The human thumb is a marvel of evolution, allowing our ancestors to craft stone tools and radically expand their food choices. New research suggests our agile, dextrous thumbs appeared 2 million years ago, in a development that irrevocably changed the course of human history.
Source: Gizmodo – Human Thumbs Got a Major Upgrade 2 Million Years Ago, Sparking a Cultural Revolution, Study Finds
Returnal’s release is now pushed by just over a month, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced today.
Source: Kotaku – PS5 Exclusive Returnal Delayed To April 30
The lulz (and soaring financial gains) of Reddit’s insurgent investor community, WallStreetBets, are on hold Thursday morning as popular stock-trading app Robinhood halted key types of trades of its favorite stocks due to “significant market volatility.”
Source: Gizmodo – ‘Democratized Finance’ App Robinhood Halts Purchases Of GameStop, AMC, American Airlines
Enlarge / A live look-in at Huawei headquarters. (credit: KC Green / Ron Amadeo)
The US sanctions on Huawei are really taking hold now. A new report from Canalys Research shows Huawei dropping all the way down to sixth place for worldwide phone sales in Q4 2020, a dramatic drop from its first-place perch earlier in the year. In Canalys’ current market share table, Huawei has been banished to the “other” category.
Being stuck in “other” means there’s no clear year-over-year drop listed in Canalys’ data, but it does mention Huawei sold 32 million phones in Q2 2020. We can look at last year’s Q4 2019 report, where Huawei sold 56 million units, and come up with a year-over-year drop of 42 percent. Every other Chinese vendor in Canalys’ chart saw big double-digit gains in place of Huawei, with Xiaomi being the big winner at 31 percent year-over-year growth. Huawei is now behind Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo.
The US export ban started all the way back in May 2019, and we’re only starting to see the full effects hit Huawei a year and a half later. Huawei sales will probably fall even further going forward. The company announced a major change in November 2020, saying it was selling its “Honor” budget brand to a third party to keep its existing supply chain alive. The buyer for Honor is only listed as “a consortium of over 30 agents and dealers.”
Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments
Source: Ars Technica – Huawei’s phone sales plummet 42 percent in Q4 2020—it’s now in sixth place
20% Off Athletic Wear | Eastbay | Promo code 20JAN
Source: LifeHacker – For The Next 24 Hours, You Can Save 20% on Athletic Wear at Eastbay
GM isn’t just planning to electrify many of its cars in the years ahead — it’s ditching combustion engines entirely. As CNBC reports, GM has unveiled plans to completely eliminate tailpipe emissions from new “light-duty vehicles” (read: everyday cars…
Source: Engadget – GM plans to exclusively sell electric vehicles by 2035
Disney+’s WandaVision series has (mostly) been a chipper televised event for the Scarlet Witch and her synthezoid husband. They’ve experienced all the enforced happiness that sitcoms from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s were built on, but a clip from this Friday’s coming episode looks like it’s going to explore what’s behind…
Source: io9 – This Week’s WandaVision Looks Jam-Packed With Marvel Links
Dragon Quest Tact is a big hit in Japan, with more than 10 million downloads since its 2020 release. It’s now available worldwide for iOS and Android devices, giving fans everywhere a chance to collect cartoony monsters and make them kill each other. Yay!
Source: Kotaku – Mobile Monster Strategy Dragon Quest Tact Launches Worldwide
Google is testing a new Read Later feature that lets users save articles and other links they come across and want to, well, read later. Saved links appear in a new “Read Later” section of Chrome’s Bookmarks menu, but aren’t permanently saved like normal bookmarks.
Source: LifeHacker – You Can Finally Save Articles to ‘Read Later’ in Chrome
House lawmakers in Utah are weighing a package of bills aimed at strengthening privacy protections and protecting citizens when they’re online. One piece of legislation that’s up for consideration would make catfishing a criminal offense in some cases.
Source: Gizmodo – Utah Lawmakers Want to Make Catfishing Illegal
Intel has not been shy about the fact that it is considering its options, as it applies to chip manufacturing. Pretty much everything is on the table: forging ahead in the same manner as things have gone, tapping n outside foundry to produce some of its main CPU products, and/or licensing a foundry’s process node to use within its own fabs.
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Reportedly Inks Deal with TSMC To Produce CPUs On 3nm Process Node
This brief tutorial explains how to show or print timestamp with ping command output in Linux using ping and ts commands.
Source: LXer – How To Print Timestamp With Ping Command Output In Linux
Razer’s Viper 8K is a refresh of the 2019 true ambidextrous Viper. For the most part, it’s identical and is now available at the same $79 asking price, but it has some key upgrades for competitive gamers who are hoping that tech might help them get the edge over their opponents. From a report: First off, Razer now includes the Focus Plus 20,000DPI sensor used in many of its other 2020 mice, along with the latest generation of optical switches that have a more tactile click feel, according to the company (although it didn’t stand out as noticeable to me when I tested the mouse). The biggest news is that, according to Razer, the newly revised Viper can achieve the fastest polling rate of any mouse currently available: up to 8,000Hz — far higher than the industry standard of 1,000Hz. The polling rate measures how often per second the mouse tells your computer where it’s located on-screen. The more frequent the polling is, the smoother your mouse tracking can be. In the case of Razer’s new Viper 8K, an 8,000Hz polling rate can deliver a whopping 8,000 pings to your PC per second, while reducing the response time of those pings from one millisecond to just an eighth of one millisecond. On paper, it seems really impressive.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Razer’s New Viper 8K Promises the Fastest Performance of Any Gaming Mouse
Jeffrey Walsh started off his 2021
linux.conf.au presentation with a
statement that, while 2020 was not the greatest year ever, there were still
some
good things that happened; one of those was the Emacs 27.1 release.
This major update brought a number of welcome new features, but also
led to yet another discussion on the future of
Emacs. With that starting point, Walsh launched into a fast-moving
look at the history of Emacs, why users still care about it, what changes
are coming, and (especially) what was involved in moving Emacs away from
the X window system and making it work with the Wayland compositor.
Source: LWN.net – [$] Wayland support (and more) for Emacs
Top Pick: Resident Evil 2 | $22 (PS4) | Amazon
Resident Evil 2 | $27 (Xbox One) | Amazon
Source: Gizmodo – The Games You Should Play First To Prepare Yourself for The Medium
In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, the lord of the Dreaming’s journey from imprisonment by mortals back into his abstract realm of thought brings him face to face with a number of figures across the unraveling reality. And now, Netflix’s adaptation has found a few of those faces, and the Dream himself.
Source: io9 – Netflix’s Sandman Adaptation Has Found Its Dream, Devil, and Demons
Usually, by the time we’re wrapping up the holidays, I am beyond ready for my decorations to be banished back to the basement. I love to make my home festive, and I love to be garland-free again when the new year begins. But this year, I found myself hesitating to take down our tree. The winter that loomed ahead felt…
Source: LifeHacker – Festive Trees Don’t Only Have to Be for Christmas
Ubuntu is going to be trying to switch over to using Wayland by default for the current Ubuntu 21.04 cycle to allow sufficient time for widespread testing and evaluation ahead of next year’s Ubuntu 22.04 LTS release…
Source: Phoronix – Ubuntu 21.04 To Try To Use Wayland By Default
Let’s face it: sustainability reports are important, but they’re usually quite dry reads. Microsoft might have a way to reel you in, however. According to The Verge, Microsoft has released a free Minecraft map that brings the goals of its latest sust…
Source: Engadget – Microsoft’s sustainability report is a lot more interesting as a ‘Minecraft’ map
