|
Headway is a four-time Apple App of the Day and an Apple Editors' Choice Award winner that makes it easier than ever to access the world's brightest ideas. This intuitive app distills more than 1,200 nonfiction best-sellers into bite-sized summaries that you can read at your leisure. It gives you personalized learning paths based on your interests and gamifies the process, keeping you motivated to learn more every day. From business and finance to health, personal development, and more, Headway has topics to keep you fully engaged.
Commit to your learning without overexerting yourself on a day-to-day basis. You can get a lifetime subscription to Headway Premium for just $59.99 (reg. $299).
|
|
According to a presentation from Intel on Tuesday, which weirdly debuted Microsoft's "requirements for an AI PC," vendors will need three specific components if they want to advertise their new machines as such. One, "NPU, CPU, and GPU powered silicon." Since that presumably includes integrated GPUs like Intel's Xe systems, the NPU (neural processing unit) is the new hotness in question.
What exactly is an NPU? That's a bit nebulous at the moment. An NPU is a distinct (if not necessarily discrete) processor designed for specific tasks, very much like a GPU for visuals, but it's for "AI." Another term for an NPU is "AI accelerator." But again, exactly what it does isn't exactly clear. For the live demos I've seen, the most interesting thing it's doing is blurring the background in video calls somewhat more efficiently than existing chips.
Microsoft also demands that an AI PC include its Copilot assistant…which is built into Windows 11. So, that's basically a given. And also that there be a dedicated Copilot button on the keyboard, generally replac
| RELATED ARTICLES | | |
|
Not only did we give Carbonite four stars out of five in a glowing review, but we also awarded it the coveted Editor's Choice badge. It's great.
"Carbonite Safe is a capable set-it-and-forget-it backup service that eliminates any worries about running out of room when backing up your stuff," we concluded, "It's a worthy service for the average user."
Carbonite offers once-a-day backup, unlimited data backup with file versioning (that means it retains older versions of files), and more. This service also intelligently pinpoints the most common data and locations like Windows documents, pictures, folders, and so on. To signal the backed-up status of a file, Carbonite places a small dot next to the file or folder. Orange means the backup is pending and green means they've already been backed up.
This is a terrific deal, but it ends on March 31st, so you better swoop in now and get it while you can.
|
|
The 20TB Western Digital hard drive deal on Amazon rings up as $349.99. But it also includes a $70 coupon on the front page (don't miss it!), which brings down the price to $279.99 after checking out.
According to Gordon Mah Ung, who has done the math, the 20TB option is the cheapest that WD offers for this product, at a mind-boggling $14 per terabyte. Remember when dollars per gigabyte was a thing?
Okay, so is there a catch? Not really, but there are some things you need to know about. As one commenter points out, the way drive manufacturers report capacity and the way in which Windows reports it differ. Windows will report it as 18.6TB instead. This is typical for virtually all drives, however.
This is a powered drive, meaning you'll need to plug it into a wall. It also uses the USB 3.0 interface, which transfers data at a comparatively paltry 5Gbps. If you want to back up files, you'll probably just need to plug it in, connect it, and let it do its thing in the background. While the drive comes preformatted for Windows, if you want to fully format it for whatever reason, it will probably take close to a day.
Amazon also says that there may be a limited number of coupons available, so don't dawdle if you want to take advantage of this deal!
In just a few days, however, the world will recognize World Backup Day, where you're encouraged to make a copy of your data and a copy of that copy. Combining your laptop's hard drive, this dea
|
|
I've poured out my love for this game and its predecessor before, bemoaning the fact the publisher EA and developer Respawn seem to have abandoned it in favor of Star Wars and battle royale. But to save you some reading time: it has a fantastic single-player campaign that's worth the price of admission alone. Fast-paced, parkour-infused FPS action in "pilot" mode contrasts with stomping around in your robot pal for big action set pieces. The sci-fi buddy cop story is decent and the level design is occasionally jaw-dropping.
|
|
Chrome for Windows on Snapdragon should be available via Google, complementing the version for X86 PCs that has been on the market for years.
Qualcomm soft-launched the Snapdragon X Elite platform last fall in anticipation of PCs shipping with the Snapdragon X Elite processor in mid-2024. Some of the first devices expected include consumer versions of the Microsoft Surface Pro 10 and the Surface Laptop 6. Those devices, marketed as the Surface Pro 10 for Business and the Surface Laptop 6 for Business, were announced with Intel Core Ultra processors a short time ago. All told, nine PC vendors are expected to ship Snapdragon X Elite PCs.
Chrome's commitment, though, is good news. Early iterations of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7- and 8-series chips were often accompanied by beta versions of Microsoft's Edge and Mozilla's Firefox browser, indicative of the lack of software support for the Arm architecture. Chrome, however, owns 51 percent of the U.S. market, with Edge tally
|
|
In part, that's because they've had to run via emulation, a way of translating the X86 code into instructions that can be understood by the Arm processor. Qualcomm claims that performance won't be a problem for its upcoming Snapdragon X Elite processors and the PCs they run on. But the company also unveiled a pretty major caveat to that, too.
According to The Verge, Qualcomm executives told a Game Developer Conference audience that the company believes that most of the games in Steam's list of the most popular games should run at close to full speed on Snapdragon X Elite.
Qualcomm engineer Issam Khalil told the audience that game developers could port their games over to Arm, or they could create an Arm64EC app, a hybrid approach where Qualcomm's drivers run natively but the rest of the app is emulated. They could also just let Windows on Arm's emulation shoulder the load. Khalil said he believes most games are GPU-bound, meaning that the performance of the emulator won't have a big impact.
There are some problems, though. Games with kernel-level anti-cheat drivers simply won't work via emulation, as will games that use AVX instructions, Khalil said. The latter is the subject of a
|
|
If you're not sure where to begin your quest for a budget-friendly machine, don't sweat it. We did the heavy lifting for you. (Note that laptop prices can fluctuate and there might be times when the price of one of our picks hovers over $1,000.) For more recommendations on gaming laptops, see our roundup of the best gaming laptops across all prices, or take a look at our roundup of the best laptop deals.
Why you should trust us: Hey, it's in our name! PCWorld prides itself on laptop experience and expertise. We've been covering PCs since 1983, and we now review more than 70 laptops every year. All of the picks below have been personally tested and vetted by our experts, who've applied not only performance benchmarks but rigorous usability standards. We're also committed to reviewing PC laptops at every price point to help you find a machine that matches your budget.
Updated March 21, 2024: We added the recently reviewed Acer Nitro V 15 as the best connectivity pick. Not only does it have a ton of ports, but it also offers good game performance and build quality for the price. We also updated our list of recently reviewed laptops.
|
|