Indice dei contenuti per May 2019 in Tech Advisor

Revenue from Microsoft’s Surface line-up topped nearly $2 billion for the firm’s fourth calendar quarter – and the tech giant believes so strongly in its success that it’s predicting another 20 percent growth on top of that for the current quarter. In fact, Surface sales are upending Windows’ traditional role at Microsoft – even though it’s likely Intel’s fault. For even as Surface rises, PC sales are suffering because of a lack of chips, Microsoft said in January. In all, sales of Microsoft Surface devices grew about 39 percent, “ahead of expectations”, to $1.86 billion, Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood said during an analyst call covering Microsoft’s second fiscal quarter of 2019. Overall, Microsoft made $8.4 billion on revenue of $32.5 billion, up 12 percent overall. There’s another trend:…

The Raspberry Pi is an incredibly flexible little computer. You can use it for a wide range of projects ranging from the pragmatic to the innovative to the nostalgic – the same hardware can power a retro gaming setup as readily as an ad-blocking server. But if you’ve never handled a circuit board in your life, getting started with a Raspberry Pi may seem intimidating. Well, fear not: there are special kits out there that make it easy for you to get started. The basic ones bundle together a Raspberry Pi board and necessary components (minus the keyboard, mouse, and monitor). More advanced options come without a Raspberry Pi board and instead focus on the specialized hardware needed for a particular project. We’ve sifted through the options to find the…

Google Assistant is everywhere, ranging from the Android smartphone in your pocket to the smart speakers and smart displays ensconced in your kitchen or living room. And that means you can control all your smart home devices without so much as turning your head. All you need to say is “Hey Google!” What do you say after that? Well, almost anything, but here are 15 essential commands you should commit to memory. 1. Get a weather report One of the simplest commands is probably also one of the most useful. As you’re getting ready to head out the door, say “Hey, Google. What’s the weather like?” You’ll get a succinct explanation of the current conditions and the forecasted conditions for later in the day. 2. Read the news Want to…

When Microsoft announced the standalone versions of Office last year, known as Office 2019, Microsoft’s attitude seemed decidedly lukewarm. We were wrong: now it’s downright hostile. Microsoft released three videos in February to try and demonstrate that the AI-powered, always-updated version of Office 365 trounces the standalone Office 2019 in tasks ranging from automatically filling in geographic data in an Excel spreadsheet to automatically adding relevant skills to a Word CV that can be then sent to a job agency. In each of the ‘showdowns’, Office 2019 forces the user to perform the tasks manually, while Office 365 either automatically performs the task or connects to the Internet to simplify it. According to Jared Spataro, corporate vice president for Microsoft 365, Office 2019 is “frozen in time”. “They [the Office…

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX GPU for laptops has arrived, hot on the heels of its announcement at CES. Unfortunately, all the hand-wringing and chest-beating that surrounded the original GeForce RTX has followed. It may magnify further with the newest GeForce RTX laptop GPUs, as detractors look for more evidence that Nvidia’s pursuit of a hybrid ray tracing future is the wrong path. While it’s far too early to pass any judgment on GeForce RTX in laptops, we can at least walk you through the reasons you may actually want to buy a GeForce RTX-based laptop – or not. Reasons to buy a GeForce RTX laptop Put on your green T-shirt and queue up the ray tracing demos so you can rub your friends’ faces in them. Yes, if you’re a fan…

A little less than eight years ago Intel helped usher in the era of thin-and-light notebook PCs, then called ultrabooks. Now, Intel and a number of its partners are ready to take the ultrabook to the next level with ‘Project Athena’, in a multi-year roadmap they’re unveiling here at CES. Intel executives say the have the support of partners including Acer, Asus, Dell, Google, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung and Sharp. Yes, Google. You’ll eventually see ‘Athena’-specified Chromebooks, too. What Project Athena notebooks will eventually be branded as hasn’t been formally decided yet, but the timetable has; the first Project Athena laptops will ship in the second half of 2019. Ultrabooks debuted in 2011, arguably as a response to the incredibly slim Macbook Air that Apple CEO Steve Jobs was then…

Many printers are cheap to buy, but there’s a very good chance that you’ll spend much, much more on ink or toner cartridges than you did on the device itself. So, is it worth trying to save a bit of money by buying cheaper refills or should you stick with the more expensive genuine manufacturer cartridges? We explain these options so you can decide which is best for you. Genuine ink and toner Whichever model of printer you buy, the company that made it will have specific ink that it recommends you use. Of course, this is also most likely made by the said company and can be seen as something of a money grab due to the fact that it’s always more expensive than third party rivals. And just…