Alienware Alpha Review – A Pint-Sized PC

August 17, 2015 By Karen Jackson 4 Comments

Who says that you can’t have a PC gaming console?

The Alienware Alpha is a pint-sized PC that has a special place on the podium along with PS4, and Xbox One. It’s tons smaller than these two console mammoths, and its performance is on par.

What’s the deal with the Alienware Alpha?

Back in 1996, Alienware was founded by two tech enthusiasts Nelson Gonzalez, and Alex Aguila with the purpose of video-gaming in mind. In 2002 Dell expressed its wish of acquiring the company, but the deal didn’t went through until 2006. Now, Alienware is a subsidiary of Dell Inc.

The Alienware Alpha was first announced as a Steam Box, but it ended up being based on a custom-built user friendly XMBC UI.

The Alienware Alpha is controller-friendly, and you can find an Xbox 360 gamepad in the box – for no additional cost.

It matches the PS4, and Xbox One, but it retails at a much bigger price without the possibility of upgrading its GPU, it’s equipped with an entry-level CPU, and RAM, which limits its performance.

I recommend going with the more expensive Alienware Alpha model that sports a faster quad-core Core i7 CPU, and 8 gigs of RAM.

Alienware Alpha Review

It looks beautiful. Glossy plastic covers its sides, and on the front of the Alienware gaming console you can see its power button constructed out of the company’s logo. Near it, two USB 2.0 ports reside. The top of the console is somewhat divided into a trio of lines, and there’s a cut-away corner which shows-off more LEDs.

Design-wise, the Alpha is more than pleasing, I might go as far as calling it eye-candy. When added to a police line-up it can be found guilty of looking gaming-sexy.

Measuring 200mm wide, 56mm tall, and 200mm deep, it’s much smaller than its console counter-parts. The PS4 is shorter, but not by much, and the 3mm difference is unnoticeable, however it’s wider, and more deep. The Xbox One is the biggest of them all.

The Alienware Alpha console weighs much less than any other console. It’s 1.54kg, and it looks petite when compared with the 2.8kg Sony console, or the 3.2kg Microsoft box.

Why is it so weightless? Mainly because it doesn’t have a built-in optical drive, and it uses an external power brick.

It’s a dust-magnet, but you can get passed this mildly annoying issue because when it comes to build materials the Alienware console doesn’t feel like a block of cheap creaking plastic.

Everybody is calling it the Alienware game console but everyone tends to forget that it has PC blood flowing through its veins. Its base panel is easily popped off by removing the four screws found at the bottom of the console. The plastic lid that encompasses its internals and the sides, can be lifted away to showcase the engine under the hood.

Inside the Alpha you’ll notice little plastic shrouds that help hot air navigate from the CPU, and the GPU. They are easily removable with only a couple of plastic clips that keep them tight in place. It’s a gateway towards chipsets, and the rest of its interiors.

It’s designed for upgrades, but unfortunately not all of the components inside can be changed. The most important part, the GPU, can’t be removed as its soldered onto the motherboard.

The basic, naked Alienware Alpha model comes with a memory slot free, a dual-band 802.11ac wireless card, and a 2.5-inch HDD. The CPU is sitting nicely in a LGA 1150 socket.

Connectivity is good, and wireless connection doesn’t flop-out when you most need it, although it also depends on your ISP.

The Alpha Alienw has a Gigabit Ethernet, and a Bluetooth 4.0. On the front of the console there are two USB 2.0 ports. On its rear, you can find two additional USB 3.0 ports, the input, and output HDMI plug, and an optical S/PDIF connector. Just under, behind a flap-thingy, there’s your fifth USB port which has been built for a Valve USB controller, and other similar gadgets.

The Alpha UI has been perfectly designed for the Xbox 360 controller which can be found in the box. Don’t expect a revolutionary OS, it has Windows 8.1 with basic features. The Settings Menu is comprised of basic networking, video and audio options. There’s a specific option which lets the user change the LEDs color.

The Power Menu is where you’ll go to either reboot, or shut down your system, and also an option to open your Windows desktop.

It being a Valve golden-child, Steam’s Big Picture mode divides the screen into three menus:

Store
Library
Profile Page

Your library of games, and the store can be navigated on a horizontal menu, where you’ll also find links to friends, and a browser.

