Daily Tech News 21 March 2024

• The US House of Representatives is doing something vaguely useful for once: It just passed a bill banning the sale of your private information to the nation's enemies. (The Verge)
  
  No, not Washington DC. They already have your information. The other enemies.
  
  
  

• Dungeons and Dragons is dying of acute woke poisoning but I still kind of want this D&D Lego set. (The Verge)
  
  It comes with a dragon, a beholder, a displacer beast, a gelatinous cube, an owlbear, and a mimic, as well as a team of adventurers for them to menace.
  
  
  
• MacOS 14.4 may have another trick up its sleeve: Deleting your files. (MacRumors)
  
  If you're using iCloud for storage because you bought a 256GB MacBook Air and it filled up instantly and you can't upgrade the storage, well, if you delete the local copy of a file you have on iCloud it might just delete all the backups on iCloud as well.
  
  This is not good.
  
  
  
• The Asus Vivobook 15 OLED has received a little upgrade this year.
  
  While it still has a Ryzen 7730U CPU and comes with 16GB of RAM upgradable to 40GB (8GB soldered and one SO-DIMM slot), the screen has improved from a 1920x1080 60Hz panel to 2880x1620 120Hz.
  
  So 50% better in X and Y and 100% better in T.
  
  It costs A$1200 vs. A$2200 for the Zenbook 15 OLED I mentioned recently (about $800 vs. $1450).
  
  The differences are:
  
  * It has a Ryzen 7730U vs. the 7735U in the more expensive model
  * It's half a pound heavier
  * Despite that, it actually has a smaller battery
  
  So obviously the Zenbook is built and priced as a premium model, but the screen in the cheaper Vivobook is identical (and excellent), the CPU performance is identical, and it's 40% cheaper.
  
  I looked at getting the previous model Vivobook a couple of years ago but passed it up. With the updated screen I think I'll get one, and swap in 32GB of RAM and a 4TB SSD from my old HP laptop which has developed a couple of minor issues... Like just switching itself off whenever it feels like it.
  
  My preferred online store says they'll have it in stock on Monday.
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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