Author: batteryforpc

It’s felt like we’ve waited for years, but Google Assistant users can finally make notes using Google Keep from their phones, a speaker, or other devices. However, the functionality isn’t enabled by default. Here’s how to connect Google Keep Notes to Google Assistant.

How to connect Google Assistant to Keep Notes

Open Assistant settings

Find “Notes & Lists”

Set Google Keep as your default notes service

Note: This integration started rolling out on December 6th and may take time to hit all devices.

Open Google Assistant settings

First and foremost for this long-awaited functionality, we’ll have to dive into the labyrinth that is Google Assistant’s settings menu. To access the Assistant settings, you’ll want to open the Google app on your phone and tap More at the bottom of the screen. From there, tap Settings and then Google Assistant.

Set Google Keep as your default notes service

Next, locate the Services tab and finally, Notes & Lists.

Under the Notes & Lists section, Google will provide you with a handful of providers for syncing your notes. This includes Any.do, AnyList, Bring, but most importantly, Google Keep. Simply tap on the Google Keep section to set it as your default notes provider.

How to manage your Notes w/ Assistant

Once you’ve linked Google Keep with the Assistant, your future notes will all be saved to the app. On top of that, you can also access other lists and notes from Keep via Google Assistant on your phone, Home speaker, and the like.

However, it won’t work the same everywhere. On a smartphone you can say, “Show me my notes,” but a Home speaker or smart display can’t do that. Instead, they can only access a note titled “Shopping list.”

To start a new note from your phone, you can simply ask Google Assistant to “take a note.”

Silicon Lottery’s binning stats show 56% of its samples were able to of hit 4.1 GHz on all 16 cores.

According to statistics shared by binning company Silicon Lottery, the majority of AMD Ryzen 9 3950X CPUs it’s tested have been able to hit a clock speed of 4.1 GHz. The vendor’s data on the CPU was compiled by a user on Reddit.

Silicon Lottery overclocks its samples to the same speed on all of their CPU cores. The company puts the overclocked chips through stringent tests to guarantee their stability. It’s unknown how big of a sample size Silicon Lottery worked with, but the initial information looks interesting nonetheless.

So far, the statistics show that 56% of Silicon Lottery’s Ryzen 9 3950X samples were capable of hitting 4.1 GHz on all 16 cores with a core voltage (Vcore, the amount of voltage supplied to the CPU) of 1.312V. Only 19% made it to the 4.15 GHz mark.

Ryzen 9 3900X binning statistics from August showed that 68% and 35% of the 12-core samples reached 4.1 GHz and 4.15 GHz, respectively. Therefore, it’s reasonable to assume that your chances of achieving a higher overclock decrease significantly as you climb the core ladder. That’s not to mention that AMD doesn’t leave much manual overclocking headroom on its Ryzen 3000-series processors.

What’s even more fascinating is the gloomy results for the Infinity Fabric (FCLK) clock. In Silicon Lottery’s efforts to bin the FCLK on Ryzen 9 3950X, it concluded that only 12% of the samples can run the FCLK at 1,900 MHz stably.

If you’re not committed to running all your cores at identical speeds, it appears that AM4 motherboard manufacturers will add the ability to overclock AMD CCXes (AMD CPU’s core complexes). This will allow users to overclock the processor’s cores to different speeds, instead of imposing a single clock speed on every core.

There may never be a “Year of the Linux desktop” per se, but Linux on Windows, via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), is certainly gaining popularity. Canonical, Ubuntu Linux’s parent company, has just announced it will help sponsor WSLConf, the first WSL-specific conference.

Hayden Barnes, the founder of Whitewater Foundry, a startup focusing on Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and sponsor of Pengwin, Whitewater’s Linux for Windows, started the conference. WSLconf will be held from March 10 to March 11, 2020, at Building 20 on the Microsoft HQ campus in Redmond, Wash.

Canonical, which recently revealed it’s making WSL a priority for Ubuntu, stated it would be a featured sponsor of WSLConf. Besides Canonical, Microsoft, and Whitewater Foundry, speakers from Docker, Kali Linux, Rancher Labs, and wslutilities will also appear at the conference.

