Windows

Three months since the release of the Alpha 3.5 update, Star Citizen Alpha 3.6 comes with a complete overhaul of the law and crime systems, hover mode for ships and vehicles, a few new vehicles/ships and weapons, as well as illegal style delivery missions for prohibited and stolen goods. The 3.7 update is expected to arrive in September.

Contrary to Dell's service manual, not all XPS 15 7590 machines come with the same heatsink. Only the Core i9 models appear to have full VRM cooling, with Dell equipping the other SKUs with a slightly lesser cooler. As its predecessors demonstrated, all XPS 15 need active VRM cooling, so why the penny-pinching Dell?

The Eve V was once hailed as a 'Surface Pro killer', as it offered a worthy alternative to this 2-in-1 (on paper at least) at a low price compared to that of the Microsoft product. However, its manufacturer (also called Eve) ran into difficulty due to supply issues that delayed shipments for many users. This OEM now claims to have resolved these problems.

Lenovo's newest high-end ThinkPad laptop, the ThinkPad X1 Extreme 2019, is now available in the USA. Prices for the Dell XPS 15 competitor start at $2,049 for the cheapest pre-configured model available – a hefty base-price, though it will likely fall considerably in the near future with the introduction of discounts & more configuration options.

Microsoft has acknowledged that some Surface Book 2 laptops are experiencing NVIDIA dGPU disconnects following the Windows 10 May 2019 Feature Update. If you have already updated your Surface Book 2 to Windows 10 version 1903 then you are out of luck, as Microsoft currently has no workaround other than to prevent all devices from updating to the latest version of Windows.

News about the GPD Win Max has been quiet since April, but a host of leaked photos give a better look at the 8-inch handheld. Dual-fans, a larger keyboard, a PlayStation Vita style d-pad and even a trackpad? One-Netbook and Smach better take notice.

Age of Wonders III arrived at the end of March 2014 for Microsoft Windows, but it became available for OS X and Linux as well one year later. Now, those interested can grab the original release for free via Steam until July 15 — and keep it forever after that, of course. Sadly, there are no expansions included and the free game will not generate any Steam trading cards.

Originally scheduled to arrive in 2018, Psychonauts 2 was expected to arrive later this year. This title for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 looks like its predecessor with improved graphics and a few new ideas. Sadly, its launch has been pushed to 2020 and we can only hope that it will not get another delay next year.

The new Oxford Circus flagship store in London is also Microsoft's first physical retail store in the UK. This venue covers no less than 22,000 square feet over three floors and brings together Surface devices, HoloLens, the Xbox Gaming Lounge, a Selfie Area, and more. The staff can provide assistance in no less than 45 languages.

After more than six years since its initial release, World of Warplanes has just been updated to version 2.1. This new build comes with a Europe tech tree that replaces the previously available France tab, quite a few new premium and special reward planes, new equipment, as well as various tweaks and fixes.

Dell has been promoting its upcoming XPS 13 2-in-1 refresh on YouTube, lifting the lid on its new cooling system. While the company had previously announced that the convertible would feature vaper chamber and GORE cooling, the new video explains the use of the several slits adorning its bottom case. An innovative solution or an eyesore?

GPD is refreshing the Win 2, its 6-inch handheld that can run AAA games. The company has not only bumped the device up from a Core m3-7Y30 to a Core m3-8100Y, but it has also redesigned the motherboard to aid better heat dissipation, upgraded the storage to 256 GB and improved the speakers. The new GPD Win 2 is available to order now for US$775 and will ship from July 26.

If the two-year-old StarCraft: Remastered was not enough to draw the attention of the hardcore fans of Blizzard's iconic title that was released at the end of March 1998, the Cartooned mod might make them finally pay attention to it. The US$9.99 mod comes with all-new, cartoon-style graphics and is fully compatible with online play.

