Russia's plans to build a hypersonic weapon system that can travel at more than 20 times the speed of sound, and also evade US missile defenses, has predictably rattled the world. Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that the Avangard weapons system would be ready by 2019. But some obstacles lie ahead that could impact production, CNBC reported. Specifically, the Kremlin needs to find another source of carbon fiber material to build the Avanguard hypersonic glide vehicles.
Russia's current supply of carbon fiber material is unable to withstand the extreme temperatures of hypersonic flight. According to a US intelligence report reviewed by CNBC, Russia is hunting for an alternative source of carbon fiber, but so far has had no luck. "It's expected that they will make no more than 60 of these hypersonic weapons because it's just proving to be too expensive to develop," an anonymous official told CNBC.
But one nuclear weapons expert told Engadget that 60 units is a pretty significant number. "To me the most surprising part was that someone would say that 60 units is 'a few'. I would say that 60 is rather quite a few. My take on Avangard has always been that it's a niche capability without a clear mission. I was expecting that Russia will stop after deploying maybe a dozen of them," said Pavel Podvig, a senior research fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.
As it stands, the current plan is to reach initial operational capacity of the Avangard by 2020, according to Russian news reports. The current goal is to build 12 weapons by 2027, so it will be a long time until Russia is able to reach 60 weapons. Meanwhile, the US Army plans to field a battery of its own hypersonic missiles by 2023.
A tweet from Mark Gurman: "The screen on my Galaxy Fold review unit is completely broken and unusable just two days in. Hard to know if this is widespread or not."
From YouTuber Marques Brownlee: "PSA: There's a layer that appears to be a screen protector on the Galaxy Fold's display. It's NOT a screen protector. Do NOT remove it. I got this far peeling it off before the display spazzed and blacked out. Started over with a replacement."
iFixit's theory is that the plethora of ingress points would allow debris to get under the display, which would press through the display and damage it.
According to Samsung, the Galaxy Fold was supposed to be revolutionary. The futuristic $2,000 phone was positioned as the first foldable smartphone from a major manufacturer, allowing Samsung to leverage its display leadership into a hybrid phone/tablet device that no one else could produce. The Galaxy Fold's early media-review period was a disaster, though, with social media quickly filling with photos of dead and dying Galaxy Folds. After several phones died in the hands of reviewers, Samsung was forced to cancel the launch, and many pre-orders were refunded.
That was all in April. Now it's July, and there's still no sign of the Galaxy Fold actually making it to market. Speaking to The Independent, Samsung Electronics CEO DJ Koh gave the press an update on the device, though there is still no firm re-launch date.
Speaking of the Galaxy Fold launch, Koh said, "It was embarrassing. I pushed it through before it was ready." For now, Koh says the company is "in the process of recovery" and doing lots of testing. "At the moment," Koh said, "more than 2,000 devices are being tested right now in all aspects. We defined all the issues. Some issues we didn't even think about, but thanks to our reviewers, mass volume testing is ongoing."
As for why the Galaxy Fold was rushed to market so quickly, there's a good chance that Samsung was caught off-guard by its competition and wanted to beat everyone else to the foldables market. Samsung probably didn't envision having to fight anyone for the first foldable-smartphone launch. Samsung is the undisputed leader in smartphone display technology, and the company spent six years and a $130 million dollars to make foldable displays a reality. Samsung alleges that its folding display technology was stolen, though, and sold to two unnamed Chinese companies.
Elsewhere in the market, two Chinese companies, Huawei and its display supplier BoE, have been the closest to beating Samsung to a foldables launch. The Huawei Mate X was announced just days after the Galaxy Fold, with a bigger screen and an even more futuristic design. With Samsung's foldable-display exclusivity evaporating, the theory is that the company chose to rush the Galaxy Fold out the door with inadequate testing.
Koh still sees a Galaxy Fold relaunch on the horizon, with The Independent quoting him as saying, "The last couple of weeks I think we defined all of the issues and all of the problems we couldn't find [before sending to reviewers]."
When asked when the Galaxy Fold would actually come out, Koh only said, "In due course. Give us a bit more time."
While the initial announcement that OpTic Gaming would be claiming the Los Angeles spot in the newly franchised Call of Duty League seemed to be a positive one, the reactions from members of the organization have painted a different picture.
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When Immortals Gaming Club bought out OpTic Gaming’s parent company Infinite Esports, they made it clear that they would be holding onto the OpTic Gaming name in Call of Duty, but it appears that the members that make up that team will be much different than what fans have come to know and love.
After the announcement on July 1 that OpTic Gaming had secured one of the first seven city-based franchises in the new CWL structure, names that are near synonymous to the Greenwall brand reacted in disbelief, indicating that all is not what it seems with the announcement.
