Author: Geek Planet

Great programmers must know when they are being phished. Here’s this week’s Micro Softy to test your detection ability. The presentation of this Micro Softy is a bit longer than usual, so grab a cup of coffee and prepare to think. It was 1948. Wealthy investment banker, Geardown Geko, received a short letter from an anonymous source in April, immediately before hockey’s Stanley Cup finals. It read: “I am gifted with powers to predict the future. Because of circumstances, I am not able to personally profit from this gift. But I can share my forecasts with those who can. I…

The Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra’s new Pro Keyboard is, by most accounts, exactly what heavy tablet users have been asking for. Whether they were asking for it at $338 is a different conversation entirely. Revealed at MWC 2026 and now quietly available on Samsung’s Korean store, the Pro Keyboard snaps onto the Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra’s 14.6-inch AMOLED display and does a convincing impression of a laptop. A tablet that wants to be a laptop The hinge lets you prop the screen at a comfortable angle, the whole thing folds shut for carrying, and power transfers through metal pins on…

Google is bringing one of its best AI-powered Google Translate features to iPhone users at last. Live Translate with headphones is now rolling out on iOS, months after its debut on Android in December. The feature turns your headphones into a real-time translator to help you understand conversations as they happen without staring at your phone. Google says the live translation feature works across more than 70 languages and is expanding to more regions, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Thailand, and the U.K. How Google is turning your headphones into a live translator Live translation works directly through the…

A new leak suggests that Nvidia may soon introduce a 9GB variant of its upcoming GeForce RTX 5050 graphics card, potentially expanding the entry-level offering in its next-generation GPU lineup. The information reportedly surfaced through industry sources and hardware leaks, indicating that the new model could feature upgraded memory while maintaining similar power requirements to previously rumored versions. The report points to the possibility that Nvidia is preparing multiple memory configurations for the RTX 5050, including both 8GB and 9GB variants, giving consumers more flexibility depending on their performance needs and budgets. Details Behind the Reported GPU Variant According to…

Android 17 is fixing one of the most irritating parts of using your phone, its internet controls. If you’ve ever tried to switch off Wi-Fi quickly and got pulled into an extra menu instead, this update is aimed right at that moment. In Android 17 Beta 3, Google is changing how those toggles work in Quick Settings. Instead of grouping everything under a single tile, the system now separates Wi-Fi and mobile data, so you can manage each one without going through another screen. It’s a small interface tweak, but it clears up a long-standing usability issue that’s been slowing…

After being unveiled earlier this year, ASUS’ NUC 16 Pro mini PC is finally hitting the shelves. One of the mid-tier configurations of the tiny system is now listed online, and it is currently available for purchase. The variant packs Intel’s Panther Lake processor, bringing a significant upgrade over the previous NUC systems. Serious hardware inside a tiny box The mini PC first made its debut at CES 2026, with powerful specs under the hood. But the model currently listed features Intel’s Core Ultra 7 365H processor. You get support for up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM across two SO-DIMM…

While most Chromium-based browsers treat tab management as an afterthought, Vivaldi takes a smarter approach. Its latest iOS update doubles down on one of its best ideas: two-level tab stacks. It’s not a new feature, but it’s one of the few that actually makes juggling dozens of tabs on a phone feel manageable. A small but genuinely useful feature Instead of hiding grouped tabs in a menu or forcing you to switch to a different page, Vivaldi keeps everything accessible, letting you switch between related tabs quickly and intuitively. The browser displays your main tabs in a row at the…

This edited version of the article below first appeared in New English Review. Have you ever wondered if insomniac spiders, trying to sleep, count imaginary arachnology professors jumping over college classroom desks? Silly questions aside, it’s not something that constantly occupies my mind. Anyhow, the other night as I rested in bed reading a book, I noticed a spider on the ceiling above where I lay. I wondered was it awake or asleep. This sight occurs every seven or eight weeks, and if my ceiling was made out of steel and I had a flame-throwing drone, I’d incinerate the creepy-crawly…

If you have been putting off buying a new laptop or desktop, you might want to reconsider. Prices are expected to rise by up to 35 percent this year, and the window to buy at a reasonable price is closing fast. The culprit? Skyrocketing RAM prices and a shortage of entry-level Intel processors. RAM prices have already increased by 2.5 to 3 times, resulting in a 10 to 12 percent rise in laptop and desktop prices. Prices are expected to rise 8 to 10 percent in March, with another 10 percent increase likely over the following months. Add to that…

Android 17 has a cool new trick to keep AI assistants from screaming in your ears, and it fixes a problem that becomes obvious the moment it happens. You turn up your music on headphones, then a voice reply hits at the same level and cuts through everything. The latest beta changes that behavior. Assistant audio no longer rises and falls with your media, so increasing volume for a song or video won’t suddenly make Gemini or another assistant louder too. The effect is immediate in daily use, as voice replies stay at a steady level even when your media…