easily slide into your office or gaming den and encourages carefree playing without taking up too much space or overwhelming you with bling.
The 2020 was a year of unpredictability, which however gave a great boost to communication and collaboration technologies, but also to intelligence artificial and analytics. What should we expect for 2020? The opinion of SAS
by Alberto Falchi published 24 December 2020 , at 08: 21 in the Innovation channel Sas artificial intelligence
The 2020 has been a year of unpredictability, but what awaits us, technologically speaking, for the 2021? 7 SAS experts tried to make their predictions , basing their opinions on the many revolutions that have characterized this year, and that offer new opportunities for companies that will be able to leverage data to propel their business.
The 7 forecasts of SAS for the 2021
1: Analytics: to make the most of them the cloud needs to be reconfigured. I cloud providers will face a major challenge for 2021: to reconfigure their systems to be suitable for analytics, a function to which were not designed. “ Originally the cloud was designed for transactional systems. And not for analytics. Analytics require much more memory than a traditional application in order to operate in real-time. These are aspects that cloud providers had not thought of as initially the applications in the cloud were transactional “, explains Tom Fisher, Senior Vice President of Business Development at SAS .
2: AI to make better decisions Artificial intelligence is one of the technologies that in recent years, especially in the 2020, have grown rapidly, adopted by a growing number of companies of all sizes. The initial skepticism has now been overcome and even executives are starting to trust AI’s suggestions more. But, to do so, they need to understand better the patterns of functioning and greater visibility into the results provided by artificial intelligences. As explained by João Oliveira, Business Solutions Manager of SAS , “ The more visibility decision makers have on AI results, the greater their confidence in the decisions made by the models. Adding human supervision and explaining the models at each stage a decision-making process will create greater trust in Artificial Intelligence and in automated decision-making “.
3: Small and increasingly connected and technological centers The pandemic has prompted many people to revise their housing priorities. This is also due to smart working, a measure implemented quickly to ensure the continuation of the business, and which has proven to be effective, as well as appreciated by companies and employees. This will push more people to move out of big cities, but small towns will have to adapt to new needs, ensuring ultra-fast connectivity and digital services comparable to those of more densely populated realities. “ When the inhabitants of a city decide to move to smaller towns, they expect to find the same levels in the latter. services, including fast broadband, home delivery of food and effective digital interaction with government agencies and officials. Small urban centers are increasingly catching up with large cities thanks to the use of analytics. a time when the workplace has assumed less importance than in the past, small towns have greater opportunities to attract people by exploiting the potential of analytics and driving a previously unthinkable population growth “, explains Shaun Barry, Senior Manager, Global Security Practice of SAS .
4: Consumers will be increasingly attentive (and demanding) Citizens are those who more use digital technologies and are now used to e-commerce and digital services. To be competitive, companies must be increasingly efficient and able to meet expectations. As explains Mike Blanchard, Head of Global Customer Intelligence Practice at SAS , “ Consumers are increasingly accustomed to digitization: digitization of retail, banking, healthcare – and more. Work, school, conferences, concerts , religious services, fitness are enjoyed differently, this is the trend, and companies will have to keep up. This means performing digital technologies, more efficient supply chains, online customer service – all managed and optimized with analytics. If you can quickly digitize processes, you will have more data and information and a better view of who is interested in your content, products and services “.
5: A new generation of workers arrives If the exponents of the millennial generation were born and cr that came out with digital devices, the next generation grew up with data. I native data , defines them Lucy Kosturko, Manager, Social Innovation by SAS: “ A generation raised with data – from food to physical activity, from sleep to productivity – is starting to enter the world of work. The innate ability of “data natives” to track and understand data will improve the way we work. These are new skills of data literacy and a level of “comfort” with data and their analysis that will help make all aspects of organizations more innovative “.
6: data will put patients at the center of therapy The theme of health has inevitably characterized the 2020, guiding the spread of technology in this area. And medicine, according to SAS, will take further steps by leveraging analytics.
“ The drug development process continues to improve with advanced analytics – and all improvements benefit patients “- stated Mark Lambrecht, Director of Global Health and Life Sciences at SAS – “ Thanks to advances in analytics, for example, clinical trials are able to group multiple drugs into a single study instead of studying one drug at a time. Genetically profiled targeted therapies are becoming easier to develop. AND Results from each phase of clinical trials are coming faster and faster, giving patients a better opportunity to find therapies that will work for them “.
7: AI and analytics will also disrupt institutions more linked to traditional approaches, such as banks and public bodies “ Advances in Artificial Intelligence and analytics will help revive the positive sentiment towards traditional organizations such as public bodies and institutions banking “- explains Steve Bennett, Director of Public Sector and Financial Services at SAS – “The responses of public and governmental bodies to COVID – 19, for example, are changing the perception of the responsiveness of institutions. And banks that implement automated decisions surprise customers with new investment opportunities. Today, analytics can really make a difference in supporting the citizen “.
With the expansion of the partnership, the Dynatrace observability features such as real user monitoring and synthetic monitoring will be available on SAP Commerce Cloud. All customers can access it through SAP Store
of Alberto Falchi published 23 December 2020 , at 16: 51 in the Cloud channel SAP Dynatrace
During these holidays the shopkeepers who rely on the SAP Commerce Cloud will be able to access new functions. SAP and Dynatrace have in fact extended their collaboration and now the functionality of the software intelligence platform will be available to SAP customers through the SAP Store.
