News written by James Delahunty

Samsung sent us their modern, top-level robot vacuum cleaner for our test and review.

The Samsung Jet Bot 90 AI+ has a whopping price tag of around €1,400, and is the Korean CE giant's first attempt to push itself to the top of the world of robot vacuum cleaners.

We tested the robovac, which first went on sale in 2021, for a month and a half. As always, in our test we examine not only the cleaning power of the vacuum cleaner, but also its ease of use and especially the practicality of the device in a Finnish home.

The first half of the test period was spent in a typical and "easy" Finnish home, from the point of view of a robovac. The other half was a more challenging environment, including the presence of a pet that sheds hair, a bunch of carpets of varying thickness and shape, and a significant number of different obstacles that can make life difficult for a robot vacuum cleaner.

Due to our extensive past experience testing robot vacuum cleaners, we have a good understand of the potential challenges and problem areas that a robovac can encounter while doing its duty.

1. Samsung Jet Bot 90 Ai+ appearance and design
2. Technical information
3. Self-emptying charging dock
4. Samsung deployment
5. Samsung SmartThings smartphone app
6. Specialty: Camera surveillance
7. Activities
8. How should a robot vacuum cleaner be used?
9. Battery life
10. Carpets
11. Furniture
12. Other obstacles - and their avoidance
13. Pets
14. Problems
15. Cleaning traces
16. Summary
17. Is the Samsung Jet Bot 90 AI+ worth buying?
18. Pros
19. Cons
20. The stars

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We were given one of Samsung's new generation of robotic vacuum cleaners for a review: the new Samsung Jet Bot 80+, which is also sold under the name Samsung Jet Bot+.

It is a robot vacuum cleaner with a self-emptying dust container, which was released in the European market in 2021. Before this current series, Samsung was out of the robot vacuum business for years - bot now the company has decided to make a return to the market.

As usual, we put the robot to a work for more than three months. During our test period, the vacuum cleaner took care of cleaning the floor surfaces of two different apartments, as the only tool used for cleaning the floors.

Important to our test (as usual) is how suitable the product is for pet owners. Therefore, the test appropriately included everyday experience with how the Robo copes with pet hair and other problems that pets bring with them to the home.

The selling price for this product is around €500 in Finland, so it is placed in a difficult price segment in that sense: in the 500 euro range, top products are also available from competitors that manufacture robot vacuum cleaners, and they have more of a reputation in the market than Samsung.

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When browsing mobile phones, headphones, Bluetooth speakers, etc. a device's IP classification is often mentioned. This refers to the devices waterproof and dust-resistance rating. There are a large number of IP classifications however, and most people don't know much about them. Here, we take a look at what the numbers mean.

A typical mobile phone IP rating can be, for example, IP68. Correspondingly, you often see IP57 rating in headphones. This is actually two separate numbers: the first number means dust resistance the second number means water resistance. The higher the number, the better!

The tests are carried out in official laboratory conditions and an official, approved IP classification is given to the device after the tests are concluded.

The first number of the IP classification, dust resistance, is defined as follows:

Number	What does it mean?
0	No protection against dust at all.
1	Protection against objects up to 5 cm in size, i.e. particles larger than five centimeters cannot enter the device's structures.
2	Protection against 12.5 mm particles. That is, objects larger than a good centimeter cannot enter the device's structures.
3	Protection against 2.5 mm particles. Small, but clearly visible, quarter-centimeter-sized particles cannot enter the device's structures.
4	Protection against 1 mm particles. Pieces with a diameter of a millimeter - and pieces larger than that - cannot enter the device's structures.
5	Protected from dust. In practice, no dust gets inside the device to the extent that it would hinder the operation of the device. Dust accumulations may occur.
6	Perfectly protected against dust. Dustproof.

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Many home network problems are related to a slow Wi-Fi connection, which causes tension for all family members using a wireless network. At worst, the problems cause video stuttering, slow download speeds, and can even make remote work difficult or impossible.

Fortunately, a lot of wireless network problems are relatively easy to solve. In this guide, we listed easy tips to improve your own WLAN connection, which should work with all Internet operators.

1. What causes WiFi problems?
2. Start by measuring Internet speed
3. Does the problem affect all devices?
   • Problems with only one device? What to do?
4. Change the WLAN channel
5. Switch from 2.4GHz to 5GHz network
6. Channel width
7. Find the right place for the base station
8. Is someone else using your network?
9. Mesh network, will it help?
10. Change base station
11. Use wired Internet connection

What are the common causes of WiFi problems?

In practice, the most typical problems are caused by bad placement of the base station, obstacles and neighbors. The base station is the part of the network that transmits the WLAN signal: in many homes this is the same thing as a modem or router, which itself has a WLAN base station / router.

