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Its easier than ever to find components, peripherals and accessories that feature RGB lighting. In fact, its often harder to find PC parts without them. The hard part is making all those RGB glow in harmony, at least if they arent all made by the same company. Manufacturers have to decide if theyre going to offer their own lighting app, support an established synchronization platform (say, Asus Armoury Crate or Razers Chroma RGB), or just leave customers with a few preset effects to choose from and be done with it.

WhirlwindFX seeks to change that with SignalRGB sofware. The platform is supposed to make it easy to sync RGB lighting across devices regardless of their manufacturer, and the company regularly adds support for new hardware and releases new software integrations that can make an entire setup respond to in-game events. Users can submit their own lighting effects, too, and everything is managed through the central SignalRGB app.

Weve spent a few weeks experimenting with SignalRGB Pro to see if the promise of keeping every aspect of your setups lighting in sync is too good to be true. Were going to share our findings below. But before we do, we want to warn anyone with photosensitive epilepsy that the SignalRGB landing page, as well as several of the effects found within the app itself, feature very fast-moving, strobe-like lighting. Proceed with caution.

WhirlwindFX offers two versions of SignalRGB. The free version includes full hardware support, access to lighting effects, and the ability to manage a mouses CPI. SignalRGB Pro expands that feature set with game integrations, one-of-a-kind audio visualizers, an advanced pixel accurate screen ambience effect, and early access to upcoming features in exchange for $4.99 per month or $35.88 per year at time of writing.

The company gave us access to SignalRGB Pro for evaluation purposes. That access was provided to us via promo codes, however, which means we experienced the sign-up process ourselves. And thats where the problems start. Signing up for SignalRGB Pro is a multi-step process that requires an FAQ article to explain, which exceeds the amount of effort wed put into joining a new service on our own time.

Canceling the subscription also requires multiple steps. WhirlwindFX does email you before youre about to be charged, which is nice, but that email doesnt include a link to a page where the subscription can be canceled. Instead the service requires you to launch the SignalRGB app, navigate its menus, and then follow a link to the cancelation page--a process we only discovered because we searched for a support article.

Managing an account shouldnt be this frustrating. It would be bad enough if signing up for SignalRGB were a hassle, and weve become far too accustomed to companies making it difficult to cancel a subscription. But the lack of account management options available on WhirlwindFXs website (or in SignalRGB itself) is exacerbated by the fact that the sign-up page doesnt let you disable automatic renewals. Nothing about this aspect of the service left a good firstor lastimpression, even though we had free access to it.

That doesnt mean SignalRGB should be overlooked. There is a free tier, after all, and the cancelation process shouldnt bother folks who never stop using SignalRGB Pro. But account management is an important aspect of any service, and its worth noting SignalRGBs flaws in this regard at the start. Now lets talk about the utility itself.

SignalRGBs claim to fame is that it allows you to control and sync your favorite RGB devices from any brand with one free application. WhirlwindFX isnt pulling off any technical wizardry to automatically support every RGB-equipped product on the market, though. Instead the companys developers have to manually add support for specific devices to SignalRGB. A list of compatible hardware can be found on the services website.

We asked WhirlwindFX for more information about how often it adds support for new devices to SignalRGB. The company told us it added support for 16, 15, and then 13 unique SKUs, respectively, during a three-week period in May and June. Most of those products are peripherals, a company rep said. But its recently introduced support for a number of motherboards as well. Users can also request the addition of support for a specific device via its website.

So far as existing device support goes, WhirlwindFX says that SignalRGB currently supports nearly 200+ [sic] of the most popular PC gaming peripherals, including products from brands like Razer, Corsair, SteelSeries, HyperX, Logitech and more. Those products are spread across mice, keyboards and headsets, monitors, mousepads and microphones, as well as a variety of other categories. (Theres also a promise of supporting memory kits soon.) More information about supported devices can be found here.

