Christmas is behind us, the new year is mercifully just ahead, and you may now find yourself wondering: Did my friend ever receive my gift or what? It was a thoughtful gift; you’re sure she’d like it, and she always thanks you, so it’s unusual that you haven’t heard from her yet. Should you ask if she received it?…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Ask Someone If They Received Your Gift Without It Being Awkward
There are many new features with the Linux 5.11 kernel that is presently under development but one of the ones I’ve been more curious about for how well it works is the Intel “workload hints” that can be passed via its thermal framework. This is about providing the system with hints of workloads being run to optimize the thermal/power properties.
Source: Phoronix – Testing The Intel “Workload Hints” Capability Of Linux 5.11
Apple may have just released the AirPods Max, but it seems Apple is already working on the next addition to its headphone line with a new version of the AirPods Pro that for the first time might come in multiple sizes.
Source: Gizmodo – Leaker Claims AirPods Pro 2 Could Come in Multiple Sizes
Oculus Quest 2 64GB + $15 Newegg Gift Card | $300 | Newegg
Source: Gizmodo – Get a Newegg Gift Card When You Buy an Oculus Quest 2
This week’s Expanse episode title is “Down and Out,” so you know everyone’s going to be feeling the hurt of what’s happened so far—and man, it’s been a lot. But just because certain characters are in regroup mode doesn’t mean the action gets any less tense this week. Quite the opposite: season five shows no mercy!
Source: io9 – The Latest Expanse Offers Yet Another Ticking-Clock Adrenaline Rush
Security researchers looking to get under the hood of technology in order to improve it received a pleasant victory on Tuesday when a federal judge in Florida decided to throw out Apple’s copyright violation claims against the maker of virtual iPhone software.
Source: Gizmodo – Judge Tosses Apple Lawsuit Against iPhone Emulator in Big Victory for Security Research
Over the past 24 hours, health officials in Colorado have reported finding two suspected cases of covid-19 caused by a worrying new variant of the coronavirus. The variant, first detected in the UK, is strongly believed to be more transmissible than previous strains, though recent data has also suggested that it’s not…
Source: Gizmodo – The New Coronavirus Variant Is in the U.S.—Now What?
January’s PlayStation Plus games are looking pretty good, and I can’t complain about getting three games instead of two. As ever, these games are only “free” if you have an active PlayStation Plus membership.
Source: Kotaku – Here’s January 2021’s PlayStation Plus Lineup
Enlarge (credit: Hinterhaus Productions | Getty Images)
Despite over 82 million cases and over 1.75 million deaths due to COVID-19, many people are bound and determined to carry on with normal life. For some, that includes attending Saturday night ragers, just like they did in the Before Times. Reports of yet another secret party being broken up by law enforcement have become distressingly common.
Getting guests for these secret parties is at least slightly more difficult now that Apple has pulled Vybe Together—an app with a tagline that invited users to “get their party on”—from the App Store. The Verge pointed out that the app had largely been flying under the radar until a tweet from Taylor Lorenz of the New York Times brought some unwelcome, but much-needed scrutiny to the app. One of Lorenz’s tweets highlighted Vybe Together’s TikTok account, which had posted videos of unmasked people partying indoors while advertising New Years Eve parties. According to Business Insider, TikTok has since removed Vybe Together’s account for violating community guidelines.
They’re currently in the midst of promoting secret NYE ragers in nyc pic.twitter.com/dEIdwX1DKn
— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) December 29, 2020
Vybe Together’s FAQ at least acknowledged the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We are aware that Covid is a major health problem to the country, our communities, our friends and family. If we could all just be in isolation this could actually go away.” So far, so good.
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Source: Ars Technica – Private party app pulled from App Store by Apple
It’s no secret that we love freebies here at HotHardware, which is why our ears perked up at the latest giveaway from the GOG store. Up for grabs for the next 48 hours is Metro: Last Light Redux, which is the sequel to Metro: 2033.
Metro: Last Light Redux is a shooter set in a post-apocalyptic Moscow during the year 2034. As if an ongoing
Source: Hot Hardware – How To Get Metro: Last Light Redux Free For A Limited Time, For Apocalyptic Gaming Fun
Ed Bott, writing at ZDNet: With a heartfelt nod to Monty Python, Windows 7 would like you all to know that it’s not dead yet. A year after Microsoft officially ended support for its long-running OS, a small but determined population of PC users would rather fight than switch. How many? No one knows for sure, but that number has shrunk substantially in the past year. On the eve of Microsoft’s Windows 7 end-of-support milestone, I consulted some analytics experts and calculated that the owners of roughly 200 million PCs worldwide would ignore that deadline and continue running their preferred OS. That was, admittedly, a rough estimate. During the holiday lull at the end of 2020, I decided to go back and run the latest version of those analytics reports. They tell a consistent story.
