Software - Page 48 of 189

Tens of thousands of Verkada cameras were easily accessible to employees as well as hackers

Employees of cloud-based surveillance firm Verkada had widespread access to feeds from customers’ cameras, according to new reports from Bloomberg and The Washington Post.

Verkada’s systems were recently breached by a “hacktivist” collective which gained access to more than 150,000 of the company’s cameras in locations ranging from Tesla factories, to police stations, gyms, schools, jails, and hospitals. The group, who call themselves Advanced Persistent Threat 69420, stumbled across log-in credentials for Verkada’s “Super Admin” accounts online. They publicized their findings, saying they were motivated by “lots of curiosity, fighting for freedom of information and against intellectual property, a huge dose of anti-capitalism, a hint of anarchism — and it’s also just too much fun not to do it.”

Now, anonymous Verkada employees say the same “Super Admin” accounts that the hackers accessed were also widely shared in the company itself. More than 100 employees had Super Admin privileges, reports Bloomberg, meaning that these individuals could browse the live feeds from tens of thousands of cameras around the world at any time. “We literally had 20-year-old interns that had access to over 100,000 cameras and could view all of their feeds globally,” one former senior-level employee told the publication.

Verkada, meanwhile, says access was limited to employees who needed to fix technical problems or address user complaints. “Verkada’s training program and policies for employees are both clear that support staff members were and are required to secure a customer’s explicit permission before accessing that customer’s video feed,” said the Silicon Valley firm in a statement given to Bloomberg.

The Washington Post, though, cites the testimony of surveillance researcher Charles Rollet, who says individuals with close knowledge of the company told him that Verkada employees could access feeds without customers’ knowledge. “People don’t realize what happens on the back-end, and they assume that there are always these super-formal processes when it comes to accessing footage, and that the company will always need to give explicit consent,” said Rollet. But clearly that’s not always the case.”

Another former employee told Bloomberg that although Verkada’s internal systems asked workers to explain why they were accessing a customer’s camera, this documentation was not taken seriously. “Nobody cared about checking the logs,” said the employee. “You could put whatever you wanted in that note; you could even just enter a single space.”

Verkada’s cameras offer AI-powered analytics, including facial recognition and the ability to search footage for specific individuals.

Image: Verkada

Verkada’s cloud-based cameras were sold to customers in part on the strength of their analytical software. One feature called “People Analytics” let customers “search and filter based on many different attributes, including gender traits, clothing color, and even a person’s face,” said Verkada in a blog post. Their cloud-based systems that gave customers’ easy access to their camera’s feeds also enabled the breach.

The hacker collective Advanced Persistent Threat 69420 (the name is a nod to the taxonomy used by cybersecurity companies to catalog state-sponsored hackers combined with the meme numbers 69 and 420) say they wanted to inform the public of the dangers of such ubiquitous surveillance. The breach “exposes just how broadly we’re being surveilled, and how little care is put into at least securing the platforms used to do so, pursuing nothing but profit,” one member of the group told Bloomberg. “It’s just wild how I can just see the things we always knew are happening, but we never got to see.”

I guess I have to watch ads everywhere on my $1,500 LG TV now

This afternoon, I was updating the streaming apps on my 2020 LG CX OLED TV, something I do from time to time, but today was different. Out of nowhere, I saw (and heard) an ad for Ace Hardware start playing in the lower-left corner. It autoplayed with sound without any action on my part.

Now I’m fully aware that it’s not unusual to see ads placed around a TV’s home screen or main menu. LG, Samsung, Roku, Vizio, and others are all in on this game. We live in an era when smart TVs can automatically recognize what you’re watching, and TV makers are building nice ad businesses for themselves with all of the data that gets funneled in.

But this felt pretty egregious even by today’s standards. A random, full-on commercial just popping up in LG’s app store? Is there no escape from this stuff? We’re just going to cram ads into every corner of a TV’s software, huh? Imagine if an autoplay ad started up while you were updating the apps on your smartphone.

The Ace spot wasn’t particularly annoying — it was over in 15 seconds — nor did it feel targeted at me or creepy. It’s really the placement that feels like a step too far.

This stuff can come off as invasive, but it’s also partially what’s steadily brought the prices down on even high-end TVs. I got this 55-inch CX on sale for like $1,400, and it’s pretty much the best TV on the market for next-gen gaming. But even if this beautiful panel came cheaper than it might have without ads plastered in random places, the level of ad infiltration on display here is still disheartening to see. LG recently announced it will be licensing webOS to other TV brands, so maybe the company is trying to see how far it can push things.

I guess I can always cut the TV’s internet connection and stick to a streaming stick or my Xbox Series X if the autoplay commercials keep popping up everywhere. Or maybe I can opt out of a setting somewhere to end the barrage. Some people aren’t bothered by this stuff, but if you are, check out this excellent Reddit thread, which can help you fight back and block some of the domains that these TVs phone home to for their ads. A lot of people on Twitter also pointed me to Pi-hole as a fix.

I guess I have to watch ads everywhere on my $1,500 LG TV now

The Ace spot wasn’t particularly annoying — it was over in 15 seconds — nor did it feel targeted at me or creepy. It’s really the placement that feels like a step too far.

GPU Test System Update March 2021

Introduction

TechPowerUp is one of the most highly cited graphics card review sources on the web, and we strive to keep our testing methods, game selection, and, most importantly, test bench up to date. Today, I am pleased to announce our newest March 2021 VGA test system, which has one of many firsts for TechPowerUp. This is our first graphics card test bed powered by an AMD CPU. We are using the Ryzen 7 5800X 8-core processor based on the “Zen 3” architecture. The new test setup fully supports the PCI-Express 4.0 x16 bus interface to maximize performance of the latest generation of graphics cards by both NVIDIA and AMD. The platform also enables the Resizable BAR feature by PCI-SIG, allowing the processor to see the whole video memory as a single addressable block, which could potentially improve performance.

A new test system heralds completely re-testing every single graphics card used in our performance graphs. It allows us to kick out some of the older graphics cards and game tests to make room for newer cards and games. It also allows us to refresh our OS, testing tools, update games to the latest version, and explore new game settings, such as real-time raytracing, and newer APIs.

A VGA rebench is a monumental task for TechPowerUp. This time, I’m testing 26 graphics cards in 22 games at 3 resolutions, or 66 game tests per card, which works out to 1,716 benchmark runs in total. In addition, we have doubled our raytracing testing from two to four titles. We also made some changes to our power consumption testing, which is now more detailed and more in-depth than ever.

In this article, I’ll share some thoughts on what was changed and why, while giving you a first look at the performance numbers obtained on the new test system.

Hardware

Below are the hardware specifications of the new March 2021 VGA test system.

