Need exercise? Look no further than your computer phone tablet while dealing with coronavirus restrictions

Peters, while hopeful, is a bit more pessimistic. "I'm hopeful. The hopeful part of me, which is the person who opened the business, but there's also this person sitting here in the middle of an unknown opening date," Peters said. "It seems like fitness and whole foods and the reality of being healthier is catching on during this, which obviously it should. But, also you're talking about huge financial hits that people are taking and things of that nature, so are they going to be able to afford to pay for gym membership?"

Shoulders Uneven One Shoulder Higher Why & How to Fix Easily.

Lenovo renames and revamps its Legion gaming laptop lineup

For the most part, Lenovo kept the spring refresh of its Legion gaming laptops and desktop relatively low key and under the hood, with the de rigueur updates to the latest Intel processors (and the addition of AMD Ryzen options), Nvidia GPUs and faster screens. The company did upgrade most of the systems with a new keyboard, dubbed "Legion TrueStrike" along with a new, bigger Precision trackpad and some fancier lighting.

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But this time the updates are accompanied by name changes. So goodbye, Legion Y740 and Y540; hello, Legion 7, 5i and 5.That "i" denotes an Intel CPU-equipped model, but only, it seems, if there's an AMD alternative; sans "i", the Legion 5 incorporates an AMD Ryzen 7 or 5 4000 series processor, the first time Lenovo's offered an AMD-based model. But the Intel-based Legion 7 doesn't bear the "i," nor does the entry-level gaming laptop, the IdeaPad L340 Gaming, which now becomes the IdeaPad Gaming 3. The one exception to the new-name rule is the Y740S announced at CES 2020, the gaming laptop that's not a gaming laptop.

All the laptops are expected to ship in May, priced as follows:

Lenovo Legion 7, starts at $1,600

Lenovo Legion 5i 15-inch, starts at $830 

Lenovo Legion 5i 17-inch, starts at $1,130

Lenovo Legion 5 15-inch, starts at $850

Lenovo IdeaPad Gaming 3, starts at $730

Lenovo Legion Tower 5i, starts at $800

As revealed by Nvidia in its updated Max-Q Design announcement, the flagship Legion 7 is the first laptop to take advantage of Nvidia's Advanced Optimus technology. Advanced Optimus' redesigned graphics architecture essentially puts a switcher on the bus between the integrated GPU and the discrete GPU so the system can change between them on the fly. You previously had to be on one bus or the other, and the built-in display was usually connected to the iGPU. Being able to switch on the fly allows the system to better choose whether to use the slower, low-power iGPU or the fast, high-power discrete GPU. In theory, that means less battery drain without sacrificing performance when you need it.

The new Legions debut the TrueStrike Keyboard, which Lenovo says has a softer landing than the previous one, despite a reduction in key travel from 1.7mm to 1.5mm, and adds a number pad at the expense of the column of macro keys down the left on current models. Otherwise, it retains all the features. And in a welcome change, the webcam moves up to the top of the screen and gets a shutter.

Screen options vary depending on the model, but Lenovo now lets you dial it up to 11 on the Legion 7 with a 240Hz 1080p DisplayHDR 400 calibrated IPS display covering the Adobe RGB gamut. You can also go as high as a 10th-gen i9 CPU and GeForce RTX 2080 Super GPU. Of course, Lenovo's upped the performance of its cooling system to keep pace.

On the desktop side, the Legion Tower 5i replaces the Y530 and Y730 -- it's got an "i" because there will be an AMD model later this year. Lenovo made some subtle design changes, such as moving the grab handle, adding some fans and venting, embiggening the transparent panel and so on, in addition to bumping up the CPU and GPU options. The company also has an updated wireless mouse, the M600 and a new, full-featured 25-inch 240Hz esports monitor that can decode HDR, has a built-in USB hub, supports FreeSync and is G-Sync Compatible.

Our Miss Brooks: English Test / First Aid Course / Tries to Forget / Wins a Man's Suit

Why Valorant’s anti-cheat system has to launch when your computer starts

Valorant's closed beta has been out for about a week, and players are starting to discover more about the game and how it works. Among the most recent discoveries is the fact that part of the game's anti-cheat system, called Vanguard, launches as soon as you start your computer to help prevent more the sneaky forms of cheating.

