Computing

The Web has definitely become a very different place compared to just a few years ago. Security has always been a consideration but never has it been more critical than these days when more people work at home with less than secure Internet connections. That same change in work situations has bumped up the need for WebRTC, a technology that already existed long before video conferencing was hip. Addressing both those concerns, Google is releasing Chrome 90 in an attempt to make working for home more secure and less stressful.

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Despite all the magic that web apps and web browsers are able to do these days, much of the Web and the Internet in general still operates on top of decades-old technologies. This isn't just about applications like e-mail or IRC (yes, those still exist) but also technologies like TCP/IP, HTTP (without the S), and FTP. Those won't be going away anytime soon, at least without breaking the Internet, but some, such as FTP, are becoming more obscure to the point that Mozilla has decided to start its retirement from the Firefox web browser.

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Microsoft's faster iterations for Windows 10 development have allowed it to experiment with new and sometimes exciting features sooner than it would have been able to in the pre-Windows 10 era. For better or worse, however, that also means it is able to change those features faster, which sometimes means actually removing them. That is what seems to be happening with one of Windows 10 most unique features as Timeline gets stripped of what actually makes it more than just a fancy task switcher.

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The power of the Apple M1 processor has been demonstrated time and again by using the M1 Macs for cases Apple never intended, not to mention would allow. That includes running resource and graphics-intensive gaming emulators or other operating systems on top of the Arm-based macOS. Perhaps the most glowing example, and most damning for Microsoft, was running Windows 10 ARM on an Apple M1 Mac, something that can now be done officially with the latest release of Parallels Desktop.

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Whatever goodwill Google earned in the past few years that it has been fighting off advertising and user tracking abuses may have gone down the train in an instant thanks to its proposed solution. The Federated Learning of Cohorts or FLoC is promoted to be a better strategy that protects people's privacy while still giving advertisers something they can profit from. Privacy advocates, however, are raising alarms over what they deem to be an even worse technology and Chromium-based browser makers like Brave and Vivaldi are committing to fighting off FLoC in all its forms.

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Facebook and Oculus are investing heavily in the Quest 2 VR system, pushing it as the pinnacle of the Oculus' efforts and replacing all previous headsets, both standalone and PC-tethered like the discontinued Oculus Rift S. Its launch may have been tainted by some controversy over Facebook's new requirements but, on a technical point of view, the Quest 2 is admittedly on the road to truly becoming the one headset to rule them all, especially with version 28 of the Oculus Quest system software that opens it up to new ways of enjoying VR worlds.

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It has been a very busy year for Samsung so far, with a constant stream of new product announcements to make up for last year's slough. Of course, Samsung isn't just about smartphones and it has launched quite a number of products across all its consumer electronics markets. It even has one more batch coming later this month in a new Unpacked event that it says will reveal its most powerful Galaxy yet. And, no, it probably won't be a smartphone.

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AMD has announced its Ryzen 5000 G-Series desktop processors that feature built-in graphics, though you can't get ahold of one quite yet. Featuring 7nm processor core tech, the new hardware lineup is first being made available to OEMs with plans to open availability to the consumer level later this year.

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Dell's XPS 13 is adding an OLED option, promising richer colors and better contrast for buyers of the ultraportable notebook. The latest iteration of the XPS 13 runs Intel 11th generation Core processors and comes, as standard, with a 13.4-inch InfinityEdge LCD touchscreen, but now that can be swapped out for a new OLED panel.

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Microsoft teased us with new Surface news, and now we know just what that is: the new Surface Laptop 4, delivering a choice of two screen sizes and both AMD and Intel processors. Successor to last year's Surface Laptop 3, the new notebook sticks with the styling - including four different finishes of metal and Alcantara - but drops in 11th Gen Intel Core or exclusive AMD Ryzen Microsoft Surface Edition processors based on Zen 2 architecture.

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Google Lens has long been a handy tool that demonstrates the strength of Google's various computer vision and AI capabilities. It has, however, mostly been limited to its smartphone incarnation where it admittedly has the most opportunities to be used. Google Lens, however, also has some features that can be useful even when not used in real-time, like when looking at images already stored on your computer. Thankfully, Google is slowly bringing those features to the desktop via Google Photos on a desktop web browser.

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It hasn't been approved yet but NVIDIA has just made it known that it is very intent on investing in the Arm computing ecosystem. The company, which does use Arm technology for a few of its own products, just made a rather big announcement of new processors and partners geared towards expanding that ecosystem, from the usual culprits like the DRIVE Atlan for autonomous vehicles to game streaming utilizing AWS's own Arm-based Graviton2 processor. Also lurking in that announcement, however, is NVIDIA's first step into the Chromebook space that will attempt to match its powerful RTX GPUs with MediaTek's CPUs.

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