Brian Fagioli

Ubiquiti Networks is a very respected company in the networking market. Its high-end hardware is used by many in the enterprise. Under its "Ubiquiti Labs" branding, however, the company recently entered the home consumer space with the "AmpliFi" mesh wireless router system. That product is exceptional -- my current recommended home router for anyone that will listen. It gets plenty of timely updates, looks beautiful, and offers both wonderful speed and coverage. Seriously, folks, it rocks.

Today, Ubiquiti Labs unveils its next home consumer product. Called "AmpliFi Teleport," it is a little box that promises to route your on-the-go internet traffic through your home router. The device plugs into the wall for power and connects to an access point using Wi-Fi or Ethernet. It creates an encrypted connection, making it operate sort of like a VPN, but that's not all. Your media services (Netflix, Hulu, MLB, etc.) will think you are at home when you aren't, so you can still access location restricted content. In other words, you won't get the dreaded message of "sorry, this is not available in your area," even if you are in a different state -- or country. It supplies access to the things connected to your home network too, such as smart devices that don't offer remote access.

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Wireless headsets are my favorite, although wired variants are my favorite too. Is that sentence nonsensical and devoid of logic? Not really, but sort of. All kidding aside, it is totally possible that someone can prefer using a cable in one scenario, while opting to go wire-free in another. Case in point, when I am at home on my gaming PC, I prefer a wired headset. Why? Because I am sitting in a chair in front of a monitor -- having to charge a headset in that case is silly. When I am in my living room or on the go, however, being wireless has its perks -- no cables to get tangled or trip over.

Having a headset that can operate as both wired and wireless is nothing new, but today, SteelSeries unveils a new product that takes this idea to another level. The "Arctis 3 Bluetooth," as the headset is called, can process audio over both Bluetooth and hardwired connections simultaneously. I know what you are thinking -- why would you want that? On the surface, it seems crazy, but once you think about it, the concept is very smart. Best of all, it is based on the already well-received Arctis 3 wired headset.

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Today is Xbox One X release day, and we here at BetaNews are very excited. Microsoft has created the most powerful video game console of all time. Besides playing 4K video -- including UHD Blu-ray -- it can handle 4K gaming too. Yes, folks, you will finally be able to leverage that new 4K TV for incredible graphic detail.

To celebrate the Xbox One X release, we are giving away an Xbox One console. In fact, it is the exact console as seen in the video here. While it is "only" an original Xbox One, it is actually a fairly rare white variant. Despite not being the latest and greatest, it will be able to play all Xbox One games, albeit at a max of 1080p. It can also play Blu-ray and DVD discs. Wow!

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Coke and Pepsi. Ford and Chevy. Intel and AMD. These are examples of competing products where consumers are often very passionate. For instance, I would refuse to own a Chevy or a General Motors vehicle based on my love for Ford. I have a similar feeling for AMD, although I have strayed to Intel for my PC builds on occasion.

Having competing companies work together is almost sacrilege, but not unprecedented. Bill Gates, father of Windows, now uses Linux by way of Android. Apple Music is available for Android. And now, the unthinkable has happened. AMD and Intel are partnering on chips that will marry Radeon GPU technology with high-end Core processing units.

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While it has a large presence in Europe, Altice is a fairly new name in the USA. The company recently bought Cablevision -- the cable TV and internet provider that serves Long Island and other areas in the New York Tri-State area. The company even offers VOIP telephone service, making it a traditional "triple play" provider.

Today, Altice USA announces its intentions to enter the cell phone service business too. No, the company is not putting up new cell towers or anything ambitious such as that. Actually, Altice USA will become a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). If you aren't familiar, this essentially means the company will sell access to an existing cell provider's towers -- in this case, it will be Sprint.

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Razer may be a smartphone maker nowadays, but don't think for a second the company has forgotten its roots. True, Razer is branching out to other businesses, but it is still a gaming peripheral company at its core.

To drive that point home, today, Razer unveils two new hardcore PC gaming peripherals -- the "Naga Trinity" gaming mouse and "Tartarus V2" gaming keypad. These are two very intriguing products -- evolutions of prior peripheral generations -- both of which focus heavily on complicated multiplayer games, such as MOBA and MMO. The mouse has a replaceable left side, which can give optimized thumb controls based on the game and user preference. The keypad is designed to make many keyboard keys accessible to one hand, making it a more comfortable and streamlined control experience. After all, traditional keyboards were designed for typing -- not gaming.

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Having an SD card reader on a laptop nowadays is nice, but hardly necessary. After all, thanks to the cloud, consumers can easily transport files via the internet. As many photographers and videographers will yell you, however, the cloud is not always a viable solution for them -- working with local storage cards can be a must. The problem, you see, is that many creative people use macOS and the latest MacBook Pro laptops do not have such a card reader. What is the owner of Apple's latest laptop to do?

Just buy an adapter, of course! There are many USB-C card readers on the market that will work on macOS, Windows, and Linux. If you work on multiple machines, however, and some of those computers do not have USB-C, you will unfortunately have to buy a second dongle, right? Actually, no. Thanks to products such as StartTech's latest offering (SDMSDRWU3AC), which is a card reader that supports both USB-C and USB-A, you can use one adapter across all of your computers.

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About nine months ago, Razer bought smartphone-maker Nextbit. To be honest, at the time, I thought it was a terrible idea. It felt like Razer was getting involved in too many projects, losing its focus as a gaming peripheral and accessory maker. Not to mention, Nextbit seemed like a poor acquisition, since its design philosophy was cute, colorful, and whimsical, whereas Razer is all about being dark.