This issue first came to light when a Reddit user posted a thread on the Valorant subreddit wondering if the start up was intentional. While many of the responses to the thread were skeptical, this is actually something that Riot announced several months ago, before we even knew the game was called Valorant.

In a blog post on the League of Legends website, Riot developer Phillip Koskinas explained that Riot was working on a new kernel driver anti-cheat system. The post explains that the purpose of the kernel driver is to detect cheats that operate on a higher level of Windows' permissions.

While many cheating methods work on the same permission settings as games, newer cheats hook their way deeper into users' computers to avoid detection from anti-cheat systems. So Riot decided to take its new anti-cheat detection to the deepest level it could to detect any cheat above it. Riot needed something on the kernel level to achieve that, and that meant starting the anti-cheat driver as soon as the computer boots up.

While this means that your Valorant games are much less likely to have cheaters than other online shooters with less robust security, some players in the Reddit thread also feared that it could mean giving Riot more access to their computers. But this was another concern answered in the blog post. According to Koskinas, this doesn't give Riot any more information than it already had.

In the Reddit thread, Valorant's anti-cheat lead Paul Chamberlain provided a few more details to help assuage players' concerns.

"The Vanguard driver does not collect or send any information about your computer back to us. Any cheat detection scans will be run by the non-driver component only when the game is running," Chamberlain explained. "The driver component does not collect any information from your computer or communicate over the network at all."

Chamberlain goes a step further, letting players know that they can uninstall the Vanguard driver, called vgk.sys, any time they'd like. The program is called Riot Vanguard and the driver component is called vgk.sys. It needs to be on your system for you to play Valorant, however, and after reinstalling it you'd need to reboot your system so that it can run at startup.

Riot's anti-cheat system isn't the only system that requires it to boot at start-up. EasyAntiCheat and Battleye use kernel drivers as well. Anything accessing a computer at a deeper level, or opening itself on start up should raise concerns about data privacy. But as it turns out, Riot thought ahead about some of these issues and has already stepped in to let players know that the driver and anti-cheat system doesn't do anything other than check for cheats. While there's no way to fully confirm all of the driver's processes that at the moment, Riot's statement should at least provide players with a bit of peace of mind, and prevent them from feeling like they need to delete the driver every time they close Valorant.

What Is Riot's New Anti-Cheat - Riot Games FPS - Valorant

These laptops for students at home get an A+

Many families are trying to balance work while keeping their kids' education on track due to school closures from the coronavirus pandemic.

While you might have been able to get by with a single family computer at home a month or so ago, the current situation may demand buying something to supplement it. Or maybe you're just in need of accessories to make the computer you've got do more.

If you're simply looking for new laptop suggestions, however, here are our best laptops for 2020.

Asus Chromebook C223NA-DH02

Many school districts switched from iPads and Windows laptops to Chromebooks. The best part about this is you can get the kids a good, reliable Chromebook such as this Asus model for less than $200. They also make great secondary or tertiary computers for this reason. If you're not sure how they differ from a Windows PC or MacBook, check out CNET's breakdown of what Chromebooks can and can't do and basic Chromebook buying advice.

Apple iPad (fifth generation or newer)

In need of an iPad? If you want to buy a new one, CNET has lots of suggestions where you can find the best prices. You can, however, find better deals on refurbished or renewed models direct from Apple as well as Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy and Gazelle. And, in case you're concerned, buying a refurb iPad is a great idea. What's most important is that the model you buy supports the apps you need. Apple has a list of all the models that support the current version of iPadOS on its website. You should also pay attention to the warranty that comes with it. 

ViewSonic VX2276-SMHD external monitor (22 inch)

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The biggest downside to working on a Chromebook (or any laptop really) is screen space. Getting your student something larger will make classwork so much less painful. Many of our top picks are getting scarce or commanding a premium price. However, a smaller, 22-inch version of one of our choices, the ViewSonic VX2776-SMHD, is still available for the moment at an excellent price via Amazon. 

The following CNET staff contributed to this story: senior editors Joshua Goldman and Laura K. Cucullu and copy editor Jim Hoffman. For more reviews of personal technology products, visit cnet.com.

