It is completely fair and not overstating to say that the Google Assistant has become one of the Google’s most important products. While people are still fantasizing of contact-less computing experience, which is still not realized by most people, Google Assistant has already worked its way into the society through variety of products like the Google Home and Chromecast. Google Assistant, we can safely say, has become a big part of plenty of people’s lives.
Google has added several new features to the Assistant this year, making it better and more helpful to users. The virtual assistant is now gaining the ability to open up, search, and perform general tasks across your favorite apps. As long as you have an Android phone that is Assistant-enabled, you will be able to open and search within Android apps just by calling; “Hey Google,” or “Okay Google.”
Google has kicked off this deeper integration by partnering with over 30 of the top apps on the Google Play store. Here a list of some of the apps such as Nike Adapt, Nike Run Club, Spotify, Snapchat, Twitter and of course more.
Source: Google
The new integration will allow you to do things that need several taps in the apps themselves. For instance, apps like Nike Run Club can be easily accessed without needing users physical input. This can be huge time saver.
For all the apps that support Google Assistant, you can simply create a shortcut phrases for it and it will perform whatever preset actions for you. Nike’s Adapt training shoes could be a great example. Through Google Assistant, could create a preset action command and get your shoes to automatically tighten itself on your feet. All done via Google’s voice command, something that dreams are made of.
Source: Google
The new usefulness is a major advance towards Google offering a totally without hands processing experience. While Android 11 previously included some genuinely incredible voice control openness choices, this adds much greater usefulness to the Google Assistant.
Google says the Assistant will be able to work with more apps in the near future. You could be a part of this exciting future though by creating these shortcuts and allow developers to map users’ intent to get Google Assistant to integrate with their favourite apps. Stay tuned and be excited for more fantasy acts.
You can agree with us when we say we can never find a comfortable position on any desks. It seems that no matter what normal desk you function out of, you can almost never find the right height. This is why, when an interior designer designs your kitchen for you, they measure your height so that your kitchen counters can be tailored to your height. Of course, also to make sure you can reach the higher floating cabinets.
That is the kitchen though, not the working desks. You go to the office and most tables are at a standard height, and that is annoyingly uncomfortable sometimes. If you are anything taller than average height, the regular office tables are too short for you. Anything below the average height, the table is too tall for you.
Of course, with shorter statures, you can adjust the height of your chair most of the time to solve the problem. If you are just slightly taller than average, the regular office chairs are also just about adjustable enough to ensure that you have the right postures. But you cannot work standing up, in that case.
Bad seating and unsuitable table heights (even chairs, actually) will lead to bad posture which leads to plenty of problems in your body structure too. You get a bad back, because you are either hunched all the time, or you are just straining to look at your monitor. It can even lead to carpal tunnel syndrome because your wrists are resting at very awkward positions. In both cases, your productivity dips, because you are more often fatigued than not. That is just one of the reasons you want to ensure you have the right posture while you work.
You might not be able to change anything in your office at this point though. You cannot possibly ask your boss to buy a table just for you too, you may not own the company. If you are the owner of the company, you might be able to choose your own table. Still, it is quite unreasonable for you to change a table every time you feel uncomfortable, these are not exactly cheap stuff.
You are now working at home most of the time though, no thanks to the current pandemic situation. Your company also realises that your productivity does not change when you work from home. In fact, in some cases, you are more productive than ever. You do not need to brave through the morning traffic, which saves you an hour of sleep. You do not need to brave the traffic home, so you spend less time on the road, and save on fuel. You tend to eat right too, when you have a significant other, or when you live with your family. You are more relaxed at home, so your thought processes tend to be a little better.
You forgot one thing though, your table is still not the right height, and you tend to keep moving your workplace around the house. You tried working on the sofa, that is too comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, productivity dips. Your dining table: you need to eat, and it still is not the right height. Your old office table; what old office table?
Time for you to buy a new working table at home. You need it to be perfect, and flexible enough so that you can work sitting, or standing. You need the EVIS Smart Desk.
