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PC sales are growing despite processor shortages

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A total of 68 million units were shipped this quarter, compared to 67 million units in the third quarter of 2018. Lenovo shipped the most units, with nearly a quarter of the market share, followed by HP and Dell. Brands with less than ten percent market share include Apple, Acer and Asus.

Some companies’ sales grew compared to this time last year, like Lenovo, HP, Dell and Acer. Others were down compared to last year, including Apple and Asus. These numbers include desktop PCs and notebook PCs, but not Chromebooks or iPads.

One big challenge for PC manufacturers has been a shortage of Intel CPUs, but other vendors such as AMD and Qualcomm have moved to fill this gap. Low prices for RAM and SSDs have helped to buoy the industry, and the Windows 10 refresh cycle continues to drive new sales.

“Neither the Intel CPU shortage nor the US-China trade war had a significant impact on PC shipments in the third quarter of 2019,” Mikako Kitagawa, senior principal research analyst at Gartner, wrote in the report. “The Intel CPU shortage has continued to ease, and US tariffs on China-built mobile PCs had a minimal impact on PC shipments as the date for the potential increase in tariffs was pushed out to December 2019.”

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OnePlus unveils the 7T Pro

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But it’s not coming to the US.The OnePlus 7T Pro is a speedier take on a familiar design

OnePlus’ mid-year smartphone update takes the impressive OnePlus 7 Pro and adds an even more powerful processor and faster charging — de rigueur for 2019 phone updates, it seems. The new OnePlus 7T Pro features Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 855 Plus mobile chip and comes with a new 30T Warp Charge power adapter. According to OnePlus, that can get the 7T Pro to approximately 68 percent charge in 30 minutes.

There’s the same triple camera array, made of a 48-megapixel f/1.7 main camera (with optical stabilization), 8-megapixel f/2.4 3x-zoom telephoto camera and a 16-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide camera. The selfie cam is in a pop-up unit to keep the phone pretty much all screen. Alas, there are no plans for the OnePlus 7T Pro or its 12GB/256GB McLaren Edition variant to come to the US. Instead, they’re headed to the EU, China and India. The OnePlus 7T Pro will be available in the UK starting on October 17th for £699, roughly $870.

Charge it up at home.Toyota’s 2021 RAV4 hybrid gets a plug

Ahead of the LA Auto Show, Toyota announced that the RAV4 would get the plug-in hybrid treatment. Like most automotive teases ahead of a major event, it didn’t tell us much about the upcoming vehicle. There’s no word on price, range, battery size, etc. The automaker also announced that all 2020 models and beyond — hybrid, plug-in hybrid and fuel-cell vehicles — would get a battery warranty upgrade from eight years/100,000 miles (whichever comes first).

The eight-episode miniseries airs next spring on FX.Alex Garland’s new series ‘Devs’ explores free will in the age of predictive computing

Alex Garland deconstructed the Turing test with Ex Machina and tormented our psyches with a horrifying alien invasion in Annihilation. Now he’s tackling free will vs. a deterministic universe in Devs.

Dell’s new convertible outmatches the classic XPS 13.Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 review

Sure, this combo-device version of Dell’s XPS 13 could do with a few more ports, but according to Devindra Hardawar, it’s even better than the standard version. Packed with a 10th-generation Intel CPU and graphics, it’s even powerful enough to handle some 3D gaming. The revamped Maglev keyboard fits in its skinny frame without being frustrating to use (we’re talking about you, Apple, and your butterfly keys), and the battery kept it running for 14 hours in our test.

Our review unit featured a 10th-gen Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 1080p screen for $1,597. That’s around $200 more than a similarly specced XPS 13, but the sophisticated design and option for use as a tablet might be worth it.

If you have DirecTV.Watch ESPN’s first 4K broadcast Saturday

ESPN confirmed that Saturday night’s college football matchup between Florida and LSU will be the first one it ever broadcasts live in native 4K resolution. It’s planned at least six games to air that way, sponsored by Samsung, but unfortunately it’s not streaming them through the ESPN or Samsung apps. TV providers need to sign up for them, and so far the only one with a deal is DirecTV. Hopefully that list grows soon so more of us can watch the BCS National Championship Game in January using the 4K feed ESPN has planned.