Supporting roughly 200 devices is a feather in SignalRGBs cap, but the nature of the platform means that its value will vary from user to user. Some people will find that SignalRGB already supports all of their devices; others wont be able to get it working on any of their hardware. People using older devices and early adopters will both likely find themselves waiting for WhirlwindFX to expand SignalRGBs support to their equipment. [Editors Note: In the custom rig Im writing this on, the software recognized my Asus motherboard and Corsair headset, but not my RGB-enabled Team Group SSD or Zotac graphics card.] Whether or not the app is worth using in the meantime largely depends on your willingness to use (and perhaps even pay for) a product on the promise that it will improve in the future.

SignalRGB is supposed to make adding lighting effects to supported hardware easy. In theory the process should be:

This process isnt foolproof, however. For a while we could get the app to control the lighting on our SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless, for example, but not the Logitech G Pro keyboard (the old version with Romer-G switches, not the most recent version). The G Pro was initially supported, but then it stopped working. Its not clear why. The app is supposed to support the keyboard, and we dont have any Logitech software installed, so its not like the keyboard was struggling to resolve conflicting settings. This problem was eventually fixed, presumably because of an update to the app, but the inconsistent experience still left us wanting more.

SignalRGB also offered to control the RGB lighting on the Logitech G Pro X Superlight which doesnt actually have any LEDs to control. The preview images shown for both the G Pro X Superlight and the G Pro keyboard were also incorrect. The image shown for the Superlight looks like a Razer mouse, and even though the keyboards image at least appears to be on-brand, its still not the right device. That would be a minor problem if the rest of the app worked as intended, but as it stands, the app just seems like its broken.

WhirlwindFX also recently introduced a new feature called Layouts to make setting up multiple devicesthe apps raison dtreeasier by showing them all at a glance. We couldnt test the feature ourselves due to a lack of supported hardware. But if it does work as intended, this should go a long way toward helping SignalRGB serve its intended purpose. Unfortunately the rest of the experience makes that a big if.

SignalRGB is also supposed to offer integrations with more than 70 games so it can make your systems lighting react to in-game events. WhirlwindFX has published many YouTube videos showcasing integrations with popular titles like Fortnite, Valorant and Minecraft, to name a few, and most of them make sense. Taking damage in Apex Legends makes some lights flash red to mimic blood splatter, for example, while walking into lava in Minecraft will flash orange particles.

These videos offer excellent previews of the lighting effects triggered by in-game actions. They dont appear to be available within SignalRGB itself, though, with the app instead requiring you to install and apply the integration without knowing exactly what it does. Would it be difficult to Alt+Tab over to a browser window to preview a specific integration? No. But the experience would be greatly improved if SignalRGB offered an idea of what to expect before that integration is applied.

Even applying an integration wont necessarily offer more information, until the relevant game is launched. This is the preview displayed if you apply the Valorant integration when the game is closed:

That image exposes some of SignalRGBs inner workings. This suggested the app was reading the screen and looking for specific visual cues rather than relying on a behind-the-scenes API, and WhirlwindFX confirmed that is the case. This kind of screen-reading will likely inspire privacy-minded users to leave SignalRGB behind. But even if you dont mind this process, its still jarring to see it in action. The man behind the curtain shouldve stayed there.

This doesnt seem to be the most efficient of processes, either. Valorant itself likes to use as much of our Intel Core i5-7600K as possible, with Task Manager typically reporting 90% usage in-game, but SignalRGB was quick to take up the remaining 10%. The end result was unbearable frame drops that had us scrambling to close the program. Better hardware might solve that problem, but its a shame people using older hardware will probably have to avoid the app. (Although Microsoft may be solving the old hardware issue its own way with Windows 11.)

These are essentially lighting effects that react to currently playing audio. SignalRGB doesnt separate these visualizations into their own section of the app; theyre intermingled with other lighting effects. Mirroring these visualizations to RGB hardware is fairly interesting, but the visualizations themselves arent particularly novel, so dont expect to be blown away the next time you listen to some Taylor Swift.

