System76, the Denver-based Linux PC manufacturer and developer of Pop OS, has some stellar news for those who prefer their laptops a little more open. Later this month the company will begin shipping two of their laptop models with its Coreboot-powered open source firmware. From a report: Beginning today, System76 will start taking pre-orders for both the Galago Pro and Darter Pro laptops. The systems will ship out later in October, and include the company's Coreboot-based open source firmware which was previously teased at the 2019 Open Source Firmware Conference. (Coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is a software project aimed at replacing proprietary firmware found in most computers with a lightweight firmware designed to perform only the minimum number of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.) What's so great about ripping out the proprietary firmware included in machines like this and replacing it with an open alternative? To begin with, it's leaner. System76 claims that users can boot from power off to the desktop 29% faster with its Coreboot-based firmware.

[...] Both of these laptops can be kitted out with 10th-Generation Intel CPUs (specifically the i5-10210U and the i7-10510U), and both have glare-resistant matte 1080p IPS displays. Beginning at $949, the Galago Pro features an all-aluminum chassis, a wealth of connectivity options including HDMI, DisplayPort to USB-C and Thunderbolt, and can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 6TB of storage space. The Darter Pro, meanwhile, can be built out with 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage, and features up to 10 hours of battery life.

At an event today, where Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop 3, Windows 10X, and an Android smartphone, the company also unveiled refreshed editions of its laptop-tablet hybrids: the Surface Pro 7, and the Surface Pro X. About the Surface Pro 7, which features a USB-C port: The price tag has also changed slightly: The Surface Pro 7 starts at $749 ($150 less than its predecessor). It's available for preorder today and ships on October 22. Microsoft has simply replaced the Mini DisplayPort with USB-C. There is still a USB-A port for all your existing accessories. Adding a USB-C port finally puts the Surface Pro on par with the Surface Book 2 of two years ago and last year's Surface Go. Surface fans have long asked for USB-C ports and Microsoft has been very slowly delivering. Surface Pro 7 comes with 10th-generation Intel Core processors (upgradeable all the way up to quad-core) and starts at 128GB of SSD storage (upgradable to 1TB). Like its predecessor, the Surface Pro 7 still comes with 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB of RAM. Otherwise, the design is largely unchanged. The Surface Pro 7 still has a 12.3-inch display, 2736 x1824 resolution, and 267ppi. The Surface Pro 6 was available in black and silver, and so is the Surface Pro 7. About the Surface Pro X: Seattle tech giant unveiled the Surface Pro X, the spiritual successor to the Surface, the Surface 2, the Surface 3, and the Surface Go. It's ultra-slim and lightweight, with a bezel-to-bezel 13-inch display and an adjustable kickstand. And it's the first machine to ship with a custom-designed, ARM-based Microsoft SQ1 system-on-chip co-engineered with Qualcomm. The Surface Pro X will be available on November 5, starting at $999, and Microsoft will begin taking preorders today.

On the display front, you're looking at a PixelSense panel with 2880 x 1920 resolution with a 267-pixel-per-inch screen density and a 1400:1 contrast ratio. Microsoft says it has the thinnest bezels of any 2-in-1. Under the hood, the Surface Pro X sports the aforementioned 7-nanometer SQ1, which Microsoft says delivers more performance per watt than the chip in the Surface Pro 6. It's an octa-core processor Qualcomm-designed Kryo cores clocked at 3GHz and running at 7 watts maximum, sitting alongside a redesigned GPU and integrated AI accelerator. Altogether, it delivers 9 teraflops of computational power, with the graphics chip alone pushing 2.1 teraflops.

The new OnePlus 7T was officially announced earlier today, bringing a speedier Snapdragon 855+ processor, 90Hz display, and more camera sensors for $599 -- nearly $100 less than the base model OnePlus 7 Pro. From a report: There are more upgrades found in the OnePlus 7T's display. The OP7T's 6.55-inch 2400x1080 AMOLED screen includes a 90Hz refresh rate, helping to make the screen feel smoother, and OnePlus has also upgraded the in-display fingerprint sensor on its new device. OnePlus claims that the OP7T has the "fastest, smoothest fingerprint unlock anywhere." Another major upgrade of the OnePlus 7T is on its backside. OnePlus has given the 7T a triple rear camera setup, up from the dual cameras found on the OnePlus 7. The triple rear cam system on the OnePlus 7T includes a 48MP main sensor with f/1.6 aperture and OIS, a 16MP ultra-wide camera with a 117-degree field of view, and a 12MP telephoto camera with a 2x optical zoom.