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The official announcement from OpTic was quickly overshadowed by rumblings made by the likes of Hector ‘H3CZ’ Rodriguez, CoD team veteran Ian ‘Crimsix’ Porter, and Seth ‘Scump’ Abner.
The messages seems to indicate that while the OpTic brand is getting set for a new chapter in its CoD history, it could be without some key members of the organization.
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How did it get to this point?
There’s been a massive cloud of confusion surrounding the legendary OpTic name as soon as IGC came into the picture.
A report had surfaced that H3CZ was in a bidding war for Infinite Esports, but was ultimately overcome by IGC. It was later revealed by an ESPN report that ICG had won the right to buy Infinite “for cash and equity worth $35 to $45 million.”
In fact, H3CZ later revealed that he “remains a shareholder” within OpTic, but hadn’t given a comment to the extent of involvement within the team after the buyout.
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After the buyout, the new leadership in OpTic gave an encouraging message about the CoD team which isn’t sitting too well with fans at the moment.
“Clearly OpTic is a premier Call of Duty brand,” said Peter Levin, Managing Director of Griffin Gaming Partners and Chairman of the IGC Board of Directors. “We are excited to work with our partners at Activision Blizzard to ensure that OpTic continues to play that leading role in Call of Duty's future.”
Fans and org members alike have been battling to keep OpTic largely unchanged, but it looks like it’ll soon be all for naught with the latest reactions to franchising.
Such negative reactions from the biggest OpTic Gaming members seems to indicate that while Immortals will use the OpTic Gaming name for the 2020 Call of Duty League, they will not be holding on to the current roster.
Dexerto has reached out to OpTic members for further comment. Disclaimer: Hector 'H3CZ' Rodriguez is a minority shareholder in Dexerto Ltd.
Some owners of Apple's current-generation MacBook Air might be due for a free but important fix. Reports from 9to5Mac, AppleInsider and MacRumors indicate that Apple has found a logic board problem with a "very small number" of MacBook Air units that will warrant free repairs for up to four years after the original purchase date of a given machine. The company hasn't detailed the nature of the issue or added the Air to its official repair extension page, but the symptoms can include "power," according to 9to5Mac.
Apple is reportedly notifying affected customers by email.
We've asked Apple for comment. The low-key nature suggests this isn't a widespread problem, but the timing is less than ideal. It comes days after Apple recalled some older MacBook Pros over battery issues, and weeks after the company made MacBook keyboard repairs a higher priority. Still, it's good to know that Apple is tackling these issues directly instead of leaving customers to wonder (and in some cases pay out of pocket).
Samsung is not giving up on Bixby, on the contrary, the South Korean giant is spending more resources to make it more user-friendly and customizable. Many of Samsung's smartphones launched recently come with a dedicated Bixby key, which will now come in handy for those living in the United States.
The Bixby Marketplace has just opened its virtual doors for users in the US and South Korea, an event meant to offer Bixby users rich customization options. Samsung's digital assistant has been designed to learn your habits while using your phone, and then suggest various actions and tasks that, in theory, will help you get things done faster.
The newly revealed Bixby Marketplace offers users access to a plethora of capsules that will help them customize their mobile experience. Among these so-called capsules, Samsung mentions Google Maps, Spotify, iHeartRatio, NPR, and Yelp, but there are more listed in the marketplace.
Now, if you have a Samsung smartphone with a Bixby dedicated key, click it to access Bixby Marketplace. Once the main page is launched, you can swipe left to get to the Bixby Marketplace and find whatever you're looking for.
These capsules are organized by categories like Business and Finance, Productivity, Shopping, Sports and so on, but you can search by name, developer or keyword. Simply tap on the capsule to add it to your phone and start using it. If you have more than one capsules installed for similar tasks, you can set a “preferred capsule” for certain types of requests.
Moreover, if you have a preferred service provider, you can set it as favorite and the capsule will only offer you options from your preferred service provider without you having to mention the capsule name.
Samsung is trying to compete with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, and Bixby Marketplace lays the foundation for a new ecosystem that the South Korean company plans to continue to expand in the coming months with the help of developers and users alike.
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It's a new month and already we've got a great set of new deals in these refurbished MacBook Pros. Amazon Prime Day is two weeks away, and there are already some live deals, but these ones exist outside the realm of Prime Day. These are just some good old fashioned Amazon Deals of the Day.
These MacBook Pro deals feature last year's model, but the real jewel in this deals-crown is the discrete AMD Radeon graphics card inside of all of them. You get the Intel HD 630 integrated graphics offered by the CPU, but then you get the more powerful graphics capabilities offered by the GPU.
512GB MacBook Pro w/TouchBar $820 Off
This "renewed" 2018 MacBook Pro has 512GB of PCIe SSD storage, as well as 16GB of RAM and an Intel i7. On top of that, it has an AMD Radeon dedicated graphics card inside. All that for 29% off.