Design
The EVIS Smart Desk is, well, a desk that looks like any other office desk. When we say an office desk, we are referring to the more modern interpretation of what an office desk should look like though. Just a plain wood surface with two or four legs. In the case of the EVIS desk, there are two rectangular stalks on each side they call legs, and two huge rectangular feet just slightly narrower than the surface. While traditional tables require up to four leges to hold the weight of the table on each corner, trust me this is as sturdy as it gets.
The unit we have for review is their standard Walnut top. The Walnut top feels like solid wood (it is MFC by the way), and that also means high-quality. On top of the table, in the bottom left corner, there is some white graphics to show you where to put your smartphone. That is the wireless charger built into the table, a nice touch considering most smartphones (flagships mostly) have wireless charging built-in there days. There is also a small latch on the table for your cables to come out of from.
If you buy the table from them too, you can opt for a tray that they put under the latch to hold an extension cord for the table. That extension will ensure that your wireless charger has power, and that you do not have to pull your cable and hair just to get power to your monitor, your PC, or desk lamp.
Of course, there are different colours for the top. You can even choose to get an L-shaped table. We are told also that you can customise the size and shape of the top if you really need. The motors can lift up to 120kg, they say.
The legs, as we mentioned are rectangular in shape, and steel in material with built-in motor. If you look underneath there is a rectangular bar that runs across the length of the table too, to connect the legs underneath and two bars that holds the width of the table to hold the four corners. You do There is a housing for the electronic motor and there is the controller that juts out of the bottom right corner of the table, away from your central seating position. Apparently, you can choose between white or black for the legs.
Work Sitting Down, or Standing Up – Whatever You Need
You can adjust the table from the minimum height of 660mm, which is perfect maybe for your kids, all the way to 1,310mm (1.31m) tall. There is no reason for you to put the table at that height unless you are working standing up as a 2-meter tall human being. You even see the exact height on the adjustment or control panel. You now know your perfect working table height.
What is nice about this kind of motorised movement is that there is no preset height built into the table, which also means you can fine tune the height just for yourself. Since there is a memory function via the control (store up to 4 custom height), you can even set your custom height and forget about it. Every time you get to the table, just press the preset number and you are ready to go. If you need to work standing up, just set the table to your preferred height, get the board to memorise it, forget, use it again the next round. Give it a few seconds, and you are ready to go.
Since there are four available custom preset memory too, you can either share the table with your significant other or have four different functions built to your table. In that case, if you only have room for one table in your house and you need the table to be your workspace, dining table, kitchen top, and even your bar table, the EVIS Smart Desk is perfect. Which also means that this EVIS Smart Desk will be perfect for a studio apartment, you might want to get a larger top though, so that you can comfortably seat four.
Finely Controlled
As mentioned, the controller or height adjustment board is placed on the bottom right corner of the table. It just out just slightly but not enough to be a distraction when you move in and out of your table. Thanks to the rounded corners as well, it should reduce the risks of wire snags or even tearing you a new hold on your shirt or pants. In that case, the module will not even hurt your skin.
While it is meek, it is quite a powerhouse in your hands. You cannot detach it from the table though, mind you. But that also means that there are less wires to worry about.
The buttons seem to be made of glossy plastic, which is technically fine by us. It looks quite premium when it is new and fresh. It smudges easily though thanks to the gloss finish. In this case, we might prefer a slightly more matte treatment to the plastic. While it may not look as premium, it might stand smudges and age better.
Still, under the plastic is also a digital display that tells you the specific height of the table at the time in mm. That information can be quite useless, but hey at least you can tell your office manager that you want the table at the exact height when you make it to the big leagues and they need to make a table for you. That, or when the office finally agrees to buy new table for you.
It is also simple enough to work with, as we mentioned. You probably will only ever use the M button a handful of times in the lifetime of the Smart Desk. That is the memory trigger function, and a long press should trigger it to memorise the height, and all you need to do next is press one of the four buttons to store that height for future use. The table does take about 10 seconds to reach minimum to maximum height though, so you might want to keep that in mind if you are sharing the table with a toddler and you are over 2m in height.
