Origin’s NT-15 Quadro is a slim laptop with pro video-editing power

I’m obsessed with lightweight, discrete graphics laptops, especially models that excel at video editing and 3D. So when I first saw Origin’s 4.3-pound NT-15 Quadro, equipped with an Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor and NVIDIA professional-level Quadro P4000 Max-Q graphics, I had to try it. And not just for the specs and charts, but to see what it’s like in everyday use. The quick verdict? It’s not perfect — battery life and the touchpad aren’t great, and it’s pricey — but as a video production machine that you can tote around, it won me over.

The NT-15 Quadro is Origin’s first wave of laptops that use NVIDIA’s Max-Q graphics, which bring nearly the same power as regular laptop chips but with significant weight and power savings. On top of Max-Q versions of the GeForce GTX 1080 (used in the ASUS ROG Zephyrus), GTX 1070 and other gaming chips, NVIDIA also offers professional, Quadro graphics cards: the P3000, P4000 and P5000 Max-Q.

You pay for that. The desktop version of the 8GB Quadro P4000 costs around $800, about double the price of the GTX 1070. However, NVIDIA has lowered prices a bit for Quadro products over the past few years — the Quadro K4000 was about $1,200, for instance. That’s possibly because video editors and others are switching to nonprofessional GeForce cards, which generally work just fine for graphics chores.

With the P4000 you’re getting a bit less power than you would with the GeForce GTX 1070, but with the added benefit of tuned, certified graphics drivers with more precision for demanding apps like 3DS Max, Maya and Adobe After Effects. It also gets you a longer warranty, better support for certain applications and less chance of a graphics glitch. That’s just an annoyance in a game, but it can ruin a video render for a film or TV show.

The only display available at the moment for the NT-15 is a 15.6-inch 1080p IPS model with no touch capability. That lack of touch might be a problem for artists who use a stylus, but for video editing, compositing and 3D animation, I didn’t miss it.

Other specs and features are top-notch. The NT-15 Quadro comes with 32GB of RAM, on top of the 8GB on the NVIDIA P4000, so suffice to say that memory isn’t an issue. Similarly, it has a 512GB M.2 SSD, which I tested at 2.7 GB/s, and a 2TB hard disk, so you won’t suffer from a lack of speedy storage. It has most of the ports you could want, including three USB 3.0 and one USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.1 Type C, a mini-Display port, an SD(XC/HC) card reader, headphone and microphone ports, an HDMI 2.0 port and, yep, a good old RJ45 Ethernet port. WiFi is via Intel’s Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 and Bluetooth 4.2 combo, and the touchpad has a built-in fingerprint reader.

The Origin NT-15 Quadro’s industrial design is, well, nondescript. It’s an all-aluminum, basic black laptop that doesn’t particularly stand out, unless you choose to customize it with laser-etched flames or a metallic paint job. Ergonomically, it’s excellent, with the keyboard and trackpad in the right spot (centered below the keyboard, unlike the one on the ASUS ROG Zephyrus) and a handy numeric keypad at right.

It bears noting that the Origin NT-15 Quadro and MSI WS63VR look identical, right down to the ports, power switch and side vent holes, so it appears that they’re made by the same company.

Professionals want all these ports, RAM and storage, and the fact that Origin managed to squeeze them into a 4.3-pound laptop is quite a feat. At the same time, I took the laptop with me to Valencia, Spain, for an Audi A8 test drive, and I never felt overburdened by it in terms of weight. I wouldn’t have minded if they had added a few ounces to fix a few details, though.

Like the touchpad: It’s not very good, unfortunately. The clicking pad itself is too stiff — not nearly as smooth as on Dell’s and Microsoft’s latest models, and a far cry from Apple’s exemplary MacBook touchpads. To use it with any speed, I was forced to enable tapping, which often results in unwanted actions if you brush the touchpad by accident.

