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Asus to Ship its New ZenBook Series Laptops with a Secondary Screen

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Asus is still celebrating its 30th anniversary and taking the advantage of its hometown trade show, Computex, it launched its new ZenBook Duo, ZenBook Pro Duo and ZenBook Edition 30, along with the refresh of ZenBook 13, ZenBook 14, and ZenBook 15, at the event.

zenbook
Image Source: pcworld.idg.com

The dual screen on the laptops is the biggest highlight of the ZenBook series. The company has always amazed its customers with the edgy design of its products, and now, it has brought an extra screen on every ZenBook series laptop. No, it is not a separate screen, but the second screen is placed alongside the keyboard, above its Function keys, sliding the ScreenPad to the right of the keyboard.

All the new ZenBooks will be shipped with ScreenXpert ScreenPad 2.0, having a 5.65-inch touchscreen located on the right of the keyboard. The main screen of the ZenBook Pro Duo is a 15” 16:9 OLED 4K panel, whereas the second screen is a 32:9 ScreenPad with a height half of the main screen. The ZenBook Pro Duo is powered by Intel Core i9 eight-core processor. It provides up to 32 GB DDR4 RAM and 1 TB PCIe x4 SSD storage. Another fancy feature that the laptop has is the support for Amazon Alexa voice assistant.

For all the ZenBooks, the main screen is also a touch screen. For the ZenBook Duo, Asus has rendered a main FHD screen size of 14-inch, and the secondary screen is 12.6-inch FHD screen. It is powered by up to Intel Core i7 processor and is shipped with a 16GB Ram as well as 1 TB PCIe x4 SSD storage.

On the other hand, the three refresh laptops will be available in three different variants, having 13.3-inch, 14-inch, 15.6-inch screens, respectively, and the second screen for all of them will go half in height like the ZenBook Pro Duo. All the three ZenBooks are powered by 8th generation Intel Core i7 processor and will also be available in an Intel Core i5 variant.

The two screens, though, are interconnected through the ScreenXpert software, the user can do multitasking with the two. For example, a user can watch a video on the main screen, and at the same time, edit documents on the secondary. There is a stylus along with every laptop, using which the user can operate the secondary screen. According to the company, ‘ZenBook Pro Duo is made for creators and professionals’.

Asus has nor given any details on the pricing of any of the laptops, but the company will start shipping them by the third quarter of the year.

AMD’s Radeon RX 5700 GPU is Faster, Efficient and Better than its Rivals

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AMD has participated for the first time in the Taipei’s annual computer expo, Computex, and it seems like it is all set to compete with its rivals Nvidia and Intel with the new chip series it is going to launch. The AMD CEO Lisa Su addressed the conference at the event on Sunday evening, and in her keynote, she revealed the latest Navi Radeon GPU range that the company is going to launch soon.

AMD Navi RX 5000 GPU
Image Source: pcfiend.com

The next-gen graphics architecture, the RX 5000 series, also known as RDNA, is suitable for PCs, consoles and cloud. It will render the all-new 7nm RDNA architecture and is faster than its previous GCN architecture, providing up to 1.25x performance per clock and 1.5x performance per watt.

The new architecture has got a multi-level cache hierarchy as well as a new streamlined graphics pipeline. This way, AMD has claimed that the GPU will render reduced latency, higher bandwidth and lower power consumption. It features a new computing unit, GDDR6 memory and support for PCI-E 4.0, which will result in better efficiency.

During the keynote, the company tested the performance of the RX 5700, by making it compete with the Nvidia’s RTX 2070 through a live-streamed demo. And, as expected, the demo concluded the performance of RX 5700 was better than the RTX card. The demo showcased a 10% better performance advantage of the AMD card over the Nvidia card. Though the company did not reveal on which AMD card it used to compete with the RTX card.

AMD did not reveal any additional details on the other features of the GPU architecture as well as its pricing but has stated that it will be launching the architecture in the coming month of July. AMD revealed that it will be discussing about the architecture in detail in the E3 stream on June 10.

Performance wise we can expect much more from this GPU architecture, as the giant game producers Sony has also opted for the same to integrate it into its next-gen PlayStation.

AT&T Will Now Let Its Users Pay Bills Using Cryptocurrency

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The American network provider company, AT&T, has announced that it has partnered with the BitPay payment service to allow people to use their cryptocurrency to pay their AT&T bills. By doing so, AT&T has become the first network company to add cryptocurrency as one of the payment methods for its users. The option has been added to both the AT&T official website as well as the app myAT&T.

at&t
Image Source: bitcoinexchangeguide.com

Though the company does not accept the crypto payments directly, it has integrated the BitPay payment service to its platform to carry out all the crypto transaction. Also as AT&T has not revealed on which cryptocurrencies it will support, it is quite predictable that it may support all the currencies that are supported by BitPay. The currencies that BitPay support, include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Gemini USD, Paxos, and Circle’s US Dollar Coin etc.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.” the vice president of AT&T Communications Finance Business Operations, Kevin McDorman, said in a statement.

The users who want to pay through their cryptocurrencies just need to go to the BitPay option in the payment method list, and they will be able to easily pay through their cryptos. The app, as well as the website, can take the payment in the form of crypto, or the combination of fiat and crypto. BitPay will be responsible for carrying out the verification and the transaction of the crypto.

