Windows 11’s next yearly update is here. Microsoft is rolling out the Windows 11 2023 Update, also known as Windows 11 23H2, to the general public starting today, the company announced in a blog post.
Microsoft Windows Servicing and Delivery VP John Cable describes the 23H2 update as “scoped,” “cumulative,” and “streamlined,” which are all different ways of saying that it doesn’t do a whole lot in and of itself other than rolling the version number over. Most of the big new features, including the Copilot AI assistant, actually began rolling out a month ago to Windows 11 22H2. It’s just that you’ll know that any PC running 23H2 has those features, whereas older versions of 22H2 may not.
Cable notes a couple of 23H2-specific additions, namely that the Chat app from earlier Windows 11 releases has been replaced by Microsoft Teams (free) (that was not our parenthetical; that’s what the company calls it), which is pinned to the taskbar by default just like Chat used to be. Built-in system apps get a new “system” label in the “All apps” view on the Start menu, and system apps are now managed separately from other apps in the Settings app under System > System Components.
Before Marvel Comics became Marvel Comics, the company had a whole host of different iterations and identities over the Golden Age of comics—and did so much more comics material than just superheroes. And now, in gloriously remastered high definition, you can experience a chilling jolt of some of that era’s spookiest…
Atari may not be the megalithic corporation seen in the movie Blade Runner with its logo plastered on massive holographic billboards, but the company’s most recent efforts have centered on becoming the main player for the retro revival. One of the most-lauded companies helping to revitalize and republish older, often…
Classic whodunit mysteries work because just about every character ends up being a murder suspect. The demise of non-avian dinosaurs is a lot like that. The Chicxulub impact and its aftereffects created a huge range of potentially lethal suspects. Whodunit? A giant fireball and massive tsunamis? Wild swings in the climate? Global wildfires? A blackened sky that shut down photosynthesis? All of the above?
Modeling these impacts, combined with data on the pattern of extinctions, has led to various opinions on what proved decisive regarding the extermination of so many species. In the latest look at the end-Cretaceous extinction, a team of scientists largely based in Brussels has revisited deposits laid down in the aftermath of the impact and found that much of the debris came from fine dust. When that dust is plugged into climate models, global temperatures plunge by as much as 25° C, and photosynthesis shuts down for almost two years.
Dust to dust
There was a lot going on in the atmosphere in the years after the impact. Debris thrown up by the impact would have re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, burning up into fine rocky and sulfur-rich particles in the process. The heat generated by this process would have set off massive wildfires, adding a lot of soot to the mix. And all of that was churned up with the debris from the impact that stayed within the atmosphere.
Even among 2-in-1 PCs, Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio offers a unique blend of performance and adaptability. But now on the second model, thanks to refreshed specs plus the addition of a USB-A port and a microSD card reader, it feels like Microsoft has given its mobile workstation the finishing touches it needed all along, resulting in what may be the ultimate all-rounder. Unfortunately with a high starting price and costly upgrades for more RAM and a discrete GPU, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 is hard to recommend for everyone.
Design: Funky but functional
Francis Bacon once said “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion,” which is a sentiment that feels applicable to the Surface Laptop Studio 2. It features a minimalist aluminum chassis (instead of the magnesium frame on the previous model) but in a somewhat unconventional configuration. The laptop’s lid is divided into two halves, which allows the screen to pivot 180 degrees or tilt down into an easel. Meanwhile, its base features a two-tiered design that allows the laptop to keep its vents away from the sides of the system while also providing a hidden magnetic charging spot for a Surface Slim Pen 2 (which sadly, is not included).
The two biggest changes to the Studio 2’s design are the addition of the USB-A port and a microSD card slot. When combined with the existing dual USB-C jacks, you get a solid range of connectivity options. It means you can transfer files from a camera directly to the laptop and you’ll rarely (if ever) have to worry about carrying around extra dongles for peripherals. That said, Surface Laptop Studio 2’s slightly thicker chassis (but only by one or two millimeters) and the change to aluminum does mean an extra third of a pound in weight (4.18 pounds with integrated graphics or 4.37 with a discrete GPU).
Display: Vivid from any angle
The Surface Laptop Studio 2’s screen hasn’t changed much from the previous model, but that’s not a bad thing. Its 14.4-inch panel features the same 2,400 x 1,600 resolution, along with a dynamic refresh rate that can switch between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on what you’re looking at. However, brightness is a touch better at around 500 nits, or 650 nits with HDR turned on. And you still get full Windows Inking support with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity.