Test System – VGA 2021.1
Processor:	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X @ 4.8 GHz (Zen 3, 16 MB Cache)
Motherboard:	MSI B550-A Pro BIOS 7C56vA5 / AGESA 1.2.0.0
Memory:	Thermaltake TOUGHRAM, 16 GB DDR4 @ 4000 MHz 19-23-23-42 1T Infinity Fabric @ 2000 MHz (1:1)
Cooling:	Corsair iCue H100i RGB Pro XT 240 mm AIO
Storage:	Crucial MX500 2 TB SSD
Power Supply:	Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium 850 W
Case:	darkFlash DLX22
Operating System:	Windows 10 Professional 64-bit Version 20H2 (October 2020 Update)
Drivers:	AMD: 21.2.3 Beta NVIDIA: 461.72 WHQL

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X has emerged as the fastest processor we can recommend to gamers for play at any resolution. We could have gone with the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X or even maxed out this platform with the 16-core 5950X, but neither would be faster at gaming, and both would be significantly more expensive. AMD certainly wants to sell you the more expensive (overpriced?) CPU, but the Ryzen 7 5800X is actually the fastest option because of its single CCD architecture. Our goal with GPU test systems over the past decade has consistently been to use the fastest mainstream-desktop processor. Over the years, this meant a $300-something Core i7 K-series LGA115x chip making room for the $500 i9-9900K. The 5900X doesn’t sell for anywhere close to this mark, and we’d rather not use an overpriced processor just because we can. You’ll also notice that we skipped upgrading to the 10-core “Comet Lake” Core i9-10900K processor from the older i9-9900K because we saw no significant increases and negligible gaming performance gains, especially considering the large overclock on the i9-9900K. The additional two cores do squat for nearly all gaming situations, which is the second reason besides pricing that had us decide against the Ryzen 9 5900X.

We continue using our trusted Thermaltake TOUGHRAM 16 GB dual-channel memory kit that served us well for many years. 32 GB isn’t anywhere close to needed for gaming, so I didn’t want to hint at that, especially to less experienced readers checking out the test system. We’re running at the most desirable memory configuration for Zen 3 to reduce latencies inside the processor: Infinity Fabric at 2000 MHz, memory clocked at DDR4-4000, in 1:1 sync with the Infinity Fabric clock. Timings are at a standard CL19 configuration that’s easily found on affordable memory modules—spending extra for super-tight timings usually is overkill and not worth it for the added performance.

The MSI B550-A PRO was an easy choice for a motherboard. We wanted a cost-effective motherboard for the Ryzen 9 5800X and don’t care at all about RGB or other bling. The board can handle the CPU and memory settings we wanted for this test bed, the VRM barely gets warm. It also doesn’t come with any PCIe gymnastics—a simple PCI-Express 4.0 x16 slot wired to the CPU without any lane switches along the way. The slot is metal-reinforced and looks like it can take quite some abuse over time. Even though I admittedly swap cards hundreds of times each year, probably even 1000+ times, it has never been any issue—insertion force just gets a bit softer, which I actually find nice.

Software and Games

Windows 10 was updated to 20H2
The AMD graphics driver used for all testing is now 21.2.3 Beta
All NVIDIA cards use 461.72 WHQL

All existing games have been updated to their latest available version

The following titles were removed:

Anno 1800: old, not that popular, CPU limited
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: old, DX11, replaced by Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Hitman 2: old, replaced by Hitman 3
Project Cars 3: not very popular, DX11
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order: horrible EA Denuvo makes hardware changes a major pain, DX11 only, Unreal Engine 4, of which we have several other titles
Strange Brigade: old, not popular at all

The following titles were added:

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Cyberpunk 2077
Hitman 3
Star Wars Squadrons
Watch Dogs: Legion

I considered Horizon Zero Dawn, but rejected it because it uses the same game engine as Death Stranding. World of Warcraft or Call of Duty won’t be tested because of their always-online nature, which enforces game patches that mess with performance—at any time. Godfall is a bad game, Epic exclusive, and commercial flop.

The full list of games now consists of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Battlefield V, Borderlands 3, Civilization VI, Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding, Detroit Become Human, Devil May Cry 5, Divinity Original Sin 2, DOOM Eternal, F1 2020, Far Cry 5, Gears 5, Hitman 3, Metro Exodus, Red Dead Redemption 2, Sekiro, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Star Wars Squadrons, The Witcher 3, and Watch Dogs: Legion.

Raytracing

We previously tested raytracing using Metro Exodus and Control. For this round of retesting, I added Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch Dogs Legion. While Cyberpunk 2077 does not support raytracing on AMD, I still felt it’s one of the most important titles to test raytracing with.

While Godfall and DIRT 5 support raytracing, too, neither has had sufficient commercial success to warrant inclusion in the test suite.

Power Consumption Testing

The power consumption testing changes have been live for a couple of reviews already, but I still wanted to detail them a bit more in this article.

After our first Big Navi reviews I realized that something was odd about the power consumption testing method I’ve been using for years without issue. It seemed the Radeon RX 6800 XT was just SO much more energy efficient than NVIDIA’s RTX 3080. It definitely is more efficient because of the 7 nm process and AMD’s monumental improvements in the architecture, but the lead just didn’t look right. After further investigation, I realized that the RX 6800 XT was getting CPU bottlenecked in Metro: Last Light at even the higher resolutions, whereas the NVIDIA card ran without a bottleneck. This of course meant NVIDIA’s card consumed more power in this test because it could run faster.

The problem here is that I used the power consumption numbers from Metro for the “Performance per Watt” results under the assumption that the test loaded the card to the max. The underlying reason for the discrepancy is AMD’s higher DirectX 11 overhead, which only manifested itself enough to make a difference once AMD actually had cards able to compete in the high-end segment.

While our previous physical measurement setup was better than what most other reviewers use, I always wanted something with a higher sampling rate, better data recording, and a more flexible analysis pipeline. Previously, we recorded at 12 samples per second, but could only store minimum, maximum, and average. Starting and stopping the measurement process was a manual operation, too.

The new data acquisition system also uses professional lab equipment and collects data at 40 samples per second, which is four times faster than even NVIDIA’s PCAT. Every single data point is recorded digitally and stashed away for analysis. Just like before, all our graphics card power measurement is “card only”, not the “whole system” or “GPU chip only” (the number displayed in the AMD Radeon Settings control panel).

Having all data recorded means we can finally chart power consumption over time, which makes for a nice overview. Below is an example data set for the RTX 3080.

The “Performance per Watt” chart has been simplified to “Energy Efficiency” and is now based on the actual power and FPS achieved during our “Gaming” power consumption testing run (Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p, see below).

The individual power tests have also been refined:

“Idle” testing is now measuring at 1440p, whereas it used 1080p previously. This is to follow the increasing adoption rates of high-res monitors.
“Multi-monitor” is now 2560×1440 over DP + 1920×1080 over HDMI—to test how well power management works with mixed resolutions over mixed outputs.
“Video Playback” records power usage of a 4K30 FPS video that’s encoded with H.264 AVC at 64 Mbps bitrate—similar enough to most streaming services. I considered using something like madVR to further improve video quality, but rejected it because I felt it to be too niche.
“Gaming” power consumption is now using Cyberpunk 2077 at 1440p with Ultra settings—this definitely won’t be CPU bottlenecked. Raytracing is off, and we made sure to heat up the card properly before taking data. This is very important for all GPU benchmarking—in the first seconds, you will get unrealistic boost rates, and the lower temperature has the silicon operating at higher efficiency, which screws with the power consumption numbers.
“Maximum” uses Furmark at 1080p, which pushes all cards into its power limiter—another important data point.
Somewhat as a bonus, and I really wasn’t sure if it’s as useful, I added another run of Cyberpunk at 1080p, capped to 60 FPS, to simulate a “V-Sync” usage scenario. Running at V-Sync not only removes tearing, but also reduces the power consumption of the graphics card, which is perfect for slower single-player titles where you don’t need the highest FPS and would rather conserve some energy and have less heat dumped into your room. Just to clarify, we’re technically running a 60 FPS soft cap so that weaker cards that can’t hit 60 FPS (GTX 1650S and GTX 1660) won’t run 60/30/20 FPS V-Sync, but go as high as able.
Last but not least, a “Spikes” measurement was added, which reports the highest 20 ms spike recorded in this whole test sequence. This spike usually appears at the start of Furmark, before the card’s power limiting circuitry can react to the new conditions. On RX 6900 XT, I measured well above 600 W, which can trigger the protections of certain power supplies, resulting in the machine suddenly turning off. This happened to me several times with a different PSU than the Seasonic, so it’s not a theoretical test.