Dynatrace software intelligence on SAP Commerce Cloud
Dynatrace’s software intelligence platform guarantees visibility on all company systems , identifying the points of friction, potential problems and checking the status of all services, so as to guarantee customers a smooth and smooth experience. It is a platform that monitors the digital experience of customers , and helps users – in in this case retailers – to optimize the user experience and maximize conversions.
By activating these functions, SAP customers will be able to have detailed information on running applications and services, including those of third parties, and quickly identify slowdowns and anomalies, which will then be listed based on the impact on the business. as well as having detailed information on the customer journey , the sequence of actions that customers perform in their purchase path.
Based on this information, it is then possible to improve the systems in order to guarantee a better and more linear experience, also avoiding freezes or slowdowns of applications.
A testimony of how Dynatrace’s solution applied to SAP Commerce Cloud can help companies comes from Christoferson Chua, B2B E -Commerce Lead Developer from ASICS : “ The combined power of SAP Commerce Cloud and Dynatrace digital experience monitoring helps us understand and identify bottlenecks in our e-commerce integrations, enabling our teams to proactively drive innovation and optimizations to get a showcase fast and responsive. Ultimately, this allows us to strengthen our relationships with customers and partners, as well as our brand value “.
According to Michael Allen, VP of Global Partners at Dynatrace , “ Extending Dynatrace’s AI and Digital Experience Management Capabilities to SAP Commerce Cloud Helps retailers a know exactly what is happening in their environments, on mobile, web and other edge channels. They can see where the issues with the greatest impact lie and how the performance of their digital services affects business results. This helps ensure that, even during the most critical moments and busy days, digital experiences work flawlessly ” .
Further information on the solution is available at this address.
Apple, Amazon and Google have already done it (at least in part) or have taken the first steps and apparently Microsoft is also planning something similar: The development of its own processor design. Microsoft currently mainly uses processors from Intel for its Surface products and in the Azure cloud.
An exception is the SQ1, which Microsoft developed in cooperation with Qualcomm for the Surface Pro X. . AMD has released a Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition for the Surface Laptop 3. These two examples are at least valid for the Surface hardware.
But now Microsoft is apparently planning to go a step further and is developing its own processors – according to Bloomberg. Like almost all x 86 – alternatives, Microsoft apparently works with an ARM architecture. Processors are planned for their own Surface devices, but also for the Azure cloud, i.e. for use in the data center segment.
It is still completely unclear which ARM base Microsoft will use. On the client processor side, Microsoft would have a certain selection of Cortex cores that could then be implemented, presumably in a big.LITTLE design. Microsoft has already gained some experience in this regard with the SQ1 SoC mentioned above. Depending on how much design work Microsoft wants to (or can) put into such a SoC, the design can be adapted to different degrees. Apple, for example, only pays ARM license fees for the M1 SoC and the cores used in it, but uses heavily customized designs that have nothing to do with a Cortex design.
For the Datacenter is most likely that Microsoft will fall back on the Neoverse reference platform in the form of the N2 or N1 generation. ARM presented these in late summer of this year and should be used for many ARM processors for the data center, which will be presented from next year. Google already uses its own AI accelerators for some applications. These are already being used as TPU in the 3rd generation. With the Graviton2 processors, Amazon already uses an ARM design with 64 cores and Microsoft itself installed not only processors from AMD and Intel in the Azure cloud, but has already experimented with the ThunderX2 from Marvell. Currently, all these developments are running parallel to the offer with classic x 86 servers.
For the established CPU manufacturers and above all Intel, the current development represents a certain challenge. Many so-called hyperscalers develop their own processors and will therefore no longer be major customers of Intel in the medium and long term. In addition, Intel is getting more and more pressure from its direct competitor AMD, which is nibbling off increasing market shares in the data center. On the client side, the switch from Intel to its own Apple Silicon processors at Apple also represents the current balance of power and shows the willingness of many manufacturers to switch.
According to Bloomberg sources, in addition to the server processor, Microsoft may also design the processor for the Surface series.
Big money is moving in server processors, and Amazon, among others, the world’s largest cloud service provider, has also developed its own processors for its servers. According to a Bloomberg report, Microsoft is now on the same track. According to Bloomberg’s anonymous sources, Microsoft is currently developing its own Arm-based server chip for Azure cloud services. Microsoft has developed its own chips before, and the augmented reality HoloLens 2 glasses, for example, use the company’s Holographic Processing Unit 2.0
. According to the sources on the news site, it is possible that there would also be something suitable for Surface devices underway, but the sources were even more cautious about that. Microsoft currently uses its own SQ1 and SQ2 chips in its Surface X Pro tablets, but they are based on Qualcomm’s system circuits instead of the company’s own design.
Microsoft is known to have hired processors in recent years to process processors from AMD, Intel and Qualcomm, which has buried its own server processor lines. The company has, of course, refused to comment on the actual rumors in any way, but stated that the company will continue to invest in its own circuits, their design and manufacture, and in its numerous collaborations with other circuit manufacturers.
Source: Bloomberg
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