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When the Alabama Public Service Commission held public hearings last week on a $1.1 billion expansion proposal from Alabama Power, it did so under a new media plan that prohibits attendees from recording its formal public hearings, posting to social media during the hearings or even using digital devices, including phones or laptops during those proceedings.
The new policies, enacted earlier this month, do not apply to regular meetings of the commission but do apply to formal hearings such as the one last week.
Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve the new media plan on March 3, the week before that hearing began. The media plan was not on the public agenda of that meeting but was added at the end by PSC executive director and Administrative Law Judge John Garner, who presides over formal PSC hearings.
The new policies went into effect immediately on an interim basis, despite not being previously announced or available for public comment. The public can submit written comments on the plan through April 3 before the commission votes on whether to adopt the new media plan permanently at a future meeting.
At that meeting, Garner said the new media policies mirror those in use by the Alabama Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals to limit the use of cameras or social media during trials.
The policies state that "No live audio or video broadcasting or social-media updates of formal hearings are permitted from inside the hearing room," and "Digital devices may not be used in the hearing room while formal hearing is in session except by attorneys appearing before the Court and their support staff."
PSC Commissioners Jeremy Oden and Chip Beeker and President Twinkle Cavanaugh voted in favor of the changes without additional discussion. The full video of the meeting is embedded below.
The new policies were enforced during last week's marathon hearing on the Alabama Power expansion, where Alabama Power witnesses testified for two days in favor of the expansion, and intervening groups called witnesses on the third day to testify in opposition.
John Free, the PSC's director of electricity policy, said the commission's new rules were less restrictive than the PSC's previous policies on live streaming, as the commission had previously blocked all recording of public hearings. Now, interested parties can request permission to record or photograph hearings if they do so at least five days in advance, and if all the involved parties consent to allow the recording.
"The newly adopted Media Coverage Plan provides needed clarity and more importantly, preserves the integrity of the hearing process," Free said. "The objective of the Media Coverage Plan is to ensure that the public record that is compiled in formal hearings remains the focus of such formal proceedings."
The new policy is more restrictive on reporters, though, as there was previously no prohibition on posting social media updates or using laptops in the hearing room so long as it did not disrupt the proceedings. Alabama Media Group posted updates on the hearings during breaks between witnesses and from outside the hearing room during testimony.
Democratic PSC candidate Laura Casey said she applied for permission to record or live stream last week's hearing but was denied and told that not all parties had consented.
Casey said the new policies were an attempt by the commission to make it harder for the public to know what they are doing. Casey is facing Cavanaugh in November's general election for PSC President.
"Instead of simply live streaming the hearings themselves, they have made this a game of how secret they can keep their proceedings," Casey said in a news release. "The end result is that they are laser-focused on keeping the public in darkness."
Casey was ejected from a formal hearing of the Public Service Commission in November for live streaming the proceedings on her cell phone, and her cell phone was taken by state troopers until the hearing ended. She sued the commission in December, believing the Alabama Open Meetings Act specifically allowed her to live stream public hearings. A trial court judge disagreed, and Casey's suit was dismissed. She said she plans to appeal that decision.
Garner told AL.com's Kyle Whitmire that because the commissioners don't deliberate during the hearings, or even ask questions of witnesses, the hearings were not the same as public meetings covered by the Open Meetings Act. During last week's hearings, the commissioners sat in the gallery with the general audience instead of their usual positions on the dais.
Casey said asking questions of witnesses is part of the job expected of a Public Service Commissioner.
"Their job is to be elected to represent us, to ask questions," Casey said. "So when the commissioners not only don't ask questions at a hearing, but go a step further and say they can't ask questions at a hearing, who's running the show, and why did we elect three people?"
Casey said the Commission functions differently than trial courts and should have different rules. The PSC's role is to regulate utilities in the state on behalf of the people of Alabama, not to determine whether someone is guilty or innocent of a crime.
