Author Archives: Ewdison Then

While the year of the Linux Desktop remains a dream, awareness and adoption of this open source operating system has perhaps never been better. That's partly thanks to companies like Canonical that push Linux not only to businesses but also to consumers. The latter, however, would probably prefer not to have to install Linux themselves on their new laptops or desktops. With the latest fruit of the collaboration between the Ubuntu maker and Lenovo, they won't have to, presuming they're buying a new ThinkPad or ThinkStation.

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Who said fighting games had to be bloody to be serious? There is, of course, a good number of fighting games that take on more lighthearted and even whimsical twists and Nintendo fans will probably put Kirby Fighters in that category. Just hours after Nintendo itself mistakenly leaked its existence, Kirby Fighters 2 has been officially made available as a download-only game for Nintendo's only remaining console.

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We live in a digital and mobile world but, ironically, many of the things we deal with still aren't designed to fit both. Electronic documents that come in PDF form are one of the biggest offenders and while there is no shortage of PDF reader apps for phones, actually reading them on small screens is an entirely different matter. To address that problem, Adobe has embarked on a multi-year campaign to make PDFs behave better without actually changing them and the first stop in that journey is the new Liquid Mode for Acrobat Reader on mobile.

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First, it was Chrome Apps. Now, it seems that Chrome browser extensions are the next targets of Google's Chrome Web Store cleanup. While extensions aren't going away completely, there might be a great culling in the coming months all the way to February next year when Google completely disables its built-in payment system that would force paid Chrome extensions to use their own payment system or, more likely, to disappear or die out.

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In addition to living in a digital age, our lives have also started to revolve around clouds, that is, cloud storage and services. This elusive and ephemeral concept, however, still needs to be tethered to physical realities and limited by physical storage solutions. In other words, that fancy cloud storage you're using to collaborate and store your files ultimately gets stored in the old but proven technology of hard disk drives. That, however, is far from ideal and Microsoft researchers are looking into an old yet new idea of using holograms to store data in a much smaller physical space.

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Being the contrarian that it is, OnePlus has always resorted to less traditional and less rigid marketing methods to promote its products or events. That includes pretty much confirming some of the features and details of a new smartphone ahead of its release. It's still sticking to that strategy, confirming one of the OnePlus 8T's special features. But if an unofficial detail is also correct, that could actually cause a bit of resentment for some OnePlus 8 Pro owners.

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Perhaps even more than Samsung, Sony has a handful of businesses it could tap to improve its smartphones. It had display, imaging, entertainment, and gaming chops but, for one reason or another, including infighting and sibling rivalry, it never fully exploited those avenues. Once upon a time, however, it did dare with the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. That popular "PlayStation Phone" was left without an heir but an alleged prototype has now popped up to show Android and Sony fans what could have been.

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Mobvoi launched a new TicWatch GTX last week that may have left some drooling over the price but dissatisfied over its features. For those still wishing for a formidable Wear OS smartwatch won't have to wait long. The company has already confirmed that the TicWatch 3 Pro is landing this week and, if the leaks are correct, it could yet again be one of the more notable if not the most notable smartwatches running on Google's Android-based wearable platform.

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The next few weeks will see what may be the last big push for new smartphones before the year ends or, more importantly, before the holiday season begins. Samsung is expected to unveil its idea of a more affordable flagship in a few days and OnePlus will get its turn next month. For some Android fans, however, Google's Pixel phones are still where it's at but the latest details about Google's upcoming 5G duo could leave some scratching their heads which one to pick.

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The dual-screen foldable Surface Duo may hold promise but its current execution has left many giving it an uneasy thumbs down. While there has been a lot of criticism over the state of its software, most reviewers have actually been rather impressed by the quality of the phone's design. But will that design stand up to the test of time and back pockets, an important question to be asked of a $1,400 phone? Fortunately, we have JerryRigEverything to test that for us without finding out the hard way ourselves.

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The Galaxy S20, particularly the Ultra variant, was panned for being excessive and while the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, in particular, stepped back a bit, it was still regarded to be too much. Sales of Samsung's flagships might be seeing a downward trend this year but the company's revenues might still be salvaged by what could actually be its best smartphone of 2020, the Galaxy S20 Fan Edition or FE. Presuming, of course, these latest details are on the mark.

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Sony's upcoming console hasn't been without its fair share of controversy even as fans start counting down the weeks before the PlayStation 5 launches. The design of the console itself was already a point of heated discussion, with some loving it and others mocking it. One thing that may not have been given much attention, however, is the size of the console even after Sony gave the figures. Thankfully, Taiwan's NCC has published photos of an actual PS5 that really puts that size into perspective.

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