Author: easyfilo

Enlarge (credit: Roccat/Amazon)

For power users, gamers, and those seeking a highly functional mouse, more buttons is beneficial. Roccat wants to appeal to such people with its upcoming Kone XP, which has 15 buttons that can serve as 29 different inputs after programming via software.

Roccat’s announcement of the Kone XP today described the peripheral is “ideal” for MMOs and strategy games. But high programmability makes the Kone XP potentially appealing for advanced general use, too.

The programmable buttons are: left- and right-click, the scroll wheel (5 inputs: up, down, left, right, and in), the button south of the scroll wheel, two buttons near the left-click button, four side buttons, and a thumb button near the mouse’s base.

Enlarge / Touchscreen devices like the Surface will benefit from some of the new features in the latest Windows 11 preview builds. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Microsoft famously went all-in on a tablet-centric touchscreen interface with Windows 8, and the company has spent pretty much every major Windows release since then slowly backing away from that decision. That retreat culminated in Windows 11, which fully removed the last vestiges of Tablet Mode that had survived in Windows 10.

But the last couple Windows 11 Insider Preview builds have augmented Windows 11’s touchscreen capabilities. The build released to Dev channel users last week included new gestures, changes to how snapping windows works when in tablet mode, and a few other improvements. And a new build released today totally overhauls the taskbar for touchscreens.

Windows 11 in its current form adds more space between icons when you’re using your device as a tablet, but the new preview goes further. When you’re using apps, the taskbar will shrink to a narrow strip across the bottom of the screen: it’s still tall enough to show the clock and your network, sound, and battery status icons, but all your pinned apps and other system tray icons are hidden. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen or closing an app window brings up a new, larger version of the taskbar with larger, more finger-friendly icons and spacing. The taskbar disappears again once you’ve launched your app.

Enlarge / High-voltage electricity towers and power lines at a substation in Central California. (credit: Getty Images | Sundry Photography)

Three men yesterday pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists for their roles in a white supremacist plot to attack US power grids.

“These three defendants admitted to engaging in a disturbing plot, in furtherance of white supremacist ideology, to attack energy facilities in order to damage the economy and stoke division in our country,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen said in a Department of Justice announcement.

The defendants are Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio; Jonathan Allen Frost, 24, of West Lafayette, Indiana, and of Katy, Texas; and Jackson Matthew Sawall, 22, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. They were charged in US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and face maximum prison sentences of 15 years. The plea agreements recommend post-prison supervised release of 30 years with computer monitoring and a ban on the use of “online encrypted communication platforms.”