Jeff Bezos Shares Blue Origin Engine Test Footage

Friday on Instagram Jeff Bezos shared footage from NASA’s test of Blue Origin’s BE-7 engine, which he described approvingly as “a high-performance, additively manufactured liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen lunar landing engine with 10,000 lbf [pound-force] of thrust — deep throttling down to 2,000 lbf for a precise landing on the Moon.” The test brings the program’s cumulative test time up to 1,245…

Raspberry Pi Foundation Releases Case Fan To Prevent Overheating

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a tiny $5 fan combined with a small heatsink for the Raspberry Pi 4. TechCrunch reports: It works with the official case, below the top cover. That accessory should prevent the Raspberry Pi from overheating. According to the foundation, the tiny fan should be enough to prevent throttling. “It draws air in over the USB…

Raspberry Pi 4 Can Be Safely Overclocked To 2.15 GHz

szczys writes: When the Raspberry Pi 400 (a keyboard form-factor single board computer) was released last week, the company hinted at overclocking. Testing has now shown that the heat spreader used in that design does an excellent job. The chip was already clocked at 1.8 GHz, versus the stock 1.5 GHz in the original Raspberry Pi 4 Model B board. But…

Arizona Leads Multi-State Probe Into Older iPhones Slowing, Shutting Down

Arizona is leading a multi-U.S. state probe into whether Apple’s deliberate slowing of older iPhones violated deceptive trade practice laws, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing documents. From a report: Last week, a separate document released by a tech watchdog group showed the Texas attorney general might sue Apple for such violations in connection with a multi-state probe, without specifying charges. In the…

Chrome Experimental Feature Will Throttle Javascript-Timer Wakeups on Backgrounded Tabs

Slashdot reader techtsp writes: Starting with October’s release of Chrome 86, the web browser will offer a way to limit JavaScript timer wake ups in background web pages to one wake up per minute, restricting the execution of certain background tasks — for example, checking if the scroll position changed, reporting logs, and analyzing interactions with ads. Google plans to achieve…

Reporter Tests Walmart’s $140 Laptop ‘So You Wouldn’t Have To’

Ars Technica’s technology reporter Jim Salter tested Walmart’s 11.6-inch EVOO laptop, which sells for $139 and ships with just 2GiB of RAM and a 32GB SSD, which he worries “simply is not enough room for Windows itself, let alone any applications.”
The first thing I noticed while looking through the Windows install is that our “internal” Wi-Fi is actually a cheap USB…

Why You Shouldn’t Make a Habit of Force-Quitting iOS Apps or Restarting iOS Devices

Adam Engst, writing for TidBITS: Because force-quitting apps and restarting or shutting down devices are necessary only to fix unanticipated problems, there are two notable downsides to engaging in such behavior as a matter of habit: reduced battery life and wasted time. Why would these behaviors reduce battery life? Remember, iOS is a modern operating system that’s built on top of…

Microsoft Throttles Some Office 365 Services To Continue To Meet Demand

In response to high demand as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Microsoft has started taking action to preserve overall performance by throttling some services. ZDNet reports: On March 16, Microsoft posted to Microsoft 365/Office 365 admin dashboardds a warning about “temporary feature adjustments” that it might take. That warning told customers that Microsoft was “making temporary adjustments to select…

Bernie Sanders Unveils $150 Billion Plan To Expand High-Speed Internet Access

On Friday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) announced a new plan aimed at expanding broadband internet access across the country and dismantling what he referred to as “internet and cable monopolies.” From a report: In his sweeping “High-Speed Internet for All” proposal, Sanders calls for broadband to be considered a public utility, much like electricity, and calls access “a basic human right.”…

Microsoft Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2 Are Throttle Locking To ‘Pentium 2 Speeds’ of 400 MHz, Users Say

intensivevocoder writes: Owners of Microsoft’s Surface Pro 6 and Surface Book 2 systems are finding themselves stuck at Pentium 2 speeds, as numerous user complaints indicate that the ultra-portables are throttling the processor down to 400 MHz, a state that — in some instances — persists across reboots. While similar issues with Surface devices have occurred in the past, reports of…