Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 Laptop Launched in India for Enterprise Customers

Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 laptop has been launched in the Indian market. Targeted at enterprise users, the new laptop is claimed to be “smallest 14-inch 2-in-1” and has been built from ground up. The Dell laptop comes with features like ExpressSign-in, ExpressConnect, and ExpressCharge. The Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 price in India will start at Rs. 1,35,000 (excluding taxes). There is no word on the exact availability of the laptop. To recall, the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 was originally unveiled at CES earlier this year.

Featuring a 2-in-1 form factor, the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 can be used in a number of modes, including the regular laptop mode, tent mode, and tablet mode. The laptop sports Titan Gray finish, with a machined aluminium body, a hairline brushed design, and diamond-cut edges.

Dell says the new laptop uses the world's first PC proximity sensor, enabled by Intel's Context Sensing Technology. This sensor allows the Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1 laptop to detect user's presence and automatically wake up, letting the user to log in to the system using Windows Hello face recognition, without having to do anything. Dell calls the feature ExpressSign-in. The same sensor also detects when user is stepping away and the laptop locks itself to ensure security.

Mac Book Pro 15-Inch Touch Bar 2019's New Butterfly Keyboard Detailed in iFixit Tear down

 Apple recently refreshed its Mac Book Pro Touch Bar variants with faster Intel Core processors and an updated version of its “butterfly" keyboard. Apple told select media outlets that the notorious "butterfly" mechanism that has been a problem for a large number of Mac Book users has been tweaked specifically in the 2019 Mac Book Pro models to ensure long-term reliability. Now, iFixit has done a tear down to really see how much has changed inside the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar model. It especially details all the changes that come with the new butterfly keyboard, and all the new materials that have been integrated.

The iFixit tear down reveals that the Apple has changed the transparent switch cover material inside each key, and it is now clearer and smooth to the touch. This is also referred to as the plastic membrane. The 2018 switch cover is semi-opaque, somewhat tacky, and feels like silicone. iFixit did some research and says that the 2019 switch cover is made from a material called polyamide (commonly known as Nylon), while the 2018 model is either poly(acetylene) with aromatic urethane side groups, or a type of TPU. iFixit does not detail on how this updated material fixes issues with the butterfly keyboard of last year.

The metal dome switch that forces a key press may also have changed, and its reported to be made of stainless steel with a thin polymer coating at the bottom. The difference in surface finish from the 2018 version to the 2019 indicates Apple may be using a revised heat treatment, or alloy, or possibly both. The company has also changed the spring itself, which is what iFixit editor-in-chief Kyle Wiens suspects is the part responsible for the double keypress issue.

MSI GT76 Titan With Desktop Grade Intel Core i9 CPU, GE65 Raider and P65 Creator Laptops Launched

Ahead of Computex 2019, MSI has added a new member to its GT Titan series of gaming laptops – the MSI GT76 Titan. The new gaming powerhouse from MSI is powered by a desktop-grade 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, paired with Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics might. The MSI GT76 Titan is an upgrade over the MSI GT75 Titan and comes with an improved thermal management system to keep the machine cool. The company has unveiled the MSI GE65 Raider gaming laptop too, which also draws power from the 9th Gen Intel Core i9 processor and Nvidia GeForce RTX series graphics. Additionally, MSI has updated the P65 Creator laptop with Intel's top-of-the-line CPU. For now, no pricing details have been revealed.

Starting with the MSI GT76 Titan, it sits at the top of MSI's gaming laptop lineup with a desktop-grade 9th Gen octa-core Intel Core i9 CPU, and is one of the only few laptops out there to pack such a powerful processor in a laptop's chassis. However, MSI has not revealed the SKU of the processor that will power the new gaming behemoth. The graphics on the MSI GT76 Titan are driven by the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, however details on RAM and storage capacity are yet to be revealed.

Build 2019: Windows 10 Set to Get 'Full' Linux Kernel, Microsoft Announces

Expanding its openness towards the open-source community and attracting non-Windows developers, Microsoft has announced that it is set to bring a custom-built Linux kernel within Windows 10. The new change is planned to take place this summer and will be limited to Windows Insiders builds at the initial stage. This marks the first time that the Linux kernel will be included as a component in Windows. At the ongoing Build 2019 developer conference in Seattle, the Redmond company is showcasing the second-generation Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that will debut next month. The in-house Linux kernel will empower WSL 2 to include features such as Docker container support and enable cgroups.

Microsoft through a blog post has announced that the anticipated full Linux kernel would be available generally as an installation package through the Windows Store, though it could be sideloaded via a custom distribution package. The kernel will be based on Linux version 4.19, which is the latest long-term stable (LTS) build of the open-source platform.