We couldnt test this feature because we dont use Philips Hue lightbulbs or have dedicated light strips behind our monitor. We do have one smart bulb, a Nanoleaf Essentials A19 controlled via HomeKit, but neither that lightbulb nor that platform is SignalRGB-compatible. But the basic idea is that the app will sample whats happening on-screen to decide what colors to project to enable improved ambience. These capabilities are also offered by other lighting solutions, but having them included here is still nice.

Its not hard to see why RGB fanatics might be curious about SignalRGB. Keeping an entire systems lighting in sync with unique effects that respond to whats happening on-screen or in-ear is a compelling enough proposition. The effort to support as many devices as possible is also commendable.

But, the execution simply isnt there -- at least not yet. When we tested SignalRGB in June 2021, device previews were incorrect, there were no previews for lighting effects until they were installed, and lots of RGB devices (particularly on the component front) just werent recognized by the software at all. In short, several aspects of the platform feel like a work in progress at best, and far from a polished solution. Is that better than not being able to keep your hardwares lighting in sync at all? Maybe, if you happen to have peripherals that work. But the performance overhead and lack of integrated account management features would be enough for us to stop using SignalRGB even if it did support all our devices.

WhirlwindFX is making steady advances toward a more refined SignalRGB. The company regularly adds support for new devices, expands to additional product categories, and introduces new features. The company also told us its working on a significant overhaul to the dashboard user interface to provide a clearer experience that includes previews for lighting effects and game integrations. A rep told us the update will arrive by July 31st at the latest and will also include GPU and RAM support (although its obviously not clear which models), an in-app notification system for updates, and a tutorial and free one-month trial of the Pro version.

The promised updates sound good, but this isnt a proof of concept looking for beta testers. This is a promise of future potential being marketed as a finished product. Maybe check back in 3-6 months to see how much the device support, features, and overall feel has improved. In the meantime, most people should probably stick with the (likely multiple) pieces of software they currently use to control their RGB devices. The long-dreamed-of world of simple RGB synchronicity still isnt here yet. Maybe it never will be.

Read more from the original source:
One RGB App to Rule Them All? Hands On With WhirlwindFX SignalRGB Software - Tom's Hardware

Last week I was buying some gaskets in my local hardware store when I noticed that I was the only person wearing a mask except for one of the clerks at the registers and she had it below her nose. The last time I was there, just about everybody was masked.

Weve gotten blase about the whole pandemic thing in New Hampshire and for good reason: Were in pretty good shape. The amount of COVID-19 circulating freely is as low as it was at this point a year ago, so low that its easy to ignore.

But there are hints that our free-and-easy summer may be ending sooner than we hoped.

New cases of COVID-19 began rising in New Hampshire last week, although not by much. More alarmingly, new cases are rising in every single state, sometimes sharply. A few places, notably Los Angeles County (which has seven times the population of New Hampshire) have gone back to indoor mask mandates.

According to the CDC, the month of June saw 337 Americans die from COVID-19 on an average every day more than deaths from gunshot, car crashes and flu, combined.

Its a reminder that the pandemic is not anywhere near over in America. And in much of the rest of the world, as international news depressingly tells us, COVID-19 is a raging pandemic that kills thousands and hospitalizes millions and is helping to undermine entire economies.

This is, of course, due mostly to the Delta variant.

Weve long known that the Delta breed, to use my canine metaphor, is more contagious than the original virus. Now that its widespread, weve found that, happily, it does not seem to be more likely to cause serious illness. Thats good news but even so, if we have more cases, were going to eventually see more people in the hospital and more deaths.

The solution, of course, is to boost our natural immune system to make it harder for any variant of the COVID-19 virus to take root in our lungs.

I have done that through eating right, exercising and all that stuff, but mostly through vaccination. If more people followed suit we wouldnt have to be worrying so much.

Dont you wish they would? I sure do.

TheMonitorhas paused our daily updated charts. For coronavirus-related information and updates throughout the week, visitconcordmonitor.com/coronavirus.

