Shaksaw

A 4TB M.2 SSD with heatsink for just 8 cents per GB is great news for those looking for more storage in a single piece of hardware. It's worth pointing out that it's only just dipping into the 8 cents per GB range and is closer to 9 cents per GB, but it's still showing a trend that these Gen 4 drives are getting and staying cheaper. With Gen 5 SSDs starting to release now, it's best for suppliers to try and shift as many of the best SSDs as possible before Gen 4 suffers from the 'old tech' stigma (although prices of Gen 5 drives are going to start high for early adopters). Nextorage, a subsidiary of Sony that's owned by Phison, has some speedy little Gen 4 drives on offer at the moment with the 4TB model showing great appeal. The Nextorage 4TB SSD with heatsink is $359 at Newegg, and its fast speeds and included heatsink make this a very attractive purchase for a massive storage upgrade in a PlayStation 5 console or PC. Dropped to the lowest price I've seen — the XFX Speedster MERC310 AMD Radeon RX 7900XT(opens in new tab)and the ASRock Phantom Gaming Radeon RX 7900 XT are both on sale today for $799. Both of these cards are from the latest generation of AMD GPUs and are also both eligible for a free game The Last of Us Part 1. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

ChatGPT and GPT 3.5 are currently powering Microsoft's New Bing, and a lot of people complain that they are slow in generating and displaying results. In the coming weeks, Bing will be more advanced in searching for information and displaying them faster, thanks to GPT-4. And according to Microsoft Germany, the GPT-4 AI technology is coming as early as next week. In an event titled "AI in Focus - Digital Kickoff," Andreas Braun, CTO of Microsoft Germany and Lead Data & AI STU, said, "We will introduce GPT-4 next week, there we will have multimodal models that will offer completely different possibilities – for example videos." Currently, OpenAI's AI solutions allow us to interact through text inputs. But now that GPT-4 is confirmed to have multimodal capabilities, users should ideally be able to interact through multiple modes, including text, images, and sounds. This is not the first time we are hearing about GPT-4 and its ability to generate videos. Last month, we heard OpenAI was working on a ChatGPT mobile app that will be powered by GPT-4 AI technology. The ability to allow users to make videos with AI assistance was one of the highlighting features of the mobile app. Besides allowing users to make videos with AI assistance, GPT-4 will create answers faster than the existing GPT 3.5. GPT-4 will also be more human-like, generating answers that will sound more like a human wrote them. All these changes will also be available in the Bing Chat in the near future. However, Braun did not specifically mention Bing Chat and when it starts getting benefits of GPT-4. But considering the fact that Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, it should not take much time for the former to introduce GPT-4 into Bing search. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

A couple of days ago, Microsoft released build 25314 to its new Canary Channel. The build contains a lot of new features including access key shortcuts and recommendations in File Explorer, along with LSA protection enablement. There are indications of upcoming improvements to Taskbar and Windows Settings too. Notably on the security side, the company is getting rid of the Remote Mailslot protocol. In a dedicated blog post, Microsoft's Principal Program Manager Ned Pyle has noted that the legacy Remote Mailslot protocol has already been disabled by default in the latest Canary Channel release. It will be deprecated shortly and will eventually be removed permanently. For those unaware, Remote Mailslot is a protocol belonging to the days of LAN Manager DOS, that is, older than Windows NT. It follows a communication process where the mailslot server creates a mailslot that clients can write data to, but no longer than 424 bytes. A mailslot is ephemeral, once all the handles to it are closed, the mailslot and all the data in it gets deleted. Mailslots were used to broadcast messages within a domain, with Pyle having particularly strong opinions about the legacy protocol, calling it "disgusting" and "crap". Starting with build 25314 in the Canary Channel, Remote Mailslot is disabled by default and you'll be greeted with an error if you attempt to access it. If you come across errors, Pyle has recommended shouting at your software vendor and telling them to upgrade their software "to join the 21st century". While your vendor asks for time to concede to your demand, you can use run the following PowerShell command to get Remote Mailslot running again, with the knowledge that it is a major security risk to your organization: The removal of Remote Mailslot will not affect 99.97% of Windows customers since it is also used in tandem with the SMB1 protocol that has been disabled for the past several years too. Microsoft has noted that more deprecations for similar and even bigger legacy protocols are on the way too. