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Latest by Justin Pot

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Seagate finally enters market for helium-filled hard drives

Two years after Western Digital's HGST, Seagate is now shipping helium-filled hard drives to enterprise customers. Helium reduces friction and energy usage.
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ISIS hacking groups merge as United Cyber Caliphate, but don’t worry too much

Until now, ISIS' hacking efforts have been largely improvised, and split between five overlapping groups. That changed this month.
480 terabyte backblaze pod 6

480TB of storage in a single chassis: check out the Backblaze Pod 6.0

Need some extra storage? You can build a 480TB server, if you really want to. Backblaze designed it, and open sourced the hardware.
ubuntu mele pc computing stick

Ubuntu's $70 computing stick could fit nicely behind your TV

Want a $70 Ubuntu stick computer for your TV? Chinese manufacturer Mele has you covered. It's underpowered, sure, but could prove useful to some users.
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Intel wants USB Type-C to replace your headphone jack

USB replaced all sorts of dedicated ports in the 90s. Could USB type-C eventually replace the audio port? Intel thinks so, and is working on a standard.
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Politics apparently tying up broadband access in Western Massachusetts

Western Massachusetts has a fiber-optic broadband network, but politics is keeping the critical last mile from being built. Will things clear up anytime soon?
year of broken desktop linux software the mem 2

The ‘Year of the Linux desktop’ never came, and it never will

Spotify, Skype, and Flash are all Linux programs that are breaking to various degrees in 2016. Are software companies abandoning the platform?
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Firefox 46 is here, here's the complete list of new features

Mozilla's now offering Firefox 46, the latest version of their popular Web browser. There aren't many new features, but it's worth updating to.
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You can’t buy a HoloLens yet, but it’s already won a design award

The HoloLens isn't really available to consumers yet, but that didn't stop the Red Dot committee from recognizing its design. It won for Product Design.
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2016 MacBook just as impossible to repair as last year’s, iFixIt teardown shows

What's different inside the 2016 MacBook? Not much, iFixIt's latest teardown suggests. And it's also just as resistant to being repaired.
Facebook Tablet

Facebook’s Tor site is surprisingly popular, with 1 million users in a month

Facebook offers direct access over Tor, a service for browsing the Web anonymously. Last month, 1 million people accessed the social network that way.
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The end of Mega? Kim Dotcom tells users to back up files ‘ASAP’

The end of Mega is coming, founder Kim Dotcom implied this week. Pointing to financial problems, he told users to back up files as soon as possible.
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Cherry offers a new, faster mechanical keyboard switch: MX Speed

Cherry's new MX Speed switch, aka MX Silver, offers an actuation point of 1.2mm and an activation force of 45 cN, the fastest mechanical switch out there.
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Latest Surface firmware update causes blue screens during installation

Users are reporting driver issues after installing the latest firmware for the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, the latest in a series of issues.
Microsoft Edge Browser

Microsoft loves Google's codecs, adds WebM and VP9 in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update

Edge will support more codecs starting this summer. WebM, VP9, and Opus audio will all be built-in to Microsoft's browser, meaning millions of new users.
declassified NSA document

This 1970 memo outlined every cybersecurity threat we face today

Think cybersecurity is a new problem that couldn't have been predicted? A 1970 paper outlined almost all the weaknesses exploited by attackers today.
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Even Homeland Security thinks you should uninstall QuickTime for Windows

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is advising Windows users to uninstall QuickTime for Windows because of a zero-day exploit that won't be patched.
intel 540s series ssd budget drive 25 inch

Intel is now selling its 540s budget SSDs, here's what they'll cost

Offering read speeds of 560 megabytes per second and capacities up to 1TB, Intel's 540s line of budget solid state drives might be a touch expensive.
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Adobe's Creative Cloud lets you edit the virtual reality revolution

Premier Pro, Adobe's video editing software, is adding support for editing virtual reality footage. Uploading to YouTube and Facebook is supported.
pre order aquaris m10

Want the world's first Ubuntu tablet? You'll need to wait another week

If you pre-ordered the BQ Aquirius M10 Ubuntu edition, don't wait by the mailbox. The tablet won't ship next week, as previously thought, but in late April.
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Group of kids earn $15,000 scholarship by playing Minecraft

A five-person team aged 10 to 14 can now split $15,000 toward their college funds after winning a Minecraft competition. 450 teams participated.
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Did a California congressman really drop $1,300 on Steam purchases?

Representative Duncan D. Hunter, a California Republican, had $1,302 of Steam spending on his campaign disclosure, prompting an FEC investigation.
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Fifty bucks for a 120GB SSD? OCZ revamps its budget drives

OCZ updated its Trion line of solid state drives, offering a 120GB SSD for just $50, with read speeds of 550 megabytes per second.
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Seagate’s drives are improving while Western Digital’s aren’t says cloud backup firm

Seagate's drives are becoming more reliable, as Western Digital drives seem to be getting worse, according to data from cloud storage company Blackblaze.
microsoft holoportation

Microsoft ‘holoportation’ lets you share a room with a faraway friend

Imagine talking to a friend halfway across the world and feeling like you're in the same room. A Microsoft Hololens demo promises just that.
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Kaspersky, Bitdefender, and Avira are the best AV suites out there, according to AV-Test

Av Test compared 20 antivirus programs for Windows; Kasperksy, Avira, and BitDefender top the list. At the bottom: ThreatTrack and Comodo.
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Windows 10 leaps ahead of 7 among Steam gamers

Windows 10 is behind Windows 7 in overall marketshare, but is winning in among Steam gamers. Cutting-edge users are embracing Microsoft's latest OS.
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The FCC votes to subsidize broadband for Americans living near the poverty line

Broadband access isn't a luxury, according to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler: it's necessary for modern life. Should that tool be subsidized?
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‘No Wi-Fi beyond this point’: new tech could block access based on location

A team at MIT can track the location of Wi-Fi users to a couple of decimeters, even on networks with only one access point. This could help block hackers.
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Developers cheer as Microsoft takes Xamarin cross-platform development free, open-source

Xamarin, which Microsoft bought last month, is now a free part of Visual Studio. Now .NET and C# developers can make iOS, Android, and Windows apps all at once, using the free Community version of Visual Studio.
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Collaborating with holograms: Could ‘mixed reality’ be the future of telecommuting?

A HoloLens app could allow workers to collaborate in 'mixed reality,' attending meetings using Microsoft's augmented reality headset.
windows 10 anniversary update 2016 new features build 1 print

Windows 10 Anniversary Edition is coming this summer, adds a bunch of new features

Windows 10 Anniversary edition includes new features for Windows Ink and Windows Hello. Win32 applications are coming to Windows Store as well.
MedStar

Baltimore hospital group shut down entire network to fight malware threat

MedStar Health, a chain of hospitals based in Baltimore, shut down their entire IT infrastructure to fight off a malware attack. No data was compromised.
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Tired of Evernote? Here’s how to quickly migrate everything over to OneNote

Curious about OneNote, but use Evernote? Well, Microsoft has a tool for migrating content between the two. Here's how it works, and why you should try it.