Today we finally see the fruit of this marriage, and oh my -- it looks amazing. The "Razer Phone," as it is called, is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and is packing a monstrous 8GB of RAM. It will undoubtedly handle all apps and games you throw at it without breaking a sweat. It even has dual rear 12MP cameras and a huge 4,000 mAh battery with Quick Charge 4+. So, yeah, the specs are great, but that is only part of the story. It is also jaw-droppingly gorgeous! I guess the Nextbit purchase was smart after all...

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Ubuntu is a great operating system, and this year it has gotten even better. Why? The maker of the distribution, Canonical, ditched the much-maligned Unity desktop environment. Instead, the latest version of the distro uses the far-better GNOME.

Not only does Ubuntu get better by using GNOME, but GNOME should improve thanks to Canonical’s contributions. Today, the GNOME Foundation Advisory board announces that Canonical has joined. This makes a lot of sense, as the company’s popular operating system should bring a renewed interest in the desktop environment. In other words, it is win/win for both.

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I am a strong believer in home Wi-Fi security cameras. Being able to monitor my house while away is a godsend. Yeah, it is great for security purposes, but you know where else these products shine? Pets! Yeah, with one of these cameras, you can keep tabs on your dog, cat, bird, lizard -- whatever. If you are at work and want to check in on your pup or kitty, just launch an app and there they are.

Unfortunately, these cameras can be expensive and difficult to set up. But, what if they weren't? What if there was a Wi-Fi camera that was easy to set up and cost, I don't know, say, $20? Surely you cannot get such a Wi-Fi security camera for an "Andrew Jackson," right? Actually, you can! The WyzeCam is that inexpensive and even promises an easy app-based setup process. Quite frankly, the boxy design is quite adorable too. Shockingly, it even streams at 1080p.

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Number pads are kind of dumb. Don't get me wrong, I am sure some people use them (for whatever reason), but I -- and many other consumers -- never do. Quite frankly, since you can buy a dedicated number keypad if you truly need it, why burden everyone with them just to please a small group of people? As a result, quite often, my keyboards are longer than they need to be. While that doesn't sound so bad, and yeah it isn't tragic, it is an annoyance since it takes up valuable desk space.

Today, SteelSeries unveils a new "tenkeyless" (meaning no number pad) gaming keyboard. Called "'Apex M750 TKL," it is based on the existing Apex M750 model which does have a number keypad. The "TKL" designation here signals this variant does not have a number pad. In other words, you are still getting legendary SteelSeries quality and a beautiful design with RGB lighting, all while using up less desk space. Nice!

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As a computer user in 2017, privacy is always on my mind -- as it should be. I suppose I have always cared about securing my information and data, but in recent years, we have learned so many troubling things about government hackers -- including the USA -- that it seems more important than ever. Patriot Edward Snowden really shone a light on the unfortunate state of privacy, or lack thereof, in modern days.

This is why I was very intrigued by the Purism line of laptops. These are computers that are designed with privacy in mind. The Librem 13 v2, which I have been testing, features two hardware kill-switches -- one will cut the webcam and microphone, while the other kills the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios. By cutting access on the hardware level, hackers cannot access these things when switched off. Instead of using a traditional bios system for booting, it even leverages Coreboot. It runs a Linux-based operating system called "Pure OS" which aims to be very secure and private. Unfortunately, the OS ends up being a little too secure, and the weak link of the overall package. But does that really matter?

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While many folks prefer to leverage legal streaming services like Netflix on hardware such as Apple TV and Roku nowadays, other people still prefer accessing locally stored media files. Is that concept dying? Yeah, but it will be a while before it is dead completely. Not to mention, music and movie pirates will keep locally stored downloaded media content alive for quite some time.

Don't get me wrong, not everyone that watches locally stored media files are pirates, but some certainly are. Whether you are accessing downloaded media or streaming content using an addon, the Kodi media center is a great way to experience it. Taking it a step further, a Linux-based operating system that exists just to serve Kodi is even better. Today, one of the best such distros, LibreELEC, gets a major update to version 8.2.0.

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Linux powers the most popular mobile operating system, Android. It is also what many of the world's servers run. Despite this, people still think Linux is merely a hobby or niche project -- sorry, folks, it isn't. Even Microsoft has seen the light regarding Linux -- Bill Gates runs Android and the Windows Store hosts popular Linux distributions.

True, Linux does not have significant market share on consumer desktops, but it is extremely important to the enterprise. This is why Red Hat Inc is so successful with its Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. RHEL isn't the only game in town, however; SUSE Linux Enterprise is a viable alternative for servers, workstations, and more. Today, version 15 of the operating system gets its first beta, and you can begin testing it immediately.

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Despite what some naysayers may proclaim, it is imperative that children not only learn to code, but how to work on various aspects of a coding project too. To take it a step further, it is also a good idea for them to understand the virtues of open source ideology. True, sometimes closed source is better from a business perspective, but still, it is important that kids understand both sides.

Google does a great job supporting the open source community, which is appropriate, as the company leverages the code too. The search giant gives back to the community through programs such as "Google Code-in." If you aren't familiar, it is an educational contest which teaches children about open source by having them working on an actual established project. Today, the Android-maker reveals the mentors that will be participating in Google Code-in 2017.

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