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Apple is currently working on a version of its HomePod smart speaker that will have a built-in 7-inch display panel, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The revamped smart speaker is expected to arrive sometime in the first half of 2024. This also strengthens previous claims from Mark Gurman (paywalled) of a display-fitted Apple speaker in the making. As per his latest Medium post, Chinese display manufacturer Tianma would step into Apple's supply chain for the first time and become "a new beneficiary of Apple’s revamped smart home strategy." He predicted that the company will be the exclusive panel supplier for the upcoming smart speaker. The new display-based HomePod "could enable tighter integration with Apple’s other hardware products, marking a significant shift in the company’s smart home strategy," according to Kuo. This would also put Apple in line with other big names, including Google and Amazon, who already have display-fitted smart speakers on the market. The analyst said that Tianma, which already has a stronghold in Android smartphone panel production, could follow a path similar to BYD and BOE. It could start "with low-end products and gradually increasing its shipment allocation, and obtaining higher-end products through technology capacity upgrades." The company might even grab iPad panel orders from Apple if the shipment goes well. Until now, Apple has released three HomePod-branded speakers on the market. The company discontinued the original HomePod in March 2021 but it sells the second-gen HomePod and HomePod mini for $299 and $99 respectively. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Google has announced that its Google One plans now come with VPN access for all members and dark web monitoring reports for customers in the United States. The dark web reports will be particularly useful for customers who want to be warned if their personal information is being sold on the dark web following a hack of a service they use. The Google One VPN feature is rolling out to customers today, the rollout may take a couple of weeks. All Google One customers with a Basic plan or higher can use the VPN on Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac devices but if you use Linux, you’re not included. You can share the VPN with up to five others if they’re on your Google One plan which is nice considering a Basic plan costs just $1.99 per month. To use the VPN, you must be located in one of the 22 supported countries. They include Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. With the dark web reports, Google will be on the lookout for your name, address, email, phone number, and Social Security number and will let you know if it finds anything. If you get notified that your data is being sold on the dark web, Google will provide you with tips on how to proceed. To learn more about Google One, head over to Google’s dedicated webpage. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

The relatively new Vanilla OS will be based on Debian Sid in the next version, the project’s developers have announced. Currently, the Linux distribution is based on Ubuntu but Vanilla OS’s developers have decided to make the switch as they have identified several good reasons to use Debian over Ubuntu, such as greater flexibility. The first reason outlined was that Debian uses a less modified GNOME Shell and the Vanilla OS team wants their distribution to use a vanilla version of GNOME. By switching to Debian, the Vanilla OS developers will not have to undo the changes Canonical has made which they describe as “time-consuming”. Another reason cited is Ubuntu’s heavy use of snap packages. The Vanilla OS developers said that snaps have several issues including slow startups and centralization. Instead, they would prefer to use flatpaks primarily as these are more open and used by a wider array of Linux distributions. There were also technical problems with snap packages which caused some not to work properly in Vanilla OS. Finally, by switching to Debian, the Vanilla OS team believe they have more control over how to release updates. Before, they had to follow the Ubuntu release cycle but by switching to Debian Sid they can push releases when they think they’re ready. If this is the first time you’ve heard about Vanilla OS, it’s a new Linux distribution that comes with an immutable core. This ensures that you’re protected from unwanted changes and corruption to important system files which should make your system more stable and secure. For apps, it supports Flatpak, Snap, and AppImage to ensure you’re always running the latest versions of apps and as mentioned earlier, it comes with a vanilla version of GNOME – great if you’re a fan of that desktop environment. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Corsair's Vengeance memory lineup, which isn't a stranger on the best RAM list, is now available at a density of 192GB (4x48GB), starting at $724.99. In addition, the memory specialist also launched a high-speed DDR5-7000 C40 memory kit with a 48GB (2x24GB) capacity for $284.99. Two weeks ago, Corsair launched its new memory kits based on 24GB and 48GB memory modules. Unfortunately, while they were big on capacity, they weren't speedy. It's hard to impress enthusiasts when the fastest offering at the time was DDR5-5600. However, Corsair has taken it up a notch and released the Vengeance RGB DDR5-7000 48GB memory kit for $284.99. The RGB-less counterpart costs $10 less, so the flashy version only carries a small premium. It isn't easy to bin extremely fast memory at that capacity, so Corsair has kept it to the 48GB configuration in the meantime. The CMH48GX5M2B7000C40 features 40-52-52-114 timings and requires 1.4V. Unfortunately, the timings aren't the best on the market