Performance: More than enough power, but it’ll cost you
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
For the new model, Microsoft streamlined the Surface Laptop Studio 2’s specs by offering a single processor across every config: an Intel Core i7-13700H. From there you can choose a base model with integrated graphics or upgrade to one with either an RTX 4050 or RTX 4060 GPU. The annoying thing is that, to get that 4060, you also have to get 64GB of RAM, which is overkill for most people. That’s unfortunate because that config costs $3,300. An option with only 32GB of RAM and a lower cost would be appreciated.
That said, it’s hard to complain about its actual performance. The Surface Laptop Studio 2 kept pace with similarly specced gaming laptops including the MSI Stealth 14 Studio and Razer Blade 18 across both benchmarks and real-world tests. While it’s not meant to be a dedicated gaming rig, it also hit 62 fps in Cyberpunk 2077 at 1920 x 1200 with high graphics and ray tracing set to ultra (though that is with NVIDIA’s DLSS turned on).
Battery Life: Surprisingly decent
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Even with a discrete GPU, the Surface Laptop Studio 2’s longevity is closer to a standard ultraportable than more short-lived gaming notebooks. On PCMark 10’s OpenOffice battery rundown test, it lasted eight hours and 40 minutes. That’s three hours more than both the MSI Stealth 14 Studio and the Razer Blade 16, which lasted 5:19 and 5:10, respectively. However, more typical ultraportables like ASUS’ Zenbook S 13 fared even better with a time of 10:39.
Wrap-up
The two major knocks against the Surface Laptop Studio 2 are its price and limited configurations that top out with NVIDIA RTX 4060 graphics, which makes it feel more like a great all-rounder than an all-out mobile powerhouse. While there’s no defending its cost, I’m not as bothered by the latter, because there’s a lot of value in a system that offers unmatched adaptability.
Photo by Sam Rutherford/Engadget
With its innovative design, brilliant display, above-average battery life and improved connectivity, the Surface Laptop Studio 2 can handle a lot of different assignments with ease. It’s a great system for editing photos and videos, and stylus support makes drawing or taking notes a delight. When you factor in the excellent keyboard, Windows Hello IR cameras and one of best touchpads on a Windows laptop today (courtesy of Sensel), you get an incredibly versatile mobile workstation. And if we revisit that classic line from Shakespeare, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one,” which is precisely what we have here with the Surface Laptop Studio 2. I just wish it was a bit cheaper.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/surface-laptop-studio-2-review-the-ultimate-all-rounder-specs-price-180012173.html?src=rss
In September, a “bespoke AI nutrition” store opened in beleaguered downtown San Francisco to much fanfare, promising smoothie concoctions generated by AI and a much-needed boost to the area. Less than two months later, it has seemingly closed without explanation. From a report: BetterBlends advertised “Your Smoothie, powered by AI” and received positive press upon its opening, ginning up excitement for a new business and a novel use of artificial intelligence. Its AI model would take customer orders and preferences to generate a smoothie recipe that would then be blended by hand by co-founders Michael Parlato and Clayton Reynolds, who worked in the shop. But now the storefront sits empty. On Friday 20 October, the locked doors to BetterBlends featured a sign that read “temporarily closed,” stating the shop would reopen in one hour — but sources in the neighborhood said the storefront had been closed for more than three weeks.
By the following Monday, the sign had been removed, and the inside of the shop was largely cleared of blenders, fruit, vegetables and other supplies — anything you might need to make a smoothie, with or without AI. Only a trashcan and a few plants remained. The store’s Google Maps listing speaks to both problems in the physical world and its roots in AI. A Google Maps review posted two weeks ago accompanied by a picture of the sign read: “I was hopeful for this business. The owners however did not understand the discipline to run a restaurant. It was often open late and closed early. They changed their hours after a week of being open. And then 1 day they put up a sign, ‘Temporarily closed, be back in an hour.’ They have not been back in over two weeks.”