Since the company has only provided this facility for the online payments, the other users will need to wait for the payment option to come in stores. Also, for now, there may be only a minority using the payment method as most of the people are still away from using bitcoins or the other digital currencies like the fiat currencies.

Uber Starts Trialing for App-Based e-Bike Service for its London Users

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uber jump electric bike
Image Source: uber.com

The UK is familiar with bicycle hailing services, Lime being the biggest player in the field in the country. After seeing many other bike hailing services run successfully, the UK is now ready to welcome Uber with its new e-bike hiring service. Uber has revealed that it is going to start trialling its electric bike hailing service with 350 of its Jump electric bikes in the London borough of Islington.

Uber also plans to expand into the other part of the London city after successfully completing the trial for a certain period of time. The company will be launching 350 bright red colour Jump bicycles on the streets of London for the trial. The users will be able to find and unlock the bicycle through the Uber app.

The Uber app will show the locations from where the users can get those bikes, charge them with 1 Pound to unlock the bike, guide the users to their destinations through the app’s map, and show them the parking locations after they reach the destination. After the users unlock the bike, they will be charged 12p per minute during the ride, following a five-minute free ride on the e-bike. There are some possibilities that Uber may provide the users with offers and discounts at the beginning, as it has been doing for all its services in the world.

There will be an up 25 pound of penalty for the users who will be parking the bikes away from the provided parking areas, or end the trip at a no parking zone. Though London has already got such bike-hailing services including Mobike and Boris Bikes, it will be interesting to see how Uber emerges midst such a rivalry in the field.

Almost a year ago, the company had almost lost its taxi license to drive on the streets of London, but now the company is all set to revive its services by implanting its Jump e-bikes on the roads of London. The company is already successfully running its Jump e-bike hiring services in the countries, including the US, Canada, Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon, Paris, etc.

The Users Can Now Fund the Open-source Devs With the New Sponsorship Program on GitHub

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Open-source software has been a boon for people, and there is a lot for the developers to learn through it. But still, these open source software have never been so profitable for the developers financially. To resolve that matter, now the biggest web-based hosting service GitHub has come with a new feature in order to provide financial support to the developers, ‘GitHub Sponsors’.

GitHub Sponsor Me
Image Source: mspoweruser.com

GitHub Sponsors is a Patreon type of service, that will help the developers raise funds from the people using their codes or the open source software. The feature will allow the developers to create different levels or tiers of services, based on the amount the user will pay. The users will get access to special perks depending upon the tier they choose to support the developers and their work. They would need to pay the amount every month in order to continue to access those special services and the perks from the developers.

The feature will add a ‘Sponsor Me’ button on the developer’s profile, including the different funding options in it. Through the button, users can fund the developers individually, through Patreon, Tidelift, Ko-fi or Open Collective. According to GitHub, there will be no extra charges or any payment processing fees on using the very feature in its debut year, and the company intends to match up to $5,000 in contributions.

“The world runs on open source. None of it would be possible without the global team of maintainers, designers, programmers, researchers, teachers, writers, leaders and more who devote themselves to pushing technology forward. These extraordinary developers can now receive funding from the community that depends on their work, seamlessly through their GitHub profiles.” the product manager Devon Zuegel at GitHub wrote in a blog post.

The company has introduced a social feature, too, that lets the users see who has developed the code they are using, the usage of the code, and who else is using the same code. The feature though is, currently, in private beta and is only open for the open-source developers, the company has already made it open for the users who want to join the sponsorship program.

Though the open source software has been challenging and encouraging enough for the developers, the addition of a sponsorship program can motivate the developers on working even harder. But, there can be a drawback of the same too, as the developers may find their interest in jobs that are paying more.

A Forgotten Tool in Gmail Tracks Your Purchase History Through the Receipts

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google
Image Source: searchengineland.com

According to a piece of recent news from CNBC, “Google has been quietly keeping track of nearly every single online purchase you’ve ever made, thanks to purchase receipts sent to your personal Gmail account.”

CNBC broke the news on Friday afternoon, according to which Google has been saving the purchase history of the people who have used their Gmail account during their purchase on the various e-commerce websites through the receipt they receive on Gmail. Though the company has included privacy settings that can enable the users to stop the tracking, most of the people have got to know about the purchase history tracking only after the revelation from CNBC.

The way CNBC has said about the mentioned matter, it seems like Google had been hiding the fact that it was saving users’ private information and might be using it somewhere else without letting the users know, but Google has come in front to defend itself.

“To help you easily view and keep track of your purchases, bookings and subscriptions in one place, we’ve created a private destination that can only be seen by you. You can delete this information at any time. We don’t use any information from your Gmail messages to serve you ads, and that includes the email receipts and confirmations shown on the Purchase page.” Google told The Verge in a statement.

In the past years, the company used such information to personalise ads for its users, but in 2017, Google had decided that it won’t collect and use any of the users’ information from Gmail for displaying personalised ads.

Google did not mention how long this tool has been there to track the purchase history of its users, but many Gmail users have found their purchase history even older than a decade. According to Google, this history is hard to find, and the users can delete the history or disable the tracking. Also, no one else except the users can see their purchase history on the tool.