Casey and two others were ejected from the November hearing on Alabama Power's fee on customers with solar panels. Garner stopped that hearing multiple times to instruct state troopers, who provide security for the PSC, to eject people from the hearing room who were attempting to live stream the proceedings.
Casey said that live streaming such hearings is an important service for people who cannot travel to Montgomery to attend the hearings, which are held during the work week.
Free said the new policies "will not have any adverse impact on the public's ability to know what is going on inside the Public Service Commission."
"Formal hearings of the Commission will, as always, remain open to the public to attend and there will continue to be an official transcript of all that transpires during formal hearings made available to the public," Free said.
The transcripts are available through the docket search function of the PSC web site around 10 business days after a hearing has concluded.
The full video of the March 3 PSC meeting is embedded below. Garner begins discussing the new media policy at around the 29:45 mark.
Here's a look at the high-stakes hearing last week to decide the future of power generation in much of the state.
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On Wednesday morning we asked the Hackaday community to donate their extra computer cycles for Coronavirus research. On Thursday morning the number of people contributing to Team Hackaday had doubled, and on Friday it had doubled again. Thank you for putting those computers to work in pursuit of drug therapies for COVID-19.
I'm writing today for two reasons, we want to keep up this trend, and also answer some of the most common questions out there. Folding@Home (FAH) is an initiative that simulates proteins associated with several diseases, searching for indicators that will help medical researchers identify treatments. These are complex problems and your efforts right now are incredibly important to finding treatments faster. FAH loads the research pipeline, generating a data set that researchers can then follow in every step of the process, from identifying which chemical compounds may be effective and how to deliver them, to testing they hypothesis and moving toward human trials.
First, here's the rundown on how easy it is to set your computer up to help with Folding@Home's Coronavirus effort:
Download and run the installer for Linux, Mac, or Windows. Some people reported they needed to us the alternate download links.
Choose any name to identify your efforts on the public ranking system
Use the Team Hackaday team number to contribute to our collective rankings: 44851
It's optional but I recommend getting your own passkey — it's a hash that uniquely identifies your efforts and you can get one emailed to you on the FAH Passkey page
Okay, let's answer some questions! First up, does this actually make a difference?
Folding@Home Has a Record of Producing Results
The Folding@Home project started back in 2000. Much has been accomplished over the course of the past 20 years and I encourage you to go and read the lengthy Examples of application in biomedical research section of the Wikipedia page which takes an in-depth look at the impacts.
The effort has identified drug therapies for Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases, it's been used in drug design for combating HIV and influenza (both are viral), and is used to study how cancer mutates. Now we have the chance to apply that to the COVID-19 virus. On an explain-it-like-I'm-five level, scientists are trying to simulate every possible combination of protein folding patterns, looking for locations that would let medicine grab hold and do some good.
It's a huge challenge, similar to trying every combination on a padlock, but this lock takes a mind-bogglingly large number of combinations. Research scientists highlight where the most likely solutions lie, then use the mind-bogglingly huge power of the Folding@Home network and sets to work running the simulations. How powerful is the FAH network? Wikipedia lists it at 470 petaFLOPS as of early March 2020 which means 416 quadrillion floating point operations per second. That's 416 million billion math problems solved every second!
But here's the best part of all of this, the project is non-profit and makes the data freely available to other researchers upon request.
Can I Make Sure My Computer Only Works on the COVID-19 Problem?
No, but you don't need to since the group is already prioritizing the coronavirus effort. Although the software does offer the option to work on a specific area of research, COVID-19 is not specifically listed. That is likely because this pandemic is fast moving and it's not worth trying to push a new version of the software just to add this setting. For now, leave this on the default of "Any" and your computer will work on COVID-19 whenever there are Work Units (WU) available.
You can use the built-in web interface found at http://localhost:7396/ to see what problem your computer is currently working on. Here you can see the "Learn more…" screen from currently running instance. This week I have only seen one time that my computer was working on a different project.
