PGO is available from today, rolling out with the latest version of Chrome. However, Tab Throttling won’t be joining the party just yet. Of course, what’s good for Chrome these days could also be good for Microsoft Edge. Redmond’s rival web browser also runs on Google’s Chromium base, so features can be shared between the two rival services. If you follow Chrome closely, you may have seen Profile Guided Optimization before....
Now, Google has introduced a new competitor called Hangouts Chat. The California-based tech giant has split Hangouts into two applications and has launched Hangouts Chat in private beta. Hangouts Meet is already available and is used for video and audio communications. The two Hangouts applications are designed for enterprise and Google appears ready to take on Microsoft and Slack, by re-entering the team collaboration space. Hangouts Chat According to Google, Hangouts Chat is a new approach to team messaging....
What is clear is that like other ARM devices, the Pro X can only install 64-bit apps if they’ve been ported to ARM64. That’s as simple as a switch toggle for some developers, but they have to be convinced it’s worth their time. If an app has a 32-bit variant, you can run that on ARM instead, but performance will suffer significantly. MSPowerUser has dug up this support article from Microsoft on app compatibility for the Surface Pro X....
1 How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 10 via Disk Management2 How to Change Drive Letter in CMD using a DISKPART Disk Management Command3 How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 10 with a PowerShell Disk Management Command4 How to Change / Assign a Drive Letter via the Registry Editor How does Windows 10 drive letter assignment work? For the most part, Windows 10 automatically assigns letters to drives as they’re connected, in alphabetical order....
When the audio service is not running, you’ll have no sound across your entire system, which can get very frustrating. Worse, it may persist even after a restart. This is because the Windows Audio service is set to automatically run-on startup, but it’s failing and producing the error. Today, we’re going to show you how to enable Windows audio service again so you can listen to your movies and music as normal....
1 How to Set CPU Affinity for a Specific App2 How to Change CPU priority to prefer Windows Background apps or Programs To be clear, when you set processor affinity in Windows 10, you won’t always notice a substantial difference. It all depends on if resources are being used by other apps on your system, whether your PC meets the recommended specs and various other factors. However, knowing how to use the feature to assign certain CPU cores to specific applications can be very useful in some scenarios....
1 How to Unblock or Disable the Microsoft Store via Group Policy2 How to Unblock or Disable the Microsoft Store via Regedit Conversely, some users run into “Microsoft Store is blocked” or “The store app is blocked” errors. This can happen when someone disables the Microsoft Store and doesn’t realize it will affect everyone on the PC. This guide will show you how to unblock or disable the app to suit your preferences....
The company has knocked a cool $200 off the handset running through until March 31. The HP Elite x3 bundle is now available for $599. That is still a chunk of notes, but is a much sweeter deal considering the bundle also comes with the Desk Dock. If you are unfamiliar with the Desk Dock, it is a station to rest the Elite x3. It connects the device through Microsoft’s Continuum feature that turns the smartphone into a Windows 10 PC....
Now Hurricane Irma has hit Florida; homes are damaged, millions are without power, and citizens are injured. As a result, Microsoft has decided to contribute an additional $250,000. A Long-Term Commitment Like Harvey, it will also be providing millions in tech and services to help nonprofits with response and recovery. “Microsoft Philanthropies is raising its initial cash contribution to $250,000 and is also contributing millions of dollars in technology and services to support nonprofit and public-sector organizations participating in the response and recovery,” said Mary Snapp, head of Microsoft Philanthropies....
Phoronix reports the DSB tool was mentioned in a recent Linux kernel patch for the Intel Gen12 (Xe) graphics. The latest generation of graphics capability will be available in Intel’s Tiger Lake processors. These are the 11th generation of mobile-centric silicon that will be launched in 2020. Also launching next year will be Xe discrete graphics cards. DSB is an interesting tool that at its core will lower strain on the CPU for graphics....
In recent years, Intel has been embarking on a strategy to divest non-essential businesses. NAND has never been a huge success for the company, especially amidst the volatile market in this sector. Despite never performing well, Intel is getting $9 billion all-cash from South Korean company SK Hynix. Intel can now turn full attention to the smaller Optane division, which has been a bigger revenue driver for the company. NAND chips are mostly used in smartphones as a data storage silicon, while they are also found in datacenter servers....