The screen is good for what it is, with accurate colors bolstered by Origin’s (optional, no-brainer) $29 professional calibration service. Thanks to Microsoft’s Surface Book and recent models from Dell and others, however, most graphics artists expect a touchscreen with something beyond 1080p resolution — 1440p would have been ideal, for me.

Given the battery life, though, perhaps it’s good that Origin stuck with a lower-resolution screen. The company claims up to 240 minutes (four hours) of battery life, which is awful compared with the promised times of the MacBook Pro (10 hours) and Microsoft Surface Book (12 hours), even taking the more powerful Quadro discrete graphics into account.

But in real-world usage, I was lucky to get that doing my normal Engadget work (using a CMS, the web and occasionally Photoshop). Running Premiere Pro CC or After Effects, you’d be doing well to get a couple of hours, so you’d better have a wall outlet handy when covering events, etc. I managed to get three hours and 29 minutes playing a 1080p movie (The Matrix, of course).

The screen, touchpad and battery are the negative points of the Origin NT-15, so now let’s focus on the good ones. First off, it’s ridiculously powerful for its size. Even though it packs speed-throttled Max-Q graphics (to prevent overheating), it managed an 8800 PassMark graphics score in my tests, below that of the Max-Q GeForce 1080 card, but well above the 1070 model. On Cinebench’s OpenGL tests, it managed an equally impressive 105 fps score.

The quad-core i7-7700HQ chip, used in a lot of high-performance laptops, also performs as well as you’d expect. It scored a 720 on Cinebench’s R15 tests, not far below the Xeon-equipped HP ZBook 15 G4-Y4E80AV.

Translated into the real world, editing on Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 at 1080p was extremely snappy, with the warp stabilizer and other graphics-dependent filters especially fast, and multiple layers of video, color correction and graphics playing in real time. I was able to export a three-minute, 15-second H.264 1080p video file from Adobe Premiere in one minute and 47 seconds, as compared with two minutes, 55 seconds on a three-year-old Quadro M1100–equipped Dell M3800.

The same applies to 3DS Max. Viewport performance is particularly zippy, thanks to the NVIDIA P4000, which supports both NVIDIA Mental Ray final rendering and NVIDIA ActiveShade preview rendering. The latter is particularly important for 3D artists who need to test materials, lighting and so on. (For what it’s worth, I played Crysis 3 on the machine at 4K on an external monitor at 30+ fps with most settings maxed.)

The screen is readable outside, as long as you’re not in the sun.

The Ethernet port provided the entire 1Gbps upload and download speeds supported by my internet provider, while the WiFi maxed out at 250Mbps — a limitation of the router, not the Intel WiFi model.

During the most taxing chores, like video exports and 3D rendering, the NT-15’s fan would crank up, but noise levels were always tolerable, thanks to the Max-Q tech. CPU temperatures hit 90 degrees Celsius on certain 3DS Max renders (194 F), which is below Intel’s 100-degree (212 F) tolerance but still pretty darn hot. On your lap when you’re watching movies, it also gets pretty warm, but not scorchingly so.

In sum, Origin’s NT-15 is a strong pro graphics performer, though the price, battery life and touchpad are drawbacks. However, if you’re the right kind of user — someone who needs to do video editing and graphics in lots of different places and usually has access to AC power — it’s going to provide the power you need without breaking your back on the way.

More important, the laptop is one of the first to pack high-end graphics into a very light package, showing the enormous potential for NVIDIA’s Max-Q system — not just for gaming, but for the professional segment, too. If NVIDIA can keep increasing the performance while lowering the power draw and size, it bodes well for the future. Considering that Intel’s eighth-generation laptop chips are more powerful than anticipated, expect upcoming professional laptops to be even faster and more lightweight.