Wireless Charging
We have to inform you at this point that not all EVIS Smart Desks come with Wireless Charging Ability out of the box. It is an optional extra that will set you back MYR 590 (including cable management option). To be fair, that is not a small amount of money on top of the MYR 3,499 that you are already spending on the table.
Look at it this way though. The cable management option comes with that tray that we talked about earlier and an extension cord to give you a sort of peace of mind. You see less cables hanging out of the table too, for a cleaner look. The tray itself is not a cheap aftermarket part in the stores, mind you. Then there is the wireless charger itself.
The 10W wireless charger is, admittedly, not the fastest wireless charger out in the market. You can get a decent fast charger in the market for probably less than the MYR 310 extra EVIS is asking for. But you are going to live with a charger that sits on top of the table, not one sitting within the flat surface of the table. Of course, you can install that wireless charger under the table on your own, but the amount of work that goes into that is quite mind boggling. You also risk destroying your find top.
An Investment for Your Work Set-up
Like we mentioned earlier, there is a chance that you might not be able to change the table in the office currently. If you have not started on a working at home set up though, now is the right time to do it. The EVIS Smart Desk in standard size (1,500mm x 750mm x 25mm), in full retail price will set you back MYR 3,499 at least. With the cable management and installation assistance, the table will set you back MYR 3,979. Add the Wireless charger and you are paying MYR 4,289 (cost of our review unit). For that money also you are getting a 3-year (frame, mechanical and electrical parts) warranty for the product.
If you want, you can make it a little bigger at 1,800mm x 800mm x 25mm for MYR 100 extra. If you need it to be moved around at home, you can add wheels to the legs at MYR 200. An extra year in warranty is another MYR 250. An L-shaped option is an MYR 500 extra, to compensate for the extra surface and extra leg (MYR 300 for wheels, also for extra leg).
For that same money too, you are getting an all-in-one table that can do it all. You are getting a work surface that can lift you to the ceiling to change a light bulb if you must (we are not encouraging this, though they guarantee this will lift 120kg easily). You are getting an elegant wireless charging solution. You are also getting great posture so you feel great and you can be even more productive.
Your boss will be happier since you are more productive. When you become more productive at work, you have more time to spend at home with the family or whoever you want to spend your time too. With great posture as well, you live a healthier life, with less back pains, or shoulder aches. You sleep better too, as a result of that. You spend less going to the Chiropractor to correct your posture, so you save some money in that too. Best of all, you get a desk that works for you, a custom desk that is made only for you, in whatever situation you want to work in. It is premium, yes. You deserve nothing less though.
You can buy the EVIS Smart Desk from EVIS’ own website, or you can head to their showroom in Ikon Connaught, Cheras. Of course, EVIS makes other office furniture like chairs and even monitor stands. You can find all that in their website.
Well known branding like Noble Chairs and Secret Lab released excellent gaming chairs for gamers out there. That said, gaming chairs are all the rage these days. Of course, one of the biggest gaming lifestyle giants, Razer would latch on to this trend. That’s right, Razer has finally unveiled their first gaming chair, the Iskur.
The Iskur is said to have a unique external lumbar support system whose 26-degree customization is meant to improve your posture while gaming or even working. The main focus is to alleviate the middle tension to achieve a neutral spine position to provide minimum burden for your spine. Important when you game for long hours, or when you are sitting down to get your work done all day long of course.
Source: Razer
The Iskur also comes with “4D” armrests, which offer a wide range of adjustment, and will support players up to 6.2′ and 136kg (299 lbs). It’s made from multi-layered synthetic leather and the rear back cushion is made from high density foam cushion. The Iskur’s jut-out-at-an-angle lumbar pad which look like a snake belly is quite one of the highlight of Razer signature. A memory foam head cushion is also included to keep you at the optimum posture.