Let’s start with the United States Government Digital Analytics Program, which reports a running, unfiltered total of visitors to U.S. websites over the previous 90 days. One of the datasets includes a report of visits from all PCs running any version of Windows, which makes it an ideal proxy for this question. At the end of December 2019, 75.8% of those PCs were running Windows 10, 18.9% were still on Windows 7, and a mere 4.6% were sticking with the unloved Windows 8.x. A year later, as December 2020 draws to a close, the proportion of PCs running Windows 10 has gone up 12%, to 87.8%; the Windows 7 count has dropped by more than 10 points, to 8.5%, and the population of Windows 8.x holdouts has shrunk even further, to a minuscule 3.4%. (The onetime champion of PC operating systems, Windows XP, is now nearly invisible, with its device count adding up to a fraction of a rounding error.)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – A Year After Microsoft Ended All Support for Windows 7, Millions of Users Are Still Not Upgrading
In a year when the outside world became a literal threat, television provided more of an escape—or, perhaps, an essential outlet for emotional release—than ever before.
Even as everything from church services to first dates moved online, we still couldn’t escape our screens, because binging one more episode of …
Source: LifeHacker – The TV Episodes That Helped Us Escape 2020
2020 has been rough, so here’s a compilation of one year’s worth of wildlife that crossed a beaver dam just south of Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota.
This video was literally a year in the making! Beaver dams can be wildlife highways in boreal environments like the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem, allowing all sorts of wildlife to easily cross wetland habitats which might be otherwise difficult to get across.
While the wildlife is undoubtedly neat, we particularly enjoyed watching the changing of the seasons on this beaver dam! It summarizes life in the Northwoods: cold snowy winters and hot, humid summers with lots of vegetation!
This is such a relaxing watch that I can’t help but wonder how quickly all these animals’ lives would turn to shit if you introduced them to smartphones and social media. How long before we could get them to stop leisurely going about their day and instead get them to obsessively check their status updates and likes? Which is just a roundabout way of saying I’m jealous and I should throw my phone in a river.
Keep going for the full 6 minutes of peacefulness.
Source: Geekologie – One year of animals crossing a beaver dam in northern Minnesota
Released way back in 1996 (the year I graduated high school), the Nintendo 64 would go on sell nearly 33 million units, outpacing its predecessor, the GameCube, but more than 11 million units. It was a hit, and it spawned some fun games for its era. Now over two decades later, a modder has laid claim to constructing the world’s smallest Nintendo
Source: Hot Hardware – Watch This Modder Turn A Nintendo 64 Into A Pocket-Sized Game Console
There are bad ideas, and then there’s building an app to promote secret parties during the worst global pandemic in 100 years. In a move surprising absolutely no one with common sense, Apple has pulled the Vybe Together app from its iOS store, according to the Verge.
Source: Gizmodo – Apple Pulls Secret Partying App Because Apparently There’s a Pandemic Going On
Peloton will be the only place anyone can hear a trio classic Elvis Presley songs remixed by DJ Dillon Francis, Big Boi and Chromeo. The songs, Do The Vega, Catchin’ On Fast, and Clean Up Your Own Backyard, will play out as part of Peloton’s Artist S…
Source: Engadget – Peloton buys the rights to three exclusive Elvis remixes
Turn a Raspberry Pi into a full blown Linux development environment.
Source: Linux Today – Turn Raspberry Pi into a remote Linux development environment.
One of the fortunate things about racing, compared to other sports, is that it’s relatively easy to simulate in a virtual setting. The experience of playing NBA 2K, for example, doesn’t correspond to any of the physical skills required to actually play basketball in real life. Those of us who love to drive are…
Source: Kotaku – This Weird Driving Controller Had Force Feedback Before Steering Wheels
WhatsApp will soon drop support for another round of older versions of iOS and Android. As described in WhatsApp’s recently updated system requirements, you must have a device that runs at least iOS 9 or Android 4.0.3 in order to access WhatsApp after January 1, 2021.
Source: LifeHacker – WhatsApp is Ditching These Old Phones in 2021
