Indice dei contenuti per January 2024 in Tech Advisor

Pressure is growing on Microsoft to extend support for Windows 10, which is still the most widely used version of the operating system. The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) is demanding that the Redmond software company continue to provide security updates for Windows 10 beyond October 2025. PIRG has now launched the online petition ‘Tell Microsoft: Don’t leave millions of computers behind’ (fave.co/49mGbeb) if you want to add your voice to the effort. The Public Interest Research Group (PIRG, fave.co/47gxscd) is an association of US and Canadian non-profit organizations that, among other things, work for consumer protection. The PIRG now points out that with the end of support for Windows 10 in 2025, millions of Windows computers will effectively become electronic waste. Their owners would have to replace the computers…

As we report on page 7, Qualcomm is back. Grudgingly, maybe. Tentatively. But yes, it’s back. Reporters talk. So do analysts. Anyone who attends a media event in the technology space does their own reporting, draws their own conclusions. And we all shared the same experiences in a small bubble on Maui. But yes, a few years of struggling to convince the world that Windows on Arm (Qualcomm) could work, Qualcomm seems to be back on track in laptops, thanks to the Oryon CPU and the Snapdragon X Elite chip. This matters. For generations, Qualcomm overpromised and underdelivered. Reporters (I, among them) headed to Maui with concerns that it would happen yet again. Three things changed that. One, the numbers. Qualcomm projected a sense of confidence in eye-popping numbers that…

You can be a seasoned Windows user, but you may still not know every shortcut available. For example, I recently learned a new keyboard shortcut I hadn’t known before. It was so simple and obvious, yet felt like a secret until that moment. I also discovered that there are a whole lot more I’ve been sleeping on. The original tip came via Twitter (now known as X) courtesy of Jen Gentleman (fave.co/49mQBKS), a Windows engineering team member at Microsoft. But the help doesn’t stop there. She very generously has an entire list of such tricks (fave.co/40tdisL) pinned to the top of her feed, too. I eagerly jumped down that rabbit hole and came away with a solid list of new shortcuts to incorporate into daily use. To save you time,…

Price: £479 from fave.co/3Qn5uEe If you somehow missed the announcement of Apple’s Vision Pro earlier this year you might not be aware of the drive towards mixed reality. And just for the uninitiated, it’s basically another name for augmented reality which means the addition of virtual stuff to your normal surroundings. That could be anything from a virtual screen playing a video to a pot plant in the corner of the room. It really doesn’t matter: the important part is that you can see both your real environment as well as elements of a virtual one at the same time. It’s funny, because mixed reality isn’t even remotely new. Microsoft rolled out Windows Mixed Reality six years ago and there have been a bunch of mixed reality VR headsets you…

Google Chrome is not only the world’s most popular browser, it is also one of the most powerful. With each new version comes a number of new features that are easy to miss. We’ve put together 12 smart tips to make it faster and better. 1. PAUSE THE SITES Having many tabs open can slow down your computer and reduce battery life. Therefore, you can ‘pause’ tabs that you’re not looking at. Solution: Press the three dots in the top right corner, select Settings > Performance and switch on or off the Memory saving mode. You go to Always keep these websites active to select sites that should never be paused. You can do this by clicking on Add to and typing the web address. 2. SAVE THE BATTERY To…

Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon X Elite PC platform is weird. Twelve cores, all running at 3.8GHz. Normal, right? Not for an Arm chip like Qualcomm manufactures. We’ve all become used to performance cores and efficiency cores, and trying to minimize battery life by turning off cores when not in use. It’s become such an accepted part of chip design that Intel followed Arm’s lead and designed its 12th-gen ‘Alder Lake’ notebook chips with a mix of performance and efficiency cores. Gamers fumed; why was Intel mixing in low-power, slower efficiency cores when all they wanted was raw speed instead? Weirdly, that’s the approach Qualcomm has taken. It’s a potent combination: Snapdragon X Elite performance allegedly doubles Intel’s 13th-gen chips (a claim that has yet to be tested) while promising multiple days…