OnePlus has included ultra-wide Nightscape support for low-light shooting and Super Stable Video to better stabilize your video captures, and 4K video capture at 60fps. Slow-mo video recording is available at 1080p at 240fps or 720p at 480fps, and soon OnePlus will be slowing things down even more, adding 720p video recording at 960fps through a future software update. Around front there's a 16MP selfie camera in a waterdrop notch that OnePlus says is smaller than the notch found on last year's OnePlus 6T. OnePlus has packed the OP7T with 128GB of built-in UFS 3.0 storage, 8GB of RAM, USB-C, stereo speakers, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, and Android 10 running out of the box. The OnePlus 7T launches on October 18 at a price of $599. The device will be sold exclusively by T-Mobile, though Verizon and AT&T users can buy an unlocked version from OnePlus' website.

In addition to launching new iPhones today, Apple unexpectedly announced a new 7th-generation iPad, featuring a larger display and support for Apple's forthcoming iPadOS update. Ars Technica reports: This new model comes with a 10.2-inch 2160x1620 "Retina" display, up from the older model's 9.7-inch panel, and an A10 Fusion chip. The latter is the same chip used for the existing 6th-gen iPad, and that chip was first introduced with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus -- so don't expect a significant performance upgrade. Still, it should provide enough power for the entertainment, Web browsing, and casual work needs this iPad is primarily aimed at. The design is otherwise very similar to before -- thicker bezels, home button, roughly one-pound weight, and all -- and Apple still claims the tablet will get up to 10 hours of battery life. The device still comes with either 32GB or 128GB of storage.

Naturally, the new iPad will come with Apple's forthcoming iPadOS update, which will give the device a more robust multitasking system. It'll be able to connect to thumb drives and SD cards, too, and it'll work with Apple's Smart Keyboard attachment and the first-gen model of the Apple Pencil stylus. Apple did not switch to a USB-C port here as it's done with its higher-end iPad Pros, though that's not surprising with a cheaper tablet like this. The device will retain the $329 starting price of the previous 9.7-inch iPad and will begin shipping on September 30, with pre-orders available on Tuesday. Education customers will be able to get it at a slight discount of $299.

"Biohackers took one small but important step toward the science fiction dystopia depicted in William Gibson's Johnny Mnemonic," reports The Parallax, in an article shared by a Slashdot reader: The Four Thieves Vinegar biohacking collective has not figured out how to precisely mimic the memory data transfer scenario Gibson conjured, but it has built a device to enable people to store and transfer data wirelessly in their bodies. Using off-the-shelf parts and focused efforts, the biohacking group has designed and built a networked hard drive, coated in a biosafe resin, to be subcutaneously implanted in the human body. It's powered by an external battery that connects to the device via an induction coil, and its storage capacity is limited only by the size of the microSD card it contains. Michael Laufer, who founded Four Thieves Vinegar, calls it the Pegleg.

In the small hours of August 8, in an operating room within the small house, two patients received the second version of the Pegleg implant, which Laufer says is the world's first subcutaneous networked drive... To make Pegleg v2, Laufer and his team removed from the Raspberry Pi both Micro USB connectors (one for power, one for data), the Mini HDMI connector, and the camera connector. They then soldered on a second Wi-Fi chip to enable it to transfer data to another Pegleg and allow other devices to connect to it, as well as an induction coil to enable it to be powered by a wireless battery resting in a contiguous sports armband or pants pocket. They enabled Bluetooth for future functionality, inserted a 512GB microSD card for storage, and updated the firmware. Finally, they coated the hacked device in a biocompatible acrylic resin to prevent it from interacting with the recipient's body and to diffuse the heat it emanates.

At 11:44 a.m. on the same day, Laufer -- an implant newbie who has three small tattoos but no piercings -- took a seat in the surgical room... During the procedure, Laufer passed out for a few seconds and vomited a little bit. But 32 minutes later, he had a functional "Pegleg" implant.