Radeon VII Fail

Since we’re running with Resizable BAR enabled, we also have to boot with UEFI instead of CSM. When it was time to retest the Radeon VII, I got no POST, and it seemed the card was dead. Since there’s plenty of drama around Radeon VII cards suddenly dying, I already started looking for a replacement, but wanted to give it another chance in another machine, which had it working perfectly fine. WTF?

After some googling, I found our article detailing the lack of UEFI support on the Radeon VII. So that was the problem, the card simply didn’t have the BIOS update AMD released after our article. Well, FML, the page with the BIOS update no longer exists on AMD’s website.

Really? Someone on their web team made the decision to just delete the pages that contain an important fix to get the product working, a product that’s not even two years old? (launched Feb 7 2019, page was removed no later than Nov 8 2020).

Luckily, I found the updated BIOS in our VGA BIOS collection, and the card is working perfectly now.

Performance results are on the next page. If you have more questions, please do let us know in the comments section of this article.

Twitter tries to fix problematic image crops by not cropping pictures anymore

Twitter has devised a potential solution to its problematic image cropping issue: no more cropping. The company said on Wednesday it’s now testing a “what you see is what you get” image preview within the tweet compose box and experimenting with displaying full-frame images. That way, images will show up in the Twitter timeline looking just as they did when the user was composing the tweet.

“Now testing on Android and iOS: when you Tweet a single image, how the image appears in the Tweet composer is how it will look on the timeline –– bigger and better,” the company wrote in its announcement tweet on the new feature test. Twitter also says its testing new 4K image uploading on Android and iOS as part of a broader push “to improve how you can share and view media on Twitter.”

Now testing on Android and iOS: when you Tweet a single image, how the image appears in the Tweet composer is how it will look on the timeline –– bigger and better. pic.twitter.com/izI5S9VRdX

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) March 10, 2021

With the new image preview change, there should be less algorithmic surprises — like the ones several users brought attention to last fall that showed how the company’s automated cropping tool quite often favored white faces over Black ones. In many of those cases, irregularly sized images shared on Twitter were automatically cropped behind the scenes using an AI-powered algorithm, but in ways that raised some troubling questions about how the software prioritized skin color and other factors.

Twitter at the time said the neural network it uses for automated image cropping was tested for racial bias, and the company claims it found none. But it also admitted it needed to perform more analysis and refine its approach to avoid situations like this where even the appearance of bias was a possibility.

“It’s clear that we’ve got more analysis to do. We’ll open source our work so others can review and replicate,” wrote Twitter communications lead Liz Kelley in the aftermath of the controversy going viral. “Just because a system shows no statistical bias, doesn’t mean it won’t cause harm.” Kelley said Twitter would rely “less on auto-cropping so more often the photo you see in the Tweet composer is what it will look like in the Tweet.”

we are going to rely less on auto-cropping so more often the photo you see in the Tweet composer is what it will look like in the Tweet =

— liz kelley (@lizkelley) October 1, 2020

Twitter’s Parag Agrawal, the company’s chief technology officer, later wrote a blog post delving into the issue at length, saying at the time that Twitter would be conducting “additional analysis to add further rigor to our testing” and that it was “committed to sharing our findings and… exploring ways to open-source our analysis so that others can help keep us accountable.”

Now, it looks like Twitter’s proposed solution is here, at least in a test phase. While tweets in standard aspect ratios will be identical when previewed in the compose window and displayed in the timeline, Twitter’s design chief Dantley Davis says extra-wide or tall images will be center cropped for those included in the test. Twitter has not shared a concrete timeline for when this change may be pushed live for all users.

With this test, we hope to learn if this new approach is better and what changes we need to make to provide a “what you see is what you get” experience for Tweets with images.

— Dantley Davis (@dantley) March 10, 2021

Asus’ new ROG Phone 5 Ultimate has 18GB of RAM and a rear-facing OLED screen

Asus is going big with its latest gaming phones. The ROG Phone 5 lineup will start shipping this month across the globe, costing 799 euros (around $950) for the base configuration with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of fast UFS 3.1 storage. Every configuration has a 6.78-inch FHD+ OLED screen with a 144Hz refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sampling rate. Also, the headphone jack has made a comeback after being absent from the ROG Phone 3, this time with a quad DAC in tow for hi-res audio. (In case you’re wondering where the ROG Phone 4 went, Asus skipped over the number four, like OnePlus did, due to its similarities with the word “death” in some Asian languages.)

The most notable changes from the last generation are exclusive to some even more expensive configurations, the ROG Phone 5 Pro and Ultimate (which I published a review of) that release in April for 1,199 euros (approximately $1,420) and in May for 1,299 euros (about $1,583), respectively. Both of these models have double the storage and more RAM (starting at 16GB in the Pro and going all the way up to 18GB in the Ultimate); come in limited edition colors; and have two additional ultrasonic touch sensors than the standard model, located near where your ring fingers might rest while holding the phone in landscape mode. You’ll also get a case and a clip-on AeroActive Cooler 5 fan attachment with purchase with either the Pro or Ultimate phone (which adds two more buttons attached to the fan.)

The new Asus gaming phones aren’t huge departures from their predecessors, though the hardware and software are more refined. I reviewed the ROG Phone 5 Ultimate, and while it delivers on its promises to be a spec and feature juggernaut in some clever ways, paying $1,580 for it seems steep. Even the $950 base configuration isn’t what I’d consider affordable.

The Ultimate and Pro include “ROG Vision,” a feature that pushes premade or custom text or graphics to its rear-facing OLED screen. It’s a spin on Asus’ “Anime Matrix” effect used in the Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop, allowing you to personalize your phone if you want. The standard ROG Phone 5 simply has a backlit ROG logo, which some might find to be just enough pizazz.

I go into all of the features in the review. But if you’re just passing by and want to know all about the specs, I’ve attached a handy table just for you.

Asus ROG Phone 5 lineup specs

Comparison	ROG Phone 5 Ultimate	ROG Phone 5 Pro	ROG Phone 5
Comparison	ROG Phone 5 Ultimate	ROG Phone 5 Pro	ROG Phone 5
Colors	Matte white	Glossy black	Phantom black or Storm white
Price	1,299 Euros (approx. $1,583)	1,199 Euros (approx. $1,420)	Starts at 799 Euros (approx. $950)
Processor	Snapdragon 888	*	*
OS	Android 11 with ROG UI	*	*
Display	6.78-inch 2448 x 1080 OLED with 144Hz refresh rate	*	*
RAM	18GB LPDDR5	16GB LPDDR5	8GB,12GB or 16GB LPDDR5
Storage	512GB UFS 3.1	*	256GB UFS 3.1
Extra touch sensors	Yes	*	No
Rear-facing cameras	64-megapixel with F/1.8 aperture, 13-megapixel 125-degree ultra-wide with F/2.4 aperture, and a 5-megapixel macro lens with F/2.0	*	*
Front-facing camera	24-megapixel with F/2.45 aperture	*	*
ROG Vision support	Yes, monochromatic	Yes, color	No
Battery	6,000mAh	*	*
Included charger	65W	*	*
Dimensions	172.8 x 77.2 x 10.29 mm	*	*
Weight	238 grams	*	*
Connectivity	LTE and sub-6GHz 5G on AT&T and T-Mobile, Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2	*	*
Included accessories	AeroActive Cooler 5, Aero case	*	No cooler included
			* represents the same spec as the Ultimate

Photography by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Apple iPhone 11 vs iPhone 11 Pro vs iPhone 11 Pro Max: Which should you buy?