Whichever way you look at it, the Razer Iskur does look very similar to the Secret Lab’s very own Omega and Titan. That may not necessarily be a bad thing though. The Secret Lab Omega and Titan are very highly acclaimed gaming chairs, regarded to be the best in the business. Razer denies that the Iskur is anything like the Secret Lab chairs though.
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
Source: Razer
The Razer Iskur is now available for US$ 499 (approx. RM 2,071) through Razer’s official website. There are no mentions on whether or not the Razer Iskur will come to Malaysia. Here are some fingers crossed. For more information on the Razer Iskur you can head down to their website.
Eye protection is especially important in these times of uncertainty and work from home trend (no thanks to the COVID-19 situation, of course). You tend to sit in front of your digital display longer than usual too.What that means is that eye fatigue becomes a problem and that is when you need to start investing in glasses.
Since the average of screen time for both young and adults are increasing day by day. It is important to take care of our health. All that while also maintaining a high productivity at home in this trying times.
BenQ GW2780T Eye-Care Monitor
Source: BenQ
Welcome to the BenQ GW2780T Eye-Care monitor, a 27-inch display that is designed exactly to help you work more comfortably at home. It is designed to keep your eyes in tip top conditions. That, combined with something they call a Monitor Light bar makes the perfect combination to protect your eye in whatever work condition you are thrown into. Interesting stuff this.
BenQ says that this GW2780T Eye-Care monitor is built specifically for remote working and learning environments. The BenQ GW2780T is technically a successor to the GW2480T, but is 3 inches bigger than its predecessor at 27 inches vs 24 inches on the GW2480T. The GW2780T Eye-care monitor is the latest model in BenQ’s G-series LED monitors which offers users with health emphasis.
The GW2780T Eye-Care monitor uses their clever Brightness Intelligence technology to automatically adjust the screen’s brightness and light to cater to the user’s environment. The display automatically enhances dark areas of the display and adapts its brightness so that bright areas do not get overexposed as well. That way, you are not going to get blinded when working in low-light conditions just because you forgot to turn the lights on.
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Both the GW2780T Eye-Care Monitor can be connected to your tablets, laptops, and even a smartphone as long as you have the right cables. Height adjustments on the display also means that you get to be really comfortable while working without straining your neck; the GW2780T Eye-Care Monitor does not only take care of your eyes. Speaking back on Eye-care, BenQ also introduced the Monitor Light Screenbar.
BenQ Monitor Light ScreenBar
Source: BenQ
This is a very simple hardware attachment to a monitor really. It is technically a very advanced, very cool looking, baseless desk lamp. It attaches to your display to give you the right lighting condition in any setting. It features auto-dimming too, just so that you do not have to keep readjusting your lights as it gets darker or brighter in the day.
Thanks to BenQ’s patented clip design, the ScreenBar does not need to be stood on a table. That eliminates the need to waste table real-estate for a lamp on your table. All you need is a monitor and you are set. It is also USB powered, so you just need to plug it into your PC, or find a spare charger somewhere.
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
Source: BenQ
There are 14 brightness levels and 8 colour temperatures to work with. You can go all the way to yellow for a more comfortable time reading stuff on your book, your tablet, or your smartphone. That is especially helpful when you are nearing your bed time. Then in the day, when you need some white light, the ScreenBar delivers. Its clever optical design also means that it will not shine to the glass of the display, creating an annoying reflective glare on the display.
Western Digital (WD) has stolen the limelight of Samsung with their latest announcement of their newest PCIe 4.0 Solid State Drive (SSD) offering a serious performance for gamers, along with an NVMe SSD add-in-card, plus a game dock. They call it the Black, and it it serious. It is seriously fast.
Source: Western Digital
The latest WD Black SN850 is the fastest SSD to boot currently, faster than Samsung’s recently announced Samsung SSD 980 Pro. At least in write speeds, it is. The WD Black SN850 offers up to 7000MB/s and 5300MB/s (300MB/s faster than the Samsung) with a brand new cache technology that should help reduce load times on PC or in games.
