TECH NEWS

The Reasons Rugged Laptops Are Rarely Bought By Consumers

Rugged laptops solve problems most consumers don't have, and they charge a premium for doing it.

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Most laptops are designed to handle little more than the occasional bump or an overstuffed backpack. But rugged laptops are designed for much worse.

For instance, Panasonic's Toughbook 40 is rated for 6-foot drops, is dust- and water-resistant (IP66) and has been tested to MIL-STD-810H standards. Its touchscreen is compatible with gloves, batteries are replaceable and multiple sections can be configured with different ports or hardware. Panasonic markets the Toughbook to field service and public safety users, along with military personnel, who may work around rain, dirt, vibration and heavy machinery.

All of that comes at a price, of course. The Toughbook 40 weighs 7.5 pounds, and while the original modelwas priced at $4,899 back in 2022, Panasonic doesn't list a current starting price for the Toughbook 40. Instead, the company...

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Petivity's New Smart Feeder Asks The Question 'What If Flock, But For Cats?'

In all seriousness, this could be quite handy for multi-cat households. Petivity, which is owned by Purina, just introduced a new smart pet feeder designed exclusively for cats. The main hook here is that it has cameras and uses AI-enabled facial recognition algorithms to track when and how much a

What Typically Uses The Most Data On A Smartphone?

You might be burning through data faster than you think. Ipopba/Getty Images According to Ericsson's mobile traffic data report, the world currently moves around 150-200 exabytes of mobile data monthly. That is 150-200 million terabytes monthly. And that number is only going to keep increasing; Ericsson forecasts

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A single git trick beat the safety lock on four AI coding agents

The AI industry already knew attackers could poison plugin marketplaces. Its answer was to lock every plugin to one reviewed version of its code. That lock is what just broke. Researchers at Air Security published a vulnerability on Thursday that they call Plugin4Shell. It affects the four most widely used

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The EU will rate data centres on energy and water from 2027

Europe’s data centers are to be graded on how much energy and water they use, under a rating scheme proposed on Monday by the European Commission. Any individual site drawing more than 500 kW is covered. What the rating measures is not only consumption but what a data center

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Petivity's New Smart Feeder Asks The Question 'What If Flock, But For Cats?'

What Typically Uses The Most Data On A Smartphone?

A single git trick beat the safety lock on four AI coding agents

The EU will rate data centres on energy and water from 2027