Other reviews were positive, awarding BetterBlends four or five stars. The shop owners themselves uploaded pictures of their smoothies to the Google Maps page as well as an image of happy customers that bears the hallmarks of generative AI. The light on their smiling faces is soft and glossy like a photoshoot. The fruits in the store window are, on closer inspection, unrecognizable blobs of fruit-colored things. The clear plastic cups are branded with gibberish characters that don’t spell anything and filled with lumpy smoothie-ish mixtures. They are cartoonishly large in the customers’ hands, one of which has only three too-long fingers. AI image generators have a documented history of failing to produce text within images or realistic human hands.
Enlarge/ A purple parasitic fungus, discovered in March in a Brazilian rainforest, pokes out of a trapdoor spider’s burrow after wrapping itself around the unfortunate spider. (credit: João Araújo)
It’s Halloween, that time of year when we seek out scary things like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, mummies, and all kinds of similar fictional monsters. But Mother Nature has her own horrors—like the strange species of parasitic purple fungus discovered earlier this year in a Brazilian rainforest that infects trapdoor spiders and gradually “mummifies” its hosts.
There are lots of horrifying parasitic examples in nature, such as the lancet liver fluke, whose complicated life cycle relies on successfully invading successive hosts—snails, ants, and grazing mammals—and altering their hosts’ behavior via a temperature-dependent “on/off” switch. Then there is a parasitic worm (trematode) that targets a particular species of marsh-dwelling brown shrimp (amphipod), turning the shrimp an orange hue and altering the host shrimp’s behavior. Or consider the species of small-headed flies (Acroceridae) that lay batches of eggs near spiders (or in the webs) and when the larvae hatch, they pierce through the spiders’ leg joints. There’s also a kleptoparasitic fly species (Milichiidae) that steals food from spider webs and will sometimes snatch prey right out of a spider’s mouth. (Rude!)
But fungi are arguably the champions for viscerally gruesome parasitic behavior. According to João Araújo, assistant curator of mycology at the New York Botanical Garden, the newly discovered fungus belongs to the Cordyceps family of “zombifying” parasitic fungi. There are more than 400 different species, each targeting a particular type of insect, whether it be ants, dragonflies, cockroaches, aphids, or beetles. In fact, Cordyceps famously inspired the premise of The Last of Us game and subsequent TV series.
Apple’s payment practices requiring subscription-forward apps to exclusively accept payments through Apple Pay violated antitrust laws, according to a Dutch regulator ruling reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday. The Dutch Authority for Consumers & Markets ruled that Apple violated European Union antitrust laws by unfairly…
Google’s budget Pixel 7a was already a more affordable alternative to the flagship Pixel, but with a 25 percent discount on Amazon right now, it’s an absolute steal. The Pixel 7a is down to just $374 from its original price of $500. It’s the lowest we’ve seen it drop yet, beating even the October Prime Day price by $25. The discounted Pixel 7a is unlocked for all carriers, and available in the colors Charcoal, Sea and Snow.
While it may not have everything you’d get in a flagship, the Pixel 7a is still a really solid smartphone. It has a smooth 90Hz display and a Tensor G2 chip, plus 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. The battery life is great, too. In our review, where it earned a score of 90, we found the Pixel 7a’s 4,385mAh battery kept it going for an impressive 17 hours and 41 minutes. The Pixel 7a is also the first in Google’s A series to support wireless charging. It’s not groundbreaking, capping out at 7.5 watts, but it’s still a nice convenience.
The Pixel 7a holds up in just about every category, and we ranked it as the best midrange Android smartphone in 2023. It boasts a 64MP camera on the back which does a great job of preserving detail, and shots taken in Night Sight mode even beat Samsung’s Galaxy S23 when comparing white balance. The selfie camera is crisp as well, and now capable of shooting video in 4K.
Designwise, the 7a looks a lot like the flagship Pixel 7, though it’s slightly bulkier and has plastic backing. It’s got a 6.1 OLED screen and a water resistance rating of IP67. It’ll also get years of updates, with at least three OS upgrades and five years of security updates. There are some things it’s missing, being a budget phone — like a dedicated zoom lens — but at only $374, that may not be a dealbreaker.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-google-pixel-7a-is-cheaper-than-ever-at-374-in-this-early-black-friday-deal-173045009.html?src=rss
It’s almost time for the Pumpkin King to go full Sandy Claws as Halloween Town makes way for Christmas Town—but don’t worry, the holidays can stay haunted with the latest collections inspired by Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas.
