I always tell our writers to focus on what matters, and to make sure they don’t get drawn into petty squabbles – people will sometimes disagree with what we’re saying, but arguing the toss just isn’t worth it.
But sometimes, we’ll write a perfectly reasonable article, like US computing editor John Loeffler’s piece about how people should be careful about buying a second-hand GPU given the sudden influx of crypto miners trying to offload their now-useless cards, and the responses will be entirely unreasonable.
So I was pleased when John decided to ignore my advice, and explain why it’s definitely worth waiting a few months before you buy a card – you can read his point-by-point response below.
Elsewhere this week, I got to go to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, a celebration of all things automotive showcasing both classic cars and futuristic vehicles, with staff writer Hamish Hector, who got to experience something I wouldn’t have expected to see at such an event…
I won’t keep you in suspense any longer: Hamish’s revelatory experience came when he donned the Teslasuit, a full-body VR garment that allows you to not only feel sensations like rain falling on your body or the recoil of a gun, but which can even simulate the sensation of G-forces.
“[The sense of immersion] was especially true of my favorite and by far the most immersive experience, which turned me into Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time F1 champion,” Hamish writes. “What’s more, this was one where I wasn’t even wearing a VR headset, just watching a TV screen.
“Using actual data collected from Hamilton’s races, the haptic suit I was wearing could mimic the feeling of G-force that he experiences while driving around a track at top speeds.
“Electrical pulses fired into my arms and core, making my muscles feel heavier and I believed my body was actually being thrown around by the acceleration and deceleration caused by a moving race car.”
Do read the whole piece – this is next-level virtual reality, and I’m here for it.
I honestly can’t believe that the first iPhone landed on store shelves 15 years ago – we’re approaching the point where there will be fully-grown adults who will never have known a world without Apple’s smartphone.
It’s fair to say that a lot has been written about a range of phones that has now sold over two billion units, but we still managed to uncover a few juicy facts about the iConic handset that you might not have known.
Such as… did you know that it might have been called the Steve Phone? Or that it missed its early sales targets? Now that I’ve got you interested, click through to discover some more fascinating iPhone facts.
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The Mercedes Vision EQXX clocked up 747 miles on a single charge (Mercedes)
It annoys me that electric cars are called EVs, or electric vehicles. It’s not wrong – it’s just so dull.
The reason I’m particularly jazzed about the technology this week is because at the Goodwood Festival of Speed I got to ride in the world-record-breaking Mercedes Vision EQXX – this car drove from Stuttgart to London on a single charge, and did a few laps of the Silverstone motor racing circuit for good measure before running out of juice, managing an astounding 747 miles or 1,202km.
That’s nearly double what most electric cars can do, and the team responsible for this achievement were visibly excited by it – you could see the sparkle in their eyes as they talked about why the wing mirrors were made a certain way, or about the custom tires that were designed for maximum efficiency.
The Vision EQXX is a true wonder of engineering – although sadly it’ll never come to the market in its current prototype form, I’m sure it won’t be too long until we see a pretty similar road-legal version.
The European Union has mandated that Apple must introduce USB-C on iPhones from 2024 (Alexander_Evgenyevich / Shutterstock)
Are you a music fan who demands the best audio quality from their phone? Well, if you’re in the market for a new iPhone from next year onwards, chances are you’ll be able to enjoy greatly enhanced sonic performance.
That’s what Becky Scarrott, our resident audio expert, explains in her piece in which she enthuses about the prospect of an iPhone without a Lightning port, after the European Union ordered Apple to switch USB-C for its iPhones from 2024.
Why is this good news for music lovers? Well, USB-C will make it much easier to access 24-bit hi-res audio, as among other things you won’t need a Lightning-to-USB-C adapter; and on top of that your phone will charge faster, and you’ll get faster data-transfer speeds.
If you want to geek out a little on bitrates, and why phone audio is so important, then check out Becky’s piece – it’s a top read.
Given how much money the company pumps into original programming, anything that boosts the coffers will hopefully keep the world in new episodes of Squid Game and Stranger Things for the next year at least.
Our readers have been pretty vocal in their annoyance about this move – mostly because people assume that it means ads are coming to their current subscription, rather than to a separate, lower-cost tier… Netflix needs to improve its communication about this, and soon.
Crypto miners are scrambling to sell their graphics cards (Shutterstock / GreenBelka)
I hyped up this in the introduction, so I won’t say much more, but as I mentioned, John Loeffler wrote a perfectly fair article explaining why you shouldn’t buy a used graphics card right now, because the market has been flooded by crypto miners selling off possibly GPUs that have likely been heavily used.
The response from the crypto community was… spicy, to say the least; but John doubled down with a response that was… well I’ll let you read it. It’s a wonderful reminder that when we recommend tech we do so honestly, and without fear or favor.
Mars Express has been orbiting the red planet for almost two decades (European Space Agency)
It’s rare that I sign this section off with one of our own stories, but this one was just too fun to ignore. The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft, which was launched 19 years ago, has just received its first software update, and while it’s not actually running the version of Windows 98 that millions of us had on our computers back in the day, its software was designed using a development environment based on the follow-up OS to the ground-breaking Windows 95.
For one thing, it’s incredible to think that a spacecraft is running Windows-based software (and so is theoretically able to play Solitaire to pass the time, should it ever become sentient); and it’s also remarkable that it’s managed to keep going for so long without an upgrade.
Upgrading the software will enable ESA’s engineers to run the probe’s radar system, which scans the red planet for signs of water, for five times as long as is currently possible, and explore a much larger area with each pass.
Well, that’s assuming they didn’t accidentally install Windows Vista…
This is from the editor
It’s been one of those weeks where, come this morning, I realized that I had no idea what had happened in the tech world in the last seven days – and that’s where having a website really helps, because I can just check the analytics to see which stories resonated with you readers.
I guess that means that this newsletter is going to become ever-more important for my mental cognition – without the chance to look back over what we’ve written in the last week, will I just slowly begin to forget everything?
As ever, please email mewith your thoughts, remembering to include 'NEWSLETTER' in the subject line. And a big thank you to Mr Scott, who sent the following message last week:
“I love reading reviews and I personally always refer to TechRadar for most electronics. I hope personally that you and your team don't give up writing reviews. The time saved reading impartial reviews is so needed especially in this high tech society of ours.”
Don’t worry, we definitely won’t give up doing them! They’re not just great for our readers, they’re the reason this site exists and what my team loves to do.
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