There isn’t a lot of competition for Quadro Max-Q laptops — yet. Along with the NT-15, MSI makes the very similar WS63VR, which features nearly identical specifications. MSI’s model is cheaper, however, at $3,400, as compared with $3,883 for the Origin model. It also packs a 4K (non-touch) screen, so the price difference is quite substantial in MSI’s favor. Origin is known for having lifetime support, free labor and repairs, a USB 3.0 drive backup and a fancy wooden shipping crate, so you’ll have to decide whether it’s worth the nearly $500 price difference for those items.

Perhaps the main question: Buy now, or wait? If you need a workhorse machine today, you can’t go wrong with the Origin NT-15 Quadro or its slightly cheaper MSI WS63VR doppelgänger. Knowing that Intel is now rolling out its eighth-gen laptop chips, you might want to wait for a model that supports those and NVIDIA’s Max-Q as well.

The encryption many major companies rely on has a serious flaw

Researchers at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic uncovered a major security vulnerability in RSA keys generated by Infineon Technologies-produced chips. These chips are used in products manufactured by Acer, ASUS, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, Toshiba and Chromebook vendors, reports Bleeping Computer and the RSA keys generated by Infineon’s chips are used in government-issued identity documents, during software signing, in authentication tokens, with message protection like PGP, in programmable smartcards and during secure browsing.

The researchers say that key lengths of 1024 and 2048 bits are able to be figured out with little effort using the public portion of the key. “A remote attacker can compute an RSA private key from the value of a public key. The private key can be misused for impersonation of a legitimate owner, decryption of sensitive messages, forgery of signatures (such as for software releases) and other related attacks,” they said in a report. “The vulnerability does NOT depend on a weak or a faulty random number generator – all RSA keys generated by a vulnerable chip are impacted. The attack was practically verified for several randomly selected 1024-bit RSA keys and for several selected 2048-bit keys.” And the affected RSA library has been generating weak keys since 2012. “The currently confirmed number of vulnerable keys found is about 760,000 but possibly up to two to three magnitudes more are vulnerable,” said the researchers. As Ars Technica reports, a number of the vulnerable keys included those used in Estonian government-issued documents like e-residency cards.

The vulnerability was discovered and reported to Infineon in February and as per the agreed upon delay before public disclosure, the researchers will be releasing their full report on November 2nd at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security. The delay is to ensure that people have time to change affected keys before the details of how the vulnerability works are released. It has also allowed vendors like Microsoft, Google, HP, Lenovo and Fujitsu to release software updates to mitigate the impact of the flaw.

The researchers have released a blog post about the vulnerability, which includes tools for testing whether existing RSA keys are secure or vulnerable. It also provides advice on what to do if you find your RSA key is compromised.

Via: Ars Technica, Bleeping Computer

Source: CRoCS

A 747 ‘Supertanker’ rains retardant on California’s wildfires

A converted Boeing 747-400 used to fight fires is a great example of old technology reborn with a new purpose. The aircraft, the largest passenger model in Boeing’s jumbo lineup, first entered service with Japan Airlines in 1991. After being converted to a water tanker, it can now dump up to 19,200 gallons of water or retardant in just six seconds as low as 200 feet above ground level (AGL), then climb away at 6,000 feet per second. Those stellar capabilities have made it a big help in fighting California’s insanely aggressive wine country fires, which have so far killed 40 people and destroyed over 200 homes.

The 747, dubbed “The Spirit of John Muir,” was converted to a tanker in 2012 by the previous owner, Evergreen airlines, before being purchased by Global Supertanker. Because it once served as a passenger craft, it has outstanding high and low-speed performance, flying at up to 600 mph and as slow as 165 mph with the flaps down in a landing configuration. Ground operators can refill it with gel, foam or water in as little as 30 minutes.

Suffice to say, maneuvering a massive jumbo jet loaded with 80 tons of water at 200 feet above ground level is not for the faint of heart. Low and slow flying, especially in large aircraft, is fraught with danger and requires piloting skills of the highest order, especially in the hilly, rising terrain around California’s Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and other counties.