An anonymous reader writes: For years, Microsoft used its patents as a way to profit from open-source products. The poster-child for Microsoft's intellectual property aggression were the File Allocation Table (FAT) patents. But the Microsoft of then is not the Microsoft of now. First, Microsoft open-sourced its entire patent portfolio and now Microsoft is explicitly making its last remaining FAT intellectual property, the exFAT patents, available to Linux and open source via the Open Invention Network (OIN). Microsoft announced that it now loves Linux and "we say that a lot, and we mean it! Today we're pleased to announce that Microsoft is supporting the addition of Microsoft's exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table) technology to the Linux kernel." ExFAT is based on FAT, one of the first floppy disk file systems. Over time, FAT became Microsoft's files ystem of choice for MS-DOS and Windows. It would become the default file system for many applications. Microsoft extended FAT to flash memory storage devices such as USB drives and SD cards in 2006 with exFAT. While FAT isn't commonly used today, exFAT is used in hundreds of millions of storage device. Indeed, exFAT is the official file system for SD Card Association's standard large capacity SD cards.

Now, Microsoft states: "It's important to us that the Linux community can make use of exFAT included in the Linux kernel with confidence. To this end, we will be making Microsoft's technical specification for exFAT publicly available to facilitate the development of conformant, interoperable implementations. We also support the eventual inclusion of a Linux kernel with exFAT support in a future revision of the Open Invention Network's Linux System Definition, where, once accepted, the code will benefit from the defensive patent commitments of OIN's 3040+ members and licensees." Specifically, according to a Microsoft representative, "Microsoft is supporting the addition of the exFAT file system to the Linux kernel and the eventual inclusion of a Linux kernel with exFAT support in a future revision of the Open Invention Network's Linux System Definition."

Scott Hanselman: Microsoft Encarta came out in 1993 and was one of the first CD-ROMs I had. It stopped shipping in 2009 on DVD. I recently found a disk and was impressed that it installed just perfectly on my latest Window 10 machine and runs nicely. Encarta existed in an interesting place between the rise of the internet and computer's ability to deal with (at the time) massive amounts of data. CD-ROMs could bring us 700 MEGABYTES which was unbelievable when compared to the 1.44MB (or even 120KB) floppy disks we were used to. The idea that Encarta was so large that it was 5 CD-ROMs (!) was staggering, even though that's just a few gigs today. Even a $5 USB stick could hold Encarta - twice!

My kids can't possibly intellectualize the scale that data exists in today. We could barely believe that a whole bookshelf of Encyclopedias was now in our pockets. I spent hours and hours just wandering around random articles in Encarta. The scope of knowledge was overwhelming, but accessible. But it was contained - it was bounded. Today, my kids just assume that the sum of all human knowledge is available with a single search or a "hey Alexa" so the world's mysteries are less mysteries and they become bored by the Paradox of Choice. In a world of 4k streaming video, global wireless, and high-speed everything, there's really no analog to the feeling we got watching the Moon Landing as a video in Encarta - short of watching it live on TV in the 1969! For most of us, this was the first time we'd ever seen full-motion video on-demand on a computer in any sort of fidelity - and these are mostly 320x240 or smaller videos!

Asus has unveiled a spec-heavy gaming phone called the ROG Phone II. When it launches later this year, it'll be one of the only phones to feature Qualcomm's new gaming-focused Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, a 120Hz AMOLED display, and massive 6,000mAh battery. PhoneDog reports: The ROG Phone II features a 6.59-inch 2340x1080 AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and it's the first phone to include Qualcomm's gaming-focused Snapdragon 855 Plus processor. Both the CPU and GPU in the SD855 Plus are clocked higher than in the standard SD855, helping you get better performance. ASUS has crammed 12GB of RAM inside the ROG Phone II's body, too. Another gaming-centric feature of the ROG Phone II are its AirTrigger buttons. Located on the side of the device, they give you extra buttons for your games and an improved software algorithm over the first ROG Phone that lets you rest your fingers on the AirTriggers, meaning you can react more quickly since you're not having to move your fingers to reach for the buttons.