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Do you feel like your phone battery is draining too quickly? The phone is relatively new, but the battery doesn't last as long as you think it should? There can be many reasons for this - and some of them have clear and easy solutions.

In this guide, we go through the most typical reasons for rapid battery drain with phones, and look at potential reasons or solutions.

1. Display brightness settings
2. Display speed and accuracy
3. Network problems
   1. Force the phone to a specific network
   2. Turn off Wi-Fi
4. A program or background process gone wild
5. Monitor application's battery usage
6. Cold weather
7. Wait a while...
8. Check condition of battery
9. The battery is defective or exhausted

Screen brightness

The most battery-consuming part of your device is its display. Smartphone screens have become much larger and brighter. Therefore, the screen brightness has a huge impact on battery consumption (and how long the device will run on a single charge.)

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Sometimes, Android updates can go horribly wrong. The intentions of manufacturers are usually good. After all, new updates bring about new features, performance improvements, security improvements, etc. Every now and then, however, a new Android update can pose significant problems for end users.

For an example of when things can go wrong, you only have to look at OnePlus' infamous Android 12 update debacle. This system update was completely rejected by users of updated devices. It significantly altered the user interface of the operating system - according to many users, for the worse. In addition, some users reported that the update was plagued with bugs.

This news made a lot of users of affected headsets ponder a delay to updating the device.

But.. What happens if you don't update your phone to the latest Android version?

In summary: In the short term, nothing really!

However, after six months or more, thing start happening under the hood that the user cannot see, but which can be potentially significant issues.

Device and Data Security degrade with time

A manufacturer will stop supporting older versions of Android with updates, because a new version is available for the device and they want you to update. Unfortunately, this can include security updates too.

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In this short guide we will look at how you can check the status of Trusted Platform Module (TPM) on your PC ahead of the coming launch of Windows 11.

TPM provides for hardware level support for a range of security and digital management services. It can be used for DRM systems to protect content, to protect digital licensing, to enhance security of full disk encryption solutions like Bitlocker (Windows) or dm-crypt (Linux), and more.

To run Windows 11, you will require at least TPM 1.2. Unfortunately, if you have TPM 1.2 you will be running Windows 11 in an unsupported state, which could mean missing out on some updates for compatibility reasons. Therefore, TPM 2.0 is recommended for a Windows 11 upgrade and should make the process a lot easier. If you do not have TPM hardware then you will be unable to run Windows 11 on your system at all, according to Microsoft.

There are other requirements for Windows 11 (EFI Secure Boot, GPT etc.) as well, but this short article is just about checking to see if TPM is Enabled, or if it is present, and what version of TPM it is.

How to check TPM status in Windows 10?

The simplest way to check on the status of TPM in Windows 10 is to check the Security processor details in Windows settings. To get there just do follow these simple steps.

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'This app is no longer compatible with your device. Contact the developers for more info.' If you are getting this message from Google Play when trying to install Netflix, then maybe this little guide can help you.

Several years ago, Netflix began using the Windvine digital rights management (DRM) system as part of their content protection efforts. A side effect of this change is that Android devices with a rooted OS, an unofficial ROM, or even an unlocked bootloader could no longer download the Netflix app from the Play Store.

In fact, if you searched for the app on the Play Store with such a device, it will not even show up. You have to manually find the URL for Netflix so that it will open in the Play Store. At present, this is the URL that will launch your Play Store app and bring you to Netflix.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netflix.mediaclient


All may not be lost however as you may be able to sideload the app. To be clear, this won't work for everyone. It really depends on the Android OS, how it was rooted, and more. However, if you are using something like LineageOS on a relatively new device, this should work.

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Are you having trouble with your Android device? If you find that your device has become sluggish, is freezing, takes too long to boot or any of a host of other performance concerns, you may want to boot into Safe Mode.

Most Android users will only ever encounter Safe Mode if their device boots into it automatically. This can happen for a variety of software and hardware related reasons. It is usually a sign of trouble if it happens automatically.

What is Safe Mode? Why would you use it?

Even though it can be a bad sign if your device automatically boots into Safe Mode, it can be very useful to boot into manually. For starters, in Safe Mode the device will not have third party apps running. It will also automatically put the device in Airplane Mode which disables the Wi-Fi and other networking from boot. You can enable these yourself in Safe Mode if you exit Airplane Mode.

If you reboot your device into Safe Mode and the problems you were having seem to be gone, then the issue is probably down to one or more third party Apps behaving badly. If the problems persist, it is the Android system (perhaps a botched update or an unofficial ROM that is not fully compatible?) or there is a hardware issue (e.g. degrading storage, battery).

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Instagram has provided users with a way to block out abusive messages that are sent as DM requests on its platform.

While people can avoid abusive or offensive messages in DMs on Instagram by limiting who can contact them, many users report getting abusive messages via the DM request inbox on Instagram.