My Computer is Set Up, Why is it Idle Right Now?
The FAH servers dish out those WUs as fast as they can, but right now the network is growing as more people add their computers to the network. When all of the staged WUs run out, your computer will be idle until more become available. This has nothing to do with you, project maintainers are working to keep this buffer full.
Will This Lead to a Vaccine?
I'm not an expert but I believe the answer is that this research seeks to identify pharmaceutical treatments and a better understanding of how the protiens in the virus work. This is not necessarily in pursuit of a vaccine.
This is still incredibly important, it means that researchers are looking for drugs that can be used to treat patients who have the virus. Right now, COVID-19 is really good at evading our body's natural defenses — our immune system. If drug therapies are discovered that weaken the virus, it may lead to our immune system having a foothold to fight the infection.
We need both a vaccine and drug therapies — consider the example of the seasonal flu where we have vaccines to protect people from infection and antiviral drugs to treat at-risk populations who have been infected. Research into both should be, and is, running in parallel.
Use #44581 for Team Hackaday
This effort is gamified, so join your fellow hackers on Team Hackaday by using team #44851 when you configure your Folding@Home software. When we first published, we had 21 active team members, by Friday afternoon there were 737. Can we make that 7000 by the end of the week?
Your Computer Can Literally Help Fight Coronavirus - COVID-19!
In a scramble to build up work-from-home infrastructure, Colorado's state government is spending about $2.4 million to purchase emergency laptops for remote employees, according to the governor's Office of Information Technology.
There are some 30,000 people who work for the state, and while some of their jobs can't be done remotely — corrections officers, Colorado State Patrol troopers and some transportation staff, for example — it appears that many corners of state government are moving in that direction.
A spokeswoman for the Office of Information Technology said that 14 different state departments and offices requested new laptops, and that the state purchased nearly 1,800 of them, at a cost of $1,325 per unit. The laptops are made by the Chinese tech company Lenovo.
The spokeswoman told The Denver Post that the IT office created a task force earlier this month to prepare for the COVID-19 crisis, and "to ensure state network and system continuity during the state's response."
A statement from the office reads: "With additional social distancing measures in place, we understand that many residents will rely on important state services now more than ever. Together with our agency partners, OIT is committed to maintaining and protecting the state systems Coloradans need most.
"OIT is closely monitoring state network bandwidth to ensure that we can support a growing remote workforce while maintaining business operations. Utilization is holding steady at a sustainable level with significant room to expand usage should more state employees move to teleworking in the coming weeks."
In addition to the new laptops, OIT says it has spent $7,800 to increase its virtual private network (VPN) capacity from 10,000 to 30,000 users.
Join our Facebook group for updates on coronavirus in Colorado.
As companies send employees home in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19, cybersecurity experts are warning that telecommuting could be putting company assets and data at risk.
There are a number of precautions that employees working from home should consider to ensure that sensitive data isn't compromised by cybercriminals taking advantage of the health crisis.
One of the biggest problems is that employees working remotely often become relaxed and can let their guard down. In other cases, workers wrongly assume that when they work at home they have the same level of security protection as in the office.
"Typically when employees are inside of the corporate network, the enterprise security stack will protect them," said Matias Katz, CEO of Byos.
"But working from home exposes the employee's devices -- and through them, the company's network -- to threats that exist on dirty public WiFi networks," he told TechNewsWorld.
New Opportunities for Cybercriminals
One significant security problem is that with so much data hosted in remote server farms or the cloud, that data is only as safe as the connections that can gain access to it. In an office the systems can be better hardened, but allowing staff to work remotely can be akin to opening the gates to the barbarians.
"There's no question that working outside the workplace can increase cyber risk," said Elad Shapira, head of research at Panorays.
"For example, there will likely be more unmanageable devices being used to access company assets, which raises the likelihood of introducing compromised devices into a company's network," he told TechNewsWorld.