In an internal letter, Cook explained Apple’s reasons for pulling HKmap.live from the App Store.Tim Cook defends Apple’s decision to remove Hong Kong protest app

Less than a day after Apple sparked controversy by removing a Hong Kong protest app, the company’s CEO Tim Cook has defended the decision. At least, internally. In a letter posted internally, Cook said that the app was being used “maliciously to target individual officers for violence”. Such behavior violates Apple’s App Store guidelines.

However, it’s not so clear cut. Critics argue that the app does not actually show the location of individual officers and apps like Waze, which crowdsources information about police locations, remain on the App Store.

All it leaves behind is water vapor and style.Toyota’s hydrogen fuel-cell Mirai gets a new, luxurious look

Toyota’s new Mirai looks amazing and the automaker is targeting a 30-percent increase in range thanks to advances in the powertrain and larger capacity hydrogen storage tanks. Toyota just hopes it’ll be able to sell this car in more places than the current locales of California and the island of Oahu.

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Microsoft’s leaner Windows 10 update process begins with new patch

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Windows 10 version 1909, also known as 19H2, will be releasing later this year. We already know what it will include though thanks to its limited release as part of the Windows Insider program.

As we previously reported, the update is pretty small. The biggest changes are to notifications, with a “Manage notifications” option added to the Action Center and notification management now displaying the list of notifications sorted by most recently shown instead of by sender. You can also configure or mute notifications from a specific app with the Action Center.

There are changes too, such as the ability to quickly create a Calendar event from the taskbar. In the File Explorer, the search box will now be powered by Windows Search so you can search through your OneDrive content along with all your other files. Finally, there are some improvements to battery life and a change to a more even distribution of load between multiple processor cores.

The update will be delivered in a more seamless fashion, meaning it installs like a monthly update. If you are running the May 2019 Update, the new release will install much more quickly than previous updates because it is so small. It also won’t require a restart. If you’re using an earlier version of Windows, the release will install like previous Windows 10 feature updates so it will take a little longer.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on the new release, you can join the Windows Insider program to get early access. Then, to check for new updates on your system, open the start menu and go to Settings, then to Update & Security and hit the “Check for updates” button.

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Apple TV+ signs Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón to a multi-year deal

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There’s no word yet on any specific projects, but Cuarón has a pretty diverse filmography, including Roma, Gravity and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He does have one television project that was already in the works, the horror Ascension starring Casey Affleck. Cuarón also co-created NBC’s Believe, which ran for one season in 2014.

Cuarón is one of the biggest signings yet for Apple TV+. Other creators signed so far include Oprah Winfrey, Kerry Ahrin, Justin Lin and Jason Katims. Netflix, by contrast, recently signed Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss to a multi-year deal, while JJ Abrams spurned a large offer from Apple in favor WarnerMedia. Abrams reportedly chose Warner because it was able to deliver theatrical releases, while Apple has no experience in that area.

Cuarón chose to partner with Apple despite the fact that he developed Roma with Netflix. To get that film an Oscar nomination, Netflix had to debut it and two other films, Buster Scruggs and Bird Box, in theaters ahead of their online releases. According to reports, Apple may release certain films in theaters for long runs before streaming them online, possibly as a way to attract top talent.

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Boeing and Porsche are developing an electric ‘flying car’

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Their collaboration will also look into urban air mobility as a whole and won’t just focus on the development of a vehicle. Porsche’s announcement says they’ll create an international team as part of the Memorandum of Understanding they signed. That team will address the various aspects of urban air mobility, as well as investigate the market potential for and possible use cases of premium flying vehicles.

“This collaboration builds on our efforts to develop a safe and efficient new mobility ecosystem, and provides an opportunity to investigate the development of a premium urban air mobility vehicle with a leading automotive brand,” Boeing VP Steve Nordlund said in a statement.

As Reuters noted, Boeing will be competing with perpetual rival Airbus SE, which already started testing its own VTOL vehicle last year. Larry Page-backed Kitty Hawk also recently unveiled a single-person VTOL that’s a hundred times quieter than a helicopter.