It’s intuitive, and easy to use. If you’ve meddled with a gaming console before, or Steam, you won’t notice anything game-changing. Newcomers won’t have issues navigating around in the library, or the store.

However, even though it’s highly intuitive, and beginner-friendly, it’s not that perfectly constructed. You’ll observe weird fonts throughout the store, the library, and in-game. This is because there’s a huge divide between Valve, and Alienware who built the UI.

Colors can be changed, but you don’t have this option for fonts, or navigation.

Alienware’s virtual keyboard is present, but it’s totally different from Steam’s on-screen one. Sadly, neither of them are as intuitive as they may see at first – nor the software.

The Alpha software is borderline mediocre when it comes down to how quick it runs, and there are some driver issues as in there’s no proprietary Nvidia Geforce Experience app that you can install so you get the latest updates. The Alpha console-manufacturer hasn’t announced when, and how users will receive them.

The alliance between Alienware, and Valve means that you will only have access to Steam while using the UI. There are thousands of games available on the Steam store, thousands more than on any other console. This is worth noting for those of us who want to use Origin, or Uplay.

For Origin, and Uplay you’ll have to connect to your desktop.

Describing it as an Alienware gaming console is faulty in its essence, and by removing the possibility of using multiple stores it doesn’t really break the console illusion, but still, it would have been nice to have them up for grabs.

The Alienware Alpha can also be used for work, watching Netflix, YouTube, and even web browsing.

The GPU is a generic Nvidia chipset, but don’t let this sink your boat. Under further investigation, it was revealed that its architecture is based on the desktop version of the GTX 750 Ti/GTX 860M chip.

It can be categorized in the mid-performance range with 640 stream processors that are clocked at 1,020MHz. Theoretically speaking, it features 1.4TFLOPS. It’s lower than the PS4 peak of 1.84, and higher, but not by much, when compared to the Xbox One’s 1.31TFLOP.

The dedicated GPU memory is DDR3, and it’s installed in single-channel mode which poses as an obstacle for performance. It looks bad when you compare it to the shared memory of the PS4, and Xbox One.

The Alpha’s GPU is paired with an Intel Haswell CPU that can reach a maximum of 2.9GHz without Turbo Boost.

Tested in Battlefield 4 at Ultra Quality settings, and 1080p, the Alienware Alpha was sitting confidently at 27 frames per second. In Bioshock Infinite the console was outputting 44 fps, and in Crysis 3 it managed to produce whooping 28 frames per second.

Even though it can run AAA games on Ultra Settings, I don’t recommend you sacrifice stability, and game fluidity for pretty colors and sharp textures. At High Settings the Alpha jumped towards the 40 fps mark in Battlefield 4, and an average of 60 in Bioshock. Crysis 3 managed to beat it down a bit, but performance increased up to 33 frames per second.

It’s crucial that you know the minimum framerates. The Alpha didn’t disappoint, and it actually performed rather well. In Battlefield it witnessed a down-spike to 22 fps on occasion, and 30 frames per second in Bioshock.

Its direct competitor, The Syber, is slightly faster, but not by much. The Alienware Alpha runs well in the gaming department, but for a $500 machine we expected much more. It’s on par, performance wise, with the PS4, and Xbox One, but its architecture is not.

The Alpha’s hard disk is definitely not up to modern standards, and the 500GB 5,400 RPM disk runs like a snail. The Alienware Alpha has slow loading times, but not something that should be taken into account as a deal breaker. It took approximately 40 seconds to boot, and apps, once they were launched, never struggled with maintaining their flow.

Still, this is a poor mark to achieve for both PC, and gaming console standards.

Considering how small it is, and how its internals are cramped inside the little Alienware box, we expected it to reach Mount Doom levels. This wasn’t the case, and the Alienware Alpha strays away from the trend. The CPU, and GPU were constantly between 71, and 79 degrees.

The Alienware is also not a noise-hog. It runs quietly, with a little bit of rumbles here and there when the machine is stretched in demanding game scenes. Nothing that’s worth fussing over anyway. It’s comparable with modern consoles.

It requires just about 22W in idle mode, and it can reach a peak of 101W. Power consumption isn’t a problem when comparing with the 110W Xbox One, and the 125W PlayStation 4.