(Pocket-lint) – Apple announced the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max in September 2019. They were then succeeded by the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max in September 2020.

If you’re in the market for a new iPhone but you don’t want the latest models, you’re in the right place.

The iPhone 11 sits above the iPhone XR and is still available to buy from Apple alongside the iPhone 12 models. The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max took the place of the iPhone XS and XS Max, but while all are discontinued through Apple, you might be able to get hold of them elsewhere.

Here is how the three 2019 iPhones compare to help you work out which is the right one for you.

You can also read our separate features on how the iPhone 11 compares to the iPhone XR and how the iPhone 11 Pro models compare to the iPhone XS models.

squirrel_widget_167227

What’s the same across the iPhone 11 series?

Processor
No 3D Touch
Storage options
Software

The Apple iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max all run on the same processor, like the iPhone XR, XS and XS Max.

For 2019, that processor was the A13 Bionic chip with a third-generation neural engine (it’s also in the iPhone SE (2020)). The three models also come in the same storage capacities – 64GB, 256GB and 512GB – none of which have microSD.

None of the devices have 3D Touch on board, with all opting for Haptic Touch like the iPhone XR and the iPhone 12 models, but all offer True Tone technology and a wide colour gamut.

All three models also come with an improved front camera compared to their predecessors offering a 12-megapixel lens, next-generation Smart HDR for photos and Portrait Mode, as well as Portrait Lighting.

Face ID is on board all three models (as you would expect) and it too was improved compared to older models with more angles supported. All models launched on iOS 13, but they would now support iOS 14, delivering the same user experience and the same new features.

squirrel_widget_167226

What’s different between the iPhone 11 series?

Whilst the three iPhone 11s share numerous similarities – including power, software and a similar (though not identical) design, there are a few differences to consider before you make your choice.

Camera capabilities

iPhone 11: Dual camera
iPhone 11 Pro: Triple camera
iPhone 11 Pro Max: Triple camera

One of the main differences between the iPhone 11 series is their camera capabilities. The iPhone 11 comes with a dual camera, while the iPhone 11 Pro models come with a triple rear camera.

The iPhone 11 has dual 12-megapixel ultra-wide and wide cameras with the ultra-wide lens offering an aperture of f/2.4, while the wide lens has an aperture of f/1.8. The iPhone 11 Pro models have a triple 12-megapixel sensor setup, with the same two lenses as the iPhone 11, along with a telephoto lens offering an aperture of f/2.0.

All models have Night Mode, Auto Adjustments, Portrait mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control, Portrait Lighting with six effects and next-generation Smart HDR for photos. The Night Mode is very good, offering much better low light capabilities across all three devices.

The iPhone 11 has 2x optical zoom out, digital zoom up to 5x, while the iPhone 11 Pro models have 2x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out and 10x digital zoom. The optical zoom out refers to the ultra-wide-angle lens, allowing you to get more in the shot. Only the Pro models have 2x optical zoom in thanks to the third telephoto lens. The Pro models also have dual optical image stabilisation, while the iPhone 11 has standard optical image stabilisation.

Apple iPhone 11 Pro cameras explained: Why three and what does each do?

Display

iPhone 11: 6.1-inch, LCD, 1792 x 828, True Tone, Haptic Touch, 625nits
iPhone 11 Pro: 5.8-inch, OLED, HDR, 2436 x 1125, True Tone, Haptic Touch, 800nits
iPhone 11 Pro Max: 6.5-inch, OLED, HDR, 2688 x 1242, True Tone, Haptic Touch, 800nits

Display sizes differ between the three iPhone 11 models, as they did for 2018’s iPhone XR, XS and XS Max and resolutions differ too with the iPhone 11 offering a pixel density of 326ppi and the iPhone 11 Pro models offering pixel densities of 458ppi. The 11 Pro models are also brighter. You’ll notice this difference if you’re looking at the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models side-by-side but otherwise, the iPhone 11’s display will be more than sufficient for most users.

The iPhone 11 Pro has a 5.8-inch screen like the iPhone XS, the iPhone 11 has a 6.1-inch screen like the iPhone XR and the iPhone 11 Pro Max has a 6.5-inch display like the iPhone XS Max.

The Pro models also have OLED displays like their predecessors, allowing for punchier colours and blacker blacks than the iPhone 11 and its LCD screen, but again, this is only really noticeable if you place the devices together. The Pro models do have HDR support though, which the iPhone 11 does not, meaning you’ll see less detail on the standard iPhone when watching HDR-compatible content.

All models have True Tone technology and Haptic Touch.

squirrel_widget_167218

Physical footprint

iPhone 11 Pro: 144 x 71.4 x 8.1mm, 188g
iPhone 11: 150.9 x 75.7 x 8.3mm, 194g
iPhone 11 Pro Max: 158 x 77.8 x 8.1mm, 226g

As with the display sizes, the physical footprint between the three 2019 iPhones differs.

The iPhone 11 Pro is the smallest and lightest, followed by the iPhone 11 and then the iPhone 11 Pro Max. With the frosted glass finished on the iPhone 11 Pro models though, the iPhone 11 Pro Max doesn’t look as big as the iPhone XS Max did. It’s an optical illusion of course, but for those that wanted the larger model but thought it looked to big in 2018, you might find yourself thinking differently here.

The iPhone 11 is a great in-between device in terms of size though.

Design

iPhone 11: Dual camera, aluminium frame
iPhone 11 Pro models: Triple camera, stainless steel frame

While the design is similar across the three 2019 iPhones, with all offering a notch on the front at the top of the display, there are differences on the rears, as well as material choice.

The iPhone 11 Pro models have a square camera housing with three camera lenses, while the iPhone 11 has a dual camera. All models have an IP68 water and dust resistance rating, but the Pro models can be submerged up to four-metres for 30 minutes, while the iPhone 11 can only be submerged up to two-metres for 30 minutes.

The Pro models also have a textured matte glass and stainless steel design, while the iPhone 11 is made form aluminium and standard glass. In the flesh, the Pro models are really beautiful, especially in the green and gold colour options. They look more premium than the iPhone 11 but this is something you will only notice when they are next to each other. Otherwise, the iPhone 11 is a lovely, solid device in its own right.

Battery capacities

iPhone 11: Up to 17-hours, wireless charging
iPhone 11 Pro: Up to 18-hours, wireless charging
iPhone 11 Pro Max: Up to 20-hours, wireless charging

Batteries were claimed to have improved for the 2019 iPhone models when they first launched, and while Apple doesn’t detail specific capacities, they did improve in our experience. The iPhone 11 is said to last up to 17 hours, while the iPhone 11 Pro is said to last up to 18 hours and the iPhone 11 Pro Max is said to last up to 20 hours.