How are we doing on vaccinations? Not good enough and not getting better.

For all practical purposes, nobody is getting vaccinated anymore in New Hampshire.

The first two weeks of July saw just 2,000 people added to the tally of those who had gotten their first shot and just 2,500 added to the fully vaccinated list maintained by the state Department of Health and Human Services.

It looks like were going to be stuck at 60% of the population getting vaccinated, although that could rise if a vaccine is developed for children under 12. Either way its nowhere near any sort of herd immunity, especially not with a more-contagious variant on the loose.

Whats the trend on the spread and impact of the disease? Good but there are hints of less good.

Our two-week average of new cases is still low 25 per day as of July 16, exactly what it was on July 16 of 2020 but last week saw more than 40 new cases of COVID-19 announced on three days running. That hasnt happened since mid-June.

Read more from the original source:
COVID hints that our free-and-easy summer may end early - Granite Geek - Concord Monitor

What states are included?

While they vary state to state, most of the items included in the tax reduction are school based, such as stationery and folders. However, some states include some expensive products in their qualifying items such as computers and software:

For many states on this list the reasons are for back to school preparation. With the new school year approaching, the tax-free weekends give parents and students some support in acquiring school items.

That is not to say they are the only ones who can utilise the weekends. These discounts apply to all shoppers.

However, some states have multiple tax-free holidays a year but for different reasons.

For example, Florida has two more tax-free weekends. These are in place so people can prepare for natural disasters. those were back in May and June. Other states which experience disasters such as Texas and Alabama have extra breaks as well.

Originally posted here:
When will the 2021 tax holiday be? - AS English

What a great formula for a grift: Find some gullible idiots who wish to free themselves of the tyranny of Big Tech, and get them to use your platform or buy your equipment. For the last year, various MAGA types have tried to set up alternatives to Twittermost notably the clown shows of Parler last year and Gettr this year. And now we have the advent of the Freedom Phone, which promises to be Completely. Uncensored. and comes pre-loaded with apps that freedom-lovers love to love, such as Parler and Rumble.

The device has been criticized for failing to deliver on the promise of breaking its users free of Big Tech. In fact, the phone offers very little by way of freedom except freeing you of an excess $500 thats been weighing down your pockets. The Freedom Phone itself is a clunky product designed to fleece nave consumers who dont understand how they are being exploited and productized by the tech industry (for a primer on this subject be sure to watch Netflixs The Social Dilemma).

One of the criticisms of the device is that contrary to its makers assertions, its actually just running Android. But this criticism is either misguided or offered in bad faith. Its true that this device is running a flavor of the Android operating system called LineageOS. Yet that in and of itself doesnt say anything about whether the device frees you from your Googlian overlords. Yes, Android is owned by Google, but once you grab an open source versionas LineageOS isand start tinkering, you can build pretty much anything you want and Google doesnt get to monitor you or collect your data just because your phone is running Android.

To put it another way: Android is a big toolbox that allows developers to build all sorts of software; it doesnt say anything, either good or bad, about the Freedom Phone that its running Android. Indeedif you plan on making a smartphone, thats almost your only option.

So no, the problem with the Freedom Phone isnt its OS. Rather, the problem is that it exists in an ecosystem where the users options for having a useful device without connecting it to services that deprive it of its freedom are exceedingly small.

Still, say you decide to buy one. Congratulations, youre the proud owner of a new Freedom Phone, free from Googles intrusive monitoring and censorship. But its also free of most of the reasons youd bother to own a phone and keep it charged and connected to the internet in the first place. You want email? You want to have your phone guide you to your next insurrection-planning meeting? You want a calendar to put that meeting on? You want a contact list that is shared with your computer? You want to make a handy shopping list (of groceries or, say, materials for protest signs and Molotov cocktails)? You want to do some research on just how bad critical race theory is? The minute you try, youll notice that your phone simply isnt as useful as it would be if it were connected to some of the services Big Tech provides. If you want to do those things, youve got to start installing Gmail and Facebook and the other apps that, well, defeat the purpose of having such a device.