Reports point to the problem mainly affecting Lenovo IdeaPad 100S machines. Users say after new updates, the Bitlocker keeps throwing blue screen of death (BSOD) errors at them. The machine then asks for the recovery key even if they user has never set one. At the moment, Microsoft and Lenovo are playing a game of pointing fingers. Microsoft says the Chinese PC OEM needs to issue a fix, while Lenovo believes the underlying problem is with Windows 10....
1 Meeting Expectations2 Snapdragon 1000 The Yoga C630 certainly promises to deliver on the expectations around the Snapdragon 850. Lenovo says with the CPU on board, the Yoga C630 delivers 30% more performance than the first generation of Always Connected PCs. In terms of raw specifications, the convertible laptop has 13.3-inch display with full HD 1080p resolution, up to 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and up to 256GB UFS 2.1 storage. While that all makes for a solid enough laptop, the Snapdragon 850 is the big story here....
Lenovo has offered its other device series on Windows on ARM but not the ThinkPads. It sees the company held off on releasing its enterprise laptops with ARM due to performance questions. Qualcomm says the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 makes dramatic improvements to mobile computing. With the launch of the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s, Windows on ARM customers will have access to the company’s TrackPoint system for the first time. This is the red track button that sits in the middle of the ThinkPad keyboard....
Understanding skills is an important part of trying to find a job, and a true assessment of those skills could be the difference. Indeed, a study from LinkedIn shows 69% of respondents think their skills are more important than on-paper qualifications. That’s why LinkedIn has now introduced Skill Assessments. This new feature gives users looking for work the ability to showcase their skills and help them highlight those skills. As the job market becomes increasingly competitive, LinkedIn will help users stand out by assessing their skills for them through a panel of experts....
If you are unfamiliar with merges on GitHub, they are a way to take independent development lines and unify them into one branch. Last week, storage tech company Paragon Software Group sent a pull request for its NTFS 3 read/write driver for Linux 5.15, and upcoming update for the kernel. While Linux creator Linus Torvalds is not really that interested in Paragon Software Group making changes to the branch, he is unhappy with the submission....
EU parliamentary president Antonio Tajani announced the news today, revealing Zuckerberg has agreed to the request. “I have personally discussed with Facebook CEO Mr Zuckerberg the possibility of web streaming meeting with him,” he said on Twitter. “I am glad to announce that he has accepted this new request. Great news for EU citizens. I thank him for the respect shown towards EP. Meeting tomorrow from 18:15 to 19:30.” The meeting will hold members from a large variety of political perspectives....
Micron’s upcoming GDDR6Xmemory will clock at 24Gbps. The information comes from tech leaker @harukaze5719 on Twitter. It seems the claim is legitimate because Micron has a part number (MT61K512M32KPA-24:U) for the chip. That “24” on the end of the product number highlights the speed of the memory. The highlight seems to be the new 24Gpbs memory will run 14% faster than the current 21Gbps Micron produces. By the way, that’s the memory that is in Nvidia’s current flagship GPU, the RTX 3090 Ti....
Xbox was already scheduled to be water positive, zero-waste, and carbon negative by 2030 as part of Microsoft’s wider sustainability plans. According to the company in an update, Xbox products will also be zero-waste, water positive, and carbon negative. Achieving that goal for hardware is more difficult because Microsoft outsources manufacturing. In other words, it is more complicated to control the sustainability efficiency of a partner. To overcome that challenge, Microsoft is targeting specific methods to reach its goals....
The three companies are part of the FIDO Alliance (Fast Identity Online). This week, the trio of web browser providers said they are collaborating on a “common passwordless sign-in standard”. In a press release, FIDO says that handling various passwords on multiple accounts from web browser to web browser is not only frustrating but could be a major problem if a customer is hacked: “Password-only authentication is one of the biggest security problems on the web, and managing so many passwords is cumbersome for consumers, which often leads consumers to reuse the same ones across services....