The Alienware Alpha comes in two different configurations.

The base model costs $500, and is the cheapest of the bunch. It has an Intel i3 Haswell processor, and 500GB of storage space. If you want to upgrade it, you’ll have to cough up almost $100, but you’ll get 8 gigs of RAM, and 1TB of storage space.

The next configuration costs $850, and it comes equipped with a Core i7 proc, 8 GB of RAM, and 2 TB of storage space.

Both configs come with Windows 8.1, which can be upgraded for free to Windows 10.

It is possible to replicate this exact config by building your very own desktop PC, but you won’t have the mini-ITX case, the Alpha XMBC-based UI, nor the Xbox 360 wireless gamepad.

The Alienware Alpha comes with a 1 year limited hardware warranty.

Dell currently sells them packed with 6 free games.

The $850 one, although incredibly expensive when compared with the PS4, and Xbox One, is more versatile than its console counterparts. If you don’t plan on using it just for gaming, you can use Windows 8.1, or 10, for work, streaming movies, or listening to music.

I would like to point-out that adding a SSD will make your life much more easier, and your machine faster. The equipped Alienware hard drive of 5,400 RPM is outdated, and the 7,200 RPM one will soon follow in its path.

It’s also worth nothing that even though Dell is the manufacturer, and also retailer, you can find the Alpha at a cheaper price at Amazon, or BestBuy.

Verdict

Should you buy the Alienware Alpha?

It’s worth considering if you don’t plan on buying a Sony, or Microsoft gaming console, and if you’re more PC oriented. The big downside is that you can’t upgrade the GPU, and your machine will be obsolete in a few years. More so, considering that DirectX 12 is just around the corner.

Because it’s so PC oriented it proves to be versatile, and Windows 8.1 works perfectly well with this Dell gaming console. However, it is unaware at the moment how many compatibility issues are present in Windows 10.

The 5,400 RPM hard disk really holds it back from achieving its true potential, and you’ll have to acquire, separately a 7,200 RPM HDD, or an SSD – although, a worthwhile 500 GB SSD retails at $200, more or less.

Trustworthy Alienware retailers are Dell, Newegg, Amazon, and BestBuy.

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Melbourne Is Now The Capital Of Virtual Reality Games

August 17, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Buckle up, virtual reality games are gathering speed and are getting ready to conquer the world. The latest update is the new “free roam” gaming center that just opened in Melbourne, Australia. Called Zero Latency, it already has players hooked and lining up to try it out.

The 4,300 square foot warehouse is equipped with 129 PlayStation Eye cameras. Users have to wear a set of virtual reality head mounted displays, Oculus Rift DK2 as well as a backpack that contains an Alienware Alpha PC, powering the Oculus Rift. As science fiction as this sounds, gamers’ reaction didn’t delay to praise Zero Latency and compare it to “being in a video game”.

Once connected to everything, the players are free to roam in the massive warehouse. As its name suggests, the game was designed to create zero latency, which translates into what the users see in virtual reality games matches up with what they’re doing in real life. By setting such high expectations, it’s no wonder the virtual reality games are already fully booked for the first weeks after opening.

Does this mean we can say good bye to laser tag and paintball? While these kind of gaming centers are only budding here and there, I think it’s safe to say they’re here to stay. If you’re from Melbourne or plan to visit, you and five friends can play Zero Latency for one hour and pay around $65 each.

The game’s description presents it as a totally immersing experience. The creators encourage you to imagine a game that doesn’t feel like a game at all. You control everything with your body in a place where digital meets real life. With each of your movements, the game moves with you. After working on the facility for three years, the makers of the virtual reality games guarantee an experience like no other.

Virtual reality games are not the result of a single man’s work, and they surely didn’t have a linear development throughout the years. With continuous development from the 60s till nowadays, 3D pictures have certainly come a long way.

The simplest way to grasp virtual reality games is to think about them as a three dimensional world generated by a computer. They are founded on concepts like immersion, dealing with data depth and breadth, and latency, the lag time between a user’s change of perspective and the entry of another perspective.

Exactly how much virtual reality will be taking over our lives remains to be seen. While it’s still in its incipient days and it seems limited to games and videos, we’re all eager to take it for a spin and see what it can do.