In addition, by having more credentials that can access company assets, including the company's virtual private network, there's an even greater risk for every credential-related attack, such as credential stuffing and brute force.
For these reasons, ensuring that security policies are consistent and applied throughout can be extremely challenging.
"If procurement and security somehow were able to handle securing the few devices used for occasional remote work, they now have hundreds, if not thousands of devices they need to secure," warned Shapira.
Companies may need to enforce two-factor authentication across all assets and for all employees.
"Furthermore, many essential tasks are performed in the workplace face-to-face, including requests for financial transactions or IT service," said Shapira. "By moving these in-person transactions to email, the organization becomes much more susceptible to phishing and email scams."
Mitigating the Risks
During emergencies that may take the staff out of the office, the first thing an IT department should ensure is that employees are prepared and understand the risks of working remotely.
"It is always best practices to anticipate remote workers and have policies, procedures, and governance to help mitigate risk," said Lou Morentin, VP of compliance and risk management for Cerberus Sentinel.
"Many standards -- including HIPAA, ISO and HITRUST, for example -- require controls for remote workers," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Anytime a remote workforce accesses company resources, it is recommended that a VPN connection be used to secure data in transit," Morentin added. "If possible, segregation of work connections from family traffic is recommended. Many modern consumer routers allow for segregated networks."
The situation could be made worse if a home computer is being used to do office work remotely.
"It depends, of course, on a number of factors," said Mark Foust, vice president of marketing for CloudJumper.
"Microsoft's Windows Virtual Desktop functions as a Desktop as a Service secondary desktop from the Azure cloud -- and it's surfaced as a Platform as a Service and has a greatly reduced security footprint," he told TechNewsWorld.
This could allow a way for the IT department to make separate company data from personal data on a personal computer.
"This presents an ideal solution for many remote work scenarios," added Foust. "A secondary desktop, in WVD Azure, for example, is ideal for security and business continuity."
Tools to Protect Employees and Data
A number of tools and protocols are worthy of consideration to help remote workers protect sensitive data.
"Single sign on and multifactor authentication are critical technologies for the remote workforce, as well as minimizing risk for the business," said Ralph Martino, vice president of product strategy at Stealthbits.
"These together allow the remote workforce to connect to business applications in the cloud, or on-prem using one password," he told TechNewsWorld.
"When the remote worker is terminated, the business can terminate access across a series of applications, minimizing the risk of misuse of an account that doesn't get de-provisioned, and this provides greater security and compliance for the enabling the remote workforce," Martino added.
As someone who has been working remotely for nearly a decade, Paul Bischoff, privacy advocate and researcher at Comparitech suggested a number of tools.
"For digitizing physical paperwork and getting signatures, I use a document scanner (TinyScanner), PDF editor (Adobe Fill and Sign), and DocuSign," he told TechNewsWorld.
"Wave is my preferred accounting and invoicing tool, while Slack is my day-to-day office chat room," Bischoff added.
"A good backup service is essential so that remote employees don't lose work, and Zoom is a solid professional-grade video conferencing tool," he noted.
To VPN or Not to VPN
Many corporations may want to roll out VPNs to more employees to access office resources and secure storage, but this shouldn't be seen as a hardened defense. There are many shortcomings to VPNs that users may not readily consider.
"Some of the many device threats that VPNs can't protect against are eavesdropping, exploits, and lateral spreading of attackers and malware," said Byos' Katz.
"That's because VPNs only encrypt data in transit, but don't protect where the data is residing -- the user's device," he explained.
"Once an attacker or malware gets into a device, they often go undetected, seizing or manipulating data with the ultimate goal of moving from the single remote laptop or tablet into the big prize: the company network and servers," warned Katz.
Even with the best security in place, employees are just one of the many potential weak links in a chain.
"It's one thing if a large organization, presumably with robust security processes in place, implements a work-from-home policy for its employees," said Panorays' Shapira.
