golf – Page 14 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

OEMs to stop selling PCs with Windows 7 by October 31, 2016

In February last year , Microsoft said that it would give a one year warning of when systems with Windows 7 preinstalled would no longer be available from OEMs. That time has finally come to pass. As spotted by Ed Bott , there’s now a date after which Windows 7 OEM preinstalls will no longer be available: October 31, 2016. That same date will also apply to Windows 8.1. Windows 8 preinstalls will end a few months earlier than that, June 30, 2016. This means that after October 31 next year, the only version of Windows that will be available on a new system from a PC builder will be Windows 10. Right now, OEMs can still offer Windows 7 Professional (though not any of the other versions), Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10. Windows 7 will remain supported until January 10, 2020. It left mainstream support earlier this year, so it’s no longer eligible to receive non-security fixes or extra features but still has many years of security updates. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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OEMs to stop selling PCs with Windows 7 by October 31, 2016

AMD Radeon Software Crimson: A new name and a new look for Catalyst

AMD’s Radeon Software Crimson replaces Catalyst. 16 more images in gallery AMD is taking the fight directly to Nvidia with the long-overdue launch of a new driver software package and UI. Called Radeon Software Crimson, the new software replaces the old AMD Catalyst Control Center (CCC) with a flat modern UI, and simplified menus. Most importantly, AMD is promising that a new major version of the software will be released every year, with minor versions arriving every month. Each new major version will have a different, colour-themed name. The software is due to roll out later this year. Crimson has been developed in QT, a cross-platform application framework that AMD says is much quicker than the old .NET framework CCC used to use. It claims that start-up time has been reduced from eight seconds to 0.6 seconds on a mid-performance AMD E-350-based laptop; high-end desktops will be even faster. Crimson is the first in a number of software changes that AMD is implementing following the restructuring of its graphics group into the Radeon Technologies Group under the leadership of Raja Koduri. For now, AMD is only talking about the UI changes in Crimson, which is dramatically different from the old CCC. (More will be revealed about underlying driver changes at a later date, but AMD was vague about when that might be.) The new flat design features five tabs at the top for Gaming, Video, Display, Eyefinity, and System, while then buttons at the bottom for Updates, Preferences, and Notifications. In the middle, taking up the lion’s share of the window, there’s a carousel that displays announcements and promotions about games when not being used to display settings. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AMD Radeon Software Crimson: A new name and a new look for Catalyst

Report: iPad Pro, Smart Keyboard, and Apple Pencil go on sale November 11

Enlarge / The iPad Pro and its Smart Keyboard. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) According to a report by the usually reliable 9to5Mac, Apple’s new iPad Pro is slated to go on sale on Wednesday, November 11. The tablet (as well as its Smart Keyboard and Apple Pencil accessories) will supposedly be available both on Apple’s online store and in retail stores, so this appears to be the actual launch day and not just a pre-order date. The new iPad looks a lot like an iPad Air 2, but it has a larger 12.9-inch 2732×2048 screen, a new Apple A9X SoC, and 4GB of RAM . Between the better specs, the larger screen, and the accessories, Apple obviously intends the iPad Pro to be a more Mac-like iPad, in much the same way that the Retina MacBook is a more iPad-ish Mac. The iPad Pro starts at $799 for a 32GB Wi-Fi version, or you can pay $949 for a 128GB Wi-Fi version. Adding LTE to the 128GB version raises the cost to $1,079. The Smart Keyboard is an additional $169, and the Apple Pencil is $99. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Windows 10 will be made an automatic “recommended” update early next year

The Windows 10 free upgrade program has so far concentrated on those Windows 7 and 8 users who reserved their copy in the weeks leading up to the operating system’s release. Over the coming months, Microsoft will start to spread the operating system to a wider audience . The Windows 10 upgrade will soon be posted as an “Optional Update” in Windows Update, advertising it to anyone who examines that list of updates. Then, early next year, it will be categorized as a “Recommended Update.” This is significant, because it means that systems that are configured to download and install recommended updates—which for most people is the safest option—will automatically fetch the upgrade and start its installer. The installer will still require human intervention to actually complete—you won’t wake up to find your PC with a different operating system—but Windows users will no longer need to actively seek the upgrade. This mirrors an accidental change that Microsoft did earlier this month. The Windows 10 upgrade was showing up for some people as a recommended update and the installer started automatically. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Windows 10 will be made an automatic “recommended” update early next year

Lexus, Mazda, and Yamaha wow Tokyo with stunning concept cars

Mazda The RX-Vision. Mazda calls this design language KODO. 11 more images in gallery We make no apologies for our love of the concept car at Ars Technica, and this year’s Tokyo auto show has just delivered another fix. Home turf for companies like Mazda, Toyota, and Yamaha means they usually push the boat (or in this case the car) out with something special, and 2015 is no exception. First up is Mazda’s RX-Vision, which announces to the world that the company has not given up on the rotary engine. The RX-Vision is a front-engined, rear-wheel drive sports car that has RX-7 fans salivating at the prospect of a replacement for the iconic car. Although Mazda says it has no plan to put the car into production, we wouldn’t be surprised if a groundswell of popular opinion eventually changed its mind. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Lexus, Mazda, and Yamaha wow Tokyo with stunning concept cars