You seethe phone isnt the problem. In fact, you can turn any Android phone into a freedom phone by signing out of your Gmail account, turning off your location sharing, and then only using the apps that swear on their mothers graves never to track you (and they might be lying).

All snickering aside, if the Freedom Phone were better executed, and perhaps marketed less to the right wing than to those with a general, both-sides-of-the-aisle concern about the growing social and political dominance of the tech giants, it might conceivably be a pretty resounding shot across the bow of smartphone retailers. After all, this is a device thats as disengaged from the primary culprits of digital dictatorship as it can be while still being minimally useful.

If the makers of the Freedom Phonegenuinely cared about freedom, they would not be focusing just on the right, but trying to tap into the widespread desire to use technology that doesnt exploit us or take advantage of our proclivity to become addicted to outrage. This is an admirable sentiment. If there really is a market for such a thing, perhaps someone of better faith and more competence can come and service this market. For now, though, the Freedom Phone is a gimmick being sold to people who dont know any better, and its purpose is not to reduce political anger but to put it front and center.

All that said, if youre going to buy a Freedom Phone, please tell them I sent you so that I can get a commission!

Go here to see the original:
The Freedom Phone Is a Cynical Gimmick - The Bulwark

UBports, which took on the task of maintaining the Ubuntu Touch mobile OS after Canonical abandoned it, has released OTA-18 with lots of improvements, but still based on the ancient Ubuntu 16.04.

According to the team, one of the big changes in this release is a rewritten Media-hub service, responsible for media playback and control. "20,526 lines of code later, the new media-hub emerged with better tests, a more contributor-friendly structure, and a few fixed bugs to boot," said the post introducing the release.

The OS update also improves efficiency. "We still have a lot of people using devices with just 1GB of RAM," the team explained. "OTA-18 almost always feels faster than OTA-17 on the same device."

Fairphone running Ubuntu Touch

Other fixes include automatic appearance of the on-screen keyboard in new browser tabs, a degree symbol on the on-screen keyboard, stickers added to the messaging app, snooze now works as expected in alarms, and "call audio was fixed on the Google Pixel 2."

That does not sound like much, but the team said "there are a lot of fixes that cost little in code but will have a huge impact in practice."

There are a few snags. Just 54 devices support Ubuntu Touch and, of those, just 28 support OTA-18. This includes Fairphone 2 but not PinePhone. According to a post in the PinePhone support forum: "Unfortunately, getting UT up and going on Pinephone/Pinetab is on the backburner until after the 20.04 upgrade."

What then of Ubuntu Touch based on Ubuntu 20.04? Apparently, progress is under way, and in fact the limited number of new features on OTA-18 is in part because "the small team of people who know the internals of Ubuntu Touch has been preoccupied with things other than OTA-18," most of those other things being connected with 20.04.

This includes work on Lomiri, the "convergence desktop" originally called Unity, until Canonical abandoned it. However, there will be an OTA-19 again based on 16.04 before we get a 20.04 release. There is more information on development progress in this Q&A.

On the plus side, users of Ubuntu Touch on the stable channel will get OTA-18 on compatible devices simply by "using the Updates screen of system settings."

It sounds like an uphill battle, though. UBports' Ubuntu Touch is one of several ways to run a free operating system on a smartphone, but all have snags. One approach is to base a phone on AOSP (Android Open Source Project), in which case there is an issue with Google's proprietary Play Services not being available see here for how the /e/ Foundation works around this problem. Another approach (as with Ubuntu Touch) is to base the OS on Linux and to rely on the Linux application ecosystem.

There is plenty of interest in the idea of a phone that is free from Google or Apple and the various ways they restrict, track, and control smartphones, but translating that interest into a viable alternative is problematic.

More:
Ubuntu on a phone, anyone? UBports reaches 18th stable update, but it's still based on 16.04 - The Register