"What happens, however, when one of its supply chain partners does the same? In that case, the organization needs to be able to also check that its supply chain partners adhere to that same high level of security," he added.
For this reason a comprehensive plan needs to be drawn up. While it could be too late for the current COVID-19 crisis, forward thinking will make it easier to send teams home to be safe from illness and secure from cyberthreats.
"With the right tools, policies and procedures in place," said Shapira, "organizations can be assured that the cyber posture of their company and third parties remains strong, even outside the workplace."
Peter Suciu has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2012. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile phones, displays, streaming media, pay TV and autonomous vehicles. He has written and edited for numerous publications and websites, including Newsweek, Wired and FoxNews.com.
Email Peter.
COVID-19: Canada unveils $82B emergency response package | Special coverage
I have a dream. Or a delusion? I'm not sure. Either way, there is a gadget I have sought for many years and am yet to find: A pocket-sized laptop that I can get real work done on. In my case, "real work" is mostly writing, basic image editing and -- just to make things complicated -- fairly heavyweight music production.
You can see the problem I have created for myself; I'm asking for something with a keyboard big enough for fluid typing and the processing grunt to handle images and audio (and associated plugins). Basically, a regular, decent-spec laptop. But there are multiple options in the small laptop space, so it can't be totally unreasonable? The Pocket 2 from GPD ($500), for example, clearly claims to offer both power and portability. Then there's the 7-inch Peakago ($399) that mimics the Lenovo Yoga Book series in a much smaller form. These are just two examples I've tried recently, along with others in the past and, well, let's just say the search continues.
You might know GPD for its gaming-focused (and equally diminutive) portables. If you're looking for a handheld device for PC gaming, it offers several options, often with buttons and a D-pad built-in. It's logical, then, that the company figured it could strip out the gamepad and have a solution for mid-to-pro level users. And given that the product page for the Pocket 2 proudly states "Technology rivals the MacBook," I was pretty optimistic. After all, I write on a MacBook every day and use one for music production in my spare time.
What GPD didn't clarify, is which MacBook its technology rivals. Given that the Pocket 2 runs a low-power Intel (3965Y) processor that's dual-core and 1.5GHz, it must have been a pretty old one. The company also claims "[The] GPD Pocket 2 uses the same Intel 3965Y processor as the new Surface Pro." This is... not true. Both the Pocket 2 and the Surface Pro use chips based on Kaby Lake architecture, but that's about all they have in common. (To be fair, it's also possible the website just needs updating as the spec might have changed since then.) The Pocket 2 runs a Celeron, while the (cheapest) Surface Pro has an m3 chip. In lay terms, the Celeron isn't a bad processor for mobile gadgets, but the m3 series is designed for more premium ultraportables, and has extra threads to deal with their generally higher performance requirements.
Generous comparisons aside, the Pocket 2 does meet most of my requirements on paper. As the name suggests, it will fit in my (back) pocket, and the processor should be just enough to do what I want it to. With 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (besting what you'd get on a $900 Dell XPS 13), it's a fairly well-rounded machine, and it's not like I want it to be my main computer, this is for whiling away time on flights and in coffee shops. It even has a few things my MacBook doesn't: A touchscreen, full-sized USB ports (plus one USB-C) and a MicroSD slot.
There's at least one area where the Pocket 2 is similar to a MacBook, and that's its design. Thanks to the all-metal exterior, tapered edge and familiar color, it looks like someone took a MacBook Air and shrunk it down to a shade over 7-inches (the display size of the Pocket 2).
As for the Peakago, it's a much more lightweight affair. Like the Pocket 2 it has a 7-inch, 1920 x 1200 (WUXGA) IPS display but otherwise, it's pretty different inside. You have a choice of either 64GB or 128GB storage options, and either 4GB or 8GB of RAM. Port-wise it's similar to the Pocket 2, just with the addition of a Micro HDMI, and there's a front-facing camera (albeit it a meager 0.3-megapixels) too. Running the show, however, is a Pentium N4200 -- a less capable bit of silicon.