since the high-performance DDR5-7000 memory kits typically have a CAS Latency (CL) of 34 or 36. Corsair probably had to settle for looser timings to compensate for the frequency and density. There are only two options for the 192GB (4x48GB) memory kit. The vanilla Vengeance version costs $724.99, whereas the RGB model retails for $749.99. This particular memory kit consists of four memory modules instead of the other two-DIMM configurations. That's the only reason we could think of why the premium for the RGB variant is $25 compared to the $10 price difference in the other densities. Regardless of the aesthetics, the Vengeance 192GB memory kit only comes in a single flavor: DDR5-5200. As a result, it's a slightly lower grade than DDR5-5600, the official supported data rate for Intel's 13th Generation Raptor Lake processors. The lower frequency is to ensure maximum compatibility. The memory kit features timings of 38-38-38-84 and only pulls 1.25V. Corsair's high-density memory kits cater specifically to Intel processors and as a result, comes with XMP 3.0 support. Therefore, the latest Raptor Lake or previous Alder Lake processors are your best bet if you want to hit 192GB. Do note that neither processor officially supports more than 128GB of memory, though. On the other hand, the memory kits could prove to be problematic on AMD’s Ryzen 7000 platform, but future firmware updates should change that. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Every respectable developer makes accessibility an integral part of their projects to ensure a great experience for everyone, regardless of their physical abilities. Microsoft, for example, includes new accessibility features with every Windows feature update. Still, some cases require a more direct approach. Developers behind the new Sidekick browser have made their goal to provide customers with a distraction-free experience for those struggling to stay focused when working. Sidekick is a relatively new Chromium-based project that will benefit not only those with ADHD (the project was founded by a person diagnosed with ADHD). Thanks to removed trackers, memory optimizations, and tab suspension, developers promise better speed, reducing the temptation to distract while a webpage is loading. If the temptation is still too high to overcome, Sidekick can help you stay focused with the distraction blocker feature. You can set rules to redirect social media websites to your work or creativity-related pages. For example, an attempt to open Instagram will result in Gmail appearing on your screen. There is also a Task Manager with the ability to pin tasks as sticky notes on the desktop and a built-in Pomodoro timer to balance work and rest cycles. The browser also wants to win users' hearts by offering advanced productivity features. It provides integrations with popular services like Slack, Gmail, Telegram, Skype, Notion, and more. Besides, users can connect multiple accounts to stay on top of things. A split-screen mode allows you to work with two tabs in one window, plus a session manager for tab grouping. Finally, a dedicated focus mode can silence all notifications to reduce distractions even more. If you frequently attend meetings, calendar integration will ensure you get a notification two minutes before the meeting with a one-click option for joining. The Sidekick browser is available for free on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Those wanting more can opt for Sidekick Pro, a subscription service that offers more features for $8/mo. It includes password sharing, unlimited sidebar apps, split view, multiple workspaces, and more. It is not easy for a browser to set itself apart in the market dominated by Chrome and Edge. Still, Sidekick's productivity and focus-oriented features may tempt users to try the project. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

There's been a wonderful dip in SSD storage prices in recent months, and with the overall decline in PC part sales, it's a great time to keep an eye out for bargains like this WD Black SN770 2TB SSD for only $109. At only 5 cents per GB, this fast Gen 4 SSD with read speeds of 5150 MBps is an ideal budget drive for hosting your operating system or for quickly loading your favorite games. Build an inexpensive small form factor PC with this ASRock B660M Pro RS for only $94. With its micro-ATX form and support for DDR4 memory, this board can support some of the cheaper parts to make an excellent budget PC build. Whether or not it could be used to build a gaming PC for under $500(opens in new tab) depends on how much you could pick the other parts up for. DDR5 memory has also shot down in pricing since launch and it's about time. I'm still hoping for prices to keep dropping, but it's good to see RAM such as this Corsair Vengeance 32GB 6000MHZ DDR5 RAM down to $134(opens in new tab). Here's hoping GPU pricing plummets next. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Microsoft has updated the Surface app on Windows 11 and 10, making it more useful than ever. Taking the version to 61.23020.81.0, the latest update adds a bunch of noteworthy features. One of these is an option to hide product recommendations. You can find this option under Your Profile > App Settings > General > Recommendations. Another noteworthy change is the integrated Surface Management Extension app. Other changes include an improved Smart Charging experience for Surface products released in 2021 or later, and an enhancement of the Give Feedback experience. The full official changelog of the latest Surface app update read as follows: It's been a long time since Microsoft introduced significant changes to the Surface app. The last update that brought new features to the app landed in November last year. In Microsoft's defense, monthly feature updates may not be required for an app designed to give customization options to control your Surface accessories from your PC. If you have the Surface app installed on your PC, you can visit the Microsoft Store and check for updates, and the latest version will show up. Alternatively, you can open the Microsoft Store directly from here to update the app. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

