Week in Review: Tough times, big deals, and the price of power

Plus: Could you live with just one streaming service? | Twitter's Edit-Button-in-Chief | The price of graphics power Created for {EMAIL} | [Web Version]( November 18, 2022 CONNECT WITH TECH RADAR  [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [Youtube]( [Tech Radar]( [SIGN UP]( ⋅ [WEBSITE](  [] Welcome to the Week in Review [] Plus: Could you live with just one streaming service? Welcome back, TechRadar readers. Can you feel it? The chill in the air? I’m talking about the falling temperatures and tumbling fortunes of some of our favorite tech companies. Around here, we’re calling it Tech Winter. Facebook, Twitter, Amazon have all laid off thousands of workers, and some are pulling back on product development. What does this mean for you? It's hard to say. There’s no indication that, for instance, Amazon has any plans to stop making Echo devices, or finding new ways to deliver products to you before you even realize that you need them. Okay, last week I did write about Amazon maybe pulling back a bit on Alexa development, but that’s just a rumor. What this might all mean in the short term is something we’ve seen playing out in real time: earlier and better Black Friday deals, as companies look to rake in the cash before the economic situation worsens. The official Black Friday is a week from today, but the deals have started in earnest, and I’m betting that you all may be doing a good bit of shopping this weekend (but not before you finish reading this newsletter). With that in mind, I want to point you to not just our massive and useful [Black Friday Deals hub](, but to some of our key buying guides that will help you pick out the right products to buy. So depending on what you're looking for, check out our [best laptop](, [best smartwatch](, [best Bluetooth speaker](, [best soundbar]( and [best phone]( articles. (Although the [advice of former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos]( may make you think twice before parting with your cash.) While the runup to the busiest tech shopping season of the year has much of our attention, there are other big and pretty wild tech and tech-adjacent stories to talk about. Let's get into it – and don't forget to [drop me an email](mailto:lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com) with your thoughts, remembering to include 'NEWSLETTER' in the subject line. Lance Ulanoff, US Editor-in-Chief [] Start with This [] [Twitter's Edit-Button-in-Chief]( [Twitter's Edit-Button-in-Chief]( You can keep up with Musk's latest musings at our liveblog (Shutterstock / thongyhod / Twitter) Elon Musk has owned Twitter for not quite a month, and yet it feels like it’s been years. He’s taking what was arguably a very flawed system, throwing most of the micro-blogging service up in the air, and letting some of it take a very hard landing. Traffic is up on the platform, but advertisers have fled, employees have also fled, or been canned, and no one knows what Musk will do next. Actually, I’m not sure he knows what he’ll do next. That’s why we’ve launched a [Twitter chaos liveblog]( in an effort to keep up with the hourly (if not more frequent) updates. At least Musk has made the job of tracking his Twitter strategy easy: he tweets every single bit of it. That’s how we learned on Tuesday that he’s ready to take another run at Blue Verified, the platform that asked you to pay $8 for a blue check, and which led to a wave of account impersonators. Musk wants to relaunch right after Thanksgiving. We wish him luck… [] This is Big [] [The price of graphics power]( [The price of graphics power]( The Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 is powerful but pricey (Future) While many of us walk about with ultra-light laptops and use all-in-one computers in our homes and offices, there’s an entire class of computing people who build their own rigs (that’s what they call them). They collect motherboards, CPUs, power supplies, cases, and massively powerful graphics cards in order to win at games, render video, and perform computing tasks that would bring a typical PC to its knees. Aside from the all-important CPU, few things are more important than the graphics card, and those who care about visual performance, like us here at TechRadar, closely track every GPU release from Nvidia (and rival AMD). And it’s been a pretty big year for the jolly green graphics giant. Nvidia released its [GeForce RTX 4090](, which our Computing Editor John Loeffler described as “an absolute unit of a graphics card that features an astounding gen-on-gen performance jump without a proportional jump in price, making it the best graphics card on the enthusiast scene, hands down.” That card has run into a little trouble, though, with scattered reports of [power cables melting]( (it does suck a lot of power). The company also [unlaunched a product](, the 12GB GeForce RTX 4080, which may be a first for the industry. This week, Nvidia launched the 16GB version of the RTX 4080, [which John likes well enough](, but he takes Nvidia to task for the pricing. He thinks it’s priced too closely to the 4090, and makes a case for Nvidia unreleasing this product too, and re-releasing the 12GB 4080, so that there's some breathing room between that card and the top-tier RTX 4090. I don’t know of another outlet that’s covering this sector in such depth, and with such authority, as TechRadar’s computing team. Read all their coverage, and then make your GPU choices. Featured Content Sponsored Content from MPB [5 reasons why MPB is the best place for photography newcomers and seasoned veterans alike]( From incredible bargains to gloriously full stock levels, there's no better place to grab your next bit of kit. [Learn More]( [] Know This [] [Android cameras gonna be lit]( [Android cameras gonna be lit]( The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will power 2023's best Android phones (Future) Spare a thought for our poor Mobile Editor Alex Walker-Todd. He had to fly to Hawaii to cover Qualcomm’s annual chip summit. Oh, all that basking in the sun and sitting under palm trees just so he can bring us news of the latest mobile CPUs that should end up in next year’s leading Android handsets, including the [Samsung Galaxy S23](. Fine. I’m not jealous. I am, however, excited about the [Snapgragon 8 Gen 2]( and something called ‘Cognitive ISP.’ This will bring real-time image segmentation and analysis to enable on-the-fly image enhancement. In practical terms, the sensor uses AI to identify image objects and then adjust them for better photos. If the sensor understands the difference between a person and a tree, or water and the sky, it can adjust each accordingly. This might be a true game changer for mobile photography, and it could mean that the next set of Galaxy phones could instantly become imaging powerhouses. There will also be, somewhat incredibly, hardware-based ray tracing. Ray tracing is what makes modern games look so realistic, and is usually the sole purview of gaming laptops and PCs. Expect mobile gaming to take a major leap forward next year. [] Read This [] [Making the hard choices]( [Making the hard choices]( Apple TV+ is giving the big streamers a run for their money (Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images) I subscribe to a lot of streaming services, and I watch a lot of shows on them. We spend roughly $50 a month on streamers, and we’re even considering adding Peacock to the mix (we signed up for a trial just to watch the execrable Halloween Ends). So of course, I had to read our erstwhile Entertainment Editor’s Tom Goodwyn’s essay about [choosing just one streamer to keep](. Tom may be an edge case – as our Entertainment Editor he had access to a bunch of free services, but now that he’s left TechRadar, he doesn’t, hence the hard choices. Still, I am somewhat stunned that he chose Apple TV+ as his only keeper. I was certain it was going to be Netflix, or maybe HBOMax; but no, it’s the Apple upstart. I have to admit, though, that Tom’s reasoning is sound. Read his piece and see if you agree – it may prompt you to consider which streaming service you’d keep if you had to drop all others. Speaking of streamers, Netflix appears to be bouncing back with improved subscriber numbers in recent months, and the launch of its ad-supported service (which I will never want). But you might, though, have missed a [small but important account security change]( it made this week. [] POLL QUESTION: If you could only keep one streamer, which would it be? [Vote]( [Netflix, duh]( [Vote]( [Amazon Prime Video is where it's at]( [Vote]( [Disney+ is so deep]( [Vote]( [HBO Max is still pretty max]( [Vote]( [Dancing to my own Hulu]( [] What About This? [] [Dancing around security fears]( [Dancing around security fears]( The US government is concerned about TikTok, but should you be? (Shutterstock / diy13) In case you were wondering, the US government is [still concerned about your Tiktok obsession](. The popular social media platform, which helped many of us get through the pandemic, makes officials nervous because it's owned by Chinese company ByteDance, and all Chinese companies can be compelled to hand over their data to the Chinese government. TikTok’s US data servers are now all based in the US, but that still doesn’t mean they’re secure. I don’t know if knowing which songs, dances, and DIY tips you like is as important as the potential advertising dollars you drive through TikTok, but I think the concern is at least fair. The thing is, US authorities have been looking into this for years, and ByteDance and TikTok have been doing what they can to ameliorate concerns. Perhaps, though, it’s not enough. This week, FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke before Congress, and made it clear that no one is comfortable with the current arrangement, telling Congress that the Chinese government could use TikTok to “control data collection of millions of users or control the recommendation algorithm, which can be used for influence operations.” I doubt, though, that any of these official concerns are going to stop anyone from participating in the latest TikTok trend. [] The Science Bit [] [They finally did it!]( [They finally did it!]( NASA's Artemis 1 mission lifts off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Finally, finally, finally, NASA’s huge SLS rocket launched the Orion module into space and on its way to orbit the moon. The thrice-delayed Artemis1 mission [lifted off early Wednesday morning](, and our buddies at Space.com covered everything that led up to the big moment, as well as the countdown and launch. As a huge space fan, I’m thrilled. It’s been 50 years since humans last visited the moon, and this is a small step toward some bigger ones that will, hopefully, put a manned base on the moon in my lifetime. Granted, this mission still has a long way to go. The module has to make it around the moon and return home, and then NASA still has to do a crewed mission. That’s fine with me though – I want NASA to take its time, and I like that it's being cautious. We’ll get there, eventually. [] The Sign Off [] That’s all for another week. If you liked this newsletter, let me know [via email](mailto:lance.ulanoff@futurenet.com) or on [Twitter](; if you hated it, please keep that to yourself, or share it with Matt Hanson when he returns next week, drained from his Black Friday exertions. Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend! Sharing TechRadar with your network keeps the quality of content high and these newsletters free. 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