Peakago offers fewer superlative claims about its laptop, but the makers still couldn't resist one MacBook comparison -- weight. At around 540g, it is, as claimed, roughly half the heft of Apple's laptops, though a shade heavier than the Pocket 2 (510g). Unsurprisingly, given the Peakago folds over into tablet mode, there's also a touchscreen.
Writing
Typing is something I do a lot. And it's the first thing to be sacrificed on a diminutive device. When I reviewed the Gemini from Planet Computers, I had tempered my expectations about being able to touch type, and those low expectations were met. You can peck out emails or even thumb-type with some success, but I could never even come close to touch typing on it. It's not just the size of the keys that tends to be the issue, it's also how they're laid out to compensate for the diminished real estate. That Enter key, tab or space bar will likely be in a slightly weird position compared to what you're used to. Not to mention things like comma, quotes and the @ symbol.
The Pocket 2 and Peakago are about twice the size of the Gemini though, so I held out hope that they might be easier to type on. I was wrong. Quite badly wrong. Initially, I put this down to muscle memory (or lack of it). But I've persisted and my ability to type has barely improved on either. I'm a fairly competent typer, not lightning-fast, but according to a quick online test, I average about 65 words a minute -- on a regular keyboard at least. With these smaller laptops, this plummeted to around 16. My typing style and physiology might be contributing factors, but most likely all typing styles will take a hit.
It's not just how many words either; accuracy is important too. Below are two versions of the same phrase. The top one is typed on a full-sized keyboard, while the lower one was typed on the Pocket 2. Both are presented as typed, with no corrections.
"The quick brown fox jumped over tha lazy dog."
"The wquick brownb fox hjumoprfed over the kslazydog"
As you can see, the difference is stark. This also means constant deleting, editing and going back, which itself introduces more keystrokes -- some of which will be wrong. If you held a gun to my head and asked me to only ever write on one of these machines, I'd go with the Peakago. Its keyboard feels slightly better organized and the size of the space bar (and position of other special keys) on the Pocket 2 doesn't help.
Music
To run a full-blown music-making app (in my case, Ableton Live) seems like the much bigger ask of such machines. Surprisingly, this is where things actually went a little better. Most mini-laptops, PDAs and tablets at this size or price just won't run a desktop app like this. Often, because they don't run any (as they're Android, iOS or some other mobile operating system). The Pocket 2 runs full-fat Windows 10, though, while the Peakago runs Windows 10 in S mode but can easily be switched to "full" windows. I've run Ableton Live on some pretty old and creaking machines, so I had hope.
Ableton's website claims the minimum specification for Live is:
Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10
64-bit Intel (Intel Core™ i5 processor or faster recommended) or AMD multi-core processor
4 GB RAM (8 GB or more recommended)
That's vague enough -- what if I had an 11-year-old AMD Athlon? -- that I was optimistic it might at least work for what I wanted. I don't expect to be able to have a desktop experience, running several processor-intensive plugins, or for everything to be smooth and lag-free. I just want to be able to noodle with ideas that I can transfer to the desktop later. I am aware there are multitude iPad apps for music-making on the go, but I've never really warmed to them, and I know Live pretty well so prefer to keep within the one app.
To my surprise, Ableton Live runs well on the Pocket 2 (relatively speaking), and moderately well on the Peakago. There are caveats of course. I only installed one VST instrument (plugin) for starters -- on the desktop I have many, many more and often run numerous ones at the same time. But with just my favorite synth installed, I was able to run multiple instances over several tracks without much effort.