Seeedstudio claims that the ICE Tower CPU Cooling Fan can reduce Raspberry Pi 4 core temperatures from 80 °C to 40 °C under load, which should eliminate thermal throttling. The ICE Tower is compatible with all previous RPi boards too and just requires 5 V power via a 40-pin GPIO. The ICE Tower is available to order now from Seeedstudio for US$19.90, which ships worldwide from July 19.

μProf 3.0 supports Assembly, C, C++ and Fortran along with Java and .Net. It can also work with programs compiled using GNU, Intel or Microsoft compilers in addition to LLVM and AOCC. The tool includes not only energy, performance and system analyses but also system-wide power profiling. μProf 3.0 is available to download now.

VAIO has launched its latest ultraportable in its home market of Japan. The new SX12 is one of the lightest 12.5-inch Windows notebooks on the market weighing in at under two pounds, or just 888 grams.

A tech blogger has posted a new video citing rumors that Microsoft is working on hardware for its xCloud platform. This console would apparently work with existing Xbox controllers, but also act as a competitor for Google's own starter pack for Stadia. As this putative box could cost as little as US$60, it would also undercut the "Founder's Edition".

The RTX 20 Series is being hyped to high-heaven right now, but the RTX 2070 SUPER yields hardly any performance improvements over its predecessor in even heavily NVIDIA-optimised titles like FFXV. What gives, NVIDIA?

The XPS 15 7590 is less than two weeks old, but consumers are already realising that the device retains some of the issues that plagued its predecessors. 75 °C throttling and no S3 sleep sound familiar to anyone? At least Dell appears to have resolved DPC latency issues with the new XPS 15 though.

Fully compatible with a wide range of graphics adapters, the AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 19.7.1 driver comes with a new image sharpening feature (on AMD Radeon RX 5700 hardware in DirectX 9, DirectX 12, and Vulkan titles) and anti-lag for DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 games, which improves input-to-display response time by up to 31 percent.

Intel has dismissed reports of the company losing its CPU sales market share to AMD in Japan. The latter is now the largest CPU seller in the country, with AMD gaining a 21.6% market share since October. The news comes before the arrival of AMD's hotly anticipated Zen 2 architecture too. Worrying times indeed for the team in blue.

SwiftKey users will soon be able to create their own virtual character that matches their head movements and facial expressions. This AR emoji feature is similar to Apple's Animoji and currently comes with five characters: Dinosaur, Panda, Cat, Owl, and Dog. For now, it is only available in SwiftKey Beta.

The Radeon RX 5700 is inching ever closer to release, but AMD has already reduced prices to stay competitive with NVIDIA and its RTX 20 SUPER series. Good news all round for gaming fans, then.

The new 4x4 BOX-R1000 is basically the active cooling version of the iBOX-R1000 model launched in April 2019. It comes with a smaller chassis, but the specs are almost the same, except for the supported RAM that has been downgraded from DDR4-3200 to DDR4-2400. Users ca still opt for the AMD Ryzen Embedded R1505G / R1606G dual-core / quad-thread CPUs with Vega 3 iGPUs.

You are going to start seeing articles and videos cleverly implying educated conclusions about Dell's recently released XPS 15 7590. Don't be fooled into thinking they are anything other than first-impressions.

The Cluster HAT v2.3 does what it says on the tin. It allows you to combine a Raspberry Pi A+/B+/2/3 with up to 4 Raspberry Pi Zeros. The latter connect via a Controller Pi GPIO and are configured to use USB Gadget mode, making it easy to simulate or test small-scale cluster computing. The Cluster HAT v2.3 is designed by Pimoroni and is available to order from SB-Components for US$49.22.

The Chuwi LapBook Plus comes with a 15.6-inch 4K display, an Intel Atom X7-E3950 processor, 8 GB RAM and a 256 GB SSD. Yes, you read that correctly, an Atom CPU powering a 4K display. The device comes with a 36.5 Wh battery too, which will surely result in woeful battery life. The LapBook Plus weighs 1.53 kg, has two USB Type-A ports along with a microSD card reader and a micro HDMI port. The device is available to order on Gearbest for US$459.99 and will ship on July 11.