Furthermore, WD also mentions that the SN850 offers a smooth and responsive gaming experience with up to 1,000,000 random read IOPS. The new drive is powered by the WD/Kioxia BiSCS4, which is a 96-layer TLC 3D NAND memory. What does that mean? It just means that your games will never run the same. That, or you will never play your games the same way.
Source: Western Digital
WD will also sell the SN850 with an optional heatsink. The heatsink features a gamer-aesthetic sleek design, along with an RGB lighting system that is customizable with the WD Black Dashboard software. The RGB system only comes with the heatsink-equipped WD Black SN850 drives, so if you are a fan of RGB, you know your pick. With that kind of read/write speeds too, you might want to ensure that your SSD remains cool to work with.
PCIe 4.0 drive became the most demanded type of drive since the Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5) demo and introduction, with good reason. While Sony hasn’t exactly published any sort of official compatibility list for the drives that can work best on the new console, WD has already marked the WD Black SN850 as PS5 compatible. We wonder if the WD Black SN850 with a heatsink would fit well on the PS5’s PCIe 4.0 M.2 slot.
Source: Western Digital
Source: Western Digital
Source: Western Digital
Source: Western Digital
Source: Western Digital
Source: Western Digital
Source: Western Digital
Maintaining that compelling price-performance ratio, the SN850 will likely prove a potent challenger for Samsung’s 980 Pro when WD’s drive goes on sale before the end of October (a heatsink-equipped version of the SN850 will follow in 2021, costing a bit more). The new drives come with an optional heatsink, RGB lighting, and comes in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities. If you want one, the 500 GB variant without the heatsink will set you back US$ 149.99 (MYR 618*), the 1TB will set you back US$ 229.99 (MYR 949*), and the 2TB (which we suspect might not make it to Malaysia) will set you back US$ 449.99 (MYR 1,862*). The heatsink will add US$ 20 (MYR 83*) to your purchase.
* Based on Approximate Rate US$ 1 = MYR 4.14 as of 12/10/2020
If you’re looking to buy or upgrade a new desktop, it may be worth waiting until next year 2021. AMD has just announced their AMD Ryzen 5000, technically their most powerful CPU yet. Recently, Intel has confirmed that its 11th generation, “Rocket Lake” CPUs will be launching in the first quarter of 2021. The update, of course, comes with other parts as well. The Z490 motherboard for example, and support for PCIe 4.0.
Intel’s Rocket Lake is expected to be built upon the same Skylake architecture as the previous five generation of 14nm. That, or it is built upon Intel’s Cove microarchitecture designs. Technically Rocket Lake will be more powerful just based on the fact that you have PCIe 4.0 support over PCIe 3.0. In this update as well, Intel technically matched the new AMD Ryzen chips with PCIe 4.0 support.
There are no mentions on whether or not there are more PCIe lanes supported compared to the previous generation CPU though. The ASRock Z490 Aqua, built for next generation Intel processors, is built with a PCle 4.0 storage M.2 slot. Using the PCIe 4.0 slot on the board will render the PCIe 3.0 slots useless, or unusable.
Mind you, these things are said before AMD’s big announcement of the AMD Ryzen 5000 series. At this point, no one knew or could expect the kind of progress AMD has made in their new CPUs. As we have discovered, it is a monumental swing of momentum in AMD’s favour, just based on AMD’s announcement.
Intel has been making pre-emptive move with updating the Skylake architecture and introducing Tiger Lake. Up until last week, Intel still holds the title of ‘most powerful gaming processor’ available in the market. In some sense, we can expect Rocket Lake to take that title back at least. With the likelihood of Intel not moving away from 14nm processes though, it might be a long shot. All we can do, is wait and see.
The race to create the fastest PC has been heating up over the past few years with AMD making a huge come back with their highly acclaimed AMD Ryzen line-up of CPUs. With the introduction of their AMD Ryzen 3000 series with their Zen 2 architecture, the Taiwan based chip maker has more than made up the lost grounds that Intel has for so many years.