A new tool can now be used that will automatically filter DM requests containing offensive words, phrases, and emojis, so you never have to see them. It will work in a similar way to the comment filters that are already available on Instagram.

Instagram worked with anti-discrimination and anti-bullying organizations to develop a predefined list of offensive terms that will be filtered from DM requests when the feature is turned on. There is also the option to create your own custom list of words, phrases, or emojis that you don't want to see in your DM requests.

All DM requests that contain these offensive words, phrases, or emojis - whether from your custom list or the predefined list - will be automatically filtered into a separate hidden requests folder. If you choose to open the folder, the message text will be covered so you're not confronted with offensive language, unless you tap to uncover it.

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Sixteen-year-old classic RE4 has been demonstrated ahead of its release for the Oculus Quest 2.

Originally released for the GameCube, Resident Evil 4 is a beloved classic of the horror series and has been ported several times already. This year it is getting the Oculus VR makeover, and we now have a glimpse of what that will look and feel like.

Weapons, ammo, and items are physical objects in the game you can reach out to manipulate or pick up. Drawing a weapon can be done with your hand rather than a menu, along with the act of reloading.

You can move Leon from your first-person perspective using the controllers or you can use a new teleportation feature that makes it easy to skip Leon's movement forward.

The game can be run at a higher framerate than the original 30FPS also, and all original characters and textures have been ported to Unreal Engine 4. More details will be available soon ahead of its launch later this year.

Take a look at the demo:

There is now an enhanced version of Monday's historic first powered flight from the Martian surface.

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter made history this week when it powered up and lifted off on the surface of Mars. The brief excursion into Mars' thin atmosphere is the first time a human-made device has taken powered flight from the surface of another planet, even if it was just a short hop into the air. It is important to state it is the first powered flight, as the Soviet Union achieved the first balloon flight in the atmosphere of Venus in 1985.

The first images of Ingenuity were grainy and choppy and were followed by a better video. However, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory channel on YouTube has uploaded an enhanced video with more detail.

It actually contains two separate recordings of the event, presented side by side. The view on the left uses motion filtering to show where dust was detected during liftoff and landing and the view on the right is enhanced with the motion filtering.

Here is the video:

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Several dozen popular free-to-play games can now be enjoyed on Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X without an Xbox Live Gold subscription.

Popular titles including Call of Duty: Warzone, Apex Legends, Fortnite, Rocket League, Roblox, and many more were limited to paying Xbox Live Gold subscribers up until now. Microsoft is known to have been testing the change for weeks.

Additionally, Xbox party chat and the Looking For Groups (LFG) have been similarly liberated from the premium tier.

The move comes after Microsoft irked gamers with a planned doubling of the yearly cost of an Xbox Live subscription earlier this year. It also happens as Microsoft is phasing out the branding of Xbox Live, to be replaced by Xbox network.

SpaceX has denied recent reports of a near-miss incident involving one of its Internet-beaming Starlink satellites, and one belonging to rival OneWeb.

The news has reignited concerns about the ambitious plans of SpaceX and others to launch arrays of satellites into low-Earth orbit in order to provide low-latency, high-speech broadband services. Critics warn that launching too many satellites into low Earth orbit increases the risk of collisions that could produce large amounts of dangerous space junk, inhibiting future space operations.

There are also concerns about the presence of satellite constellations in orbit and the effect it will have on ground-based astronomy.

In recent days news spread about a close call between a Starlink satellite, operated by SpaceX, and a OneWeb satellite. In a filing, SpaceX essentially accuses OneWeb of spreading false information about what actually occurred.

The initial reports stated that SpaceX has turned off its collision avoidance system when its satellite came within 190 feet of the OneWeb satellite on April 2. OneWeb had performed a maneuver and avoided a collision. Representatives of SpaceX and OneWeb met with FCC staff since the incident.

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According to a report from Digital Music News last week, Spotify will resume removing Joe Rogan Experience podcasts from its inventory.

The popular podcast made the jump to Spotify at the end of 2020, with the Swedish streaming platform securing exclusivity over the existing catalog and new episodes. Some older episodes still remain on YouTube, while Spotify decided against bringing over several dozen podcast episodes. Additionally, clips from new podcast episodes are still uploaded to YouTube.

Spotify has reportedly removed 42 episodes of the podcast which features guests including provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, comedian Chris D'Elia, and more. While Spotify did not bring over old episodes featuring Alex Jones, it still has a more recent episode online with Mr. Jones and comedian Tim Dillan, which Rogan himself described as a "big test."

The popular podcaster, comedian, and UFC commentator clashed with Spotify employees shortly after the transition to the service. Reports circulated that Spotify employees were demanding editing oversight be given to Spotify staffers, that trigger warnings be displayed for some episodes, as well as clarifications by "fact-checkers."

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