Author Archives: Chris Burns

This week a set of scientists discovered a meteor explosion that occurred in early December, 2018. The event was detected by other instruments soon after taking place, but now we've got our first visual evidence in fire red and orange. This explosive image comes from the Japanese Himawari-8 weather satellite, and was first reported globally on the 15th of March by Peter Brown at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Continue Reading

Qualcomm just won one of its numerous court battles against Apple this week in San Diego, California, USA. This court case alleged that Apple infringed upon a number of Qualcomm patents with its smartphones iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus, and X. Because the court found Apple's devices to have infringed upon Qualcomm's patents, the jury awarded Qualcomm around $31 million USD in patent infringement damages from July 6th, 2017 through the end of the trial.

Continue Reading

Three announcements were made by Microsoft over the past several months that, together, made Windows a much more user-friendly place. One of these was announced all the way back in October of 2018, and only went live (in part) earlier this week. That was Android screen mirroring for Windows, at long last. The rest has to do with gaming, and the ways it'll be possible in the very near future.

Continue Reading

The Samsung Notebook 9 Pro was announced to have a release date and a price, at last, after its initial showing at CES 2019. This device was revealed alongside a relatively close piece of hardware called Samsung Notebook 9 Pen. What's strange about these devices is the fact that all models have the ability to work with a stylus - it's just that the Pen model has an official S Pen while the Pro uses an "Active Pen".

Continue Reading

Those waiting for the newest Galaxy Note-like device with an S Pen will find it in the Samsung Notebook 9 Pen. Meanwhile the Samsung Notebook 9 Pro looks about as sleek and refined as any Samsung notebook has ever before. Both devices were first revealed back at CES 2019. Both devices are now set to be available on March 17th, 2019.

Continue Reading

Today a new program from Facebook was released in order to combat the sharing of intimate images without shared consent. This is sometimes referred to as "revenge porn" and it's become a major problem across all forms of social media in the past half-decade. Today Facebook's pilot program revealed over a year and a half ago live in a new security-aimed hub called "Not without my consent."

Continue Reading

The future of the iPhone rests in the hands of the iPhone 11. Using the popularity of the iPhone XR as a guide, Apple's decisions in pricing models you'll buy will rest in this year's lineup. A report this week from Japan gave us clues in abundance about the 2019 iPhone lineup - with enough detail, even now, to take a stab at separating the three models into pricing tiers and plausibility (for your pocketbook.) Let's look at what we've got so far.

Continue Reading

Facebook just announced the loss of two of its most major executives. One was the Facebook head of product, the other was the head of WhatsApp. Chris Cox has apparently been wanting to leave the company for "a few years," according to company head Mark Zuckerberg. WhatsApp head Chris Daniels has also "decided to leave the company" - and Zuckerberg's used the same language in announcing the apparent self-made decisions by both leaders. If we analyze the language used by Zuckerberg in his note today, we can glean a bit before we move on to more grand analysis.

Continue Reading

The Hearthstone expansion "Rise of Shadows" has a quickly impending release date, and today we're getting to know what the set will contain. Inside the mix provided by this set are a couple new sorts of cards, new artwork, and new 1-player content. But what I'm most interested in right now is the return of some cards and features in the form of "callbacks."

Continue Reading

This morning preparations began for the launch of mission Soyuz MS-12, operator Roscosmos, headed for the International Space Station. This mission will be launched aboard a Soyuz FG rocket from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome. The payload aboard this launch is a mixed Russia and USA International Space Station Expedition 59/60 crew.

Continue Reading

Facebook was down yesterday, resulting in troubles with all of Facebook's various properties. This includes WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook proper. This is a good example for why one should not rely on one company to provide all of one's means of communication. Today Facebook revealed the reason why it had some troubles in the last day - a "server configuration change." I mean, yes I'm sure that's possible, but really?

Continue Reading

The Razer BlackWidow 2019 is a slight redesign of the classic keyboard with adjustments to bring the price down for the masses. This keyboard rolls with Chroma lighting as well as an 80-million keystroke lifespan, so you know its colorful and long-lasting as such. The Razer BlackWidow 2019 is one of a collection of accessories given a reboot this week by the gaming company.

Continue Reading