The group behind the radical open-access initiative Plan S has announced its next big plan to shake up research publishing — and this one could be bolder than the first. From a report: It wants all versions of an article and its associated peer-review reports to be published openly from the outset, without authors paying any fees, and for authors, rather than publishers, to decide when and where to first publish their work. The group of influential funding agencies, called cOAlition S, has over the past five years already caused upheaval in the scholarly publishing world by pressuring more journals to allow immediate open-access publishing. Its new proposal, prepared by a working group of publishing specialists and released on 31 October, puts forward an even broader transformation in the dissemination of research.
It outlines a future “community-based” and “scholar-led” open-research communication system in which publishers are no longer gatekeepers that reject submitted work or determine first publication dates. Instead, authors would decide when and where to publish the initial accounts of their findings, both before and after peer review. Publishers would become service providers, paid to conduct processes such as copy-editing, typesetting and handling manuscript submissions.
[…] If the vision comes to pass, it would mark a revolution in science publishing. Each element has already been endorsed and trialled on a small scale. But as a whole, the proposal “is describing a system that is completely different from today’s mainstream forms of scholarly communication,” says Andrea Chiarelli, a consultant at Research Consulting in Nottingham, UK. cOAlition S is launching a six-month process, co-led by Research Consulting, to collect feedback from members of the global research community on whether the plan will meet their needs.
Skating video games are always a good time, especially when paired with high-octane action and violence. Rollerdrome is no exception, allowing players to complete death-defying roller-skating tricks and death-inducing headshots all at the same time. The game’s been an absolute hit since originally releasing for PS4, PS5 and Steam back in August of last year. Now, it’s coming to Xbox as a day one Game Pass title.
Rollerdrome releases for Xbox Series X/S via Game Pass on November 28. It’s also launching as a standalone Windows PC title, which will be available for purchase on the Microsoft Store for $30. As previously mentioned, it’s already playable on PC via Steam, but additional purchase options are never a bad thing.
If you’re unfamiliar with the game, here’s a quick primer. Rollerdrome was developed by Roll7, the same team behind the uber-popular skateboarding sim OlliOlli World. The game has all of the tricks and speedy movement you’d expect from a roller-skating simulation, but with a heavy emphasis on action. We called the game “endlessly replayable” and gave it a spot on our list of the best video games of 2022, emphasizing the challenge mode and online leaderboards. We also liked the dystopian vibes, making gameplay resemble the 1970s cult classic dystopian film Rollerball. This was likely intentional on the part of the developers.
The graphics on this third-person skater/shooter are also on-point, with bright, comic-book style visuals. There are plenty of environments to skate through, like an abandoned mall and a desert canyon. Each play area is littered with ramps, gaps and breakable windows, all of which can be leveraged for tricks. There’s also plenty of baddies to murder with weapons ranging from shotguns to grenade launchers.
This is a busy November for Game Pass. In addition to Rollerdrome, the subscription service gets the Yakuza-adjacent Like A Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name on November 9, along with the creature-hunting sim Wild Hearts. The Stardew-alike life sim Spirittea releases on November 13 with another farming sim, Coral Island, coming on November 14.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/skatingmurder-sim-rollerdrome-is-coming-to-xbox-game-pass-171355085.html?src=rss
Windows 11’s big annual update is live and rolling out. Version 23H2 includes everything Microsoft announced at its September event, including the ability to use the company’s AI assistant, Co-Pilot, with a keyboard shortcut. It also makes Teams an official default app, so if you weren’t using it before, Microsoft…
Pinterest reported its highest monthly active users ever on the platform Monday at 482 million in the third quarter. The photo board service says user growth was largely driven by Gen Z users who are the fastest-growing, most engaged users on the platform.
Today Microsoft has begun rolling out its Windows 11 2023 update (also know as version 23H2), which adds some minor features on top of Copilot and its other AI-powered apps announced in September. Now, you may be asking yourself, “Didn’t Microsoft just release a major Windows 11 update?” And you would be correct. But it turns out that release, which launched on September 26th, was basically just an AI preview meant for last year’s Windows 11 22H2 update. Consequently, Copilot didn’t actually reach most Windows users over the past few weeks (I eventually got it in a test laptop, but my home desktop is still Copilot-less).
