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Twenty years ago, a battle raged over which high-definition format would dethrone DVDs: Blu-ray or HD DVD.

As history shows, Blu-ray, developed by Sony, ultimately won the war, leading to the discontinuation of the Toshiba-backed HD DVD format in 2008. The "civilian casualties" of this battle were significant, with consumers having purchased over a million HD DVD players, which subsequently became nearly obsolete.

However, Blu-ray's victory came with a bitter twist. Shortly after its rise, streaming services began to gain traction. The biggest player in this arena, Netflix, expanded rapidly to new markets in early 2010s, making consumers to quickly abandon optical media in favour of streaming.

Another side of this story is Blu-ray's use as a storage medium. DVDs were wildly popular not only as a movie format, but also for data storage. The first recordable Blu-ray discs (BD-R) hit the market in 2007, but they never reached the same heights of popularity as recordable DVDs.

OnePlus has long been known for its blazing fast charging speeds on its smartphones. However, the company's fast charging technology has always faced a challenge: OnePlus uses its own non-standard SuperVOOC charging technology. As a result, when using regular USB PD chargers, you won't achieve the same impressive charging speeds that OnePlus phones are famous for; instead, you'll get "only" around 15-20W speeds at best.

The problem has been exacerbated by the limited availability of SuperVOOC-compatible charging solutions for OnePlus phones. While there have been some improvements, such as OnePlus's own 80W SuperVOOC car charger, the options have remained relatively scarce.

Now, OnePlus has teamed up with the globally recognized brand Sharge, resulting in a SuperVOOC-compatible power bank: the Sharge x OnePlus Pouch. This 10,000 mAh power bank was designed with input from the OnePlus user community.

Beyond rapid charging, the power bank offers a few clever design features. We put it to the test in real-world scenarios for a couple of weeks before its official release. Here are our thoughts on the collaboration between Sharge and OnePlus.

• Design
• Specifications
• OnePlus charging
• USB PD charging
• Charging the power bank
• Charging two devices simultaneously
• Flaws and problems
• Verdict
• Pros
• Cons
• Rating

Design

Exactly 25 years ago, on 10th of June, 1999, our little site was opened to the world for the very first time. Back then, we didn't have any idea whether our site, focused solely on MP3 technology, would attract readers.

Turns out, it did. Sure, during the following years, we did shift our focus many, many times as technologies shifted. We covered the first Napster era and its lawsuits, the following P2P boom, upcoming video technologies, the golden era of DVDs, the rise and fall of various gaming consoles and much, much more.

Looking back, we had luck. Lots and lots of luck. But we had some serious misfortunes, too.

Our site's peak was sometime around 2012 - 2013, when we commanded tens of millions of monthly visitors to our site. But back then, technologies changes, user behaviour changed and, also, we did some very bad decisions.

From those years on, our site started to diminish, rapidly. Most important reason was the fact that Google started to .. not like us. Before that, Google loved our content. But after one particular update, that pushed many big discussion sites into oblivion, our site took a serious hit, too. Then, most of the online discussion started to shift to Facebook and Reddit, leaving dedicated niche sites into dust.

Iconic music/MP3 player Winamp used to be wildly popular before the advent of music streaming services. Since its heyday, the software has changed its owner many, many times - and has been sidetracked from limelight for years now.

Now, its current owners plan to change the course by making the player open source. Furthermore, Winamp team has outlined the mobile and "other platforms" as its key focus areas for the near future.

Winamp hasn't indicated under which license they will be releasing the source code, but the date is set to 24th of September, 2024. Those who are interested to know more (and possibly contribute to the project) can already join Winamp's FreeLLama mailing list.

Before opening their source code, Winammp plans to release updated versions of its mobile apps in July, 2024.

Let's rewind to the early days of the millennium -- a time when the video landscape was untamed. Back then, YouTube, Netflix, and TikTok were mere figments of the digital imagination. Streaming videos directly from websites were still taking their tentative first steps.

Instead, videos were predominantly consumed as downloaded files. Users would fetch the entire video over their internet connection and then play it using a separate video player application.

To make it even more difficult, there were tons of different video formats in use. Hundreds of different formats vied for attention. Each format required its own codec -- a kind of "driver" for the computer -- to decode and play the specific video format.

Then, in the early days of 2001, a something happened. Experimental video player known as VideoLan Client went through a complete rewrite and was launched as an open source software.

Thus, VLC, in its current incarnation, was born. Its brilliance lay in its ability to handle decoding routines for nearly all conceivable video formats internally. No more fiddling with separate codec installations--the need for that vanished.