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The Flock is a Game That Ends After Enough Players Die

August 16, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The Flock is a video-game that will shut itself down after enough players die within its universe.

It’s a first-person, team-based multiplayer game that takes place roughly a thousand years into the future, in the post-apocalyptic year 3000.

Players compete to own a mysterious unknown object described as The Light Artifact, which slightly resembles Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but just slightly.

You battle with other gamers for the artifact, and you will eventually die.

Each death brings The Flock closer to its goal – once the 215,358,979 mark is reached, new players won’t be able to acquire and play the game. The universe will shift towards its final phase.

Dutch studio Vogelsap, the developer behind The Flock, sets an unique challenge for players, and creative director Jeroen Van Hasselt thinks that inserting a story in a multiplayer game, particularly its ending, will please gamers who are unsatisfied of the current industry standard.

Players will play as one of the Flock, which Jeroen describes as ” a hideous race of skeletal beasts”. The Flock have taken control of Earth after humans went extinct.

The counter mark that foretells the end of phase one may seem completely made up, but Vogelsap assures us that they have taken into account how many players might end up playing The Flock, and other undisclosed factors.

Their goal is to make gamers play The Flock a reasonable amount of time, in order for them to fall in love with the universe, and its characters, but at the same time, they don’t want to beat a dead horse to the pulp.

They estimate that the game will run its course within a year, afterwards phase 2 can begin.

But Jeroen notes that its up to players when the last phase of the game will start – it could be a year, it could be more, but in no case it will be less than 12 months.

Van Hasselt wished to say that they won’t add to the population counter unless the game is also released on Xbox One, or PlayStation 4.

The game is slated to be released for PC on the 21st of August 2015.

It wants to rise up to the likes of Destiny, and World of Warcraft, but there’s an avalanche of failed video-games that sought to reach a high-peak, only to end up seeing the top from the base of the mountain. This may well be the fate of The Flock, but we are rooting for them!

The rather unknown, and small studio realizes that gamers won’t be playing their game year-in, year-out, and they say that they would rather have players experience an exciting video-game for a couple of years, than pump it with futile expansions, and hats.

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Robot Lawn Mower? We’re listening

August 14, 2015 By Michael Turner Leave a Comment

To the disappointment of children everywhere earning their allowance from lawn mowing, the Federal Communications Commission has just given its approval for a Robot Lawn Mower. iRobot are preparing to launch a lawn mower that could be coming to a garden near you sooner than you expected.

Lawn mowers manufacturers have been trying to come up with automatic robotic devices for tending your gardens. But unlike their competitors’ previous attempts, iRobot claims their lawn mower won’t need any underground fences or complicated setups. The other robotic mowers require a perimeter wire and a charging station, which can be quite a hassle.

The Federal Communications Commission’s green light will now allow the lawn mower manufacturer that is famous for its automated Roomba household vacuum, to continue with their developments.

While we’re still in the dark about how the robot lawn mower will work, a report claims it will rely on stakes in the ground which will be connected wirelessly in order to map out the area you want to mow.

iRobot’s stake design needed a waiver from the regulatory commission, since it was believed the device would interfere with their radios signals that would use the same frequency range.

While the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t usually allow operations of “fixed outdoor infrastructure” that transmit low radio signals without a licence, iRobot’s device managed to get their seal of approval.

Even though the National Radio Astronomy Observatory claimed the signal of the robot lawn mower could interfere with their telescopes, the Federal Communications Commission stood by iRobot on this one, pointing out that the device’s limitations couldn’t affect the astronomers’ work.

iRobot pointed out that the needed beacons would only be set out during mowing season and will communicate only with the robot lawn mower. They will be around two feet tall and four to nine stakes will be more than enough for the average consumer.

A great advantage this device brings to the table is that it’s safer and environmentally friendly, since it doesn’t need gasoline to manicure your lawn. Not to mention they would be of great help to elders or disabled users and would free people from this tedious chore.

With robots already helping out around the house with vacuuming, washing and dusting, we’re all ready to welcome outdoor gadgets like the robot lawn mower as a more practical solution for groomed lawns.