We were really impressed with the battery life of 2019 devices though during our testing. Both the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Max will see you through a day and evening without a problem in our experience.

All three models offer wireless charging but none have reverse wireless charging on board. All three models are also fast-charge capable, but only the Pro models come with 18W fast chargers in the box.

Colour options

iPhone 11: 6 colours
iPhone 11 Pro models: 3 colours

Colour options vary between the standard iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro models.

The iPhone 11 was available in Purple, Yellow, Green, Black, White and Product(RED) when it first arrived. They were more muted than they were for the iPhone XR and lovely as a result.

The iPhone 11 Pro models were available in Midnight Green, Silver, Space Grey and Gold. The Midnight Green and Gold are fabulous and really stand out, especially with the matte rear.

iPhone 11 colours: All the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro colours available

Price

iPhone 11: From $699/£729
iPhone 11 Pro models: From $999/£1049

Pricing between the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models unsurprisingly differs.

The iPhone 11 started at $699/£729 when it first launched, the iPhone Pro started at $999/£1049 and the iPhone Pro Max started at $1099/£1149. As mentioned, only the iPhone 11 is available through Apple now, and it is cheaper, but you might still find the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max at a good price elsewhere now they have been succeeded.

Conclusion

The Apple iPhone 11 is the cheaper option of the three 2019 iPhones and it’s great value. For many, it will be the one to buy from this trio of handsets.

The iPhone 11 Pro models offer some great features, specifically camera capabilities, design materials and better displays, but they are also particularly pricey compared to the standard iPhone 11.

The iPhone 11 offers more colours than the Pro models, even if it isn’t as premium in design, it sits in the middle in terms of size and while it misses out on a couple of features compared to the Pro models, such as optical zoom in terms of camera and a punchier display, it still offers a great camera with Night Mode and brilliant results.

Writing by Britta O’Boyle.

MIPS Starts RISC-V CPU Development

(Image credit: Panasonic)

Wave Computing and its subsidiary MIPS Technologies, the developer of the MIPS processor architecture, recently emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, renamed itself to MIPS and changed the business model. As reported by Electronic Engineering Journal the new company will focus on development of RISC-V CPU cores and will abandon further development of its own MIPS architecture.

“Going forward, the restructured business will be known as MIPS, reflecting the company’s strategic focus on the groundbreaking RISC-based processor architectures which were originally developed by MIPS,” a statement by the company reads. “MIPS is developing a new industry-leading standards-based 8th generation architecture, which will be based on the open source RISC-V processor standard.”

MIPS does not get much publicity these days mostly because it is no longer used for game consoles or supercomputers. Yet, the architecture is still among the most popular in the industry. It is widely used for various microcontrollers, consumer electronics SoCs, communication equipment, and a variety of low-power devices. Hundreds of millions of such products are sold every year and for now MIPS cores are good enough for their applications.

It is hard for MIPS to compete against Arm Holdings which has a wider choice of cores and which who’s architecture powers more applications than any other architecture nowadays. It is close to impossible for MIPS to catch up with Arm when it comes to performance and industry support, so the new MIPS decided to change its business model.

Previously MIPS Technologies and later Wave Computing licensed their architecture and cores to processor developers, which made them compete directly against Arm Holdings that has the same business model. Since the MIPS architecture belongs to one company it is solely responsible for the whole ecosystem (which includes hardware and software) and supporting it alone is hard.

From now on, MIPS will develop RISC-V-based architecture and appropriate CPU cores that it will license to others. In general, the licensing nature of MIPS’s business will not change, but since RISC-V is an open standards architecture supported by dozens of companies, MIPS will not have to support the ecosystem alone, which will make its business more sustainable.

MIPS has a lot of expertise in CPU development as well as a broad portfolio of CPU patents and IP. All of these assets will inevitably be used for the upcoming RISC-V-based architecture as well as CPU cores, so it is logical to expect MIPS to be one of the leading RISC-V developers. Whether or not that architecture will be competitive against Arm’s offerings is something that remains to be seen.

Microsoft’s long-awaited new webcam reportedly arriving at Surface spring event

Microsoft is reportedly planning to release a new webcam this spring. The software giant has previously offered a variety of webcams under its LifeCam brand, but Microsoft hasn’t updated these significantly for 10 years. Petri reports that a Surface event will take place this spring, and a new webcam will be on the agenda alongside Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop 4.

The webcam will reportedly include a privacy cover and support high dynamic range (HDR). While Microsoft uses 4K USB-C webcams on its Surface Hub 2 device, this new webcam is rumored to skip 4K support. It’s not clear what resolution will be supported, or whether it will support Windows Hello facial recognition.

Microsoft’s old LifeCam webcams.

Image: Microsoft

Whether Microsoft choses to use the Surface branding on this new webcam also remains to be seen. Microsoft’s Windows and devices chief, Panos Panay, hinted all the way back in 2018 in an interview with The Verge that the company was looking at releasing Surface-branded webcams. “Look at the camera on Surface Hub 2, note it’s a USB-C-based camera, and the idea that we can bring a high fidelity camera to an experience, you can probably guess that’s going to happen,” hinted Panay at the time.

This isn’t the first time a new Microsoft webcam has been rumored. Thurrott reported that two new webcams would arrive in 2019, one for Windows and one for Xbox. Those webcams never launched, and consumers and businesses have been relying on webcams from Logitech, Razer, and others instead.

Webcams quickly became the gadget of 2020, as consumers flocked to buy the devices to work from home during the pandemic. Prices of webcams also shot up briefly early on in the pandemic, before supply caught up and demand settled towards the end of 2020.

Sonos Roam is official – and the cheapest, smartest Sonos speaker yet

(Image credit: Sonos)

Sonos has just unveiled its cheapest and most portable speaker yet. The new Sonos Roam, which you might already have been acquainted with courtesy of several pre-launch leaks, is the company’s answer to the likes of the JBL Flip 5 and Ultimate Ears Boom 3 portable Bluetooth speakers. But while it shares the same goal in offering an easily transportable, durable way to play music on the go, it naturally boasts some unique, Sonos-centric features that make it stand out from the crowd.

You can predominantly think of the Sonos Roam as a miniature, more affordable Sonos Move, which arrived in late 2019 as the company’s first ‘portable’ speaker. (Here’s how the two Sonos Bluetooth speakers compare.) Like its hybrid sibling, the new Roam has both Bluetooth and wi-fi connectivity, allowing owners to simply pair it with a phone or tablet over the former, or tap into the wide world of music streaming and/or use it within a wider Sonos system.

Its portability is mostly defined by two things: a form that is smaller than a water bottle (16.8 x 6.2 x 6cm), weighs less than a pound (or 430g if you’re more metric-oriented), is IP67-rated for complete water and dust resistance (it can be immersed in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes), and has a built-in rechargeable battery that offers 10 hours of music playback (or can last 10 days in an automatic sleep mode).

On that note, the Sonos Roam comes with a USB-C charging cable (although not a power adapter) and is compatible with standard Qi wireless chargers. Sonos is also launching its own charging base ($49, £tbc), to which the Roam snaps magnetically.