The evolution of VLC unfolded gradually after its initial launch. Step by step, VLC added support for new video formats. But it was around the 2010s that VLC truly transformed into a video player capable of handling just about anything.

Google settled a class-action lawsuit in September 2023, which accused the company of distorting the Android app market and abusing its dominant market position in the United States. Today, the company announced the terms of the settlement.

Firstly, it will pay a total of $700 million in compensation to parties and authorities that participated in the class-action lawsuit. Of the amount, which is equivalent to approximately €637 million, 90% will go to consumers who participated in the class-action lawsuit, and the remaining 10% of the compensation amount will go to individual US states.

From the perspective of an average Android user, the bigger significance is that Google intends to simplify the so-called sideloading mechanism for Android as a result of the settlement. This mechanism is used to install applications on Android phones from outside Google's own Play Store.

Currently, the process of downloading apps (typically in .apk file format) with phone's browser and installing it includes several roadblocks that Google has added, to "protect the users". Because of the settlement, the entire process gets streamlined.

Chinese robot vacuum manufacturers have been successful in selling consumers the idea that a robot vacuum combined with a robot mop is a much better solution. However, I personally have been skeptical of this idea for years. There are essentially two reasons for this: first, a lightweight mop cannot actually remove stuck-on dirt from the floor. But more importantly, I have highlighted the fact that a mop completely ruins the idea of easy-to-use robot vacuums.

Well, the world's largest robot vacuum manufacturer, Roomba, has strongly agreed with me on this and has not released any combination device that includes a robot vacuum and mop. However, apparently the pressure from Chinese manufacturers has changed Roomba's mind and they have finally released such a device: Roomba Combo j7+ is Roomba's first robot vacuum with a mop function.

We received the new device for testing in late 2022 and the testing period lasted almost a record-breaking four months because the robot stayed in our test locations for that long. During the testing period, Roomba Combo j7+ was used as the only floor cleaning tool in the test locations, as always during our tests. The robot was used in two very different types of homes during the testing period: one with lots of carpets and obstacles, and another that was very minimalist.

Although robot vacuums have become a commonplace item in households in recent years, their story goes back much further. In fact, robotic vacuums have been around in some form for over 20 years.

For a long time, the market was dominated by a single company, iRobot, and its Roomba product line until a real contender emerged in 2005 with the American company Neato Robotics.

Especially in the 2010s, Neato Robotics gained a loyal following among technology enthusiasts as the company's products brought many innovations to the world of robot vacuums. Neato's robots were the first so-called "connected" robot vacuums, meaning they communicated their actions to the internet - and to a smartphone app. In addition, Neato courted technology enthusiasts by opening up its robots' programming interfaces and enabling the first steps towards a smart home at a time when the term "smart home" was still completely unknown. Furthermore, Neato also introduced LiDARs to the robot vacuum world - at the time when most robot vacuums did their navigation based on guesswork.

Sometime around 2015, Neato was perhaps at its peak and the company's then-current lineup was in many ways the best that the world of robot vacuums had to offer. Unfortunately, the company's development seems to have stalled since those years.

The world's most popular messaging platform, Meta-owned WhatsApp has enabled sending messages to yourself. While at first, this might seem like an odd feature, it can be very useful in a lot of situations.

This means that using WhatsApp as a notepad, adding reminders to yourself, or even sharing links is much easier. Some might find that they don't even require a dedicated notepad app with this addition.

This feature also allows fast and easy access to sharing files between different devices. Messaging yourself can be much easier than sending files to a file-sharing service and downloading them on a different device.

For example with pictures, one can simply send them to their own WhatsApp account and open WhatsApp on another device to access the file.

Here's How to Send a Message to Yourself on WhatsApp

• Open WhatsApp (on a mobile device or on the computer)
  
  
• Click on the new conversation icon on the bottom right.
  
  
• Select your own account from the list of contacts (should be on the top).
  
  
• Send a message just like you would to anyone else.

A common problem in home networks is a sluggish Wi-Fi connection, which is frustrating to all family members and even when the network is shared with visitors. At its worst, the problems could cause videos to stutter, downloads to stall, and remote work to suffer.

Fortunately, there are a few things one can do to remedy some of the issues that relate to lousy Wi-Fi networks. We've collected some of the best tips on how one can try and fix the problems, regardless of the service provider.

Google shut down its streaming game service Stadia late last month and this means that some people have Stadia controllers lying around that seem to be of no use. That is fortunately not the case, as there's a way to take advantage of the controllers on other platforms.

Google had the controllers restricted to Stadia only when the platform was up and running. However, they support standard Bluetooth connection, which has been enabled by Google for other platforms, now that their platform is defunct.

