If nobody ever bothered to reinvent the wheel, we'd all be riding around on four semi-circular stones with uneven surfaces and poor braking performance. Keeping that in mind, we won't necessarily dismiss a startup's attempt to reinvent Wi-Fi as we know it. In short, startup Eero wants to blanket your home in fast, reliable Wi-Fi that doesn't suffer from annoying issues like dead spots, buffering, and complicated passwords.
The startup is pitching its self-titled Eero box as the world's first home Wi-Fi system. This is to differentiate it from a router and/or network extender. Instead, it's a single piece of hardware, a little white box, that's designed to be placed in multiple locations in your home. According to Eero, three of them will cover a typical home.
Despite the attempt to bill it as something different, it's really a router and network extender in one, with smart capabilities. The way it works is you plug the first one into your cable or DSL modem, then take the the remaining boxes (two, if you own a "typical" house) and plug them into power outlets around your home. That's it.
Each Eero configures itself and automatically connects with one another to form a mesh network covering your entire residence. As you move about with your wireless devices, you'll always stay connected with a strong signal. In theory, anyway -- we haven't tested these claims (yet).
Other than widespread coverage, the main selling point is Eero's simplicity. It takes care of security, auto-updates itself, and even reboots itself if there's a problem.
We're definitely intrigued, and you can bet we'll put the Eero system through it's paces the first chance we get. In the meantime, it's available to pre-order today -- a single unit goes for $125, currently discounted from its regular $199 price, while a three-pack goes for $299, discounted from $499.
Out with the old and in with the new, or in this case, MSI is anxious to bid a fond farewell to the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) and get cooking with Non-Volatile Media Express (NVMe). To get the party started, MSI issued a round of BIOS updates for a whole bunch of motherboards based on Intel's X99, Z97, and H97 chipsets, making the company the first motherboard maker to fully support NVMe.
The majority of solid state drives currently on the market use the SATA 6Gbps interface, though PCI Express-based SSDs are beginning to gain ground. This is where NVMe comes into play -- by adding official support to its motherboards, MSI is essentially getting rid of boot drive headaches and improving performance at the same time.
NVMe was originally conceived with SSDs in mind, or more specifically, for NAND flash memory. It needn't concern itself with spinning platters and various housekeeping chores required for mechanical hard disk drives, resulting in lower latencies, higher transfer speeds, and less power consumption for SSDs. In short, it's a more efficient hold controller interface for accessing SSDs through the PCI-E bus.
Again, this won't affect very many people at the moment, as PCI-E SSDs are primarily found in the enterprise sector. But if you're living on the bleeding the edge and own a modern MSI motherboard based on one of the aforementioned chipsets, check out this page for the BIOS update you should be looking for. Once updated, you should be able to use NVMe devices as primary storage in Windows 7 64-bit and Windows 8.1 64-bit.
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You're not supposed to know it, but Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Taboola have been paying the developers of Adblock Plus to stop blocking ads on their respective websites, according to a paywalled article in the Financial Times. The deals are confidential in nature, though FT says it was able to confirm that they do in fact exist. If true, it raises some questions about the transparency of one of the most popular browser extensions ever made.
Eyeo, the German outfit that owns Adblock Plus, says its software has been downloaded over 300 million times around the globe and has more than 50 million monthly active users. Each one of them is welcome to read the software's FAQ, which says it has "strict criteria" about what it identifies as "Acceptable Ads."
Ads that are deemed acceptable must be static (no animations, sounds, etc) and clearly marked. They also have to follow a set of placement guidelines and follow a few other rules. Users of the extension don't always agree with Eyeo about which ads should pass muster, and many where angry when the company proposed whitelisting Taboola, an advertising network that's known to serve up racy content on occasion.
Despite the protests, Eyeo whitelisted Taboola, and like Google and Amazon, the company refused to comment. Microsoft, however, did issue a statement.
"Microsoft will always give consumers choice when it comes to advertisements. We are committed to working with partners who share our vision for relevant, impactful brand interaction and respect the integrity of consumer choice," Microsoft said.
FT says Eyeo doesn't charge small websites and blogs for its whitelisting process, but that large companies must pony up. How much? Eyeo wasn't willing to say.
Eyeo has to be careful with these deals, as users have the option of blocking all ads, which lessens the value of its whitelisting service to clients, or ditching the extension altogether.
Razer's original Blade laptop is officially old news. That's because Razer today introduced a pair of refreshed Blade gaming notebooks, one with a Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) IPS display and the other with a touch-enabled QHD+ 3K IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) panel. Both models feature updated internals, including a faster CPU and GPU, though no Broadwell inside.
The higher end model boasts a 14-inch panel and is still being billed as the thinnest and lightest gaming laptop in its size class. What that translates into is a 4.47-pound laptop measuring 13.6 inches (W) by 0.70 inches (H) by 9.3 inches (D).
Powering the display is a 4th Generation Intel Core i7 4720HQ processor (2.6GHz to 3.66GHz), 16GB of DDR3L-1600 RAM, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M graphics with 3GB of onboard memory. Other hardware and features include 128GB/256GB/512GB SATA M.2 SSD storage options, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI output, 2MP webcam, backlit anti-ghosting keyboard, and Windows 8.1 64-bit.
As before, the Blade comes housed in a precision-cut CNC aluminum chassis. Inside is a custom designed trckpad and the aforementioned backlit keyboard, which also sports programmable keys powered by Razer's Synapse software.
Pricing for the higher end model starts at $2,200, and you can place your order now. Alternately, the non-touch Full HD 1080p version features similar specs, but with half the RAM (8GB) and only a 256GB SSD option. That one's priced at $2,000 and is also available to order now, though ships in 3-4 weeks.
Leaked slide shows next generation chipsets with more PCIe lanes
It's been several years since we've seen a meaningful upgrade to PCI Express in Intel's chipsets. For the most part, budget on up to high-end motherboards have been limited to eight lanes at Gen2 speeds, though it appears that's going to change once Skylake arrives. A leaked slide posted to a Chinese-language website indicates that Intel's forthcoming 100 Series chipset for Skylake will ditch PCIe's eight Gen2 lanes for up to 20 lanes running at Gen3 speeds.
Only the H110 chipset with stay at Gen2 speeds with six lanes. Here's how the others look:
H170: 16 lanes, Gen3
Z170: 20 lanes, Gen3
B150: 8 lanes, Gen3
Q150: 10 lanes, Gen3
Q170: 20 lanes, Gen3
These upgrades play into the push for solid state storage, and according to the slide, the 100 Series chipsets will provide up to four lanes of bandwidth for M.2 SSDs. And on the high-end Z170 chipset, it lists Intel Rapid Storage Technology as supporting up to three M.2 or SATA Express drives -- the Z97 supports just one.
In addition to upgrading PCIe, you can expect more USB 3.0 ports, at least on higher end boards. The Z170, for example, supports 10 USB 3.0 ports, and 14 USB ports total. Today's Z97 chipset also supports 14 total USB ports, though just six are of the USB 3.0 variety.
What the slides don't reveal are any potential upgrades to the chipset's CPU interconnect.
Reinventing Wi-Fi
Another bottleneck bites the dust
Secret deals come to light
Refreshed Blade sees several upgrades
Leaked slide shows next generation chipsets with more PCIe lanes