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Russia Bans and Unbans Reddit, Shrooms are to Blame

August 14, 2015 By Cristopher Hall Leave a Comment

Earlier this week Russia banned one of the most popular websites in the world – Reddit.

Yesterday, they lifted the ban.

The reason? A two-year-old post which contains information about how to grow psychedelic mushrooms made the Kremlin’s media watchdog agency Roskomnadzor act accordingly, they say.

The ban was lifted only after the website adhered to the rules the government requested Reddit to comply with. Reddit now restricts local access to the specific guide that instructs people on how to grow magic shrooms – ” Minimal and Reliable Methods for Growing Psylocybe”.

The post about how to properly harvest psychedelic mushrooms was published two years ago – April 2013. The post is still available outside Russian internet territory.

Through VKontakte, which is a Russian Facebook-like social media platform, Roskomandzor says that they tried reaching Reddit with a complaint about the 2013 post, but they were unable to contact any admins.

The agency went on about how they realize that they are understaffed during Summer holidays, but this is clearly no excuse on their part. More so, they are risking to lose the entire Russian audience if they don’t comply.

Well, they lost it, but just briefly.

Under President Vladimir Putin’s regime, Russia has enacted severe restrictive rules regarding what the Russian populace is allowed to see on the internet. US digital rights group, the EFF, which translates to the Electronic Frontier Foundation says that the legislation that Kremlin has passed is violating the rights of their citizens to freedom of expression.

The Reddit nation-wide ban went into effect on Wednesday. The blackout lasted no-more than two days.

The author of the post on how to harvest magic mushrooms, rsocfan, was contacted regarding this subject. He said that he will definitely not remove the post, and he thinks that Reddit should do nothing. He went on talking about how this is a serious, and important issue on freedom of speech, and that the somebody needs to do take a stand against the Kremlin’s human rights violations.

Rsocfan added that he thanks Roskomnadzor, because of the huge amount of traffic he received after they banned Reddit.

The Kremlin agency added on their VKontakte page that they hope Reddit will continue to listen to their regulatory demands, which represent the interest of Russia, and the Russian populace.

Reddit is one of the most popular websites in the world, it ranks 31st most popular across the whole world wide web on the internet analytics site Alexa. It’s ranked at 163 in Russia.

The Russian media watchdog threatened only last month to ban YouTube if they don’t comply with their rules.

That’s a bold strategy cotton, let’s see if it plays out!

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Samsung And Apple Better Put Their Boxing Gloves On

August 13, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

Samsung and Apple are in the lead on the smartphone market, but for how much longer? The Korean tech giant is expected to introduce two new smartphones, possibly the new version of Galaxy S6 edge, that will have a curved screen, and Galaxy Note 5, their newest phablet.

If Samsung usually holds on to device announcements until September, this year they might want to get a head start over their main competitor, Apple. The latter will probably announce the latest version of iPhone (6s or 7) on September 9. This would give Samsung enough time to beat Apple to market.

It’s no secret Samsung has been struggling to make ends meet and satisfy the market’s requirements. This stemmed from the slow manufacturing process caused by the curved screen of the new smartphone.

But Samsung can’t be happy looking at the numbers. Their sales are sluggish, with most recent reports showing their incomes have decreased by eight per cent as a whole and as much as thirty eight per cent only in the mobile division.

This is happening as a result of the fierce competition on the smartphone market. With Chinese manufacturers like Huawei and Xiaomi breathing down the necks of Samsung and Apple, the fight for territory is only now beginning.

Samsung and Apple are currently holding the first places on the Australian market, but the jury is still out for who’s winning the third place. With Sony, HTC and LG witnessing severe sale drops, other cheaper manufacturers seize the moment to expand to new markets.

We’re talking about Xiaomi and Huawei, whose devices are on the rise. They are already on the first place on the Chinese market and now they have their eyes set on Australia. There’s no wonder their smartphones are doing well. Xiaomi released the Mi Note in January, selling it for $487, as opposed to Apple 6, for which you had to pay $1286.

Huawei decided for another strategy. They went ahead and increased their prices. It was a bold move, but it paid off. Only in the first half of 2015 they witnessed their revenues doubling, reaching 7.23 billion dollars.