How dynamic resolution scaling keeps Halo 5 running so smoothly

Digital Foundry’s analysis shows how occasional resolution drops keep Halo 5 running at 60fps. Over the years, gamers have gotten used to highly detailed games that drop frames and get distractingly choppy when the action gets too intense (a deep pain I’ve personally been suffering through since at least Gradius III on the SNES ). Now it seems some developers are toying with the idea of dropping a few pixels of resolution in those cases in order to keep the frame rate silky smooth. The technique is called dynamic resolution scaling, and a recent analysis by Digital Foundry goes into some detail about how it works in Halo 5: Guardians . Basically, the developers at 343 have prioritized hitting 60fps consistently through the entire game, a big boon for a twitchy first-person shooter (and a first for the Halo series). The level of graphical detail in some game scenes, though, means that such a high frame rate can only be delivered at resolutions well below the Xbox One’s highest 1080p standard. Instead of just statically setting a low resolution ceiling for the entire game, though, Halo 5 dynamically changes the resolution based on the detail of the current in-game scene. This on-the-fly adjustment takes place on both the X and Y axes, with resolutions jumping from as low as 1152×810 to as high as 1536×1080 in Digital Foundry’s analysis. The apparent on-the-fly change in resolution wasn’t even noticeable to my eye during some recent testing. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How dynamic resolution scaling keeps Halo 5 running so smoothly

Prison phone companies fight for right to charge inmates $14 a minute

(credit: Jason Farrar ) The Federal Communications Commission is about to face another lawsuit, this time over a vote to cap the prices prisoners pay for phone calls. Yesterday’s vote came after complaints that inmate-calling companies are overcharging prisoners, their families, and attorneys. Saying the price of calls sometimes hits $14 per minute, the FCC has now capped rates at 11¢ per minute. “None of us would consider ever paying $500 a month for a voice-only service where calls are dropped for seemingly no reason, where fees and commissions could be as high at 60 percent per call and, if we are not careful, where a four-minute call could cost us a whopping $54,” FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said before yesterday’s vote. Read 16 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Descent Underground recaptures that Descent multiplayer magic [Updated]

Video: the Descent Underground Early Access gameplay trailer. AUSTIN, TX—About a month ago, we called the retro-themed Descent -style shooter Sublevel Zero an awesome Descent -like experience but lamented its lack of multiplayer. Well, good news this morning for folks who are still craving multiplayer tunnel-shooting: as of 11:00 EDT, Descent Underground is available on Steam Early Access for $29.99. Players will be able to jump in and fly three classes of ships in five maps and a few different game modes. The product of a small Austin company called Descendent Studios founded by former Star Citizen Austin studio head Eric “Wingman” Peterson, Descent Underground was originally envisioned as a Descent clone under the working title “Ships That Fight Underground” (abbreviated as “STFU” ). However, the game changed course when an encounter with an Interplay shareholder led to a licensing agreement with Interplay, the studio that controls the bulk of the Descent intellectual property. The licensing deal meant that the game could be re-envisioned as an actual branded Descent game—though because the licensing agreement doesn’t include the character models or sound assets from the original trilogy, some creativity had to be applied. The result is Descent Underground, a prequel to the original Descent series. In it, the player takes on the role of a miner who remote-pilots drones through mines, blasting other drones and occasionally doing some actual mining to collect resources. Lead designer Peterson explained to us that the eventual goal is to have a metagame that has some hints of Dune about it: players will fly around in a large mothership, cruising through asteroid fields and looking for choice places to mine. A nice asteroid might already have another player group’s ship docked on it, and you can fly up next to it and deploy your own drones to try to fight them for the asteroid. (This is what’s going on in the launch trailer at the top of the page.) Read 20 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Descent Underground recaptures that Descent multiplayer magic [Updated]

iOS 9.1 release lays groundwork for upcoming Apple TV and iPad Pro

The upcoming iPad Pro will require iOS 9.1 (credit: Andrew Cunningham) Apple has just released iOS 9.1, the first major update to iOS 9 and the third update overall since the OS came out in September. It’s available as an over-the-air download or through iTunes for everything that supports iOS 9: the iPhone 4S or newer, the iPad 2 or newer, all flavors of the iPad Mini, and the fifth- and sixth-generation iPod Touches. The change you’ll notice the most if you do a bunch of texting is that Apple has implemented a bunch of new emoji, mostly from the Unicode 7.0 and 8.0 specs but with a few from earlier specifications mixed in. Tacos, burritos, and extended middle fingers are just a few of the additions you’ll find to the emoji keyboard, which needs a decent search function now more than ever. iOS 9.1 also lays the groundwork for some other iOS devices that are launching soon. One is the new Apple TV, which ships with the iOS-based “tvOS.” The other is the iPad Pro, which brings with it support for the Apple Pencil and its Smart Keyboard cover. The Apple TV ships next week , while the iPad Pro is due sometime in November. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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iOS 9.1 release lays groundwork for upcoming Apple TV and iPad Pro

Today’s OS X El Capitan update should fix Microsoft Office crashes

An update to OS X El Capitan released by Apple today promises to improve compatibility with Microsoft Office 2016. Office 2016 has been crashing a lot on the latest Mac operating system, which was released on September 30 . Although Microsoft released an Office update on October 13 that contained “stability improvements,” Microsoft told Ars at the time that the update “doesn’t address the issues experienced by Office customers with OS X 10.11 El Capitan.” Microsoft said it was working with Apple to fix the problems, and that work resulted in today’s release of OS X 10.11.1. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Today’s OS X El Capitan update should fix Microsoft Office crashes