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Launched alongside new Skylake processors are accompanying motherboards using the Intel Z170 chipset that go from $100 right up to $500 for the Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming G1. Having that said, most capable Z170 motherboards can be had for around $200 to $250 and today we’ll be looking at six options in this bracket. Also Read: Intel Z170 vs. Z97 chipset: What is the difference? The more expensive board in our roundup is the Asrock Z170 Extreme7+ at $240 and the cheapest the EVGA Z170 at $190, with the others filling the gap in-between....

Broadly used add-ons are usually prepared well in advance, and tested with beta releases. Unfortunately, many aren’t updated right away and others not at all. Because we refuse to let our extensions die, we’re going to take a look at a workaround which may also work for you. For reference, I’ll be using Firefox version 3.5 with Google Gears 0.5.23.0 - which is incompatible. Now, there are two methods of forcing your old add-ons to work; one requires you to download an extension and is easier - the other needs nothing but elbow grease and guts....

Our only expectations were that the SSDNow V +180 64GB drive should be faster than the cheaper SSDNow V Series 64GB drive, which uses the Toshiba TC58NCF618GBT controller. Things weren’t quite that black and white. While the SSDNow V+180 64GB shocked us with blistering fast transfer speeds in all three of our file copy tests, application performance varied greatly. The Windows 7 boot time was impressive, beating all budget SSD drives we’ve tested to date....

Apple’s Peek Performance event saw the introduction of the Mac Studio, a new desktop Mac powered by a gigantic M1 Ultra chipset and compact enough to fit below a monitor like the new 27-inch Studio Display — or pretty much any of the best monitors out there. The 27-inch Intel-powered iMac now appears to be discontinued, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be seeing an Apple Silicon version sometime in the future....

LastPass CEO Karim Toubba writes that LastPass recently detected unusual activity within a third-party cloud storage service that the organization and affiliate GoTo currently share. It’s been determined that the hackers were able to gain access to “certain elements” of customers’ data. This was achieved using information acquired from the hack on LastPass in August when cybercriminals took portions of the site’s internal source code and documents relating to propriety technical information....

You can expect a desktop replacement to weight in around 6.5 pounds or more, sport a dual or quad-core processor, at least 4GB of RAM and 500GB of storage capacity, and plenty of connectivity options. Unfortunately battery life is not one of their strong points due to the large display and powerful hardware, so most of the time you’ll be looking at around 3 hours of autonomy. Laptops in this category start at around $1,000 but fully-loaded models can fetch upwards of $1,500....

Toshiba mini NB305 When it comes to netbooks we are used to seeing the same hardware being repackaged over and over again – an Intel Atom processor, 160 or 250GB hard drive and a single gig of RAM. It’s hard to tell which model is best by just looking at their specs, so it usually comes down to design, battery life and price. The Toshiba mini NB305 hits the mark with a sleek chassis and good quality construction, comfortable touchpad and keyboard, and over 8 hours of battery life....

The suit, filed by plaintiff Alex Morales in New York on Saturday, highlights decades of research that points to pulse oximeter technology being ineffective when measuring blood oxygen levels in darker skin tones. The suit states that researchers “confirmed the clinical significance of racial bias of pulse oximetry using records of patients taken during and before the pandemic.” The problem was especially significant during the Covid-19 crisis when pulse oximeter tech was used in hospitals to check patients’ oxygen levels, the suit notes....

The Apple iMac dominated the AIO scene for years with a stunning design and beautiful display, but there are now a number of great options on the Windows side, and the amount of performance you can squeeze into the back of a monitor has increased considerably, too. Today I’ll be checking out the IdeaCentre Y910 Gaming AIO from Lenovo. Available in two different models, it promises top-of-the-line gaming performance in a compact form factor....

I spoke further about the Z3740 in my Asus Transformer Book T100 review, and like I expected, the performance from the Lenovo Miix 2 8 is largely the same. Navigating Windows 8.1’s ‘Metro’ interface is smooth and perfectly hardware accelerated, and launching applications is reasonably fast. Web browsing performance is also quite good, not as speedy as a ‘Haswell’-powered machine, but nevertheless very acceptable for a tablet. It is definitely possible to game on the Lenovo Miix 2 8, especially if you are just playing titles from the Windows Store....