Other notable features of the ROG Phone II include a 48MP main camera with Sony IMX586 sensor, a 13MP ultra wide rear camera with a 125-degree field of view, and a 24MP front camera. There's up to 512GB of built-in storage available, an in-display fingerprint reader, dual front-facing speakers, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Powering the whole package is a whopping 6000mAh battery. There are two USB-C ports on the ROG Phone II, with one in a traditional place on the bottom of the device and the other on the side of the phone so that it doesn't get in your way when you're gaming and charging. Both ports support Quick Charge 3.0, but the side port can charge more quickly with QuickCharge 4.0 support. It also includes support for 4K video output using DisplayPort 1.4. We don't have an official price or release date yet, but it's likely to start shipping later this year at around $899, which was the cost of the original ROG Phone.

HMD is bringing the latest version of the Nokia 2, called the "Nokia 2.2," to the U.S. For $139, it features a notched camera design, a plastic body, and a removable battery. Ars Technica reports: HMD is delivering a good package for the price, with a fairly modern design, the latest version of Android, and a killer update package with two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates. On the front, you have a 5.71-inch, 1520x720 IPS LCD with a flagship-emulating notch design and rounded corners. There's a sizable bezel on the bottom with a big "Nokia" logo on it, but it's hard to complain about that for $140.

This is a cheap phone, so don't expect a ton in the specs department. Powering the Nokia 2.2 is a MediaTek Helio A22 SoC, which is just four Cortex A53 cores at 2GHz. The U.S. version gets 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage version with an option to add a MicroSD card. The back and sides are plastic, and on the side you'll find an extra physical button, which will summon the Google Assistant. The back actually comes off, and -- get this -- you can remove the 3000mAh battery! Speaking of unnecessarily removed smartphone features from the past, there's also a headphone jack. Unfortunately, it's missing some key features to keep the price down. There's a microUSB port instead of a USB-C port, no fingerprint reader, and cameras that have low expectations.

Since it is a GSM phone, it will be supported by T-Mobile and AT&T networks, along with all their MVNOs.

A reader shares a report: There have been some bugs and issues with Microsoft's Windows 10 May Update/1903 feature update since Microsoft kicked off its rollout in late May. But the 1903 complaint I've gotten most often (so far) is from users who want to install the update but can't and don't know why. Microsoft has added a new notification which some users whose devices aren't ready or able to install the update are seeing when they attempt to proactively grab the 1903 release. As originally noted last week by Windows Latest, Microsoft has added a new message to its Windows Update page. Users attempting to install 1903 on machines with out-of-date drivers or other issues are seeing this message:

"The Windows 10 May 2019 Update is on its way. We're offering this update to compatible devices, but your device isn't ready for it. Once your device is ready, you'll see the update available on this page. There's nothing you need to do at this time." I confirmed with Microsoft that this notification is part of its 1903 rollout strategy. "The notification started with the latest changes made to improve the quality/transparency of the Windows update process," according to a Microsoft spokesperson. Microsoft officials said in a blog post on May 21 that the company planned to start automatically updating devices running the April 2018 Update and earlier versions of Windows 10 to Windows 10 1903. Last week, via the Windows Update account on Twitter, Microsoft officials communicated that they were building and training machine-learning rollout processes that would enable this to happen.

Samsung on Tuesday announced the launch of two new chips that it says will support secure, fast-charging USB-C power delivery controllers. "One of them, the SE8A, is what the company calls the industry's first solution that combines a power delivery controller and Secure Element in a single chip, offering new protections like security key storage," reports BGR. "Another result of the development of these new power delivery controllers is that Samsung's power chargers will now be able to support up to a 100W capacity: A 10x improvement over the 10W of a general smartphone charger." From the report: Samsung said the MM101 supports a symmetric encryption algorithm called the Advanced Encryption Standard that enables product authentication and includes moisture sensing capabilities to ensure safer charging conditions. The SE8A supports USB Type-C Authentication, the certificate-based authentication program for USB-C chargers and devices. "With enhanced security," Samsung explained in the announcement, "the SE8A opens possibilities for new kinds of content and services that may be exclusive to a certain brand, location or event."