WSL is meant primarily for developers and system administrators, not ordinary end-users. For example, at the conference, there will be talks on building Kubernetes on WSL; demos of WSL integration with the Visual Studio and JetBrains IDEs; and WSL for long-time Unix/Linux system administrators.

At the same time, Microsoft is also extending its office programs to the traditional Linux desktop. For the first time, an MS-Office program, Microsoft Teams, will be available to run natively on Linux.

At one time, the idea that the Windows and Linux desktops would cross-pollinate with each other would be dismissed as downright silly. That was then. This is now. The two rival desktops are integrating. Who would have guessed?

Fujifilm’s X100 series of premium compact cameras have become cult classics among street photographers, but there hasn’t been a new model in the range since early 2017. Well, the long wait for a successor to the X100F could soon be over if recent leaks are to be believed, with the Fujifilm X100V rumored to be launching in early 2020.

The usually reliable Fuji Rumors claims to have been told by sources that the Fujifilm X100V, the fifth model in the series, will arrive in February 2020. The site also claims that the price will be around US$1,500; there are no leaked prices for the UK or Australia yet, but that converts to around £1,140 or AU$2,200, and if those are close to the actual prices it would be a fairly significant increase over its predecessor in the US and Australia.

The current model in the series, the Fujifilm X100F, launched back in January 2017 for US$1,299 / £1,249 / AU$1,900, which was already a sizable bump from the X100T. Still, fans of these premium compacts, which mix stunning retro looks with a unique hybrid viewfinder, will likely still stump up the extra cash if their wishlist of improvements is realized in the new model.

Retro looks, upgraded performance?

So far, there haven’t been any major specs leaks for the Fujifilm X100V, but previous rumors have suggested the camera might be getting a new lens.

The series has retained the same lens since the 12MP Fujifilm X100, and will need an updated one if, as expected, the X100V adopts the same 26.1MP CMOS sensor found inside the Fujifilm X-Pro3 and X-T3. This new lens would likely retain the classic 23mm focal length that makes it so popular for street snapping, while potentially bringing new features like improved autofocus motors.

Other much-requested upgrades are weather sealing, USB-C charging, and the excellent autofocus system seen on the Fujifilm X-T3. More radical improvements, such as a flip-screen, appear to be less likely, as Fujifilm has preferred to only make iterative improvements to its X100 series since it arrived in 2011. We’ll bring you any official news as soon as we get it.

Google is rolling out the latest version of Chrome for Mac, Windows, and Linux. Chrome 79 readies tab freezing to make the browser less resource-intensive, and a slew of security features related to phishing protections.

A new “tab freezing” feature introduced with Chrome 79 works to save memory, CPU, and battery resources on desktops. Tabs that have been in the background for over 5 minutes will be frozen and not able to perform tasks. There is an exception for playing audio and video, as well as recording, while site developers can experimentally opt-out.

This release also expands Google’s password and phishing protections in Chrome. The Password Checkup extension is now integrated as part of “Sync and Google Services,” while two phishing protections work to make Safe Browsing better and alert you to change passwords entered on malicious sites. More details are available here.

A related change sees the browser better emphasize what profile you’re using by adding a name next to the avatar. Intended for shared devices with multiple users, Google wants to make sure you are storing credentials in the right Google Account.

Originally planned for the previous release, Chrome 79 features an experiment for 1% of users that enables secure DNS connections through DNS-over-HTTPS. This prevents user tracking and malicious redirects. A new flag allows you to opt-out of the DoH test: chrome://flags/#dns-over-https.

Chrome will check if the user’s DNS provider is among a list of participating DoH-compatible providers and if so, it will enable DoH. If the DNS provider is not on the list, Chrome won’t enable DoH and will continue to operate as it does today.

Chrome will begin marking sites that use TLS 1.0 or 1.1 “Not Secure” and remove the lock symbol. This measure starts in January 2020 as Google encourages sites to move away from legacy TLS.

Google is working on a shared clipboard between computers and Android that’s available from the right-click menu. Copied text can be shared on devices that are logged in to the same Google Account and have Chrome Sync enabled. Text is end-to-end encrypted and Google notes how it can’t see the contents. It began rolling out in October for a “limited number of users” and will be “released to all users in a future version of Chrome.”

Chrome 79 for desktops is available now, with Android and Chrome OS following in the coming weeks.