Windows

Lenovo's ThinkPad division gets hit by another leak, as a reddit user has published data-sheets for most of the upcoming ThinkPad business laptops. Though there is no way to verify the specs at this point, the specs of the T490 do line up with the already announced special T490 Healthcare Edition.

Until now, the popular single-board computer has been specifically optimised for the Internet of Things version of Windows 10. However, there is now a tool that allows the installation of the full version of the OS on the Raspberry Pi 3. It is not all smooth sailing though.

The Surface Headphones look good, but can they command their premium price tag, and how do they stack up against their wireless on-ear competitors? We put the US$349.99/£329.99 Surface Headphones to the test in this hands-on review.

Apex Legends has now been played by over 25 million people in the first week of its release. There is a rumor that Tencent Holdings is interested in becoming the official distributor of the battle royale game in China. Tencent is already involved in similar genre titles such as Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.

Dell has responded to a suggestion on Twitter and has announced a new top-tier version of the Alienware m15. The Core i9-8950HK, RTX 2080 Max-Q and 144 Hz model costs US$3,279, but you must do some digging to find it on the Dell US website.

Microsoft's Visual Studio 2019 will launch on April 2 during an all-day event and comes with quite a few changes. The most noticeable one is the new start screen that has been redesigned to work with Git repositories, but there are a lot of minor under-the-hood changes as well — mainly performance optimizations.

Shuttle has expanded its range of compact Mini PCs. The DH370 is a barebones PC based on the H370 chipset that can be equipped with up to a hexa-core processor.

The Surface Pen is Microsoft's answer to the Apple Pencil. It has been described as an effective stylus, albeit one that could produce more accurate digital writing. A new patent may help improve on this with changes to both the Pen and the screen used.

SilentiumPC has announced its latest Midi Tower, the Armis AR7X TG RGB. The case costs around £125 (~ US$161) and includes tempered glass panels along with four Sigma HP Corona RGB 120 mm fans and enough space for up to 420 mm long GPUs.

Those who missed the private beta stage of Ubisoft's upcoming title The Division 2 can join the open beta, which is scheduled to begin on March 1. Sadly, the open beta will only run for three days and the trial will end on March 4. The game will launch on March 15 on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Lenovo has announced the first T series ThinkPad of 2019. The Lenovo ThinkPad T490, the "bread-and-butter" model of the series, has been announced today as a special edition for the healthcare sector.

Razer has notified us that it has investigated a number of issues impacting a limited number of retail Blade Stealth units. If you're experiencing any of the following, then this new BIOS and EC update should do the trick.

A new piece in Bloomberg has cited sources allegedly close enough to Activision Blizzard to allege that the gaming company will let "hundreds" of staff go. The firm is apparently taking this action to maximise profits and to "centralize functions". An announcement to this effect is expected on February 12, 2019.

Thanks to the votes of The Steam Community members, PUBG is now holding the Game of the Year Award for 2018. However, CD PROJEKT RED, the Polish company behind the successful Witcher franchise, was crowned as The Best Developer. PUBG competed for this prize against Monster Hunter World, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Hitman 2, and Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.

Many Skype users may be reluctant to take a call due to how messy or inappropriate their surroundings may be. Now, however, the app's latest update adds a toggle that blurs everything but the caller out of a camera's shot. This new 'background blur' option is generated by AI, and should function on most PCs.

Microsoft has announced in a blog post that the Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop 2, and Surface Studio 2 devices are now launching in 20 more markets worldwide. The tech giant also revealed that its Surface Headphones will be coming to eight new markets starting in March, including Canada, New Zealand, and Germany.

The year 2019 brings us a new generation of business laptops. One of the first specimens of this new wave has made it to our testing-labs: The Lenovo ThinkPad L390, an affordable ThinkPad laptop for companies and students.

The next Oculus VR headset to be released is rumored to be called the Rift S. The latest leaks on this device suggests that it will come with its own onboard tracking cameras, rather than rely on USB-connected sensors. It may also fix the original Rift's problems with the appearance of 'god rays' on the lenses, and adjust for room lighting with 50-to-60Hz modes.

Windows 7 is far from dead; with around a third of the market share, the operating system is primarily used by businesses. Official support will end next year, but can be extended for another three years – at a price.

Zotac has introduced the Zbox Magnus EC52070D, which is a new, and compact desktop PC. The company has made a few compromises to pack such a powerful GPU within a small form-factor case, but it remains a powerful pre-built system that has plenty going for it.

The latest update to the VLC media player (4.0) will bring more features, especially for iOS. However, it will also no longer support older versions of the same platform, along with some others (e.g. Windows XP). It also now offers the ability to play a full list of music without pauses of any kind.

Unleashed upon Windows and macOS gamers earlier today, World of Tanks 1.4 brings a few wheeled vehicles to the French tech tree, a reworked map (Ghost Town), new tweaks to the Personal Missions, a few buffs to the Object 279 Early and Chimera special tanks, concurrent rendering support, and other changes.

Frank Azor, the man in charge of the XPS series at Dell, has confirmed that there will not be a 32 GB variant of the XPS 15 9575 convertible. The executive recently tweeted the news that now seems to be the final nail in the coffin for this once expected device. The Dell XPS 15 9575 has been praised for its impressive build quality, bright display, and powerful performance.

Mozilla's Firefox 66 will come with audible autoplay blocking enabled by default, and the Android version will get a new implementation of this feature. The update is scheduled for general release on March 19. However, Firefox 66 will continue to allow muted autoplay.

If you just updated your software to the latest Mozilla Firefox 65 Version and can’t access HTTPS websites, you are not alone. As has recently come to light; the new update is not compatible with all Anti-Virus software and blocks HTTPS Connections.

Released back in September 2012, Internet Explorer 10 still receives support from Microsoft, although it has been succeeded by Internet Explorer 11 and Microsoft Edge. However, Microsoft has finally made the official announcement: Internet Explorer 10 will be laid to rest in a year from now.

XPS 15 9570 owners rejoice. We can confirm that Dell has finally fixed the NVIDIA GPU issue that has been plaguing some 9570 laptops for months with BIOS 1.7. Unfortunately, the update has introduced some fan peculiarities though.
Update: Dell has commented on the fan behaviour in BIOS 1.7.

Facebook has just announced an initiative in which messages from its own Messenger, as well as from its acquisitions Instagram and WhatsApp, will be integrated using a singular infrastructure. This contravenes an earlier commitment on the part of the parent company that these 3 services would remain independent. This plan has also raised alarm among privacy experts and WhatsApp staff.

Former Toshiba ultrabook division Dynabook has just launched its new G-Series models powered by Intel's Whiskey Lake-U CPUs. These are some of the lightest ultrabooks out there thanks to special magnesium alloy chassis that come in Pearl White and Onyx Blue colors. All models feature Sharp's IGZO 13.3-inch FHD display and the top models offer additional features like fingerprint scanners and preinstalled Windows 10 OSs.

Opera 58 is the first new build of the year, but there are no big changes inside it. The new version comes with a warning when trying to close a window with multiple tabs open, as well as Yandex Zen news recommendation service integration into the start page for those using the browser in Russian.

GPD has started one successfully financed Indiegogo campaign after another. They are already preparing another project, and it’s already waiting in the wings. The GPD MicroPC has numerous ports, and it’s tough.