Today's announcement is also significant because Samsung says the new power delivery controllers meet the most recent USB specs for fast-charging which addresses things like compatibility and efficiency challenges across mobile devices and other electronics. Those challenges can have effects like causing a device to, for example, charge slower than usual in addition to compromising the battery's life cycle.

It's technically "late May." So it's not too surprising that Microsoft's promised late May rollout of the Windows 10 May 2019 Update (also known as 1903) is kicking off today, May 21. From a report: As of today, mainstream consumer and business users who want to manually download and install the May feature update may do so. The May 2019 Update/1903 is available on WSUS, Windows Update for Business as of today. Users who aren't already on Windows 10 1809 (either because they weren't "offered" it or didn't proactively grab it) will be able to just skip over 1809 and go straight to 1903, since Windows 10 feature updates are cumulative.

There are a quite a number of new features in the May 2019 Update/1903. Microsoft is providing users -- including Home users -- with more control over how and when Windows 10 feature updates will install with this release. Microsoft is adding the ability for Home users to pause updates for up to 35 days.

Microsoft has published a support document today warning Windows 10 users that the impending May 2019 Update may not install on their systems if they use external USB storage devices or SD cards. From a report: The OS maker cited problems with "inappropriate drive reassignment" as the main reason for blocking the May 2019 Update. "Inappropriate drive reassignment can occur on eligible computers that have an external USB device or SD memory card attached during the installation of the May 2019 update," the company said. "For this reason, these computers are currently blocked from receiving the May 2019 Update."

Mark Wilson writes: Since the arrival of USB drives, we have been warned that they need to be 'safely removed' using the correct method in Windows, rather than just being yanked out — but now this changes.

With Windows 10 1809, Microsoft is changing the default setting that's applied to USB drives and other removable media. The change means that the default policy applied to removable storage devices is Quick Removal rather than Better Performance — so you can now just pull it out without a second thought.

LG's flagship G8 smartphone has been officially launched today, bringing many expected features that were teased over the past few months and several not-so-expected features. One such unusual feature in the G8 is its palm vein recognition, dubbed Hand ID, which LG claims is the first to offer this capability. TechCrunch reports: From the company's press materials, "LG's Hand ID identifies owners by recognizing the shape, thickness and other individual characteristics of the veins in the palms of their hands." It turns out, like faces and fingerprints, everyone's got a unique set of hand veins, so once registered, you can just however your hot blue blood tubes over the handset to quickly unlock in a few seconds. The Z camera also does depth-sensing face unlock that's a lot harder to spoof than the kind found on other Android handsets. LG's also put the tech to use for a set of Air Motion gestures, which allow for hands-free interaction with various apps like the camera (selfies) and music (volume control). Other features of the G8 include a 6.1-inch QHD+ "Crystal Sound OLED" display that uses the screen as an audio amplifier. There's a Snapdragon 855 processor with 6GB of RAM and 128GB internal storage, three cameras on the rear including a 16-megapixel Super Wide (F1.9), 12-megapixel Standard (F1.5), and 12-megapixel Telephoto (F2.4), a 3,500mAh battery that charges via USB-C, a headphone jack, and 32-bit Hi-Fi Quad DAC.

On the sidelines of the Galaxy Fold announcement, Samsung today also unveiled the Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10 Plus, and Galaxy S10E -- the latest iteration of its flagship Android offering. The Samsung Galaxy S10 sports a 6.1-inch Dynamic AMOLED display with Quad HD+ resolution in a 19:9 aspect ratio, whereas the Galaxy S10 Plus has a 6.4-inch display. Both the handsets are powered by Qualcomm's latest and greatest Snapdragon 855, coupled with 8GB or 12GB of RAM, and 128GB to 512GB (1TB on S10 Plus), expandable via microSD of storage. On the photography front, both the handsets have a wide angle 12-megapixel (77-degree), telephoto 12-megapixel (45-degree), and ultra wide 16-megapixel (123-degree) on the back; and 10 megapixels, 8-megapixel RGB depth camera (S10 Plus) upfront. The Galaxy S10 has 3,400mAh battery, whereas the Plus sibling houses a 4,100mAh battery. Both the handsets run Android 9 Pie with Samsung One UI, and support Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5, LTE Cat.20, wireless charging. They both have USB-C ports, and a headphone jack.