It’s fair to be confused, because Microsoft’s handling of Copilot has been baffling from the start. We first heard it was arriving as “Windows Copilot” back in May, where it essentially put the AI features we saw on the Edge Copilot and similar tools right into the heart of Windows. Copilot ended up being the star of Microsoft’s most recent Surface event, where the actual hardware took second place to the company’s AI ambitions.
So if you’ve been dying to get your hands on Copilot, be sure to start refreshing Windows Update. Additionally, the Windows 11 2023 update transforms the built-in Chat app into Microsoft Teams, which will sit in your task bar by default. You’ll also be able to find Windows 11 components under a new “System” label in the Start menu’s “All apps” section (something I rarely visit these days). Those System Components will also be under a new page in the Settings app under the System section.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsofts-windows-11-2023-update-rolls-out-bringing-copilot-ai-to-more-users-170049845.html?src=rss
Apple’s latest M3 Pro chip in the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro has 25% less memory bandwidth than the M1 Pro and M2 Pro chips used in equivalent models from the two previous generations. From a report: Based on the latest 3-nanometer technology and featuring all-new GPU architecture, the M3 series of chips is said to represent the fastest and most power-efficient evolution of Apple silicon thus far. For example, the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro chip is up to 40% faster than the 16-inch model with M1 Pro, according to Apple.
However, looking at Apple’s own hardware specifications, the M3 Pro system on a chip (SoC) features 150GB/s memory bandwidth, compared to 200GB/s on the earlier M1 Pro and M2 Pro. As for the M3 Max, Apple says it is capable of “up to 400GB/s.” This wording is because the less pricey scaled-down M3 Max with 14-core CPU and 30-core GPU has only 300GB/s of memory bandwidth, whereas the equivalent scaled-down M2 Max with 12-core CPU and 30-core GPU featured 400GB/s bandwidth, just like its more powerful 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU version.
Notably, Apple has also changed the core ratios of the higher-tier M3 Pro chip compared to its direct predecessor. The M3 Pro with 12-core CPU has 6 performance cores (versus 8 performance cores on the 12-core M2 Pro) and 6 efficiency cores (versus 4 efficiency cores on the 12-core M2 Pro), while the GPU has 18 cores (versus 19 on the equivalent M2 Pro chip).
Thirteen. That’s the number of different handheld gaming PCs that Ayaneo shows on its homepage as of this writing. Fourteen if you count the preview for one in the carousel. Each device comes in a choice of colors with different storage and RAM configurations. Ayaneo has a lot of SKUs. Only five months ago I reviewed the Air Plus and it’s already been discounted to make way for the next version. The current tippy-top of all these handhelds is the Ayaneo Kun and it is, currently, one of a kind.
The Kun is the highest-spec machine the company has ever made, and after using it for a couple of weeks I can say it’s both a fantastic gaming handheld and (if you want) a decent portable general-use PC. But despite being the latest and greatest, it didn’t take long for one thing to become abundantly clear: The Kun is just a placeholder for the Kun 2, or the Kun 1S, Kun Pro or… whatever they call the beefier, updated version that’s waiting for the next generation of processors. We’ll get to why in a bit, but for now, it’s the most impressive console the company has made.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
With an 8.4-inch display, the latest AMD Ryzen 7 7840U processor, and up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of storage the Kun kicks digital sand in the face of the anemic-by-comparison Steam Deck. Physically, it’s a shade taller and, at two pounds (900g), a (double) handful. But with Valve’s portable approaching its second birthday, it’s starting to make less sense to measure the current wave of gaming portables against it. That said, just one look at the Kun, with its familiar-looking trackpads and rear buttons, and it’s clear how it’s been influenced by the market-leading device .
Before we talk about how all that hardware performs, or the software experience, we should talk about price. The fully loaded Kun I’ve been testing costs an eye-watering $1,700. That’s enough money for a good desktop gaming PC, including the monitor. It’s also enough to buy two top of the line Steam Decks with change (or two high-end ROG Allys). A better comparison is the lowest-spec Kun, as that matches the RAM and storage (16GB / 512 GB) of the high-end Deck ($649), and that model costs a slightly more reasonable $999. You can add another $200 or so to those Kun prices if you purchase outside of the IGG campaign, but Ayaneo tends to leave them going long enough for anyone who wants one to get the better price.
