IFYBRIAN

Apple’s new iPhone X has a spectacular edge-to-edge display that dominates the entire front of the device. Well, nearly the entire front. Unlike  Xiaomi’s Mi Mix 2 ,  Samsung’s Galaxy S8 , and  LG’s V30 , Apple hasn’t kept the iPhone X top bezel intact; and compared to the  Essential Phone , its camera array is much, much more noticeable... and odd-looking. While the iPhone X design was leaked several times before Apple was able to officially unveil it, the company revealed this week that it is fully embracing the notch and not hiding it away with software. It’s a move that has generated a lot of discussion online, both during the leaks and after Apple’s official announcement. Some say “ Steve Jobs would have never let that happen ,” while others have mocked it by creating a  “notch mode” for Chrome  that adds a black cut-out to every YouTube video. There’s a mix of surprise, sarcasm, and intrigue that Apple has chosen to go with a screen layout that l...

Since before Threadripper launched, we’ve known that AMD had an eight-core variant of the chip waiting in the wings. The new CPU has hit the market as the  Ryzen Threadripper 1900X , with eight cores, 16 threads, and support for AMD’s X399 motherboard platform. The Threadripper 1900X has a 3.8GHz base clock, a 4GHz Turbo clock, and a 200MHz XFR range for short-term boosting if the CPU’s thermals and power consumption permit it. That’s not very different from the Ryzen 7 1800X, with its 3.6GHz base clock, 4GHz Turbo, and 100MHz XFR. The larger changes are at the platform level, where the 1900X has 60 PCIe 3.0 lanes and a quad-channel DDR4 configuration compared with just 16 PCIe lanes and dual-channel RAM for the 1800X. The I/O capabilities and PCI Express 3.0 lanes give the 1900X an edge over the 1800X, provided you’re running workloads that can take advantage of them. The 180W TDP is almost certainly a carry-over from the other  Threadripper  chips as opposed ...

SanDisk is offering a new 400GB microSD card, a breakthrough that would make it the largest microSD currently on the market. SanDisk, which is owned by Western Digital, hasn’t revealed details beyond stating that the capacity breakthrough was the result of WD “leveraging its proprietary memory technology and design and production processes that allow for more bits per die.” Western Digital set the previous record two years ago, when it launched a 200GB microSD card. The speed appears to come with a tradeoff. SanDisk trumpets its A1 speed rating, saying: “Rated A1, the SanDisk Ultra® microSD card is optimized for apps, delivering faster app launch and performance that provides a better smartphone experience.” This is a  generous  reading of the A1’s target performance specification. Last year, the SD Association released a report discussing the App Performance Class memory card specification and why the spec was created in the first place. When Android added ...

When Microsoft announced its new  Windows 10 S  operating system in May, the company put security front and center. To keep rogue programs from entering an organization’s digital ecosystem, the OS runs all software in a protected container and allows only apps that have been vetted by the  Microsoft Windows Store  and comply with Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform  (UWP) standards to be installed. Although Microsoft pitched Windows 10 S as an OS for the education market (think of it as Microsoft’s answer to Google’s Chrome OS), IT leaders and analysts immediately saw its locked-down nature as promising for business  as well. The value-add for companies is lower-priced systems that operate in the familiar Windows environment while restricting the software an employee can load. Windows 10 S is currently available on only a handful of devices, including Microsoft’s  Surface Laptop , which starts at $999 and certainly doesn’t fall in the “lowe...