Samsung Galaxy S10E is a lower-cost, smaller variant of the other two phones. It has a 5.8-inch "Dynamic AMOLED" display, Full HD+ resolution in a 19:9 aspect ratio. You can read more about it here. All three phones will be available for preorder starting tomorrow, February 21, and they will start shipping on March 8th. In addition to all four major US carriers, the S10 family will also be available unlocked from Samsung and other retailers, starting at $899.99 for the S10 and $999.99 for the S10 Plus. The S10E starts at $750.

Motorola is releasing three versions of the Moto G7 this year: the G7, the G7 Power, and the G7 Play (a fourth, more powerful G7 Plus model will also be released internationally). These new devices offer slimmer bezels, bigger displays, and larger batteries than their predecessors. The Verge reports: [T]he $299 G7 (not to be confused with LG's G7 ThinQ) is the top-of-the-line model, with a 6.2-inch Gorilla Glass display that features a 2270 x 1080 resolution and a more subtle teardrop notch. The G7 also has more RAM (4GB), and more internal storage (64GB) than its siblings, along with a dual-camera setup on the back that offers a 12-megapixel main lens along with a 5-megapixel depth sensor for a better portrait mode experience (the other G7 phones will have a software-based portrait mode instead). The G7 also supports Motorola's 15W TurboPower charging spec, which promises nine hours of battery life from a 15-minute charge.

The next phone in the lineup, the $249 G7 Power, may not offer the same level of premium upgrades as the G7, but it does offer an intriguing feature that its pricier counterpart doesn't: a massive 5,000mAh battery that Motorola promises should last for up to three days, besting the 3,000mAh battery in the G7 by a considerable amount (it also supports Motorola's TurboPower charging). The G7 Power also features a 6.2-inch display, but at a lower 1520 x 720 resolution and with a larger notch, and only a single 12-megapixel camera on the back. It also drops down to 3GB of RAM and a base storage of 32GB, and is a bit bulkier than the main G7 -- but if sheer battery life is your goal, it seems like the G7 Power will be tough to beat. Lastly, there's the $199 G7 Play, the smallest and cheapest model in the 2019 Moto G lineup. There are more cuts here: a smaller 5.7-inch 1512 x 720 display with an even larger notch than the G7 Power, a cheaper plastic case, and just 2GB of RAM. All three devices will feature Qualcomm's mid-tier Snapdragon 632 processor, Android 9.0 Pie, 8-megapixel front-facing cameras, charge via USB-C, and offer rear-mounted fingerprint sensors. Lastly, the 3.5mm headphone jack is still included on all three models. Motorola is promising a release date sometime in the spring for both the U.S. and Canada.

An anonymous reader writes: Today, System76 unveiled its latest laptop -- the 15.6-inch (full-HD) "Darter Pro." It is thin, but not overly so -- it still has USB-A ports (thankfully). The computer is quite modern, however, as it also has a USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 port. It supports Pop!_OS 18.04 LTS (64-bit), Pop!_OS 18.10 (64-bit), or Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (64-bit) operating system. It comes in two variants, with the following processor options: 8th Gen Intel Core i5-8265U: 1.6 up to 3.90 GHz -- 6MB Cache -- 4 Cores -- 8 Threads, or 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8565U: 1.8 up to 4.60 GHz -- 8MB Cache -- 4 Cores -- 8 Threads, with either coupled with Intel UHD Graphics 620 GPU, and up to 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 @ 2400 MHz, and M.2 SATA or PCIe NVMe SSD for storage. As for ports, there is USB 3.1 Type-C with Thunderbolt 3, 2 USB 3.0 Type-A, 1 x USB 2.0, SD Card Reader. The company says it will announce the pricing at a later stage,

Amazon Web Services announced a slew of new or updated offerings at its cloud-computing conference in Las Vegas, seeking to maintain its lead in the market for internet-based computing. Following is a rundown.