We have heard rumors in the past about Samsung trying to develop a new in-house CPU for future Galaxy smartphones. Now a new report claims that not only is a new CPU in development, it may also be included in future versions of its Galaxy Book Windows notebook PCs as well. The Korean site Pulsenews (via SamMobile) claims, via "multiple" unnamed sources, that Samsung has formed a new internal team dedicated to CPU core development. The team is reportedly being led by a former AMD CPU developer, but no names were revealed. It added: The report also says that the in-house developed CPU core could be ready by 2027. This report is the first time we have seen a story claiming Samsung could make a CPU core for its PCs as well as smartphones. If true, that would certainly be a huge change for the Galaxy Book series, as all of them have used Intel processors inside. Samsung, of course, has made its own in-house Exynox processor family for years. Those chips, however, were based on designs from ARM. Notably, the recently launched Galaxy S23 smartphones didn't have versions with Exynos chips inside for the first time in the Galaxy S series. Rather, they all had a modified version of Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip. The last Exynox chip, the 2200, was officially announced over a year ago in January 2022. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Microsoft is working on updating the weather widget on Windows 11's taskbar. The latest Windows 11 preview build brings a new set of theme-aware icons to make the widget easier on the eyes and improve its glanceability. The icons' overall design remains the same, but now they feature slightly different shades and colors with improved contrast on dark and light backgrounds. Microsoft says the higher contrast ratio and new tones make the information clearer, especially for users with low sight. You can see the difference between the two sets of icons in the screenshot below. Microsoft updates Windows 11's widgets using the so-called Windows Web Experience Pack from the Microsoft Store. It allows adding new features to all Windows 11 releases. Therefore, you can expect the updated weather icon to show up on Windows 11 22H2 and 21H2 once the company is done with testing them in the Dev Channel. Besides making the taskbar easier to read, Windows 11 build 25309 expands the Auto Color Management feature to more users. Microsoft's latest operating system can display better colors in all apps on 10-16 bit monitors and even improve the image quality on lower-spec displays with 8-bit panels. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Microsoft is testing a new and modern-looking Windows 11 volume mixer accessible via the taskbar Quick Settings panel that helps adjust the volume on a per-app basis and switch between audio devices. This new feature was announced earlier this week and is now rolling out to Insiders in the Dev Channel running the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25309. Testers need to open the Quick Settings panel to access it after clicking the volume icon in the Windows tray or use the new global keyboard shortcut (WIN + CTRL + V) for even faster control. "The updated audio quick settings experience brings a modern volume mixer that allows for quick customization of audio on a per-app basis, with additional control to swap devices on the fly," the Window Insider team said. "With this change, you can now tailor your audio experience better with more control and fewer clicks to better manage your favorite apps." While Redmond just announced it, the feature has been available since at least January (as discovered by Windows Insider PhantomOcean), and it could be enabled using the ViVe tool developed by Windows enthusiast Albacore. If not yet obvious, Microsoft's implementation is very similar to the highly popular EarTrumpet volume control utility for Windows, but it's still lacking an audio visualizer. This Windows 11 dev build also adds a quick access list for additional available spatial sound options such as Dolby and DTS. The voice access feature has also been revamped, with a redesigned in-app command help page that includes detailed descriptions and examples for every command. "You can access the command help page from Help > View all commands on the voice access bar or use the voice command 'what can I say,'" Microsoft said. You can also find more details about Voice Access commands on this Microsoft Support page. Voice access now also supports more English dialects, including English-UK, English-India, English-New Zealand, English-Canada, and English-Australia. You'll be asked to download a speech model when turning on voice access for the first time for on-device recognition. You can use voice access in English-US if a speech model matching your display language is unavailable. Microsoft this week also announced the release of the Windows 11 22H2 'Moment 2' update, which comes with a long list of new features. Some highlights are an early preview of Phone Link for iPhone available for Windows 11 Insiders and integrating the new AI-powered Bing Chat now integrated into the Windows 11 search box. Redmond is also working on adding a new option to the taskbar context menu allowing users to quickly kill unresponsive processes without opening the task manager. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 specification is affected by two buffer overflow vulnerabilities that could allow attackers to access or overwrite sensitive data, such as cryptographic keys. TPM is a hardware-based technology that provides operating systems with tamper-resistant secure cryptographic functions. It can be used to store cryptographic keys, passwords, and other critical data, making any vulnerability in its implementation a cause for concern. While a TPM is required for some Windows security features, such as Measured Boot, Device Encryption, Windows Defender System Guard (DRTM), Device Health Attestation, it is not required for other more commonly used features. However, when a Trusted Platform Module is available, Windows security features get enhanced security in protecting sensitive information and encrypting data. The TPM 2.0 specification gained popularity (and controversy) when Microsoft made it a requirement for running Windows 11 due to its required boot security measures and ensuring that Windows Hello face recognition provides reliable authentication. Linux also supports TPMs, but there are no requirements for using the module in the operating system. However, there are Linux tools available that allow applications and users to secure data in TPMs. The TPM 2.0 vulnerabilities The new vulnerabilities in TPM 2.0 were discovered by Quarkslab’s researchers Francisco Falcon and Ivan Arce who said the flaws could impact billions of devices. The vulnerabilities are tracked as CVE-2023-1017 (out-of-bounds read) and CVE-2023-1018 (out-of-bounds write). Both flaws arise from how the specification processes the parameters for some TPM commands, allowing an authenticated local attacker to exploit them by sending maliciously crafted commands to execute code within the TPM. According to the security bulletin by Trusted Computing Group (TCG), the developer of the TPM specification, this could result in information disclosure or escalation of privileges. The Trusted Computing Group explains that the buffer overflow problems concern reading or writing 2 bytes after the end of the buffer passed to the ExecuteCommand() entry point. The impact of this depends on what vendors have implemented on that memory location, i.e., if it’s unused memory or if it contains live data. The CERT Coordination Center has published an alert about the vulnerabilities and has been informing vendors for months, trying to raise awareness while mapping the impact. Unfortunately, only a handful of entities have confirmed they are impacted. "An attacker who has access to a TPM-command interface can send maliciously-crafted commands to the module and trigger these vulnerabilities," warned CERT. "This allows either read-only access to sensitive data or overwriting of normally protected data that is only available to the TPM (e.g., cryptographic keys)." The solution for impacted vendors is to move to a fixed version of the specification, which includes one of the following: TMP 2.0 v1.59 Errata version 1.4 or higher TMP 2.0 v1.38 Errata version 1.13 or higher TMP 2.0 v1.16 Errata version 1.6 or higher Lenovo is the only major OEM that has issued a security advisory about the two TPM flaws so far, warning that CVE-2023-1017 impacts some of its systems running on Nuvoton TPM 2.0 chips. While these flaws require authenticated local access to a device, it is important to remember that malware running on the device would meet that condition. TPM is a highly-secured space that should theoretically be shielded even from malware running on the device, so the practical importance of these vulnerabilities shouldn’t be ignored or downplayed. Users are recommended to limit physical access to their devices to trusted users, only use signed applications from reputable vendors, and apply firmware updates as soon as they become available for their devices. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/

Today we've spotted a great price on one of our favorite SSDs, the 2TB Samsung 980 Pro PCIe Gen 4 SSD which is currently on sale for $154. This drive offers 2TB of fast storage capacity which is ideal for either your operating system or your favorite games, and you can also see how it performs in our tests thanks to our review of the Samsung 980 Pro. Alienware's Aurora R13 has been reduced to $999 at the moment thanks to a savings code SAVE100 at Dell. This Aurora 13 sports the Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake Core i7-12700F CPU, which is one of the best CPUs for gaming, and also has an Nvidia RTX 3060 for graphics power. With a small micro-ATX form factor, the MSI Mag B660M Mortar Max WiFi has been reduced to $164 on Amazon. This is a great little motherboard for small builds and supports the latest Intel CPUs. Check out Invitetore Regular Seller Store Here: https://www.invitestore.co/index.php?/forum/3-regular-sellers-section/