Sonos Roam vs Sonos Move: how Sonos’ Bluetooth speakers compare

(Image credit: Sonos)

The Roam supports Bluetooth 5.0 for connection to a phone, tablet or any other Bluetooth-toting music player, but while that’s often the limit of a Bluetooth speaker’s connectivity, aside from perhaps a 3.5mm input, the Roam can also connect to a home network, opening up at-home accessibility to streaming services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Tidal, as well as voice control via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. AirPlay 2 is available when connected to wi-fi, too, as is control via the Sonos S2 app.

To that end, the Roam has a few Sonos-centric tricks up its sleeve. Firstly, the Roam can automatically switch between wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity and connected devices, so when you leave the house it can connect to a Bluetooth device without the owner having to initiate pairing, and vice versa. You “just grab it and go,” as a Sonos representative said in the media briefing.

(Image credit: Sonos)

Then there’s the all-new Sonos Swap feature, which lets owners hand off whatever music the Roam is playing to the nearest Sonos speaker by long-pressing the play/pause button. Neat. (It’s something we thought might debut in the highly anticipated Sonos wireless headphones, expected later this year.)

Auto TruePlay – the automatic calibration technology that uses the speaker’s microphones to measure the frequency response of its surroundings and adjust sound accordingly, whenever it detects being placed in a new location – is on board following its debut in the Move, too. This time, however, it can work in a Bluetooth domain as well as a network one – functionality that’s also now available for the Move via a new software update.

(Image credit: Sonos)

Sonos has confirmed that the Roam can’t be used as a surround speaker with the company’s Beam or Arc soundbars, though, leaving that job to the Sonos One SL and Sonos IKEA speakers.

Of course, while the Roam enters the market as perhaps the smartest and best connected Bluetooth speaker of its size and price, it will need to sound good to seal a favourable fate. Handling the sonic duties is a custom-designed racetrack woofer and tweeter pairing, driven by two Class H amplifiers and with an adjustable EQ output.

And that’s all, folks. The Sonos Roam is priced £159 ($169, AU$279, €179), making it the most affordable Sonos speaker yet (if you discount the Sonos IKEA collaborative models), undercutting the One SL by the price of a round of drinks.

The Roam is available to pre-order now, with shipping beginning on 20th April.

MORE:

Sonos wireless headphones: release date, rumours, and all of the news

Which Sonos speaker should you buy?

Best Bluetooth speakers 2021

Twitter is working on a ‘big overhaul’ of TweetDeck

Twitter is actively working on a “big overhaul” of its TweetDeck platform, which lets you arrange lists and feeds into easy-to-read vertical rows, and it plans to share more about the project publicly later this year, product chief Kayvon Beykpour said in an interview with The Verge published Tuesday.

TweetDeck, as one of the oldest and originally third-party account management apps for the platform, hasn’t seen much in the way of design or major feature changes in years. The app launched 12 years ago and was acquired by Twitter in 2011, and it’s more or less still the same vertical grid viewer for your various Twitter feeds it started as. Mostly, Twitter has ported over new functions added to its main website and mobile apps while keeping the core TweetDeck design relatively static.

That appears to be changing. Beykpour and the product team recognize they haven’t “given TweetDeck a lot of love recently,” and they’re actively working on a new TweetDeck they plan to show off later this year. It’s part of a broader push to improve Twitter’s developer tools and repair its relationship with app makers, with the latter being a longtime contention between Twitter and the broader software development community. (Beykpour’s answer doesn’t specify whether the new TweetDeck will be released this year or simply previewed for the public.)

Here’s Beykpour’s full response regarding TweetDeck:

Nilay Patel: The Verge’s newsroom runs on TweetDeck.

Beykpour: Totally. And we haven’t given TweetDeck a lot of love recently. That’s about to change; we’ve been working on a pretty big overhaul from the ground up of TweetDeck, and it’s something that we’re excited to share publicly sometime this year. And so that’s just an example of a Twitter-owned and operated service that we will continue investing in. We also, over the last five years, I think, haven’t given a lot of love to our developer ecosystem. A bunch of reasons for that, some missteps that we’d taken in the past, then also sort of prioritization. We are also changing that; in the last year and a half we’ve really stepped up both our commitment and follow-through on just innovating around the API again, getting the API back to parity from our own internal APIs that we use to build functionality.

I think we’ve got a lot of trust to earn back with developers, since we’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past, but it’s something that we’re actively investing in. We hope we’ll allow developers to build really awesome stuff around the Twitter ecosystem. One of the reasons why Twitter is where it is today is because of developers doing cool shit that we would’ve never thought to do. And so that’s something that we’re trying to do more of, not step away from. More to come on that as well.

It’s not clear whether this new TweetDeck would feature a refreshed visual design, all-new features, or both. It’s also up for debate whether Twitter plans to eventually charge money for TweetDeck; a Bloomberg report last month said the company was mulling over a premium version of TweetDeck it could attach a subscription fee for.

Whatever form the new app takes, it will be a breath of fresh air for TweetDeck’s longtime users (myself included) who would like, at the very least, a fresh coat of paint.

Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 review: AMD and Nvidia at their best

The Asus ROG Zephyrus G15 is the gaming laptop to beat.

When I tested Asus ROG’s Zephyrus G14 a year ago, I was blown away. Not only was it just over 3.5 pounds — a weight unheard of for a system with both a powerful processor and a discrete GPU — but it ran even the most demanding games at much better frame rates than any gaming laptop we’d ever seen at that size. And then everything else about it — the keyboard, the touchpad, the audio, the battery life — was also great. The G14 wasn’t just better than other gaming laptops in those areas: it was better than most other laptops at its price point, period.

Given the G14’s resounding success, it was only a matter of time before Asus put it in a 15-inch chassis. The formula wasn’t broken, and Asus didn’t fix it — Asus just made it bigger. While I had some questions when I heard the G15 was on the way (could it deliver the same combination of portability, battery life, and performance as a 14-inch product? Could it do that without costing over $2,000?), what’s become clear throughout my testing period is that the device isn’t just as good as its 14-inch counterpart; it’s somehow even better. Asus and AMD have done it again.

Gaming on Cloud 9.

The G15’s secret weapon is its processor. All models have AMD’s monstrous eight-core Ryzen 9 5900HS. My test model, priced at $1,799.99, pairs that chip with Nvidia’s new GeForce RTX 3070 (an 80W version, with dynamic boost up to 100W), as well as 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage. This configuration is a step above the base model, which includes an RTX 3060 and 512GB of storage. There are also two RTX 3080 models — pair it with 16GB of RAM for $1,999.99 or 32GB of RAM for $2,499.99. (I think my test model hits a sweet spot: 512GB of storage isn’t a lot for a gaming laptop, and it seems like the RTX 3080 models are fairly low-clocked and don’t perform hugely better than the lower-tier options.)

Asus says the G15 has a “desktop-inspired layout” with separate keys to control the volume, toggle the microphone, and pull up Armoury Crate.

Another highlight, consistent across all models, is the G15’s 165Hz QHD display. We’re finally starting to see 15-inch laptops with QHD screens en masse this year, indicating that this is the first year that manufacturers think mobile hardware is powerful enough to take advantage of them. Traditionally, mobile gamers have had the option of a 1080p display or a 4K display. (Not only is the latter quite expensive, but very few laptops can run demanding games at playable frame rates in 4K.)

You get over 3.5 million pixels from this QHD display.

So, the big question: Can the Zephyrus G15 run games at QHD resolution? The answer is an emphatic yes.