In another video, a pilot of the twin-engine lead plane describes how the drops work. The lead pilot first flies to the fire area and assesses the situation, choosing the altitude, heading and “escape” route for the 747 Supertanker. Both planes then fly the route, with the lead plane tracking it first and then getting out of the way while the 747 makes its tank run. To see several drops from the 747’s cockpit, check out this insane video from an operation in Chile (the lead aircraft is visible at around 1:06).

If you think such a plane is impractical for firefighting, Global Supertanker assures us it’s not. Despite its enormous size, the 747 often flies just 200 feet over the highest obstacle at very low flying speeds, something that makes even Cessna pilots like me pucker up. But the enormous plane is astonishingly maneuverable and powerful, and offers the the best forward and peripheral visibility of nearly any jet. It’s also less expensive than you’d think, offering the lowest cost-per-gallon drops of any fire tanker aircraft.

Apple Plans to Appeal $439M ‘Final Judgment’ in FaceTime Patent Lawsuit With VirnetX

VirnetX today announced that the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas has denied all of Apple’s motions in a longstanding FaceTime-related patent lawsuit between the two companies.

The court also granted all of VirnetX’s motions in the retrial and increased the royalty rates that Apple owes during the infringement period, resulting in a revised final judgment amount of $439.7 million.

“We are elated with the Court’s Final Judgement of $439 million in that not only did it affirm the jury’s verdict of $1.20 per infringing iPhone, iPad and Mac Product, but also added for willful infringement, interest and attorney fees. This is the third time a jury has ruled in our favor against Apple,” said Kendall Larsen, VirnetX CEO.

VirnetX originally sued Apple in 2010 over allegations that FaceTime’s peer-to-peer connection technology infringed upon its patents. VirnetX won its case in 2012, and Apple was hit with a $368.2 million judgment, but the appeals and retrial process has dragged on for over seven years until now.

Of note, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas is a hotbed for patent infringement lawsuits given several favorable outcomes for patent holding entities like VirnetX. Some would even call the company a patent troll, although it does appear to offer at least one product of some kind.

A spokesperson for Apple confirmed that it plans to appeal this final judgment, according to TechCrunch. It noted that the motions can still be appealed even if the original case was already appealed and lost.

Tags: FaceTime, patent trials, VirnetX
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Microsoft Outlook for Mac Gaining ‘Simplified’ Redesign With UI Similar to iOS App

Microsoft has revealed a redesign coming to its Outlook apps for Mac and Windows platforms, which is described as aiming for a “simplified” user interface that falls in line with the Outlook app for iOS. The Verge detailed the new and less complex version of Outlook on desktop, which was first spotted by MSPowerUser.

The Mac and Windows apps will feature a single-line ribbon that will be customizable so users can control which buttons are available, tailoring the email client to more easily accomplish their most common tasks. Clutter will be reduced with a smaller set of default commands, and the left navigation panel will include quicker access to folders across multiple accounts, visually similar to the switcher in Outlook on iOS.

Images via The Verge
Microsoft is said to have admitted that “MacBooks are popular amongst key influencers and decision makers,” so the company decided to overhaul its email client “to win these users by delivering the best Outlook has to offer.” Besides the design changes, Outlook for Mac will gain improvements to search and its calendar functions.

Search will become faster and “more reliable,” as well as be easier to access in the app’s top right corner. For the calendar, users will see an overall improved interface that makes managing appointments less of a hassle.

Microsoft hasn’t yet detailed when the new Outlook will launch for Mac and Windows, but the company is said to be testing internal versions of the software for both platforms. Before the major update, a few minor additions will launch on Mac, including the ability to slide-to-delete messages via Apple’s Magic Trackpad and a way to insert tables into emails.

It’s expected that the redesigned app will debut in updates first made available for Office 365 subscribers, and then launch in Office 2019.