Enabling the controllers on other platforms requires Google's tool, but the procedure is luckily fairly simple.

1. The Stadia controller needs to be first connected to a computer via the USB cable.



2. After that is done, the user needs to direct their Google Chrome web browser on the computer to this Google website. Note that this might not work with other web browsers.



3. The switching should be enabled in just a few moments by following the instruction on the website.

Google notes that this change is permanent and after switching to Bluetooth mode, the Wi-Fi mode is no longer available.

Sharing a Netflix account with a person in a different location is possible and indeed very common, although the company doesn't necessarily enjoy this behavior from their customers.

However, sometimes sharing of accounts happens even without the knowledge or approval of the account owner. Perhaps the Netflix account was logged in to a TV of an ex-partner, or children have shared the passwords with their friends. Occasionally hacked Netflix accounts are also shared online.

The disadvantages of allowing unwanted guests to use your Netflix account are many. Some of the more important reasons include the following. First is the moral quandary; someone else is using a service I pay for. Another one is that the other user can totally mess up the recommendation algorithm, which is important in finding new content that matches your tastes. And thirdly, this is technically against the User Agreement, which can result in the termination of the service.

Fortunately, Netflix has made it easier for users to kick out unwanted guests. One way to do that was always to switch the password. This would result in changing passwords to all legit devices, and now there's a much faster and more convenient way. Netflix mobile app has a feature, which allows the account holder to check which devices have used the Netflix account recently and from which parts of the world.

Do you know someone whose computer is way beyond its best-before date, and they, unfortunately, do know have the skills or the expertise to do much about it? Or do you own a pile of old laptop computers that do not have any use as is?

Google offers a simple and straightforward solution for these situations: ChromeOS Flex. The new ChromeOS version released in the summer of 2022 turns any old Windows, Linux, or Mac computer into a Chromebook. And what's better, it's all free.

Chromebooks and the operating system run on them, ChromeOS, are meant to be a lightweight solution that removes most of the unnecessary clutter that comes with a regular computer. Moreover, much of the computing happens in the cloud, which makes having powerful, heavy, high-consumption components unnecessary. This means that even a lesser computer can run ChromeOS efficiently.

The only thing you'll need in addition to the computer the operating system is going to be installed on is an empty thumb drive. As you test out the OS, everything is run from the thumb drive, so no files will be lost at first.

Google promises the compatibility of ChromeOS Flex only on officially supported devices, but our experiences are that ChromeOS Flex seems to work on practically all somewhat old Windows computers. However, Apple's computers, using the new proprietary Apple chip, do not work with ChromeOS Flex.

Robot vacuums are meant to make day-to-day life easier in several ways. When they are used efficiently, they can keep the house clean continuously - at least when it comes to floors. In addition, by using the timed cleaning features, the noise made by the vacuums isn't a worry.

However, the problem is that there is a wide array of different kinds of robot vacuums at various price points and from a myriad of manufacturers. There are both cheap and expensive models not worth investing in like there are good products at all price points. Even affordable vacuums can be perfectly fine, although with more money comes more features.

We have tested robot vacuum at AfterDawn since 2018. Our product-specific test periods usually last for several months, so we gain actual real-world results and find out quirks and problems that one might not find in short reviews. This also gives us a great overview on how a wide range of robot vacuums compare.

What do you need to know when choosing a robot vacuum?

Here we are going to list the most important points and features that one should consider before purchasing a robot vacuum.

1. Cleaning result
   
2. Connectivity
   
3. Timers and remote control
   
4. Languages
   
5. Barriers, rugs, and carpets
   
6. Size of the home
   
7. Self-emptying robot vacuums
   
8. Obstacle avoidance
   
9. How about a robot mop?

Year 2022 was supposed to be the year when we were planning to get out of the pandemic and get back to normal lives. Well, Russia decided differently and the entire year will be remembered as the year when a new war started in Europe.

Despite the war and horrors of it, tech world had some interesting developments during the year - lets try to wrap those changes up here.

The rise of the artificial intelligence

Since the very dawn of computing history, people have dreamed about the possibilities of artificial intelligence. Turing test has existed for decades and every now and then we've heard about the developments in AI research.

But the yeat 2022 as the year when AI finally became part of our everyday lives.

It all started with DALL-E in Spring of 2022, when OpenAI released its text-to-images AI project to the public. Suddenly, the entire web was flooded with psychedelic images created by the weird artificial intelligence software.

Soon after, in summer of 2022, open source world pushed the envelope further, by releasing Stable Diffusion project. An open source project doing exactly the same as DALL-E did: generate images from text prompts, but doing that better and with more customization options.