Get an A+ With These 21 Cheat and School Hacks by Crafty Panda

An Ancient Computer Language Is Slowing America’s Giant Stimulus

(Bloomberg) --

The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed aging, inflexible computer systems at the heart of the U.S. economy -- and a shortage of experts to fix the problem. This is slowing the government's effort to get billions of dollars in stimulus checks to millions of newly unemployed citizens.

The $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in late March includes a $600 weekly increase in unemployment benefits. That money won't reach anyone until state agencies update technology systems to reflect the law and handle the flood of new applications.

Oklahoma is trying to implement CARES as quickly as it can, but some claims are taking as long as two weeks to process because of a mainframe computer that runs on a 60-year-old programming language called COBOL.

"It is the largest issue with regards to implementation in the CARES program," said Robin Roberson, executive director of the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission. "Our mainframe is literally over 30 years old. It's very difficult to program, it doesn't do much. COBOL programmers are somewhat scarce."

Roberson started her job nine weeks ago with a mandate to upgrade the system, but the pandemic hit before any real progress was made. Other agencies in Oklahoma and beyond are suffering from similar problems, she said.

The Connecticut Department of Labor is telling people to be patient as it works with experts to update COBOL code to implement the government relief program. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy appealed for COBOL programmers to help the state with its computers earlier this month.

This talent shortage has been building for years through a combination of techno-snobbery, limited formal training, an aging pool of experts, and a lack of employers willing to pay up for the few people who are still willing to do the work.

"It's a disaster," said Mahmoud Ezzeldin, 75, who worked for decades on COBOL computer systems for insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield and the Internal Revenue Service. "COBOL is difficult to learn and was not designed for the internet. College graduates like to learn something easier. I cannot blame them."

Ezzeldin, who lives near Washington D.C., is willing to volunteer to help ease the CARES computing crunch. But he's retired. That's a familiar tale. The average COBOL programmer is over 60, Gartner Inc. estimates. When the research firm counted in 2004, it found 2 million experts in the language and estimated that number was falling 5% a year. That compares with about 25 million software developers in total, according to UBS.

Usually, the technology industry adjusts when demand for a programming language outstrips the supply of capable coders. Computer science courses have multiplied at colleges in recent years, and there are coding boot camps that quickly train people in Java, Python and other languages. But COBOL is different.

The Common Business Oriented Language emerged at the end of the 1950s, before computer science was taught at universities. Without the embrace of academia, many COBOL programmers learned on the job at government agencies and in fields such as insurance, banking and airline reservations. They're considered the blue collar workers of the tech industry.

"I cannot really recommend current students study COBOL. All the work would be maintenance and wouldn't be very inspiring," said Gio Wiederhold, a retired professor from Stanford University, which educates thousands of computer scientists who go on to work at Silicon Valley tech giants such as Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google. Wiederhold said Stanford never taught COBOL from the time he moved there in 1979.

Last year, the U.S. Government Accountability Office mentioned COBOL 26 times in a report that urged multiple agencies to modernize critical legacy technology.

There are 240 billion lines of COBOL code still being used, according to Phil Teplitzky, chief technology officer of HP Marin Group LLC, which helps companies make better use of old computing systems.

There's little documentation explaining how these systems were built decades ago, so government agencies and companies often relied on programmers remembering how it was done -- COBOL "folklore," Teplitzky calls it. Many of these experts aren't around anymore, and now that the CARES Act requires major code changes, few people know how to do it, he said.

The way old COBOL code was written also makes it hard to update. Modern computing languages break programs into chunks, each with a specific purpose. COBOL programmers often weaved everything together, which means code changes can damage or disable other parts of the program. This phenomenon, known as spaghetti code, is more of an issue than any inherent difficulty in learning the language. But it makes the work hard and time-consuming.

Most of the mainframe computers that run COBOL are made by International Business Machines Corp. The company has been trying to help customers find COBOL experts and convince new trainees to take over for years. Last week, it announced a new training course to teach COBOL to beginners and refresh experienced professionals.

"A light is being shined on the fact that there are some critical systems that may not have been focused on," said Barry Baker, an IBM vice president. "It's a case of selling COBOL and older technology to kids as a means to work on stuff that makes a difference. This is stuff that matters."