When AMD’s Ryzen 3000 series line-up was launched, they became some of the most advanced processor that you could get for your money. With state-of-the-art 7nm processing, the Ryzen 3000 series proved to be a lot more efficient and could run even more cores at respectable speeds. This also means that the AMD Ryzen 3000 series of processors pack more cores than their competition, and perform admirably better in multiple instances, when productivity matters. They still lose out in gaming performance though.
Source: AMD
AMD introduced their AMD Ryzen 4000 some months ago, if you remember. The only issue is that the AMD Ryzen 4000 series was not what we expected it to be. It looked like a rehashed AMD Ryzen 3000 with Zen 2 architecture that performed just slightly better than the older processor, and more efficiently. It could not be purchased as a single product on its own too. The only way to get the AMD Ryzen 4000 desktop CPUs is through system builders like Acer, ASUS, Dell, and such.
In that case, we thought that the later announcement by AMD (which just happened last week) would be a special one. Our patience has been awarded by Dr. Lisa Su, and her team, with the highly anticipated Zen 3 architecture. It is just that it came in a different format.
Source: AMD
Instead of Ryzen 4000, they call it the AMD Ryzen 5000 and claims it to be their biggest step up in their CPU line-up. Rightly so, with AMD’s Zen 3 architecture allowing a larger and more instant access to the memory banks. That also means twice faster memory read speeds on your storage front. That, while maintaining great efficiency.
In this generation as well, AMD claims that the Ryzen series can now claim to be the world’s most powerful CPU for both work and play. They claim that the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X (their flagship CPU) is now the fastest, most powerful CPU for gaming. While there is no direct benchmark comparison just yet with Tiger Lake, we want to believe them.
Source: AMD
AMD has made significant step up in terms of both multi-core and multi-thread performance. That also means that the Ryzen series is still kings when it comes to things like video processing, 3D rendering, and even heavy multi workloads (multitasking). But that is not all the progress they have made.
They have also stepped up in single-core performances as well. According to them, their performance bump in single-core performances are in the double digits, in percentages anyway. In that sense, we have not seen double digit performance gains all too often in the CPU industry.
Source: AMD
The double-digit increase in performance though is not just beating out the AMD Ryzen 3000 line-up though. In their own tests, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X outperformed its slightly older generation competition by an impressive margin too, in gaming performance and other single-core workloads (Blender). That also means, in theory anyway, the AMD Ryzen 9 5900X should be more powerful than even the latest generation Intel Tiger Lake line-up.
What this also means for you gamers, is that you can now push your games to get more frames per second than before, way more. Considering that all your other work-related stuff will not be affected, this should now be the CPU of choice for you PC builders. It is just as power efficient as before too with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X consuming a rated power of 65W and the top of the line AMD Ryzen 6 5950X pulling only 105W.
MODEL
CORES/ THREADS
TDP (Watts)
BOOST/BASE FREQ. (GHz)
TOTAL CACHE
COOLER
Price US$ (MYR*)
EXPECTED AVAILABILITY
AMD Ryzen™ 9 5950X
16C/32T
105W
Up to 4.9 / 3.4
72MB
N/A
$799
November 5, 2020
AMD Ryzen™ 9 5900X
12C/24T
105W
Up to 4.8 / 3.7
70MB
N/A
$549
November 5, 2020
AMD Ryzen™ 7 5800X
8C/16T
105W
Up to 4.7 / 3.8
36MB
N/A
$449
November 5, 2020
AMD Ryzen™ 5 5600X
6C/12T
65W
Up to 4.6 / 3.7
35MB
Wraith Stealth
$299
November 5, 2020
The AMD Ryzen 5000 series will be available internationally from the 5th November 2020 onward. Malaysia will be included as the first few countries to get the AMD Ryzen 5000 series as well. We do expect a few delays there and here though, which also means the processors can be expected to be available a few days after the 5th of November 2020. They are even priced similarly to the older AMD Ryzen 3000 series to begin with. The AMD Ryzen 5000 series starts at US$ 299 (MYR 1,237*) with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and tops out at US$ 799 (MYR 3,306*) with the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. Bring on the Big Navi.