Amazon Elastic Inference is a new service that lets customers attach GPU-powered inference acceleration to any Amazon EC2 instance and reduces deep learning costs by up to 75 percent. From a report: "What we see typically is that the average utilization of these P3 instances GPUs are about 10 to 30 percent, which is pretty wasteful with elastic inference. You don't have to waste all that costs and all that GPU," AWS chief executive Andy Jassy said onstage at the AWS re:Invent conference earlier today. "[Amazon Elastic Inference] is a pretty significant game changer in being able to run inference much more cost-effectively." While the majority of workloads in the cloud are Linux-based, Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Andy Jassy said he is well aware that Windows is still significant, and as a result his company launched a new fully managed Windows file system built on native Windows file servers. From a report: "What we were hoping to do was make this Windows file system work as part of EFS -- would have been much easier for us to layer on another file system ... because it's much easier if you're trying to build a business at scale," he explained. However, he said customers wanted a native Windows file system and they "weren't being flexible." "So we changed our approach," he continued. Inferentia is company's own dedicated machine learning chip. From a report: "Inferentia will be a very high-throughput, low-latency, sustained-performance very cost-effective processor," AWS CEO Andy Jassy explained during the announcement. Holger Mueller, an analyst with Constellation Research, says that while Amazon is far behind, this is a good step for them as companies try to differentiate their machine learning approaches in the future. Inferentia supports popular frameworks like INT8, FP16 and mixed precision. What's more, it supports multiple machine learning frameworks, including TensorFlow, Caffe2 and ONNX. TechCrunch writes about SageMaker Ground Truth: You can't build a good machine learning model without good training data. But building those training sets is hard, often manual work, that involves labeling thousand and thousands of images, for example. With SageMaker, AWS has been working on a service that makes building machine learning models a lot easier. But until today, that labeling task was still up to the user. Now, however, the company is launching SageMaker Ground Truth, a training set labeling service. Using Ground Truth, developers can point the service at the storage buckets that hold the data and allow the service to automatically label it. What's nifty here is that you can both set a confidence level for the fully automatic service or you can send the data to human laborers. GeekWire writes about the self-driving racing league and DeepRacer : Amazon Web Services chief and big sports fan Andy Jassy on Wednesday in Las Vegas unveiled a first-of-its-kind global autonomous racing league called AWS DeepRacer. The league features AWS DeepRacer, a 1/18th scale radio-controlled, self-driving four-wheel race car designed to help developers learn about reinforcement learning, a type of machine learning feature found in Amazon SageMaker. It features an Intel Atom processor; a 4-megapixel camera with 1080p resolution; multiple USB ports; and a 2-hour battery. And OutPosts: Starting next year, AWS will allow customers to order the same hardware that it uses to power its cloud services to run in their own data centers through a service called AWS Outposts. Building on its partnership with VMware, AWS Outposts will allow customers to enjoy a consistent set of hardware, software and services across their own servers and cloud servers, said AWS CEO Andy Jassy. Customers will have two options: they can run VMware Cloud on AWS on AWS Outposts, or they can run something called "AWS native" to enable this hybrid cloud setup. AWS will "deliver racks, install them, and then we'll do all the maintenance and repair on them," Jassy said.

The first alleged images of the rumored "budget" Pixel 3 have been leaked. The Pixel 3 Lite, as it is being called, looks very similar to the Pixel 3, although it features a plastic build construction, slower processor, and a headphone jack. 9to5Google reports: Just like the standard Pixel 3, there's a display that's roughly 5.56-inches in size, but this time it's an IPS LCD panel at 2220x1080 rather than an OLED panel. Obviously, there's also no notch to be seen on this alleged Pixel 3 Lite. There's a single front-facing camera as well as one speaker above that display, relatively thick bezels on the top and bottom, and a speaker along the bottom of the device as well.

Perhaps most interesting when it comes to the hardware, though, is that there's a headphone jack on the top of the phone. That's certainly unexpected since the Pixel 2 dropped the jack and Google hasn't looked back since. Tests from Rozetked reveal some of the specifications running this device as well. That includes a Snapdragon 670 chipset, 4GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage. Previous reports have pointed to a Snapdragon 710. Battery capacity on this device is also reported at 2915 mAh and there's a USB-C port along the bottom. It is rumored to include the same 12MP and 8MP cameras found in the standard Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, which will be a huge selling point for the affordable phone market. The price is expected to be around $400-500.