Microsoft is sure taking its time with the announcement of its rumored foldable Surface devices, but the company may have a good reason for this. The latest USPTO patent detailing an improved hinge system for foldable devices points to the fact that Microsoft does not want to release foldable devices with half-backed folding mechanisms similar to those plaguing the initial Samsung Galaxy Fold wave.

Dell has published the service manual for the XPS 15 7590 following its release yesterday, which would not usually turn heads. Stay with us though, as it confirms a tweak that will potentially fix one of the biggest gripes of the XPS 15 9570.

AMD looks to have sent the Radeon RX 5700 XT to reviewers, with 3DMark benchmark results popping up online. The upcoming 7 nm GPU scored well in Time Spy but fell short of the RTX 2070, probably giving the RTX 2060 Super an edge over AMD's next flagship card too.

June 27 Update: Added comment in response to Razer's communications with NBC. We recently noted in our 2019 Razer Blade Pro review that its AC adapter hit the hottest temperature we've yet to measure on a gaming notebook, 67C. Based on historical evidence from Razer's 2017-2018 chargers melting or catching fire and the fact that the 2019 Razer Blade Pro's adapter is even hotter, I believe it may be prudent for the Singapore-based company to consider a recall — at least perhaps for adapters from their 2017-2018 Blade and Blade Pro systems.

Calculator for Windows 10 was placed on the open-source repository GitHub some months ago. Now, the developer Jérôme Laban has released iOS, Android and WebAssembly ports via the Uno platform. Therefore, nearly anyone with any device can enjoy the versatile Fluent Design app.

Today is the day. You can now order the XPS 15 7590, the much-anticipated upgrade to the XPS 15 9570. The 15.6-inch laptop includes up to an Intel Core i9-9980HK processor, 64 GB of RAM, a 2 TB SSD and a 400 nit 4K OLED panel. The device features an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 GPU too. Prices start at £1,349 (~US$1,711) and rise to a dizzying £2,899 (~US$3,677).
Update: US pricing, specifications details and shipping date added.

Khadas has changed the VIM3 slightly from when we previously reported on it earlier this month. The single-board computer (SBC) now features a more powerful Amlogic SoC, the hexa-core A331D, which can output up to 5.0 TOPS. The VIM3 now starts at US$99.99 and will ship worldwide from August 10.

Microsoft looks set to bring a WoA Surface to market powered by Qualcomm’s specialized Snapdraon 8cx SoC. The device is said be going by the codename Excalibur internally and could feature on a version of the Surface Pro 7.

Back in January, Lenovo announced their newest generation of high end ThinkPad X1 laptops for a summer release. As promised back then, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga 2019 and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2019 are now available.

CHUWI has announced that it will be adding the option to upgrade to 16GB of RAM as rewards to its Indiegogo campaign for the Minibook. These SKUs will have the same Intel m3-8100Y SoC as the UMPC's current higher-end version. The first 50 of these are to cost US$10 more than their 8GB counterparts.

With the recent restructuring changes occurring at Blizzard, a possible 2020 launch for Diablo 4 might signal some negative aspects. While Blizzard has already assured its fans that it will focus more on its franchises, the company could give in to the bad practices that somehow became standard for many rushed launches from the past few years.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has delivered its next single-board computer a year early. The Raspberry Pi 4 Model B comes with a quad-core CPU, up to 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, Gigabit Ethernet dual 4K HDMI and USB Type-C. It should deliver 3x the performance of its predecessor while remaining backwards-compatible with older boards. Better still, the Raspberry Pi 4 Model B costs just US$35 and is available to order worldwide now.

Popular video and media player VideoLan Client (VLC) has been found by security researchers to have two serious vulnerabilities, allowing malicious .avi and .mkv files to execute any code with full user privileges. Version 3.0.7 or newer addresses this vulnerability, so check to make sure your version is up-to-date.