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Pixelbook Go leak reveals its ribbed back, full specs

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A month after exposing Google’s next laptop as the Pixelbook Go, 9to5Google has extensive pictures and even a hands-on video with the device. The pictures show off a prototype laptop — held by a person wearing the “Jacquard by Google” Levi’s jacket — in a “Not Pink” colorway, with its lid that has a smooth finish similar to some Pixel phones, and its oddly textured underside that’s even more deeply colored — all the better to show off its standout ribs.

The keyboard is similar to the earlier Pixelbook model, while its front-facing speakers are apparently capable of quality sound output. There are USB-C ports on each side each with a charging light and one 3.5mm headphone jack to the left — it’s not dead yet. The design isn’t far off from Apple’s laptops, but if Google is trying to show what a standard-bearer Chrome OS machine can be then this looks like a good attempt.

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YouTube creators will chat with famous authors in new series ‘BookTube’

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According to Variety, YouTube is now investing more money into educational content and spending less on originals. Some of the most viewed videos on the platform fall under the category, after all, such as DIY and How-to tutorials. YouTube Learning head Malik Ducard told the publication: “We’re committed to empowering both the creators who want to share their knowledge with the world and the users who come to our platform to learn — from home improvements to the basics of physics to grammar lessons.”

Aside from BookTube, YouTube is launching more educational shows over the next weeks and months. Could You Survive the Movies will premiere on October 21st and will explore if we can survive scenarios in films, such as living in the jungles of Jumanji or time traveling on a DeLorean. It’s also launching an eight-part series entitled Age of AI with Robert Downey Jr. in December.

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Twitter’s Catalyst-powered Mac app is here

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Now that macOS Catalina is available, developers can use Apple’s Mac Catalyst tech to deliver versions of their iPad apps for use on the desktop, and one of the most anticipated releases has been the desktop Twitter app. Originally announced this summer at WWDC 2019, it’s available for free from the App Store so you can try it out.

If the Twitter website doesn’t get it done for you then at least this replicates most of the features you’re used to on mobile devices and supports Dark Mode, but it doesn’t really have power user features like a live refreshing feed. For that you’d want to rely on Tweetdeck or a third-party app. The good news is that sharing a codebase with the iOS release means this on should stick around, unlike Twitter’s previous app for Macs that died in early 2018.

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Donald Trump is the newest Twitch streamer

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The 2020 presidential campaigns are well under way, and Donald Trump has added another internet outlet to reach voters: Twitch. The campaign’s first verified stream went live tonight from a rally in Minneapolis, as Trump followed Bernie Sanders’ campaign in creating a presence on the site. While the primary use of Twitch is for live video game streams, as of this writing it’s also hosting one of Amazon’s Thursday Night Football feeds with about 41,000 viewers. The Trump stream counted 12,000 or so.

As of last check, the Twitch TOS doesn’t have any special carve-outs for politicians or political speech. Trump has frequently targeted its CEO Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post with criticism and comments, so if there’s ever an issue of moderation on the channel it could be another flashpoint of controversy between those parties. Another odd element of Trump’s use of Twitch is the administration’s stance on gaming — in May it hosted a meeting “to discuss violent video-game exposure and the correlation to aggression and desensitization in children.” Now its campaign events are going live next to streams of Fortnite and Apex.

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SpaceX Crew Dragon could fly astronauts to the ISS in early 2020

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As expected, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine stopped by SpaceX HQ in California and then did a bit of Q&A with the media while standing next to Elon Musk and two astronauts. You can watch video of the entire session below as it was posted to Bridenstine’s Twitter feed, but some of the highlights included comments about the Crew Dragon project and the progress made there. While the administrator emphasized the need for more testing, and allowed that schedules could change depending on what they find there, the capsule could be ready for its first crewed “Demo-2” test flight in Q1 of 2020.

According to Elon Musk, drop tests that are about to start will evaluate its “Mark 3” parachute design, which has replaced nylon cords with stronger “xylon” material. They also referenced the explosion on the test stand earlier this year, with Bridenstine praising SpaceX’s “fail fast” model, as long as it includes fixes before rockets actually take flight. Musk agreed, saying that if things don’t fail then you aren’t trying hard enough. The explosion was apparently related to a leak somewhere between the launch abort system and orbital maneuvering system, so that area has been redesigned.

Overall, everyone seems to be closer to the same page than in weeks past, but we’ll have to wait and see if this gets the Commercial Crew program moving sooner rather than later.



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