One of the major unanswered questions in astronomy is how our modern system of galaxies evolved into its present-day configuration in the first place. Now, researchers have found evidence of a massive galaxy that formed when the universe was far younger than it today, with a very different configuration than the galaxies we see in the modern era. Astronomer Christina Williams, who , was working with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) when she observed an extremely faint galaxy in an area where no galaxy had previously been known to exist. “It was very mysterious because the light seemed not to be linked to any known galaxy at all,” said Williams, a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Steward Observatory.
Beginning with the original Google Chromebook Pixel, Google’s higher-end ChromeOS hardware has always been impressive, but it came with price tags to match. With the new Pixelbook Go, Google is aiming closer to a mid-market sweet spot for a personal ultralight laptop. A starting price of $650 puts it in direct competition with other premium Chromebooks and many midrange Windows laptops. So one of the big questions for us, when we got our hands on a review unit, was whether Google could still deliver a premium product at this lower price point. For the most part, the answer is yes.
Google built the platform on openness and partnerships with device makers, and that has helped make it the most popular computing platform in the world. However, Google has also struggled to get OEMs to update their phones in a timely manner. It’s tried numerous ways to speed up Android version rollouts, but none of them have worked until now. Google says that has . Google announced Project Treble in the run-up to launching Android 8.0 Oreo, and all phones that shipped with Oreo support this feature. Before Treble, all Android device OTAs required manufacturers to get updated firmware from vendors like Qualcomm that could connect the hardware to updated Android code.
One of the nice things about Google’s browser is that it updates frequently in the background and delivers new goodies. However, you might never know there are new features unless you pay close attention to the changelog. Chrome 78 is for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android, and it brings a few changes you’re likely to notice. There are also some new features hiding in the settings you might want to investigate. Google runs four separate update channels for Chrome. There’s the Canary build, which is the quickest to get updates and the most buggy. The Dev channel comes next, but it’s usually too unstable for most people to use.
Cellular companies in the United States have a significant problem where 5G is concerned. In other countries, 5G is being deployed in lower frequency bands (sub-6GHz), where the problems with range are much less significant. In the United States, all of the 5G rollouts to date have been in the so-called “millimeter wave” or mmWave bands at 28GHz or above. Non-coincidentally, the 5G rollout in the US has also been something of a joke, with low performance, terrible line-of-sight issues, and devices that overheat in hot weather and had to be in order for various publications to complete their real-world testing.
The BMW X2 M35i is a wicked-fast small SUV that retains a measure of practicality — meaning room for four not-overweight people, and their clothing tightly packed in soft-sided luggage. The X2 M exists for the swooping, twisty roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and similar back roads across America and Canada. Even if it’s an SUV coupe, this vehicle is what BMW’s famous 2002 tii would be half a century later, allowing for changes in norms and for how well a good SUV can handle. The X2 M is also a simple vehicle to understand: 0-60 in less than five seconds, 35 mpg at 65 mph, a punishing ride with the stock suspension, eight grand more than the X2 without the M parts.
Motorola announced the Moto G7 series earlier this year, and we were expecting another revision of its budget-oriented phones in early 2020. It’s not waiting that long, though. Motorola just unveiled the Moto G8 Plus along with the even cheaper E6 Play in Europe. The G8 plus has more cameras, more battery capacity, and a little less bezel. However, Moto , and they’re still running Android 9 Pie. The Moto G8 Plus (above) looks like it has an obscene number of cameras, but the design is a bit deceptive. There’s a front-facing 25MP selfie camera in a small notch on the front, and the back has a column of five camera elements lined up.
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk is not afraid to shill for his company’s products, but he gets fewer chances with his work at SpaceX. After all, most of us aren’t in the market for space launch services, but we might be interested in satellite internet as an alternative to the widely reviled terrestrial ISPs. SpaceX is working toward deploying thousands of internet satellites for its Starlink system, and Musk just sent the first tweet using the space-based satellite network. The tweet in question doesn’t provide any new information about how the service works, when you can have it, or how much it will cost.
LG hasn’t been rolling out completely new smartphones as often as it used to. Instead, it created tweaked versions of past devices with new features and hardware. It hasn’t been completely unsuccessful, but it’s not catching Samsung any time soon. LG’s latest US launch might actually move some units, though. The LG G8X ThinQ is , and it’ll cost just $699.99. That includes the admittedly bizarre dual-screen case. The G8X is a slightly tweaked version of the G8 that launched in early 2019. LG announced this phone at IFA several months ago, but it was unclear whether it would come to the US.