They’re also looking at an increased demand. During the last six months their shipments spiked by thirty nine per cent as opposed to the last years’ deliveries. With Samsung and Apple staying on the high end edge of the smartphone spectrum, is Huawei’s strategy getting the firm on its path to number one?

Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge sales didn’t match Samsung’s expectations. While they can blame it on the ever changing smartphone market, that doesn’t change the fact the competition is advancing at a strong pace.

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Microsoft’s Surface Hub has been Delayed to January

August 13, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

The Surface Hub, Microsoft’s wall computer has been delayed, and it will now start to ship on January the 1st 2016. The announcement comes right after the company’s July statement, when they noted that a Fall release date isn’t plausible.

The software-maker promised that they will update its status when August arrives.

Microsoft’s official note, regarding their Surface Hub wall computer can be read just down below.

A little bit lackluster, isn’t it?

Mary Jo Foley, a contributor to ZDNet was the first to observe this rather annoying delay, and she brings to our attention that Microsoft started taking pre-orders for their Surface Hub on July the 1st, and that the company’s initial plan was for a September 1st ship date.

The big M released a statement in July which noted that they have received strong demand for the Surface Hub, and the reason for this multi-month postponement is that they want to polish their process of manufacturing in order to produce them on a more larger scale.

Microsoft built, from top to bottom, a factory in Oregon especially to create the Surface Hub.

This delay isn’t worrying, nor has it caught us off-guard. I wouldn’t even go to say that this entails system, or production troubles. It’s just Microsoft admitting they want to make more money, because there is a demand for their product.

Microsoft isn’t selling flag-ship consumer-oriented smartphones, where timing is of the essence when considering a release date. They are trying to breakthrough a niche, which doesn’t really have a standard of quality cemented into the user’s mind, nor promoted by an industry leader.

Microsoft’s new system, the Surface Hub is a 80-inch, or 55-inch computer that you can display on your wall. It has a built-in touch input, specially made cameras that will track your movement, and other features oriented for businesses – video conferences are stable, and easily initiated.

It will come pre-assembled, and the design team at Microsoft aims it at businesses first, consumers second.

It can also run all of the apps on the Windows Store.

The Surface Hub is capable of running Windows 10 apps, and it will be more practical than their previous iterations. It will also run a sort-of custom version of the newly released Windows 10.

Depending on the size of the Surface Hub that you choose, you’ll need to pay-up $6,999 or $19,999.

As I said before, this delay isn’t worrying, but if January comes, and Microsoft delays their system once-again, then we might start to ask ourselves some questions.

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Corvette Brakes Disabled by Texting Its Dongle

August 12, 2015 By Deborah Campbell Leave a Comment

Another day, another drama in the world of car hacking. After we’ve all been blown away by how hackers can gain access to a car’s Telematic Control Units, four researchers from the University of California hit the pedal to the metal and proved there is an even easier way to hack a Chevrolet Corvette. They stopped the cars’ breaks by texting its dongle.

The researchers are not pointing their finger and shaking their heads only at Corvette. According to them, most cars that have a dongle plugged in their dashboard show the symptoms of this Achilles’ heel. Using the dongle to track a vehicle for insurance purposes might not be the smartest way, as demos keep pointing out.

The cars can be extremely vulnerable and controlled remotely without much hassle. More than a simple bug, these security deficiencies can lead to disastrous outcomes if not contained in time. By simply sending a text message directly to the dongle attached to the car, hackers can gain access to some of the vehicle’s parts.

Insurance companies use such dongles to keep an eye on the cars’ location, their performance and their speed. Researchers were able to carry out a test and hack a cheap dongle attached to a Corvette.

By texting its dongle, they managed to send commands to the vehicle’s internal network which has control over its physical driving parts. This move enabled them to take control over some parts of the car. They were able to turn on the Corvette’s windshield wipers and disable the brakes.

The experiment was carried out on a 2013 Corvette. The researchers claimed the brake trick only succeeded at low speeds because of some limitations in the vehicle’s computer functions.

Even so, they strongly believe the attack can be molded and adapted for almost any car. This translates into hackers being able to gain control to your car’s locks, steering and even transmission controls. How did the dongle manufacturer react?

According to the researchers, they contacted Metromile in June and told them about the cars’ vulnerable spot that can be activated by simply texting its dongle. The dongle distributor seems to have wirelessly distributed a security patch to its gadgets, stating they treated the issue very seriously from the very beginning.