The bigger issue is that the small screens make the Live interface pretty cramped. You can still access everything that you would on the desktop, but you might have to make sacrifices. For instance, I like to have most of the mixer and audio-routing controls showing at all times (these are placed at the bottom of each piece of audio/MIDI in columns), but on these smaller laptops this is basically impossible, so you'll have to activate and deactivate each one as you need it. Even doing that isn't as easy as I'd like. The Pocket 2 and Peakago don't have touchpads, instead there's an optical mouse "nubbin" -- top right of the keyboard on the Pocket 2, center front by the space bar on the Peakago. I am not a fan.
The optical mice work fine for general navigation of Windows or a browser, but even then it's frustrating. I often found myself overshooting the thing I wanted to click on. You can click the nubbin, like you would a mouse, but if you want to click-and-hold (say, with a scroll bar), you'll need to use the dedicated left and right mouse buttons. These are separate keys on the left-hand side of the function keys on the Pocket 2; on the Peakago they're more conveniently placed either side of the optical mouse below the space bar.
Fortunately, as I mentioned earlier, both have touch screens and Windows 10 has "tablet" mode. Between these two things, you can poke and swipe your way around most apps, Ableton Live included. You'll still need to swap back to the mouse nubbin every so often, but it's workable.
Most (reasonable) people probably wouldn't expect a tiny laptop to ever perform like a full-sized one. And technically, I don't either. Like I say, I've run Ableton on some pretty old machines that were "good" in their day. I guess I'm hoping an ultra-portable today can equal "premium" from the past. Just how far back in the past is a fairly difficult question to answer.
If I had to pick between the two for running something more CPU-intensive like Ableton Live, I'd go with the Pocket 2. It just ran more fluidly and felt more similar to working on a regular laptop -- albeit only just. The Peakago made a noble attempt, and it does kinda function, but nowhere near enough that you would want to persist with it.
Hard truths
Ignoring my ambitious expectations, mini laptops presumably exist for a reason. One assumes that there are enough people out there that want a full-featured operating system on a machine that won't weigh them down. People that have the dexterity to type on them that I do not. In that regard, the Pocket 2 and the Peakago have a lot to offer. Windows 10 runs just fine on both for most daily tasks (multiple tabs open in Chrome, watching HD YouTube videos etc.) and if you can get your head (fingers?) around the keyboards you can probably get some work done. The problem isn't with these specific laptops; every tiny "PC" I've used suffers the same challenges.
There are, of course, multiple ways to compute on the go. Apple and Microsoft have their own solutions (the iPad with a keyboard is pretty nifty, and the Surface Go has several fans). For me, the iPad would work for writing and other general tasks but obviously wouldn't support some of the full desktop apps I desire. The Surface Go is a viable option (with a keyboard case) and hovers around the same price as the two laptops here, but I'd be breaking my own "pocketable" rule as its 10-inch display puts it nearer to regular notebook territory.
I still hold out hope that there's a viable solution. The Pocket 2 comes tantalizingly close, at least at a performance level. Then there's the forthcoming Surface Neo, which might just be the right balance of size and power. And while there may be some other exotic combination out there, I fear at least part of my dream is simply thwarted by physics/physiology.
Images: Peakago (Tiny laptop on airplane)
What Even is This TINY Computer - GDP MicroPC Handheld Laptop
No, but you don't need to since the group is already prioritizing the coronavirus effort. Although the software does offer the option to work on a specific area of research, COVID-19 is not specifically listed. That is likely because this pandemic is fast moving and it's not worth trying to push a new version of the software just to add this setting. For now, leave this on the default of "Any" and your computer will work on COVID-19 whenever there are Work Units (WU) available.
This is still incredibly important, it means that researchers are looking for drugs that can be used to treat patients who have the virus. Right now, COVID-19 is really good at evading our body's natural defenses — our immune system. If drug therapies are discovered that weaken the virus, it may lead to our immune system having a foothold to fight the infection.
Peter Suciu has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2012. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile phones, displays, streaming media, pay TV and autonomous vehicles. He has written and edited for numerous publications and websites, including Newsweek, Wired and FoxNews.com.
Email Peter.
