The F1 is loaded with a collection of very respectable hardware for the price. Inside is an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 SoC to power a 5.0-inch 720p display, all in a slim metal body. Oppo claims the cameras are the star of the show, particularly the 8-megapixel shooter on the front, alongside the 2.5D Gorilla Glass 4 that protects the display. The battery is a tad small at just 2,500 mAh, but generally the hardware stacks up to similar products on the market....

Who’s Interested in Optogenetics? With the roll out of the White House’s $300 million BRAIN Initiative in 2013, interest in uncovering the secrets of the human brain has accelerated and now includes many government agencies, public/private partnerships and universities. Dating back to at least 1971, optogenetic research has matured enough to gain the attention of organizations such as the NIH, DARPA and IARPA, who are exploring the role that light-sensitive cells could soon play in fields surrounding neurobiological, including physical and mental health, human-machine interfacing, and advancing artificial intelligence through reverse brain engineering....

Passware is a company that has sold software-based hacking solutions for nearly 25 years. Its tools are primarily used for legitimate reasons such as forensics and data recovery. However, when Apple introduced its T2 security chip in 2018, Passware hit a snag with the macOS version of its tools. The T2 is a hardware-based gatekeeper and only allows a certain number of password attempts before locking down the system. So the only way to get in is to crack the file system’s decryption key, which would take millions of years to brute-force even with GPU acceleration....

Scientists at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Quantum Physics in New York City have created a new, never-before-seen phase of matter. The peculiarity of it is that the atoms have two dimensions of time even though they exist in our singular flow of time. The team published their study in Nature on July 20. The physicists created this odd phase of matter by firing a laser with a pulse based on the Fibonacci sequence at atoms used inside a quantum computer....

The firmware is of course QTS 4.2, which is an extremely well-polished and feature-dense operating system that offers one of the newest and most impressive apps we’ve seen on a desktop NAS. Called ‘Linux Station’, the feature essentially converts your QNAP NAS into a Linux workstation/desktop computer by installing Ubuntu. This ties in nicely with the TS-853A’s ability to accept a mouse, keyboard and monitor. Downloading and installing Ubuntu via Linux Station takes just the click of a button and within 15 minutes or so you are ready to get working....

The deal means Qualcomm will stick around as a GlobalFoundries customer through at least 2028, and secures wafer supply and commitments through capacity expansion at GlobalFoundries’ most advanced fab in Malta, New York. Qualcomm will use GlobalFoundries’ FinFET platform to build 5G transceivers as well as chips for automotive, Wi-Fi and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. The deal was announced shortly after the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides around $52 billion in subsidies for chipmakers....

There are more than twice as many people still playing 2014’s Far Cry 4 than the recent Primal version, but we still used the more modern title for benchmarking. The GTX 1060 was 5% faster than the RX 580 while the 9Gbps version boosted performance by a further 3% – a slight performance advantage for Nvidia here. Tom Clancy’s The Division was tested using DirectX 12 and Nvidia has made up some ground with this API....

For testing we’ve got our hands on the massive Gigabyte Aorus RTX 4080 Master – we believe this is the largest graphics card on the market right now. Currently retailing for at least $1,350, that’s over 12% above MSRP or about a $150 premium, but given the size and weight it kind of feels like you’re at least getting that difference in the cooler. For comparison we have the Gigabyte Aorus 7900 XTX Elite which isn’t a “Master” version as it’s unavailable on the Radeon side, but even so the Aorus Elite is still a beast and we’re sure many would argue this is also a more practical graphics card in terms of dimensions and weight....

Project Carol is a gaming chair accessory – a head cushion, to be exact – featuring near-field surround sound speakers and high-fidelity haptics. Combined, Razer says it can help gamers experience new levels of immersion. Razer said Project Carol works perfectly with any PC capable of 7.1 surround sound output and is compatible with all gaming chairs thanks to its adjustable straps. It connects wirelessly via 2.4GHz and can last up to eight hours on a single charge....

When artificial satellites are sent up to space, usually it’s a one way mission. Their lifespan is defined by the amount of fuel they carry on board. Most satellites nowadays have solar panels, but even then, there can be deployment failures. There are well documented satellite launch failures, but in space there are no service stations. So, engineers must design the satellite systems with redundancy. This in turn makes them heavy, complex, and expensive....