Some raw numbers to start. The G15 averaged 178fps on CS:GO at maximum settings — dust particles, fires, and other graphically intensive effects looked just fine. Red Dead Redemption II, also at maximum settings, averaged 58fps. (Come on, that’s basically 60). Ray tracing was no problem for this machine: the system averaged 61fps on Shadow of the Tomb Raider with ray tracing on ultra, and a whopping 81fps with ray tracing off. Remember, the G15 is running these at QHD resolution, which is already a bigger haul than traditional 1080p.

Those frame rates mean you should be able to run whatever game you want in QHD without bumping down any settings. They put the G15 about on par with MSI’s GS66 Stealth with an Intel Core i7-10870H and a GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q — the two laptops tied on Red Dead and were just one frame apart on Tomb Raider. MSI told us that the QHD GS66 model costs $2,599 — so the G15 with an RTX 3070 is getting the same frame rates for literally $800 less. The G15 also did better than the QHD / RTX 3070 Intel configuration of the Razer Blade 15 Base (53fps on Red Dead, 46fps on Tomb Raider), which costs $400 more. Those differentials should speak for themselves. Yes, the GS66 has a 240Hz screen, but that’s going to be excessive for most people at QHD resolution. If I didn’t already know where the G14 was priced last year, I would be emailing Asus to check if $1,799.99 was a typo. It’s an unbelievable value.

The games all looked great on this screen, which covers 100 percent of the sRGB gamut and 89 percent of AdobeRGB, and maxes out at 334 nits of brightness. It isn’t the highest refresh-rate screen you can get at 165Hz — Razer’s Blade 15 Advanced has a 240Hz QHD model, as does MSI’s GS66 Stealth — but it’s still a significant step above the Zephyrus G14’s 120Hz display. While the G15 doesn’t deliver the best picture I’ve ever seen, it still looks great and certainly improves upon the G14’s 1080p panel. Movement was all smooth, without a stutter in sight, and colors looked great. I saw a small amount of glare when using the device outdoors, but it was still quite usable at maximum brightness.

Cooling, while sometimes iffy on the G14, is stellar on this device. The G15’s “intelligent cooling” system includes two 84-blade fans and six heat pipes. It had no problem with any of the games I threw at it, spending the vast majority of its time between the mid-60s and mid-70s (Celsius) and never jumping above 80 degrees. That’s some of the best cooling performance I’ve ever seen from a gaming laptop, especially considering that this one was running heavy AAA titles, maxed out, at QHD resolution.

More impressively, the fans managed to do this without being deafeningly loud. I could certainly hear them while the machine was under load, but it was standard gaming-laptop noise, and I had no problem hearing game audio. You can also swap to the “Silent” profile in Asus’ Armoury Crate software. That toggle lived up to its name and completely silenced the fans, without causing any heat or performance problems that I observed.

Speaking of audio, the G15’s speakers also sound great. That’s to be expected — there are literally six of them, including two front-facing tweeters and force-canceling woofers under the palm rests. They deliver clear audio with very strong bass and powerful percussion. I don’t often get to say that about laptop audio, especially on gaming laptops. The G15 comes preloaded with Dolby Access, which you can use to jump between equalizer presets for gaming, movies, and music, and it makes a huge difference.

There are three microphones, which had no trouble picking up my voice. They also have presets for game streaming, music recording, and conference calls. Those are handy, but they’re not enough to make the G15 a good choice for remote work because it doesn’t include a webcam. The G14 also didn’t have a camera — Asus seems to have decided that webcams aren’t necessary on Zephyrus products. It’s the one significant knock against a device that is basically perfect otherwise. It’s also very odd to have such an advanced microphone setup and not have a webcam to go with it.

There are a couple other things to note about the G15’s chassis. Like many other Asus laptops, the G15 has an ErgoLift hinge, which folds under the deck when the laptop is open and lifts the keyboard above the ground. This is supposed to create a more ergonomic typing position, though I can’t say I ever noticed the difference. It does dig into your legs a bit if you’re using the laptop on your lap, though. The G15’s hinge isn’t as sharp as some other hinges, but as a frequent couch user, it’s still not my favorite feeling.

The keyboard and touchpad are both great as well. The G14 had one of my favorite keyboards of 2020, and the G15’s is quite similar. The click is comfortable, with 1.7mm of travel, and the dedicated volume keys (a Zephyrus staple) are quite convenient. There’s a fingerprint sensor built into the power button, which is on the top right of the keyboard deck.

The touchpad is massive, at 5.1 x 3.4 inches — 20 percent larger than that of the prior G15 generation. It’s so big that large portions of both my hands were resting on it when they weren’t typing, rather than on the palm rests. This was a bit annoying, but to the G15’s credit, it didn’t cause any palm-rejection issues. It’s also a bit loud and not the easiest or deepest click, but those are nitpicks — it’s a fine touchpad.

But what impressed me the most about the G15 is its battery life. This thing never dies. Using it as my daily driver with an office workload on Asus’ Silent profile around 200 nits of brightness, I averaged eight hours and 32 minutes. That’s just under what I got from the G14, and the G15 has a larger and higher-resolution screen to fuel. The result puts the G15 right up there with its smaller sibling as one of the longest-lasting gaming laptops we’ve ever seen. It has a large 90Wh battery inside, but plenty of gaming rigs with comparable bricks can only make it a few hours on a charge.

Gaming significantly shortens the G15’s life span, of course. I got an hour and 21 minutes of Red Dead out of one charge. Impressively, though, the game was quite playable for much of that time, avoiding stutters and performance issues. The game didn’t drop below playable rates until the G15 was down to 10 percent with six minutes remaining. The 200-watt charger also juices the G15 decently fast — during very light Chrome use, it got the device up to 60 percent in 37 minutes. If you don’t want to carry that heavy brick around and aren’t doing GPU-intensive tasks, the G15 also supports 100W Type-C charging.

G15s are available in eclipse gray (like this model) and moonlight white.

At the end of the day, there are things I can nitpick about this device. In particular, the lack of a webcam is egregious. And there are reasons it won’t be for everyone. Folks who are looking for a higher refresh-rate screen may prefer to spend more on a Blade 15 Advanced or a GS66. Those who want a jazzier design may find Asus’ Strix Scar 15 a better fit. And while $1,799 is a great value for these specs, anyone on a tighter budget has options like Lenovo’s Legion 5 on the table.

But almost everything about this laptop is fantastic. And not only is it fantastic, but it’s fantastic for several hundreds of dollars less than its QHD competitors. If you are willing to use an external webcam and you don’t need a 240Hz screen, there’s really no reason you should be buying any other QHD laptop in the thin 15-inch class. The G15 is superior on battery life, superior on power, superior on weight, and superior on price. It’s just the best.

Hackers Exploit QNAP Vulnerabilities to Turn NAS Devices Into Crypto Miners

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Qihoo 360’s Network Security Research Lab said Friday that vulnerabilities in QNAP products have been exploited to turn NAS devices into cryptocurrency miners. Those devices were tampered with to hide their CPU usage, too, making it difficult for their owners to discover something was wrong if they checked their system’s diagnostics.

It seems like the efforts were pretty straightforward: Attackers reportedly exploited vulnerabilities in QNAP products to gain root access to them, installed mining software that was configured to use only half of the available CPU cores, and then covered their tracks by making CPU usage rates and temperatures appear normal.