Lenovo’s Carbon line up has long been reserved for its premium ThinkPad line up which the company gears for corporations. However, this year, Lenovo is trying something new by bringing the Carbon’s signature thin and light form factor to its Yoga line up. Joining the recently announced Yoga Slim 7i and Slim 7i Duet, the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon enhances Lenovo’s portfolio with an even more premium laptop focusing on the thin and light form factor.
The new Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon weighs only 966 grams but packs specifications to allow you to be productive on the go. The laptop brings the signature carbon fiber build of the ThinkPad Carbon to the Yoga line up bringing both durability and a lightweight build. The material boasts the company’s proprietary second generation Web-Core 2.0 Carbon Fiber with enhance rigidity and durability while reducing the material weight by up to 40%.
The chassis isn’t the only thing that the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon has going for it. It comes either an 11th Generation Intel Core i7-1165G7 or a Core i501135G7 bringing capable performance complemented by Intel’s new IRIS Xe graphics. There are options for either 8GB or 16GB of dual channel DDR4 RAM with options of up to 1TB PCIe M.2 SDD storage.
The Yoga Slim 7i Carbon comes with a 13-inch Quad HD display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The display panel has 100% coverage of the sRGB gamut and has been certified by TÜV-Rheinland to be low blue light emitting. The panel also has Dolby Vision and Atmos optimisations, according to Lenovo. The display comes with super slim, 3mm bezels which allow for a more immersive experience. The hinge has 180° of rotation.
On the connectivity end, the Yoga Slim 7i Carbon comes with 2 USB Type C ports with support for Thunderbolt 4, PD 3.0, DisplayPort 1.4 and USB 4; 1 USB Type C with support for PD3.0, DisplayPort 1.4 and USB3.2 and an audio combo jack. It also supports WiFi 6 (802.11ax) and Bluetooth 5.0. It also supports Windows Hello with its IR camera.
Pricing & Availability
The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Carbon will be available in Moon White for MYR4,399. Release date is to be confirmed.
VMWorld is happening now and coincidently, NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference is also happening. Both are happening online, obviously with the current pandemic situation. In NVIDIA’s most recent keynote, they made an announcement to tell the world that they have just formed a partnership with VMWare to enhance their virtualisation capabilities via NVIDIA’s new GPU based computing solutions.
Today’s start of the show though is not NVIDIA, although they have made some very interesting announcements and progress. Today sees VMWare embracing Kubernetes as a big part of their business. Today is the day of Tanzu.
Kubernetes
Source: Kubernetes
What is Kubernetes? First of all, no; this is not the first time we look into the technology. Secondly, the technology is nothing new, Google has been playing with Kubernetes for the longest time, and other solutions providers have hopped on to the technology for years now.
Kubernetes, in the words of Red Hat, is a container orchestration platform. The keyword, that I missed out on purpose, is Open Source. That also means that anyone has access to it, improve on it, and improvise it for their own use. It is a technology developed by Google engineers for Google’s own use at one point, but because Google is Google, they made it an open source platform.
In simpler words, Kubernetes group processes and application databases into cubes (or containers). These cubes can be called upon whenever an application requires a certain data or run certain processes. That also means that you do not need to necessarily store your application database with your application. It can be kept and shifted around anywhere, even on cloud. It is even clever enough to stack and unstack itself depending on requirements and loads on your hardware. If something fails, you do not lose all your data, because containers. This is the magic of Kubernetes, and it could benefit plenty of enterprises.
The VMware Tanzu
Source: VMware
This is where VMware’s Tanzu comes in. The Tanzu portfolio is not exactly a pure Kubernetes workflow platform. It runs microservices, other sort of containers and Kubernetes as well. To put it plainly, it is an application breakdown tool. It breaks down a large application or database into smaller containers, run them as microservices or work with them as Kubernetes containers, and you get a service that is accessible not only in your office, but at the café down the road as well.
