Tech News Roundup for June 3, 2020

Here are few things from the last couple days that got my attention

Dell XPS 13 Long Term Review

I’ve owned this laptop for almost two years, and used it almost every day. I wrote about the good and the bad about it.

thewunderbar

Leaked image of new Google streaming stick

Google’s Chromecast has been a wonderful device and technology, and really advanced how we streamed content.  With not much more than a simple tap of a button on our phones, we can send video content to a TV through a chromecast device.  But one thing that Chromecast has always lacked is direct control of the device.  There is no remote, and no way to control a chromecast device without a smartphone or tablet.  For some users, this has been a deal breaker.  Google’s answer appears to be a device that is similar to a chromecast, but features Android TV built in.  It still supports traditional Chromecast from a device, but this new device will include a remote, and a GUI interface so it can be used independently.  It is likely that this device would have been announced at Google I/O, but with that event being cancelled, it remains a mystery when Google will announce it.  Hopefully it is soon.

Mobilesyrup

30 Years Later, Unreleased “Days of Thunder” Game for the Nintendo Entertainment System Recovered from Floppy Disks

A really fun one here.  A video game adaptation of the movie “Days of Thunder” was originally planned for the original Nintendo video game system, but was never released.  Recenlty, someone found the source code of the game spanning across multiple floppy disks, and was able to reconstruct it and get the game working.

gamehistory.org

Mark Zuckerberg faces backlash from employees over Facebook’s policy on fact checking and taking down misinformation

Mark Zuckerberg has largely kept Facebook with a “hands off” approach to posts with false or incorrect information.  This is in contrast to Twitter, which has increased it’s labelling of such content, recently restricting and/or labelling Tweets from US President Donald Trump.  Zuckerberg has so far said Facebook will not take similar action, and is facing significant push back from employees on this practice.

The Verge

SpaceX Falcon 9

Ars Technica has a great piece about the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which has been the key to the company’s success.  There are a couple really interesting stories about the early days and first few launches of the Falcon rockets.

Ars Technica

Microsoft Edge rolling out via Windows Update

Microsoft has completely rewritten the Edge Broswer, which is the built in web browser in Windows 10. The first version of it was made available in January, and now Microsoft will begin pushing it out automatically via Windows Update.  This will replace the previous version of Edge.  The new Edge is based off of Google’s Chrome browser.

Thurrott