Tag: Microsoft Outlook
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Sylvania Smart Lighting Line Gains HomeKit-Enabled Flex Strip and Soft White Bulb

LEDVANCE today announced an expansion to its line of HomeKit-enabled Sylvania lights, introducing the Indoor Flex Strip Full Color and the Soft White A19 Bulb, both of which are joining the existing HomeKit-compatible A19 Full Color Bulb.

The Soft White A19 Bulb is less expensive than the Full Color Bulb at $26, and it offers only a soft white shade instead of multiple colors. It is an 800 lumen bulb that is dimmable, and it works with any lamp that is compatible with A19 bulbs.

Sylvania’s Full Color Flex Strip is a 400 lumen LED light strip that’s designed to be used as accent lighting under shelves, along bookcases, under cabinets, and anywhere else light strips might work. It supports millions of colors and has a 1900K-6500K adjustable color temperature range.

The Sylvania lights connect to a HomeKit setup over Bluetooth, and thus do not require Wi-Fi or a hub to function. With HomeKit compatibility, both can be controlled via the Home app or through Siri, and they can be combined with other HomeKit accessories in scenes.

Sylvania’s new products can be pre-ordered from Amazon and will ship out later this month. The A19 Soft White Bulb is priced at $26, while the Full Color LED Flex Strip is priced at $60.

Tags: HomeKit, Sylvania
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Apple Seeds Third Beta of iOS 11.1 to Developers

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming iOS 11.1 update to developers, one week after releasing the second iOS 11.1 beta and a month after releasing the iOS 11 update to the public.

Registered developers can download the iOS 11 beta from Apple’s Developer Center or over-the-air once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Developer Center.

iOS 11.1 introduces a range of new Unicode 10 emoji like crazy face, pie, pretzel, t-rex, vampire, exploding head, face vomiting, shushing face, love you gesture, brain, scarf, zebra, giraffe, fortune cookie, pie, hedgehog, and more.

Several emoji have also seen some small design changes in iOS 11.1, including the dolphin, octopus, bee, snail, and whale characters, among others. The new designs are more detailed and realistic than existing designs.

The update also brings back the 3D Touch App Switcher gesture that has been missing from iOS 11 since its release. With the return of the gesture, iPhone users can once again 3D Touch at the left edge of the display to bring up the multitasking App Switcher interface.

A few other small features are included in the iOS 11.1 beta. The built-in keyboard in iOS 11.1 now offers up multiple emoji symbols when using an emoji-related word like “cake” or “happy,” with each of the suggestions displayed at the end of the predictive text suggestions.

There’s also an updated camera icon under Restrictions, a new animation when tapping the status bar to scroll upwards, and a faster unlock animation.

iOS 11 marks a major update to the operating system with systemwide design tweaks, a new Lock screen experience, a revamped Control Center, ARKit, new app features, and an entirely new interface for the iPad that includes a Dock, Drag and Drop support, and a redesigned App Switcher for better than ever multitasking.

Related Roundup: iOS 11
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Apple Seeds Third Beta of watchOS 4.1 to Developers

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming watchOS 4 update to developers for testing purposes, a week after releasing the second watchOS 4.1 beta and a month after releasing the new watchOS 4 operating system to the public.

Once the proper configuration profile has been installed from the Apple Developer Center, the new watchOS 4 beta can be downloaded through the dedicated Apple Watch app on the iPhone by going to General –> Software update.

To install the update, the Apple Watch needs to have at least 50 percent battery, it must be placed on the charger, and it has to be in range of the iPhone.

watchOS 4.1 brings support for streaming Apple Music content directly to the Apple Watch Series 3 over LTE and it introduces a new Radio app with access to Beats 1 and other Apple Music radio stations.