Lenovo Ideapad S540 With Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Graphics Goes Official

Lenovo updated its Ideapad S540 laptop at CES 2019, and now it has discreetly made official a new GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card option to the mix. At CES, the laptop was introduced with an optional Nvidia GeForce MX250 graphics card. Nvidia recently unveiled the most affordable member of its Turing family of GPUs, and it has now been integrated into the Lenovo Ideapad S540 as well. The new GeForce GTX 1650 is aimed at entry-level gamers who still want to play modern games at full-HD. Performance is claimed to be up to twice as good as that of the four-year-old GeForce GTX 950 and up to 70 percent better than that of the currently popular GeForce GTX 1050.

The Lenovo UK site has already listed the Lenovo S540 with newly unveiled Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card fitted inside. This variant features a 15.6-inch full-HD display, up to 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8565U processor, up to 12GB RAM, and up to 512GB PCIe SSD for storage. This variant is said to offer dual-action fans, an integrated graphics option from Intel as well, and claims to offer up to 12 hours of battery life. Lenovo lists that the new laptop variant will weigh starting at 1.8kg.

HyperX Fury RGB LED SSD 

Most PC cabinets don't put 2.5-inch SSDs on display — they're usually enclosed in metal cages or screwed onto the back of the motherboard baseplate where their wires won't get in the way of a nice view. Still, there are people who will buy an RGB LED SSD just for the novelty value, no matter what its performance is like. We're hoping that the HyperX Fury RGB SSD from Kingston that we're reviewing today isn't just about looks, but also delivers on performance.

HyperX Fury RGB specifications and features

Coming to the primary purpose of this SSD, you have a choice of 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB models. Kingston has used 3D TLC NAND flash, which is now the norm. The controller is the widely used though somewhat dated Marvell 88SS1074. The sequential read speed is rated at up to 550MBps which is near the limit of what the SATA standard itself can handle, but the rated sequential write speed is lower than expected at up to 480MBps. Kingston has not specified whether these figures apply to all capacity versions or whether they are the best case values for the product family as a whole.

Endurance in terms of total bytes written (TBW) is 120TB for the 240GB model; 240TB for the 480GB model; and 480TB for the 960GB model. These values are the amounts of data you should be able to write to your drive before it shows any sign of failure. The warranty period is three years, whereas other manufacturers typically offer five-year warranties.

Kingston says the HyperX Fury RGB's power consumption is just 0.2W at idle, and 2.5W at most in use. It isn't clear whether these figures account for the RGB LEDs, because they're in line with most normal SATA SSDs.

RIP, Google Plus

Google begins shutting down its failed Google+ social network

The day has officially come for Google to subtract Google Plus.

The move has been a long time coming. Last year, the search giant said it would shut down Google Plus after it found and fixed a security flaw that may've exposed the personal data of 500,000 users. On Tuesday, Google began shutting down pageson the platform.

Leave it to people to use other social media platforms -- namely, Twitter -- to share their reactions. 

"So long, @GooglePlus. We barely used ye," tweeted Killed by Google, which tracks the company's discontinued products. 

 Launched in 2011, Google+ was expected to be the company's answer to Facebook with a number of similar features. However, it didn't gain much traction over the years.

Google has officially started the process of shutting down and deleting all consumer accounts on its Google+ social network platform, bringing an end to the company’s attempt to directly compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter. “The shutdown is underway as of this morning,” a Google spokesperson confirmed to The Verge by email on Tuesday.

Google+ is being phased out due to “low usage” and because it turned into something of a security liability for Google; the company has disclosed two significant data leaks that could have exposed information for tens of millions of Google+ users to outside developers. The first vulnerability, which was kept secret for months, prompted Google to decide it was time to close Google+ for good, and the second led to the company accelerating those shutdown plans by four months, meaning the service will meet its end in April instead of August.

In both cases, Google said there’s been no evidence that developers were aware of these bugs or took advantage of them. Access to Google+ APIs has already been cut off per Google’s timeline for the shutdown.

Google has acknowledged that Google+ failed to meet the company’s expectations for user growth and mainstream pickup. “While our engineering teams have put a lot of effort and dedication into building Google+ over the years, it has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps,” Google’s Ben Smith wrote in October. He then revealed a pretty damning stat for where the service stands today: “90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds.”

But even if it never rose to anything that had a chance of challenging Facebook, the platform has been home to a small-but-loyal community of users through the years. I really like this piece by CNBC’s Jillian D’Onfro as a reflection on what stood out about Google+: people took to it for its topic-focused discussions, which helped conversations feel more substantial and constructive than the squabbling that is so often found on the public square that is Facebook or even Reddit. Google+ let you organize people into circles, which the company hoped would feel more true to the way we share things in day-to-day life.