Google’s latest Pixel phones have plenty of good things going for them, but don’t let all the shiny surfaces, camera smarts and AI additions fool you. That stuff’s all fine and dandy, and it will convince some to pick a Pixel over all the other alternative. But what makes Google’s latest Pixel phones particularly significant is something you can’t see on the surface. It’s something a typical human strolling into a store probably won’t be in the least bit aware of. And yet, it’s the part of the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro that’s without a doubt the most important – and the most consequential from a platform-wide and even industry‑wide perspective. It’s the fact that these two phones come with an unprecedented post-sales software support promise. It may…

Price: £2,069 from fave.co/3tYrAFr Microsoft’s Surface Laptop Studio 2 will probably be too expensive for what it can do, comparatively. But this creators’ laptop still offers a nearly-unique opportunity to create movies, edit and watch them, then scribble notes all over the screen. Any criticism of its performance dies down once you remind them of Windows’ performance slider, too. It arrives at an odd time, though. The Windows world is making waves about AI, and the Surface Laptop Studio 2 calls out the Intel AI chip inside in its specifications. But an even better Intel AI chip – Intel’s 14th-gen Core Ultra processor, known as Meteor Lake – is just around the corner, though Microsoft’s Windows Copilot AI chatbot won’t use it, either. So this 14-inch laptop with a high-resolution…

If you’re in the market for a new laptop, your first decision should be which operating system you prefer. For most people, this is a straight fight between Windows and macOS, but what about ChromeOS? Google’s stripped-back operating system first launched back in 2011, but it’s come a long way since then. While still best known for budget devices, there are now several premium Chromebooks available. It’s important to be aware of the limitations of ChromeOS, namely its relatively limited support for third-party apps. It’s also heavily reliant on the Internet and cloud storage, even if you can now use them while offline. But if you just need a laptop for general everyday tasks, a Chromebook could be for you. And with most Chromebooks getting around eight years of software…

The SD Association is responsible for the further development of the SD memory card format. With a new SD Express standard, the transfer speeds for reading and writing to the small cards are to increase significantly. Specifically, SD Express version 9.1 stipulates that the memory cards must be connected via PCI Express 4.0 x1. That change will double the speed of SD cards, which saw their most recent shake-up when the microSD Express standard debuted in February 2019. UP TO 2GB PER SECOND POSSIBLE The change to PCI Express 4.0 x1 increases the speed to a maximum of 1,969MB/s. The previous connection with PCI-Express 3.0 x1 limited the speed to about 985MB/s. Buyers can identify the new SD cards by the ‘SD Express Speed Class’ marking. In the future, there…

Price: Free update Microsoft’s most recent update to Windows 11, formally known as the Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2), is the most consequential update in some time. Of course, you probably think you know why: Windows Copilot, Microsoft’s first step in creating a Windows ‘AI PC’. But there’s as much under the hood and within updates to familiar apps like Paint that almost overshadow the rest. Microsoft began rolling out the Windows 11 2023 Update at the very end of October, and you should see it start to deploy on your PC in the coming weeks – if it’s not there already. Consider this to be a review of the new features, but also recommendations to those you should try. It’s important to note that Windows 11’s 2023 Update is…

Price: £999 from fave.co/3Q4OzXX Google has released some of the most impressive features yet for its new 2023 Pixel smartphones, though those improvements do come with a price increase compared to the previous generation. The flagship Pixel 8 Pro comes with a host of AI camera features thanks to the all-new Tensor G3 processor, and tweaks to the design compared to the previous generation. But are these changes worth the price hike? I’ve spent some time with this high-end phone to help you decide whether it’s the next Android device for you. DESIGN Unless you’re a fellow tech journalist or a super Google fan, you’d be forgiven for not being able to tell the Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel 8 Pro apart. Once again, there is a metal camera bar…

If you’ve been using Microsoft Word for years, you probably think you have a pretty good grasp on its capabilities. But you might be missing out on the full extent of its capabilities, or worse, making due with unnecessary minor irritations that could be improved with the right know-how. Don’t believe me? Read on to see if any of the following tricks and hidden functions could improve your own workflow. 1. FINDING ELEMENTS, SPECIAL CHARACTERS AND FORMATS Problem: Word’s search function only finds text. How can elements such as tables, graphics, footnotes, and even formatting be found? Solution: All this is hidden in Word’s search dialogue. First call up the search input field with Ctrl + F. Then click on the magnifying glass. Then click on the magnifying glass symbol.…