Gartner analyst Thomas Klinect thinks companies and other organizations must do a better job recruiting people to keep these machines running. That includes paying more.

"If you look at the postings, they have been entry-level positions which needed 20 years of experience," he said. "They wanted to pay you $35,000."

Chuck Robbins, the 53-year-old chief executive officer of Cisco Systems Inc., said he started his career as a COBOL programmer for the predecessor of Bank of America.

"The good news is that, as I recall, COBOL wasn't one of the more difficult languages," he said. "I'm sure some of these younger kids could figure it out."

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Don't Hug me I'm Scared

Computer Chronology: Collection captures continuum of technology

As millions of Americans sit staring into computer screens -- working, video chatting, playing games, buying groceries -- there's a new exhibit waiting for the doors to reopen at the Rogers Historical Museum that couldn't be more perfect. It's titled "Personal Computers: Early 1970s to Late 1980s," and it is largely the collection of one man who was born before a microprocessor was a gleam in Dell's eye.

Born three months before Pearl Harbor in Flint, Mich., Tony Militch started messing around with electronics when he was in junior high -- "back in the '50s before transistors," he clarifies. "I never had a formal class in electronics or computers; it was all self-learned. Electronics was something I just wanted to do."

FAQ

'Personal Computers: Early 1970s to Late 1980s'

WHEN — Scheduled to run through June 27; opening date remains undecided

WHERE — Rogers Historical Museum

COST — Free

INFO — 621-1154 or www.rogershistoricalmuseum.org

And that interest, he adds, was the catalyst for his career. "Electronics got me into audiology, and audiology kept me in electronics."

Audiology is defined as "the branch of science and medicine concerned with the sense of hearing." Militch started with a degree in elementary education, then a master's in deaf education, then a doctorate in audiology in 1971.

"In 1971, I also bought my first computer," he says, sounding like someone remembering the first great love of his life. "They called it a 'mini-computer,' but it was like a big box, usually put in an equipment rack, and you could hardly lift it. And that was just the processor -- no screens, none of that yet.

"Shortly thereafter, microprocessors came about," he continues the story. "I started building those from kits, and as computers got small enough -- and cheap enough -- I was developing systems to test hearing. I was one of the pioneers in that area."

Militch's goal was to work in research and development, and his timing was perfect. He moved into a new field called occupational audiology -- testing workers for hearing loss caused by their jobs -- and testing multiple people at once was key. "So I had kind of a market," he says modestly. "So in the late '70s and early '80s, I developed the first audiometers to test up to six people at a time.

"I'm one of a few people in the country that is a computer engineer and audiologist -- there are very few occupational audiologists," he adds. "I've designed circuit boards, I still write software, I'm developing a little team of people scattered throughout the country handing off stuff I do and focusing on research stuff. I've been an expert in the field since the late '70s, and now I'm 78 years old and still don't know how to spell 'retired.'"

But Militch has been fighting cancer for some time, and he needed to to find a home for his personal collection of vintage computers, some of them so rare they would fit fine in museums like the Smithsonian. Enter the Rogers Historical Museum.

"There are some computer museums around the country, but I like the Rogers Historical Museum," says Militch, who moved to Northwest Arkansas several years ago. "I want them to have a good home, and this is perfect."

"While we are not a technology museum, we cannot overlook the importance these historical pieces have played in today's world," says Terrilyn Wendling, the museum's assistant director and curator of collections. "The unique collection shows the changes from large minicomputers, which are smaller than mainframe computers but larger than desktop computers, to the first commercially available Tandy Radio Shack desktop computer. We'll also show how computers were able to get smaller with the introduction of the computer chip instead of punch cards and cassettes, plus memory cards and the evolution of the floppy disk.

"The entire collection is amazing," she adds. "Most computers, the plastic yellows and cracks, and these computers are in amazing condition. The computers from the 1970s don't even look like what we all recognize as computers; they are large metal boxes with toggle switches and lights. Unless you have worked in the field of early computer technology, everyone will learn something. Seeing how unique these computers are will also be exciting, as you often only see them in movies."

