Weekly Digest - 2021.28

Next step in Space Tourism

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned about the race between SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic. Last time, Bezos' Blue Origin supposed to be the first civilian company to sent the civilian into space, but last Sunday, Richard Branson stole the show. His Virgin Galactic successfully sent him, and five other crewmates to the edge of the Space and back. Although, the crew experienced the Space for brief moment, Branson called it "an experience of a lifetime".

Branson plans to open the Space for masses next year. The ticket costs around $250k, and Virgin Galactic already sold 600 of them. If you don't have such money, you can try to win 2 tickets with Omaze.

The remaining competitors still plan to launch later this year. Blue Origin on July 20th, and SpaceX, with their Inspiration4 Mission, on September 15th.

Windows in the cloud

Microsoft announced the Windows 365 service, which puts Windows in the cloud. Windows 365 will let users access Windows 10 or Windows 11 from a web browser.

There will be two editions of Windows 365: Business and Enterprise. Both are powered by virtual machines in 12 configurations. Business will be able to choose from a single CPU, 2GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage, up to eight CPUs, 32GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage.

The service will be available on August 2nd. Unfortunately, the pricing is still unknown.

Steam Deck

Valve announced SteamDeck - a handheld gaming console.  

It will be powered by AMD's quad-core Zen 2 CPU with eight threads and eight compute units. It will have 16GB of RAM and three storage options: 64GB eMMC, 256GB NVMe SSD, and 512GB of high-speed NVME SSD. The storage is also expendable thanks to the high-speed microSD card slot.

On the front there is a 7-inch 1280 x 800 touchscreen for 720p gameplay.

In term of controls, there are two thumbsticks, two small trackpads, ABXY buttons, and a D-pad. The device also has a gyroscope for motion controls.

According to Valve, the device should allow to 7-8 hours of gameplay on a single charge.

Device will be available in December, starting at $399.

Image credits: Virgin Glactic

Weekly Digest - 2021.25

Windows 11

Microsoft has announced Windows 11. Here are the most important features:

  • New UI, including new Start Menu,
  • The brand new store and support for Android apps on Windows,
  • Snap Layouts -  allowing to easily arrange multiple windows,
  • Faster and smaller updates,
  • Microsoft Teams and Xbox Game Pass are now built into the system,
  • Windows Widgets is an AI driven personalized feed,
  • Auto HDR adds HDR to DirectX 11 and 12 games,
  • Improved support for stylus and voice commands/dictating,
  • It's a FREE update!

It all looks very good, but there is one catch - the system requirements. Windows 11 will require a 64-bit PC with UEFI firmware that is Secure Boot capable. It also needs a  Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 module. Some versions of Windows also require an Internet connection to complete the setup process.

iPhone rumors

There are some new rumors surrounding the 2022 iPhones:

  • Apple will discontinue the 5.4-inch “mini” size,
  • There will be only 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch size,
  • Both new models will have improved wide-angle camera with 48 megapixels,
  • Apple may include an under the screen Touch ID sensor for some models,
  • Apple also plans to release a new iPhone SE that will support 5G.

Image credits: Microsoft

Weekly Digest - 2021.22

Stack Overflow sold

Stack Overflow has been sold for $1.8 billion to the tech investor Prosus. Stack Overflow is the most popular website for developer in the world. Its resources are invaluable and available to everyone for free. Hopefully with new investor nothing will change in that matter

Apple's unrealized plans

The trial battle between Apple and Epic gave us insight into the inner-workings of the Apple. One of the sources of information are internal emails. One email in particular is very interesting because it's an agenda for a Steve Jobs' meeting from August 2007. Back the Apple was working on some unreleased products:

  • 15-inch MacBook Air,
  • Mac tablet,
  • new iPod shuffle.

The 15-inch version of the MacBook Air has never been released or even rumored. The Mac Tablet is probably the iPad, which was released 3 years later. And the last, the iPod shuffle has never actually got an update.

Windows 11 is coming?

It looks like a new version of Windows is on the way. Microsoft announced a Windows event for June 24th. Software giant has been teasing this for a while, and it looks like it will be the biggest update in a decade. Recently Microsoft has been added  small, but cool features to the Windows, so hopefully the new version will follow this pattern.

Weekly Digest - 2021.12

macOS turns 20

20 years ago Apple introduced the Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah. It was, in someways, a limited operating system. But back then, it was just a foundation for things that came later. Apple based MacOS X  on UNIX, which later became a foundation for iOS and the rest is the history. With Cheetah Apple also introduced the classic Aqua interface. Aqua evolved throughout a years, especially in Mac OS 10.5 and recently in Big Sur, but the core functionality remained the same.  And that shows you how good the Cheetah was back then. Last year Apple introduced macOS 11, which will bring us to the new era of the macOS family.

Microsoft buys Discord?

The are rumors that Microsoft plans to buy an online communicator Discord. The accusation is supposedly valued more than $10 billion. This is interesting move from Microsoft because they already have Skype and Teams.  Since last year, Microsoft heavily invested in the latter, where the Skype felt behind. The question is whether Microsoft is going to invest into Discord or will it slowly die because of lack of any development?

Visual overhaul of Windows

Microsoft started refreshing the UI of the Windows. They started with the icons.

This is a first part of the Sun Valley project, that is going to rejuvenate Windows.

Spotify refreshed

Spotify released a new versions of the app for Desktop and the Web. The update brings a new UI that is more consistent and fell more native. Apple should take notes, because their Music app is really bad.

Image credits: Wikipedia