Uber, who uses the same dongles that were hijacked in the researchers’ experiment said their Metromile gadgets have been brought up to date and any existing flaw has been removed.

At the same time, the group of researchers begs to differ. They hold their ground saying the vulnerable spot can be found in vehicles all around the world, from federal agencies to government cars.

As long as a car uses a gadget connected to the internet, hackers can remotely controll it by texting its dongle, leaving the car exposed to the hijacker’s plans.

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LastPass is Now Free for Mobile Users, Here’s the Catch

August 12, 2015 By Karen Jackson Leave a Comment

LastPass is a password management tool, considered to be a lead player in the industry.

The company announced that they will be offering their services for free on smartphones, tablets, and even desktops. But here’s the catch. If you start with LastPass on your smartphone, you’ll be able to sync your data only on other smartphones, the same goes for tablets, and desktops.

LastPass is compatible with Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Mac, and Windows.

It is also compatible with Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Maxthon, and Firefox.

A premium membership is required if you want to synch data between two different devices – let’s say, a smartphone, and a tablet, or a tablet, and a desktop.

There’s a 14-day trial for LastPass Premium aimed at showing users how easy it can get when you have all your passwords in one little 5,000 rounds of PBKDF2-SHA256 encrypted vault. Premium offers unlimited syncing over any device compatible with LastPass. It also features a Shared Folder, where you can, go figure, share personal data with other people.

If this sounds appealing, you’ll need to cough up $12 a year for the Premium service.

If not, you can always stick with the free version – it offers the same features as the Premium service minus the device syncing variety.

But you should also know that not long ago, 2 months actually, LastPass was hacked. Those who got into their system didn’t steal any crucial data, the company notes.

In an official statement on their blog, the just-hacked password management company reassures its users that they keep their data secure at all times, and finding a workaround, or cracking their algorithms is nearly impossible, even for those who posses a performance-driven hack-aimed computer.

But the company warns users that if they used their master password on any other website, they should change it immediately – on LastPass, and on other websites that they have used the password.

If you still aren’t swoon over, check their Why Use LastPass? clip. Maybe you’ll become a user, and who knows, even a fan.

If having all of your passwords in one vault gives you anxiety, you can always go local, and open-source. KeePass is easy to use, open-source, you can store passwords locally, and most important of all, it’s absolutely free!

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Intel backs Lenovo’s ThinkPad P50, and P70 with Skylake

August 11, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Lenovo unveiles ThinkPad P50, and P70 workstations laptops, and they surely aren’t your run of the mill mobile machines. Lenovo combines Skylake, Intel’s A-class Xeon processors, for the first time in their history, with 64 GB of RAM, 1 TB of SDD storage, and not one, but two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports.

Lenovo notes that their ThinkPad P50, and P70 workstations are the only mobile machines that come with this much RAM.

A first for Intel is the fact that they are incorporating their Xeon processors into a mobile machine. Skylake, which uses the exact same 14 nm processes as its older sibling, the Broadwell product-line, features a much improved architecture, Intel notes.

The ThinkPad P50, and P70 are, simply put, behemoths of the industry, and they come as a refreshing statement that users don’t always look for the slimmest, or the most lightweight laptop. Not everyone wants to chomp on performance, just so the laptop can easily fit in that LV bag.

The 15.6-inch ThinkPad P50 weighs 5.6 pounds, and the 17-inch ThinkPad P70 stands at 7.6 pounds. Both of them clearly outweigh the 2 pound 12-inch MacBook.

They are meatier, they are driven by the fact that users require performance, not shallow machines to showcase in a Starbucks on the weekends. These ThinkPads are aimed to achieve a hardcore productivity status.

The ThinkPad P50 will retail at $1,599, while the ThinkPad P70 will be sold at $1,999. Buyers will have the option of choosing their preferred OS from a list comprised of Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, and Ubuntu. Customers will also have the option of implementing a touch display, or a 4K display – at additional cost, of course.

Lenovo’s ThinkPad-product line will be available for purchase in Q4 of this year. The ThinkPad P70 will be equipped with a forgotten feature for most desktop users – it will come packed with a DVD-RW drive.

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