gadgets – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries

Jason Koebler writes: A bill that would make it easier to fix your electronics is rapidly hurtling through the Washington state legislature. The bill’s ascent is fueled by Apple’s iPhone-throttling controversy, which has placed a renewed focus on the fact that our electronics have become increasingly difficult to repair. Starting in 2019, the bill would ban the sale of electronics that are designed “in such a way as to prevent reasonable diagnostic or repair functions by an independent repair provider. Preventing reasonable diagnostic or repair functions includes permanently affixing a battery in a manner that makes it difficult or impossible to remove.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Washington Bill Makes It Illegal To Sell Gadgets Without Replaceable Batteries

Two World War II Shipwrecks Mysteriously Vanished From the Bottom of the Ocean

A pair of warships lost during a historic 1942 naval battle have completely disappeared from their resting places at the bottom of the Java Sea. Large portions of a third ship are also missing. An international investigation has been launched in hopes of solving this bizarre maritime mystery. Read more…

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Two World War II Shipwrecks Mysteriously Vanished From the Bottom of the Ocean

A Flashlight That Can Start Fires and Cook Dinner Is the Best Camping Accessory

Wicked Lasers is known for its handheld lasers and flashlights that redefine what it means to be bright. A few years ago it released a flashlight that was intense enough to start a fire, and now the company has managed to dramatically shrink its design so you can easily bring it the next time you go camping and leave the matches at home. Read more…

Samsung 960 Pro review: The fastest consumer SSD you can buy

(credit: Edward Chester) The all new Samsung 960 Pro, released today, is the follow up to last year’s 950 Pro . It offers the same core set of features, with an M.2 form factor , four-lane PCIe 3.0 interface, NVMe communication standard, and 3D V-NAND. But the 960 Pro isn’t just a minor spec bump. Samsung has seriously cranked up the speed (and capacities) of its flagship drives to the point where such ludicrous performance may be lost on all but the most demanding of users. These are some seriously hardcore SSDs. Where the 950 Pro was available in just 256GB and 512GB versions, the 960 Pro starts at 512GB, with 1TB and 2TB versions also available. For the first time, you can reasonably consider replacing an entire array of spinner hard drives or even 2.5-inch SATA SSDs with these things—so long as you’ve got the cash, of course. With a 256GB starting capacity, Samsung was able to offer the speed, longevity, and warranty of the 950 Pro to those only able to budget £170 ($199) for an SSD. But with the 960 Pro starting at $329 for the 512GB model (probably ~£330), rising to $629 for 1TB, and an eye-watering $1,299 for 2TB, you’ll need to save some extra pennies to buy one, or wait it out for the Evo drives Samsung is launching later this year. Although a marked step down from the Pro range in some regards, the Evos are in theory faster than the 950 Pro drives for less money (thanks to using cheaper and more tightly packed TLC V-NAND). The 250GB will cost just $129 (~£130), 500GB will be $249 and 1TB will cost $470. There won’t be a 2TB version of the 960 Evo. Read 35 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Samsung 960 Pro review: The fastest consumer SSD you can buy

Samsung’s new 10nm process promises big power efficiency improvements

Enlarge (credit: Samsung) The news hasn’t been great for Samsung’s smartphone division lately, but there is good news for the chipmaking arm of the company: Samsung announced today that it has started to mass-produce chips on its new 10nm LPE manufacturing process, a major improvement over its current 14nm process. According to Samsung, 10nm chips can fit 30 percent more transistors within the same physical area as a 14nm chip. Chip designers will be able to create chips that are up to 27 percent faster or chips that use up to 40 percent less power, though most chips will probably do a little of both instead of maximizing one or the other. A second-generation, 10nm LPP process will begin mass production in the second half of 2017, roughly one year from today. Other than the timing, we only know that this revision is intended to boost performance. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Samsung’s new 10nm process promises big power efficiency improvements

You Can Soon Buy That Tiny Scooter That Looks Like a Laptop You Can Ride

A Segway you can carry in a laptop bag? That’s what Cocoa Motors promised when it revealed the WalkCar , an ultra-compact personal transport, last year. And finally, after a year of perfecting its design, the WalkCar will be available for pre-order starting on October 21. Read more…

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You Can Soon Buy That Tiny Scooter That Looks Like a Laptop You Can Ride

Don’t buy a Galaxy Note 7—and return yours if you already have

Enlarge / The Note 7 has too many safety issues for us to recommend. (credit: Ron Amadeo) When we review phones, we do our best to tell you everything you need to make a smart purchase. We talk about the underlying tech, too, but in the end, people usually read a review because they either want to know which thing to buy or they want to know more about the thing they already intend to buy. Usually, we give you all of that information and make a general recommendation but leave the ultimate purchasing decision up to you. But for Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, we need to go a step further: don’t buy this phone. And if you have bought it, you should return the Galaxy Note 7 immediately and purchase something else. Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Don’t buy a Galaxy Note 7—and return yours if you already have

This Drone Can Fly Forver Without a Battery

Want a drone to fly longer and farther? Give it a bigger battery. But that adds weight, which in turn reduces the drone’s flight time. It’s quite a conundrum. It seems like an unresolvable catch-twenty-two, except that someone has finally found a way to use wireless power to keep a drone flying . Read more…

Xerox Made an Inkjet That Can Print On Anything

Your standard inkjet printer can mostly handle paper, occasionally transparencies, and maybe even blank DVDs while they were still a thing. But Xerox just revealed a towering machine it calls the Direct to Object Inkjet Printer because that’s exactly what it does—it prints on almost any 3D object. Read more…

Apple’s Big iPhone Event Is September 7

Apple just sent out press invites for its next major event. As expected, the event will take place on September 7. Like last year, the iPhone event will be at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. Read more…

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Apple’s Big iPhone Event Is September 7