The cryptocurrency mined by a single NAS isn’t worth the trouble of finding a vulnerability, exploiting it, and configuring it in this manner. The attackers probably had no intention of limiting their efforts to a single NAS, however. Schemes like this are all about achieving as much scale as possible as quickly as possible.

Put another way: It wouldn’t matter if each affected NAS only net the hackers $0.01 every day so long as they were able to infect a decent number of devices. They would also offset the costs of crypto mining—namely the upfront costs of buying a device and the ongoing cost of powering it—to their victims. All gain, no pain.

Note that while CPU mining of cryptocurrencies generally takes a back seat to GPU and ASIC mining, certain algorithms (specifically CryptoNightR used in Monero) can provide decent returns. Even an old Core i5-7600K 4-core CPU can do about $0.15-$0.20 per day (not counting electrical costs), while an i9-9900K can do nearly $0.50 per day. Infecting tens of thousands of NAS devices obviously gets into large sums of cryptocurrency very quickly, and Monero also happens to be a ‘privacy coin’ — meaning it’s not possible to track where coin transfers go.

The researchers didn’t offer many specifics, however, because they “speculate that there are still hundreds of thousands of online QNAP NAS devices with the vulnerability.” That’s a fraction of the nearly 4.3 million online devices they said they found using one of their security tools, but it’s still nothing to sneeze at.

That number might be lower if the researchers had followed the industry standard process of giving vendors 90 days to respond to vulnerability disclosures. Instead the researchers at 360 Netlab said they discovered the scheme on March 2 and disclosed it to QNAP on March 3. They published a blog post about it on March 5.

The researchers said they rushed to share their discovery with the public “due to the possible big impact” of the security flaws. We’ve reached out to QNAP to confirm the timeline established in 360 Netlab’s blog post as well as its potential impact and will update this post if the company responds.

For now, the researchers at 360 Netlab said the vulnerabilities it discovered were present in all of the QNAP NAS firmware released before August 2020. Ensuring a device has the most recent firmware should limit its exposure, and the researchers provided a list of IPs and URLs to block for additional security, too.

Samsung 980 M.2 NVMe SSD Review: Going DRAMless with V6 V-NAND

Our Verdict

If you aren’t looking for the best of the best like Samsung’s 980 Pro but still want solid performance for large files or graphics-heavy games at a more affordable price point, Samsung’s 980 is worth your consideration.

For

Competitive performance
Attractive design
AES 256-bit hardware encryption
Software package
980 Pro-like endurance and 5-year warranty

Against

Slow write speeds after the SLC cache fills

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Features and Specifications

Samsung’s SSDs are widely regarded as among the most reliable and best-performing in the market, and today the company hopes to extend that reputation with the introduction of the 980 NVMe SSD. Samsung’s 980 is designed for everyday PC users and gamers, although with performance ratings six times that of a standard SATA SSD, it possibly appeals to lower-budget content creators, too.

Samsung’s 980 also stands out with much more affordable pricing than the 980 Pro and 970 Evo Plus, a benefit borne of its DRAMless design that the company claims makes it the highest-performing DRAMless SSD on the market. Powered by the company’s V6 V-NAND and an efficient DRAMless controller that first debuted in the Portable SSD T7 Touch, this mix of hardware promises fast PCIe Gen3 performance and respectable endurance ratings.

Specifications

Product	980 250GB	980 500GB	980 1TB
Pricing	$49.99	$69.99	$129.99
Capacity (User / Raw)	250GB / 256GB	500GB / 512GB	1000GB / 1024GB
Form Factor	M.2 2280	M.2 2280	M.2 2280
Interface / Protocol	PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4	PCIe 3.0 x4 / NVMe 1.4
Controller	Samsung Pablo	Samsung Pablo	Samsung Pablo
DRAM	DRAMless / HMB	DRAMless / HMB	DRAMless / HMB
Memory	Samsung 128L V-NAND TLC	Samsung 128L V-NAND TLC	Samsung 128L V-NAND TLC
Sequential Read	2,900 MBps	3,100 MBps	3,500 MBps
Sequential Write	1,300 MBps	2,600 MBps	3,000 MBps
Random Read (QD1)	17,000 IOPS	17,000 IOPS	17,000 IOPS
Random Write (QD1)	53,000 IOPS	54,000 IOPS	54,000 IOPS
Random Read	230,000 IOPS	400,000 IOPS	500,000 IOPS
Random Write	320,000 IOPS	470,000 IOPS	480,000 IOPS
Security	AES 256-bit encryption	AES 256-bit encryption	AES 256-bit encryption
Endurance (TBW)	150 TB	300 TB	600 TB
Part Number	MZ-V8V250BW	MZ-V8V500BW	MZ-V8V1T0BW
Warranty	5-Years	5-Years	5-Years

Samsung targets the 980 at lower price points with capacities that include 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB models. With prices of $50, $70, and $130, the 980 hits the market with affordable price points at each capacity. That stands in contrast to the rest of the company’s SSD families, many of which span from 2TB to 8TB and cost hundreds of dollars.

Samsung’s 980 comes with TurboWrite 2.0, meaning it features a massive SLC buffer that’s larger than the cache on the 970 Evo and 970 Evo Plus. This speedy buffer absorbs data at a faster rate before write speeds degrade as the workload spills into the native TLC flash. However, the 980’s TurboWrite 2.0 implementation is a bit different than the 980 Pro’s; instead of a hybrid arrangement with both static and dynamic TLC caches, the 980 comes with just a dynamic SLC. This enables more cache capacity for the 500GB and 1TB models than the 980 Pro, but due to the 980’s lower-end SSD controller, the SSD isn’t quite as fast when the cache is full.

	970 Evo Plus – Intelligent TurboWrite 1.0			980 – Intelligent TurboWrite 2.0
Capacity	Default	Intelligent	Total	Intelligent / Total
250GB	4GB	9GB	13GB	45GB
500GB	4GB	18GB	22GB	122GB
1TB	6GB	36GB	42GB	160GB

Interfacing with the host over a PCIe 3.0 x4 link, the 980 NVMe SSD can up to 3.5/3 GBps of sequential read/write throughput and even sustain up to 500,000/480,000 random read/write IOPS at its highest capacity. But, while peak figures are eye-catchers, the real key to application performance lies in the QD1 random performance rating. Samsung rates the drive with up to 17,000/54,000 read/write IOPS at QD1, which promises responsive performance in everyday desktop PC workloads.

Like the 980 Pro and 970 Evo Plus, the new 980 comes factory over-provisioned by roughly 9% and is backed by a five-year warranty or up to the respective TBW rating, which varies based on the capacity of the drive (150 TB per 250GB). The 980 also boasts the same AES 256-bit Full Disk Encryption feature set that’s compliant with TCG/Opal v2.0 and Encrypted Drive (IEEE1667) standards.

Software and Accessories

Samsung’s Magician application is one of the best pieces of storage management software available, and it’s getting better with its next iteration. Magician 6.3 comes with the same capabilities as prior versions but also brings the debut of Full Power Mode support. Like the WD Black’s SSD Dashboard Game Mode, this feature allows the 980 to operate at peak performance by disabling the lower power states, thus reducing the latency associated with transitioning between power states. Unforunately Magician 6.3 isn’t available for today’s review, but Samsung says it will be available within the next few weeks. The company also provides additional software to quickly clone your old data to your new Samsung SSD.