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The Music app on the watch looks the same, offering up access to the Music Library, recently played songs, playlists, and Apple Music mixes, but now all Apple Music content can be streamed over an LTE connection and doesn’t need to be downloaded to the device. watchOS 4.1 also adds a new Wi-Fi toggle for turning off Wi-Fi to force the Apple Watch Series 3 to use LTE and it displays the Wi-Fi SSID so users can see the Wi-Fi Network an Apple Watch is connected to.

Support for Apple Music streaming appears to be the main feature in the new watchOS 4.1 update, but Apple is also introducing a range of new Unicode 10 emoji characters that include vomiting face, head exploding, mermaid, zombie, hedgehog, fairy, broccoli, and more.

watchOS 4 is a significant refresh of the watchOS operating system introducing new watch faces, including a personalized Siri face, improvements to the Workout app, support for integration with gym equipment, an Apple News app, a vertical Dock, and a new Flashlight feature in the Control Center.

For more on what’s included in watchOS 4, check out our watchOS 4 roundup.

Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 4Buyer’s Guide: Apple Watch (Buy Now)
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Apple Seeds Third Beta of tvOS 11.1 to Developers

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 11.1 update to developers for testing purposes, a week after seeding the second tvOS 11.1 update and a month after releasing tvOS 11 to the public.

Designed for the fourth and fifth-generation Apple TV models, the tvOS 11.1 beta can be downloaded onto the Apple TV via a profile that’s installed using Xcode on the Mac.

The tvOS 11.1 update appears to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements rather than outward-facing design changes, and no new features were found in the first two betas. Should anything notable surface in the third tvOS 11.1 beta, we’ll update this post.

tvOS 11 introduces features like full support for AirPods, automatic switching between light and dark mode based on local time, Home screen syncing options designed to keep multiple Apple TVs in a single household in sync, and new background modes and notification support.

Related Roundup: Apple TVBuyer’s Guide: Apple TV (Buy Now)
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The Mobicase is a laptop bag that doubles as a mobile desk

Why it matters to you

The Mobicase features an ergonomic laptop stand that allows you to comfortably use your laptop anywhere you’d like.

As they get ever thinner and ever lighter, today’s laptops are also becoming more mobile than ever. But all that mobility is not very useful if operating a laptop away from a desk is something of a chore. After all, your lap isn’t the most ergonomic place for your computer, and with all the heat your machine exudes, it’s certainly not very comfortable either. Enter the Mobicase, a new minimalistic laptop bag that not only serves as a carrying case for your laptop, but a mobile desk as well. Because if you’re taking your laptop anywhere you go, you ought to be able to use it, too.

Featuring an ergonomic laptop stand that is actually built into the case itself, the Mobicase’s workstation is height adjustable up to eight inches. This, the team says, relieves users of back pain, and can also help to improve posture. Plus, the stand allows for maximum airflow, so you don’t have to worry about your machine overheating. Even with the stand, the Mobicase is lightweight, so all you really have to worry about is the heft of your laptop itself.

Furthermore, this laptop case has a slash-proof, high-density EVA rubber shell with shock protection, as well as DWR-coated water-resistant fabric. That means you can feel safe about bringing the Mobicase and its contents just about anywhere you’d like. Plus, a second compression-molded EVA interior sleeve provides additional protection for your tablet device, or can double as a letter storage compartment. Thanks to the Mobicase’s organizer panel, you can quickly access essentials, like a charger, your phone, or your wallet. There’s also a dedicated wireless keyboard holder and self-closing mesh pockets.

“As the trend toward mobile working continues, we’re seeing workers spending more and more hours hunched over their laptops in cafes, libraries, co-working hubs and airport lounges, adding unnecessary strain to their backs and necks and putting them at risk of injuries and back pain,” said Tim McKenzie, Managing Director at Rovingwork, the company behind Mobicase. “This is why we’ve created the Mobicase, to help people stay organised and work effectively, without damaging their back/neck, no matter where their work takes them.”

The Mobicase comes in two sizes — the 13-inch case is available for pre-order starting at $89, while the 16-inch version is available for $94.