While the Kun is new, there’s a lot we’ve seen before. The Ayaneo 2S shares the same 7840U processor and graphics chip. But in terms of performance, you might reasonably expect the Kun to be a shade worse, as that 8.4-inch display allows 1600p gaming which is more intensive than the 1200p max of the Ayaneo 2 or 2S. The reality, however, is that while you can play games at higher resolutions, it’s usually not worth it for the hit on performance. That’s where the other important hardware difference on the Kun comes in: the huge 75Wh battery.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
When playing games at 1080p or 1200p everything still looks fantastic. That display is bright, has excellent dynamic range and just really brings games to life. The pairing of optimized graphics settings and the bigger battery translates to much longer play sessions. Exactly how long will depend on a few variables along with the maximum power drain/TDP that you specify in the Ayaspace software. But as a broad guide, for lighter games and things like retro emulation you should be able to crack five hours. For a lot of AAA games, you can expect over three hours of 1080p play (assuming a TDP of between 15 and 20). If you want to increase the resolution to either 1200 or 1600 and increase the TDP nearer 30 then you might eke out two hours if you’re lucky.
Those times are pretty good for this current generation of Windows handhelds, but there are other factors to consider. The Kun is a foot wide and a little hefty. Sure, you can take this thing places but you will not be sliding it out of a pocket while waiting at the DMV. The Kun lives to be played, unironically, at home — or someone else’s home, or maybe on a flight or long train ride. The size and weight aren’t problematic in these controlled, indoor environments, but you’ll want to be somewhere relatively comfortable or ergonomic. There’s a kickstand, which really helps with certain types of games, but it positions the Kun upright like a laptop screen. I do wish the stand were adjustable to allow for a variety of angles, but it’s better than nothing.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
Personally, I found myself playing with it while on the couch, grabbing an hour or so of game time between work and dinner. For extended sessions, I would dock it and play through the TV. This hybrid use case seems to be where the Kun excels. You don’t need to occupy the living room’s main screen, but you can still be around friends or family. And then when you really want to get into a game, playing through the TV is where the Kun’s higher 54W max power drain / TDP can come in handy.
Here is a good time to circle back to something I alluded to right up top. That 54W max TDP is really, really high compared to the Steam Deck’s 15W highest power setting. It’s also a lot higher than even the Ayaneo 2S’ 30W limit. But right now that doesn’t translate into much extra game performance. The GPU on this device will be the bottleneck, usually reaching 100 percent long before you reach anything near 54W of power. Sadly, jacking the power up to 54W once the GPU is already running at maximum won’t change anything. But what it can help with is two fold.
Photo by James Trew / Engadget
Firstly, it allows for more CPU intensive tasks like general computing. Want to run music making software on this thing? You definitely could. Have the urge to edit video footage on the go? The Kun will eat this up. With a keyboard and a mouse, the Kun is, in a comical way, a good all-purpose computer. Heck, it even has a webcam with infrared for Windows Hello (and Zoom calls) which is something many laptops don’t even have. The Kun’s screen is more Netbook than Macbook in terms of size, but it’s big enough. You could always connect it to a monitor anyway. Don’t buy it for this reason of course, it’s just a testament to how big and powerful this thing is.
Secondly, and most importantly for gamers, is that this 54W TDP is a fairly clear indicator that the Kun form factor will go through the same continuous revisions as Ayaneo’s other models. The Kun is basically all set for a chipset that can make use of 54W TDP for gaming once AMD and others start making APUs with more powerful GPUs in them. We’re a ways out from any likely refresh from AMD, but you never know, as they’re not the only name in the game. Not even in the handheld gaming game.
The result is, predictably, a device with a lot to offer but also some quite narrow appeal. In fact, there’s a good chance that if you were interested in one of these, you already placed an order for one. For those folks, the Kun delivers on its promises. For that small group that didn’t know they were looking for a $1,000-plus gaming handheld, the Kun currently has no real competition at this size and specification. For everyone else, it’s likely an exercise in excess, but at least it’s fun.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ayaneos-kun-gaming-handheld-review-164050984.html?src=rss
Not even Elon Musk’s Tesla—which was touted as a vehicle manufacturing unicorn meant to dent the climate crisis—can withstand those pesky macroeconomic trends. Tesla’s valuation has just fallen as the electric vehicle market seriously cools down.
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown—released on CBS in 1966, now streaming on Apple TV+—was one of the earliest made-for-TV Halloweenholiday specials, and has now become an annual viewing tradition for many.
