Zak Killian
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
You might have read a story earlier in the week about a US Navy destroyer's internet connection being "hacked" and taken over to stream Age of Empires to Facebook. A tale like that is comical until you consider the national security implications of such a thing. Fortunately, this particular story remains comical in...
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By all accounts—even our own—the Apple M1 SoC powering the company's newest machines is a beast, but it comes with a drawback in that you can only run MacOS on it. A lot of folks love MacOS for various reasons, to be sure. It's also undeniable that the proprietary OS limits your access to the majority of desktop and...
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Consumers' right to repair their own devices is one of the lesser-discussed political battlegrounds in the United States, but it's probably one that most-directly affects gamers and hardware enthusiasts. It's a contentious issue: detractors claim that making their devices repairable will make them less reliable, less...
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Amazon's recently-released game New World is cracking open pent-up MMORPG demand to become a massive hit. At the time of this publication, it's currently the number-one most-played game on Steam. That's in spite of some bad press; we reported last week on stories of the released game murdering folks' hardware, just...
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One often-posted work-around for enthusiasts' inability to locate new graphics cards is to purchase a pre-built gaming PC or a gaming laptop. In the past, hardcore system-building enthusiasts have sneered at gaming laptops, as their perceived gaming performance value was widely regarded to be inferior for in-place...
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In case you've been out of the loop the last ten years, processors based on the Arm ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) have basically conquered mobile computing and much of the IoT, and they're making inroads into areas typically dominated by other ISAs (like X86), too. Due to its relatively-permissive licensing, Arm...
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When Joe Gamer is building a PC, he probably doesn't even look at qualified parts lists, like memory QVLs. Products made to a given standard typically "just work," at least to a good-enough degree for general use, and don't need to be individually validated. Things are different in the business world, though. There...
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It's October 5th, which means Windows 11 is out. Naturally, that's set off a chain reaction of other release both hardware and software. Drivers could reasonably be mentioned in either category, though. Yeah, anyway—there's a new Radeon driver for Windows 11.
Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.10.1 is out and has official...
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Most people probably don't know this, but the big service providers like T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon contract out to third-party services to help with transmitting SMS text messages, both between carriers and abroad. One of the largest of those companies is called Syniverse, and it handles text messages sent using the...
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A lot of folks buying (legitimate) software are disgruntled about the rise of "software as a service," or SaaS. Proponents claim that the continued payments enable further development of useful applications, while opponents complain that they end up paying far more than they might under a more traditional "buy to own"...
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Are you a PC gamer frustrated with the lack of graphics cards? Maybe you're looking forward to buying a brand-new pre-built PC with Windows 11 soon (it launches this Tuesday, after all). Well, this news may give you pause. The new operating system brings an apparently intense focus on system security, and as is common...
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Google's bet on a custom processor for its upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro flagship smartphones is probably the most interesting phone news for a while, especially considering how the iPhone 13 went. Official details on the so-called "Tensor" system-on-a-chip (SoC) are basically non-existent, but leaks...
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Have you heard about the death of PC gaming? It was a popular topic among certain folks for years. They haven't said much about it lately, though—probably because PC gaming is bigger than it has ever been. Year-over-year growth has been immense, with gaming monitor and gaming PC shipments in the second quarter...
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If you're a regular HotHardware reader, you probably make contactless payments now and again. You might even do it using Apple Pay, and if you live in a big city with mass transit, there's a decent likelihood that you have Express Transit enabled. If you use a Visa card for it, you may want to reconsider that based on...
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With the proliferation of artificial intelligence in recent years, the term "neuromorphic" is being used much more often in the tech sector. If you're a native English speaker, you can probably surmise that neuromorphic means something along the lines of "brain-like." Indeed, the buzzword of the day is "neuromorphic...
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Do you still think of video games as kids' stuff? A surprising number of people are still of the mindset that video games are small-time, but the reality is that last year, per IDC data, video games drew more revenue ($179 billion) than both films and professional sports combined ($175 billion). That's a lot of money...
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If you've ever done any livestreaming on Twitch, YouTube, or similar services, you're probably already familiar with Open Broadcaster Software (better known as "OBS"). The application has more-or-less conquered the streaming software space, likely in large part because it is both free and open-source. The facts that...
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In case you haven't heard, China is trying to puzzle out its pollution problem, and one way it's doing that is by rationing power. The Chinese government has started selectively requiring energy producers to cool off in an effort to reduce emissions, although those organizations are also dealing with rising coal and...
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Amazon held a virtual event today to announce a pile of new products. This is the second year running that the invite-only event has been online-only. Historically, Amazon hosts a little meet-and-greet to showcase its new stuff. Last year, we saw a lot of wacky stuff, including the Luna gaming service, Ring's...
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When older gamers think of Call of Duty, they probably recall Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and screeching 10 year-olds on Xbox Live. The thing is, that game came out in 2007. Those same screeching ten-year-olds are now beer-chugging 24-year-olds, and it's a fair bet that a lot of them are still playing Call of Duty...
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Not only do PC gamers have more control over their games, but they can keep playing games released in ages of yore—even if it sometimes takes intermediary software like DOSBox. Console gamers don't have that same luxury, but fortunately, there are emulators for console game hardware that allow that software to run on...
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Perhaps as an extension of its origins as a place to purchase older PC games that are no longer available, CD Projekt's GOG—formerly known as Good Old Games—has built a reputation on its history of selling games unencumbered with DRM. With that in mind, it comes as no real surprise that the site's users are in open...
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