Yes, it sounds generally like what other container type application and tool does. Because it is exactly that but made native to VMWare’s tools. Tools like this allow companies to add capabilities to their applications and processes while keeping them running in tip top conditions. They call this DevOps.
The whole idea of running Tanzu on the VMware platform is to quickly deploy your applications on cloud. Because it is VMware as well, Tanzu is specifically built on Kubernetes to enhance their virtualisation solutions like vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation. That also means that Tanzu is a cloud solution more than anything. It is also technically a Kubernetes management tool to simplify Kubernetes for users. So, it helps you, as VMware’s clients (if you are, when you are, whichever it may be) get started with Kubernetes nearly on the get go.
They may be a little late to the game of deploying Kubernetes and even fully harnessing the power of Kubernetes. They are also not going to be the last adopters of Kubernetes. In some sense too, they are simplifying Kubernetes by a factor of 10 for their customers.
Source: IT Hollow
In this case as well, customers might already have their own Kubernetes and container management tools in their workflow at this point. VMware says that customers still can benefit from Tanzu even if they have a Kubernetes workflow already. According to VMware, Tanzu does not just stop at Kubernetes. It is a suite of tools designed to ease workloads and centralise management efforts for customers. In that sense, integrating Tanzu into an existing Kubernetes workload and process is just a matter of matching what is required via Tanzu’s Mission Control platform.
Why Tanzu and Kubernetes?
Here is the thing though, how does this change our lives? How does VMware with Kubernetes power change our lives? After all, we are all just end-users.
If you work in a corporate environment, at this time of Pandemic, you would most likely be spending more time working remotely more than anything else. Imagine yourself, multiplied by more than a few hundred. There are hundreds, or even thousands of you and your colleagues trying to access your company’s intranet systems. You and your colleagues are going to be accessing the company’s systems to simply key in new data, or pull a previous data, or even share some work information with your colleagues 20KM away.
Imagine if you need to access the whole chunk of applications to do any of that. Imagine if all your colleagues need to access a single application server for all their minor processes too. That could slow down your entire workflow. Kubernetes and container platforms help spread that workload to ease load on a single server and ensure that everyone gets to do what they need to do without overloading your PC and the cloud platform.
Essentially, this is also kind of how your smartphone app works. Your smartphone apps access what you ask it to access when you need it. That way, it saves plenty of storage space in your smartphone, and ensure that millions of others can also access the app and its services when there is demand.
So, why is Tanzu important? It allows your company to do exactly whatever that we have just explained and described. Except that your organisation’s IT department can do it faster, from a single management platform instead of accessing a completely different system. With vSphere, the management can be done across multiple server sites too, thanks to VMware’s know how in machine virtualisation. All this, just so that you will not notice any difference when you work from home, and in the office.
To know more about VMware, their services and solutions, and Tanzu, you can head over to their website.
ASUS ROG announced their AMD powered Zephyrus G14 back at CES. The laptop is the first laptop in their line up to come with what they are calling the AniMe Matrix which brings a whole new level of personalisation. It’s also the one of the most powerful 14-inch gaming laptops in the market right now.
The company is upping the ante in a collaboration with ACRONYM, a design agency, to create a special edition Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop. The new edition of the ROG Zephyrus G14 will be modeled in a sleek black with ACRONYM’s signature design flairs accenting the laptop. The ROG ZEPHYRUS G14 ACRONYM RMT01 utilizes leading edge machining, finishing, engraving and painting techniques for a premium finish.
The collaboration with ACRONYM is the latest in a series of collaborations that ASUS has undertaken since the launch of the G14. Previously, ASUS announced a special collaboration with renown DJ Alan Walker. The new ROG x ACRONYM edition is also ASUS’s reaffirmation to their commitment that a gamer is not just a gamer, but a creator.
Pricing & Availability
The special ROG x ACRONYM Edition of the Zephyrus G14 is available now in Malaysia for MYR11,299.