Portable apps are lightweight versions of applications - either in size, functionality, or both - that don’t use an installer. These can come in really handy as executables and any files associated with their operation are contained within a single folder, meaning you can run them directly from a USB drive or a cloud folder synced across PCs. Portable apps don’t modify the Windows registry or leave behind configuration files on the host computer....

Users in Russia are currently unable to download Windows 10 and 11 ISOs and installation tools from Microsoft’s servers. People first started noticing the issue over the weekend. If someone with a Russian IP address tries to download the Windows ISO files directly from Microsoft’s website, they get greeted with a message stating there was a problem with their request. Attempting to download the Windows Update Assistant, Windows Media Creation Tool, or Windows 11 Installation Assistant also doesn’t work, with users getting redirected to a webpage with an error message....

This time the 2600 was 14% slower than the 8400 so it seems little has changed. Overclocked the 2600 didn’t make up much ground either and even at 1440p Intel retained the lead. Of course the game was still very playable on the Ryzen 5 2600, you can just expect better results with the Core i5-8400. Okay so stock out of the box the Ryzen 5 2600 is limiting performance of the GTX 1080 Ti at all three resolutions....

The Snapdragon 410 also has lower power requirements than the Snapdragon 801 or Exynos 5430 used in the Alpha, which will contribute to better battery results. However, lower processing power doesn’t necessarily always equate to a longer lasting smartphone, as we’ve seen from several mid-range handsets such as the original Moto G. In my general usage of the handset, I found it to have acceptable battery life. I wouldn’t go so far to say it has life as good as the current crop of high-end smartphones, especially when you’re out and about using LTE networks, though it didn’t prematurely die during a day’s worth of typical usage....

Over the past few years Samsung has done a pretty good job of cleaning up their skin, making it more responsive and removing a lot of the unnecessary clutter that plagued previous iterations. I still prefer the visual style of stock Android, as I’m sure many other people do, but Samsung’s skin blends in a lot better with other Android apps than past versions, which makes the device feel at lot more cohesive as you move from app to app....

Samsung’s new Galaxy Note is a unique device in the smartphone market. Straddling the line between a smartphone and a tablet, the Note features a massive 5.3-inch display, which is considerably larger than the screen on any other smartphone available today (just see the image below sitting alongside an iPhone). Because of this, the Note is rather unwieldy in the hand, and nearly impossible to use one handed. Trying to make the most of the smartphone’s larger footprint, Samsung has attempted to add functionality to the Note with its “don’t-call-it-a-stylus” S Pen input device....

Yet again we see that the SM951 is faster than the SSD 750 Series, this time providing 9% more bandwidth in CrystalDiskMark’s sequential read test. The sequential write test favors the SM951 by a 19% margin over the SSD 750 Series 1.2TB, with Samung’s drive hitting 1554MB/s. The Random 512K read test favors the SM951 by a 15% margin over the SSD 750 Series. This time we see 21% more performance from the SM951 compared to the SSD 750 Series....

The program encompasses the Galaxy S20 and S21 family of products, as well as the Galaxy Tab S7+. These users will be able to replace their phone screen, back glass and charging ports. Newer flagships like the Galaxy S22 and Samsung’s line of foldables aren’t included. New display kits will come with a return label to ship discarded components back to Samsung for recycling at no cost to the consumer....

This isn’t a step toward creating a perfect killing machine, of course. A paper published in scientific journal Matter reveals that these magnetoactive phase transitional matter (MPTM) robots are designed for much more practical, non-sinister uses, such as entering a stomach as a small solid block, liquifying around a solid foreign object, reforming to capture it, then exiting the body. The robots can also replace missing screws inside complex machines by entering a device, melting into a threaded screw socket, then reforming....

Still it wasn’t all bad. I started by squeezing the motherboard in and while I would normally install the memory and CPU heatsink prior to inserting the motherboard, I don’t recommend doing this with the RV05. There simply isn’t enough room to work inside the RV05 with a large air-cooler already installed. With the Thermalright SilverArrow SB-E Extreme in place, we couldn’t access the CPU 8-pin power connector from any angle and it even made getting to the 24-pin ATX power connector difficult....