Save $820 on 512GB MacBook Pro
256GB MacBook Pro w/TouchBar $520 Off
You can get the same MacBook Pro outfitted with a smaller capacity SSD and save an additional $100. This has everything the 512GB model has: 220dpi Retina display, TouchBar, and discrete graphics, but with less storage.
Save $520 on 256GB MacBook Pro
Apple iPad Deals
If you don't want to commit to an entire computer, the iPad is pretty much the perfect solution for web browsing, movie-watching, comics-reading and even drawing (if you have an Apple Pencil compatible model). Great news: Walmart has a ton of different models on sale right now.
T-Mobile’s 5G network is now up and running in several US cities. This initial phase of the carrier’s 5G strategy uses the same sort of high-frequency millimeter wave network tech as Verizon, resulting in download speeds that far exceed what LTE phones can reach today. The biggest problem with millimeter wave is range: to cover a whole city, you need to have 5G nodes — the things that beam out the millimeter wave signal — all over the place. In Verizon’s case, things are still spotty. As I keep saying, 5G speeds are there on one street and gone the next. Walls and windows are also fatal for millimeter wave, so it doesn’t extend indoors.
T-Mobile says it will overcome these challenges by augmenting the millimeter wave side of its 5G network with low-band 600MHz spectrum. The latter won’t offer the same mind-blowing download rates, but low-band spectrum covers much more ground and can actually make it into buildings.
T-Mobile and Sprint are pushing for their merger so hard, partially because they believe they’ll be able to build a best-in-class 5G network by combining the best of their spectrum assets. (Sprint is currently rolling out 5G right overtop its LTE network and offers far more extensive coverage than its rivals because it’s not using millimeter wave.)
But let’s talk about how T-Mobile is doing out of the gate: pretty good. Below is a sample of the 5G speeds that I saw on T-Mobile around New York last Friday. Disregard the “LTE” icon to the left of each test, as the bulk of these were done on 5G; the Speedtest app just doesn’t yet recognize that. As you can see, the peak speeds are about half as fast as the best tests I got in Chicago when trying out Verizon’s network. But it’s still a clear jump from LTE when you’re in that 400 / 500 Mbps range. I downloaded Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in about two minutes at “high” video quality from Netflix. A long Spotify playlist of over 100 songs took 15 seconds to finish up at “extreme” audio settings. In real world scenarios — even before it aids self-driving cars and makes cloud gaming more responsive — 5G will prove convenient in a pinch when you need to download something in a hurry before a flight or underground train. (Uploads, however, are still using only the 4G network for now, as is also the case with other carriers.)
It’s not winning at speed, but for now, T-Mobile can at least claim that it’s faring a little better at coverage. The carrier’s map would have you believe it’s done an impressive job of blanketing sections of New York with 5G. My real-life experience didn’t quite match that. In sections of the Financial District of Manhattan near The Verge’s office, I’d see the 5G indicator but get typical LTE download speeds. On other streets where T-Mobile’s map glowed pink to indicate 5G coverage, the phone only displayed 4G when downloading content from Netflix or Prime Video.
I saw T-Mobile’s 5G nodes on top of many smaller buildings scattered around Manhattan. And it did pay off: the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G held on to 5G on the move noticeably better than it did on Verizon’s 5G network in Chicago. I didn’t feel as though I had to freeze in place whenever I found a 5G signal to get those speedy downloads. But I’m not sure how accurate this coverage map is...
There’s one wild card here: it was an extremely hot day in New York City on Friday, with a high temperature of over 90 degrees. Samsung designed the Galaxy S10 5G to fall back to 4G LTE whenever it gets overheated. Running multiple back-to-back speed tests and downloading entire movies is a surefire way to warm up a 5G device. So I can’t be sure whether some of the situations where I only saw 4G when I was expecting 5G were due to the network or the phone itself.
Rubbing the S10 5G on my iced coffee helped keep it cool, but it was a rough environment for testing a phone. Unfortunately, Samsung limited press to just a few short hours with the device, even though it’s available in stores right now. As a result, we all walk away with an imperfect view of T-Mobile’s early 5G network — even if T-Mobile itself admits this is only stage one. It’s off to an impressive start in New York, though the patchy nature of millimeter wave is more evident when you look at T-Mobile’s other launch markets like Las Vegas and Dallas. Not great.
T-Mobile past buildout investments in NYC are paying off for the first round of 5G deployment, but elsewhere, the carrier is facing the same there-and-gone-again challenges as Verizon. Even if you’re in NYC, buying the Galaxy S10 5G on T-Mobile seems a little silly. It’ll only ever be able to take advantage of that millimeter wave part and won’t support the 600MHz 5G band when T-Mobile starts rolling that out later this year. Other phones coming in the second half of 2019 should be optimized for both, but I still think we’re at a place where your next phone upgrade won’t (and shouldn’t) be a 5G device. Your phone after that is a different story.
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