The model used in the Yoga 3 Pro is the new Core M-5Y70, built on Intel’s latest 14nm manufacturing process. It features two CPU cores and four threads, with a base clock speed of 1.1 GHz that’s boosted up to 2.6 GHz where better single-thread performance is required.It also features Intel HD Graphics 5300 clocked up to 850 MHz, which is one of the lower end GPU parts that Intel will be manufacturing for Broadwell chips....

The right panel pulls double duty as a motherboard tray, which has eight permanently installed mounts. The enclosure supports Micro ATX/Mini-ITX and Mini-DTX form factors, but we suspect it will be used primarily with Micro ATX motherboards. Since the motherboard tray is also a door panel, it’s easily removable for installation. The case floor has room for a pair of 2.5" SSDs and behind that is a mounting plate for an ATX power supply....

Logitech just unveiled its first handheld console developed in partnership with Tencent. Unlike the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck, Logitech’s aptly named G Cloud primarily focuses on cloud gaming services, such as Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now. Players can also stream games locally from their PC with the Steam Link app or from their Xbox via the eponymous app. The Logitech G Cloud is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G, an octa-core processor with a 2....

Although the Phenom II X4 965 struggled in our synthetic tests, the first real-world test that we threw at it went very well. Using a complex spreadsheet that we created (not supplied by Intel or AMD) the Phenom II X4 965 completed the large calculation in 11:10 minutes. The Core i7 920 took 13:04 minutes, making it over a minute slower. There was very little difference in performance when comparing Intel CPUs to one another....

AM3 System Specs - AMD Phenom II X4 965 (AM3) - x2 Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR3-1333 (CAS 8-8-8-24) - Asus M3A79-T Deluxe (AMD 790FX) - OCZ GameXStream (700 watt) - Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - Asus GeForce GTX 285 (1GB) Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - Nvidia Forceware 190.38

This was an interesting analysis because most people who upgrade from an older generation Intel part such as the Core i7-8700K to the newer Core i9-10900K and saw a strong performance uplift in games, tend to believe this comes as the result of the 67% increase in cores, but for the most part it’s actually due to the 67% increase in L3 cache – at least that’s the case for today’s most demanding games....

Facebook endured what was arguably (it’s had plenty) the company’s biggest PR disaster to date when news that now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica harvested the personal data of 90 million users for targeted political ads during the UK’s Brexit referendum and 2016 US presidential campaign. A whistleblower’s revelations rocked Facebook in 2018, leading to Zuckerberg testifying before congress and a $5 billion fine levied on the company by the Federal Trade Commission in July 2019....

The Windows 11 2022 update, also known as the 22H2 update, started rolling out in 190 countries in September, bringing with it a slew of upgrades for Microsoft’s latest operating system. As is often the case with updates of this size, it also added several unwanted bugs. Reports that 22H2 was causing game performance issues and blue screens of death arrived quickly. In the case of the former, complaints ranged from just one game being affected, G-Sync and the audio also experiencing problems, and only Nvidia GPU users being impacted....

According to a recent article by The Information, more than two dozen Azure data centers, including key centers in Washington, Europe, and Asia, are currently operating at reduced capacity. This reduction in capacity, attributed to several contributing factors, can result in customers experiencing an inability to use any Azure-based infrastructure and services that are relied upon for their daily operations. Microsoft, like other cloud service providers, felt the squeeze that stemmed from ongoing worldwide component shortages as well as 2020’s huge surge in telework requirements....

In a recent post on Twitter, Kuo said he expects the new iPhone SE to enter mass production this month. The handset will feature a form factor similar to the current iPhone SE, Kuo added, and be offered in your choice of white, black or red colorways. The current-gen iPhone SE utilizes large top and bottom bezels, and still features a Home button with Touch ID support. Imagine an iPhone 8, but with modern internals....