An Automatic Send and Receive (ASR) is an electromechanical teleprinter, also called a teletypewriter. This model, manufactured from 1965 to 1976, was designed for office work, but is based on a more rugged unit originally built for the U.S. Navy. It has an internal punch tape reader, seen on the left of the machine, and used specific sized paper with holes punched along the edges. In the late 1970s the Rogers Police Department upgraded their computer system and installed an ASR at the station on Elm Street. (Courtesy Photo/Rogers Historical Museum)

Built in the mid-1970s by the Process Computer Systems company of Flint, Mich., the Micropac 80/A was not originally designed to be a stand-alone computer. However, through a deal with Intel, a microprocessor was installed in addition to a basic operating system. It is considered a minicomputer, which means it was sized between large mainframe computers and their smaller cousins, the microcomputers which came out in the 1980s. Of the 100 or so companies to have made minicomputers, only a small group survived. Each minicomputer had its own software architecture and operating systems, and they were designed for human interaction and communication, not calculations like their predecessors. (Courtesy Photo/Rogers Historical Museum)

By the 1980s, users wanted smaller, lighter and IBM-compatible computers. Several companies had achieved part of that wish list, but it wasn't until 1985 that Toshiba checked all the boxes. In 1987, the company improved on a previous model with the T1000. This model was compatible with IBM software, but unlike the IBM Convertible, it had an operating system already installed and ports for an external monitor. (Courtesy Photo/Rogers Historical Museum)

NAN What's Up on 04/12/2020

The Complete Half-Life Timeline - From Half-Life to Half-Life Alyx

Home-based learning: Parents struggle with laptops uniforms and more

© The Independent Singapore

Singapore — As part of enhanced measures against the spread of Covid-19, the Ministry of Education started home-based learning (HBL) from Wednesday (April 8).

According to todayonline.com on April 8, parents have been sharing their woes about trying to find laptops for their children, that the children are still required to wear their uniforms even though they are studying at home, as well as their struggles to manage more than one child at a time.

One such parent was 47-year-old Ragavan Nair, who has four children. His eldest child, who is a first-year student at Republic Polytechnic, taking human resource management, requires a laptop in order to do her work properly at home.

He said: "I wanted to go to Sim Lim Square but I was told by IT specialists that there were a lot of people trying to buy laptops and notebooks and that the brands I wanted would be out of stock." He was eventually able to order a laptop from one of the school's IT vendors  but delivery will be in about two weeks. In the meantime, his daughter will have to print out all her lessons in order to read them.

Another parent, Ms Vimala Vishnupalan, is worried that her three young children will just bother each other even if one attempts to do online school work. Her two sons are in Primary 4 and Primary 6, while she also has a five-year-old daughter at home with her.

The 42-year-old stay-at-home mother said the boys watched TV and ate snacks when they were supposed to do school work. She said: "The concentration and focus is not there when they study at home. If you have one child, it is manageable but it is much harder with three."

Meanwhile, another parent, Ms Gangadevi Routan, has been searching for a webcam for her desktop computer at home. While she has two laptops with webcams which are can be used by her 8-year-old and 10-year-old daughters, her niece also lives with them and requires a camera for her online classes as well.

She was concerned because most of the webcams in shops and online are sold out and shipping from abroad could take up to a month. This would mean that one of the girls will possibly miss a class or more if they are required to go "live" at the same time.

Aside from the webcam, Ms Gangadevi was also concerned that her 15-year-old niece is being made to wear her physical education (PE) attire during their online morning attendance. She said: "The whole purpose of HBL is for students to feel comfortable. So teachers' concentration should be in the delivery of content and whether students are absorbing the lesson, instead of how they are dressed."

For others, their HBL issues are mostly due to technical glitches. Mr Winston Tay said his 12-year-old son missed all his morning online classes last Wednesday (April 1). Thankfully though, it would seem that these issues with the son's Student Learning Space (SLS) have since been worked out, allowing him easy access the next time around.

In order to help families successfully practise HBL, the ministry has provided around 3,300 laptops and tablets, and about 200 dongles for Internet access, to those students that need them. Meanwhile, other organisations like the self-help group Mendaki also promised to lend some laptops to those needing them. /TISG

Home-based learning: Parents struggle with laptops, uniforms and more