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It was the iPod touch that first turned me on to iOS. The gateway drug to getting an iPhone if you will. I had the second and third gen models before graduating to Apple’s smartphone (and the iPad), and if it wasn't for that, I'd probably be an Android user with a Samsung Galaxy S10.

I wouldn’t buy an iPod touch now that I have an iPhone XS, but if you want to enjoy the delights offered by the App Store, without spending a fortune on a flagship phone, then it’s the perfect solution, and Apple has just introduced a new, much faster and more capable model.

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Just yesterday, CORSAIR shocked the world with the PCIe 4.0 MP600 SSD. This new drive will offer insane read and write speeds. While this new CORSAIR drive is certainly exciting, the reality is, most consumers won’t have a PCIe 4.0 compatible computer anytime soon. I’m sure plenty of early adopters will buy an X570-based motherboard and 3rd generation AMD Ryzen processor, but the majority of machines will not have PCIe 4.0 for many years.

With all of that said, NVMe solid state drives based on PCIe 3.0 will remain an attractive option for a while, and today, Toshiba announces an upgrade to its XG6 model. called "XG6-P," it offers very respectable speeds and should appeal to gamers, enthusiasts, and the enterprise too. It is likely to find itself in several laptops from PC manufacturers.

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An update to any operating system, be it mobile or desktop, is a mix-bag of positives and negatives. Exciting new features have deprecation as a counterpoint, and while there is always the hope that updates will improve things, there is always the danger that things will actually get worse.

If you're concerned that updating your iPhone to the latest version of iOS will result in a reduction in performance, there's some good news. Apple has agreed to warn people if an update is "expected to materially change the impact of performance management on their phones".

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If you have a computer with a Qualcomm Wi-Fi adaptor, you could well find that you suffer from random connection dropouts after installing Windows 10 May 2019 Update.

The problem stems from a problem with older Wi-Fi drivers, and to avoid problems for user Microsoft has chosen to halt the rollout of the update to systems that could be affected. In addition, the company has issued a warning against manually or forcibly installing the May 2019 Update.

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Storage drive speed has been greatly increasing over the past several years. It is remarkable to think how far we have come from slow mechanical hard drives thanks to the solid state drive revolution. We are at the point where SATA-based SSDs are considered "old hat" -- it is the faster NVMe PCI Express (PCIe) drives that are all the rage these days.

Earlier today, AMD unveiled its new third generation Ryzen 3 processors, and with them, the brand new X570 chipset for socket AM4. The exciting aspect of this new chipset generation is the addition of PCIe 4.0. The fourth generation of PCIe will be markedly faster than the prior gen, allowing even faster solid state drives. And yes, a company (CORSAIR) has already announced one (MP600).

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AMD has been consistently releasing powerful processors that are also a great value. In other words, unlike Intel (which expects you to mortgage your house for one of its chips), AMD makes high performance affordable. I suppose you could say, AMD processors are for computer enthusiasts that don't have unlimited budgets.

Today at Computex 2019, AMD unveils its blazing fast 3rd Gen Ryzen processors. These 7nm chips are based on Zen 2 architecture, and have up to 12 cores and a 4.6GHz boost frequency. Best of all, pricing starts below $200! Equally exciting is the new X570 chipset, which features PCIe 4.0 -- this means even faster NVMe solid state drives.

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In a world that is increasingly concerned about privacy and security, Bittium launches the Tough Mobile 2. Proudly billed as "the world's most secure smartphone" it takes a multilayered approach to security, combining both hardware and software solutions.

More than just secure, the Bittium Tough Mobile 2 -- as the use of the word "tough" would imply -- is also a rugged phone (although it does not proclaim to be the toughest phone in world). Designed and manufactured in Finland, the phone is aimed at professionals, and boasts "ultra secure communications without compromising usability".

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Today at Computex 2019, Intel and AMD have both unveiled their latest chips. Intel previewed its Special Edition Core i9 9900KS, an 8-core chip with the unique ability to run all of the cores at 5GHz simultaneously. The company also revealed details of Ice Lake, its 10nm mobile processors.

At the same time, AMD has also announced the Ryzen 3000 range of CPUs. Included in this range is the Ryzen 9 3900X, a 12-core chip running at 4.6GHz -- for the bargain price of $499.

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There’s a chance you might remember a gaming console startup named Ouya. Many of us bought in to it hoping for something that, while less than Xbox One and PS4, might at least be fun. We got the former, but not the latter. It lasted a few weeks in my home before being disconnected forever.

Apparently at some point, after it was mostly just gathering dust, it gained a TV service named Razer Forge. There was probably an announcement, but I missed it.

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Amazon's e-ink Kindle-reader devices, Fire tablets, and the associated e-book service are wildly popular. Competitor devices, such as the Nook from Barnes and Noble, simply don't compare. Is it worrying that Amazon essentially has a stranglehold on the digital book market? I suppose, but look, no other company has truly put up a worthy alternative. Even Apple's Books service, while decent, doesn't have an e-ink reader -- reading on an iPad is not ideal.

Sadly, Traditional Chinese readers were not able to properly take advantage of Amazon's Kindle. Thankfully, this has now changed. Yes, Amazon has brought support for Traditional Chinese books to Kindle!

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Apple recently launched its fastest MacBook Pro ever, featuring a processor with up to eight cores. But as well as speed, improvements have also been made to the keyboard design, and the material used in it.

Rather than waiting for Apple to reveal its secrets, iFixit decided to subject the MacBook Pro 15" Touch Bar 2019 to one of its infamous teardowns to find out for itself. Scientific analysis of the material gives an insight into its composition.

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The launch of the Samsung Galaxy Fold has been, er, problematic to say the least. After serious issues were discovered with the folding screen, the company first announced a postponement to the launch, and then told people who had placed pre-orders that their orders would be canceled.

Now BestBuy has followed suit, announcing that it too is canceling pre-orders. The retailer says that Samsung has faced "a plethora of unforeseen hiccups", and because the company has failed to provide a new release date, BestBuy feels it is only fair to its customers to cancel the orders.

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This weekend marks exactly a year since the introduction of the EU's GDPR legislation shook up the world of data protection and sent businesses around the world into a flurry of compliance activity.

So, what has the industry learned over the past year and what are the ongoing challenges we can expect to see? We've gathered the views of some industry experts.

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With a never-ending supply of new security threats presenting themselves every day, it can be tough for IT departments to keep up.

While perimeter security continues to be important, the sheer volume of novel attacks means that, eventually, an attack will bypass defenses and gain a foothold in the interior. To harden the network interior, best practice now calls for microsegmentation to achieve a zero trust environment, but that’s not easy to do.

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Samsung makes some of the best internal Solid State Drives -- they are fast and reliable. That is why many gamers and enthusiasts choose the company's SSDs for their computers. Samsung makes great portable SSDs too, including the popular T5, which uses USB-C.

Now, the Samsung T5 is getting two new color options -- Rose Gold and Metallic Red. This is in addition to the existing Deep Black and Alluring Blue options. Both new colors can be had in two capacities -- 500GB and 1TB. Unfortunately, the 2TB capacity model remains black only. A 250GB model is available too, but only in blue.

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