Enlarge / System76 Lemur Pro. (credit: System76 )

System76 has refreshed its thin-and-light take on Linux laptops, the company announced Tuesday, as spotted by Tom's Hardware . The revamped 14-inch Lemur Pro , like its predecessors, prioritizes a longer battery life, with the latest model claiming up to 14 hours of use.

Backlit keyboard. (credit: System76 )

System76 didn't detail how it tested the laptop's battery life (we've asked and will update this article if we hear back). But the Lemur Pro has a proven reputation for solid battery life. In our Lemur Pro review in 2020, when the machine was offered with an Intel Core i7-10510U, it lasted at least 1 hour longer than any other laptop we reviewed around that time when playing BBC's " 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes" at 1080p resolution and max brightness.

The PC has a 180-degree hinge. (credit: System76 )

It was clear that System76 had fine-tuned the machine more for longevity between charges than productivity performance.

• 

  Official renders of the Galaxy Watch 5 Pro. [credit: 91mobiles / Evan Blass ]

Samsung's Wear OS 3.0 launch device, the Galaxy Watch 4 , is almost a year old now, so it's time for a new version. Evan Blass at 91Mobiles has scored a huge amount of imagery of Samsung's upcoming smartwatch, including official 3D rotation animations that show the two models from every angle.

Samsung is also going with a bit of a model number change. The Galaxy Watch 5 "Pro" will replace the Watch 4 "Classic" as the high-end model, while the Watch 5 replaces the Watch 4.

The big news this year is that Samsung is doing away with the unique rotating bezel that was a staple of the high-end model. The lower-end version's capacitive touch bezel is now the standard across all models, allowing you to run your finger around the watch face perimeter to scroll.

Enlarge / Don't be fooled by that Steelbook case—there's no physical disc to be found in this pricey bundle.

On Wednesday, Sony released an unboxing video highlighting all the bonuses included in the premium Collector's Edition and "Jotnar Edition" of November's God of War Ragnarok . But if you watched through that video, you might have noticed one conspicuous element missing: a physical copy of the game.

The omission of a disc is especially odd given that both special editions include the kind of Steelbook display case you would usually use to store your game disc in style. In this case, though, the PlayStation Blog specifically points out that there is "no game disc included" with the Steelbook. If you want a copy of the game to put inside that case, you have to shell out an additional $60 or $70 for the physical Standard Edition of the game. Otherwise, you're stuck with the digital download code that comes with the pricier special editions (while Sony hasn't announced pricing yet, similar Collector's Editions from Sony have run $200 and up in the past).

Players who pre-order a Ragnarok Collector's Edition won't even be able to preload their digital copy of the game to play immediately on launch day. Instead, they'll have to wait for physical receipt of their package and the "printed voucher code" included inside, then start what could be a lengthy download , depending on their connection speed.

Enlarge (credit: Monty Rakusen | Getty Images )

Five young people whose resolve was hardened by floods and wildfires recently took their governments to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Their claim concerns each country’s membership of an obscure treaty they argue makes climate action impossible by protecting fossil fuel investors.

The energy charter treaty has 52 signatory countries which are mostly EU states but include the UK and Japan. The claimants are suing 12 of them including France, Germany and the UK—all countries in which energy companies are using the treaty to sue governments over policies that interfere with fossil fuel extraction. For example, the German company RWE is suing the Netherlands for €1.4 billion ($1.42 billion) because it plans to phase out coal.

The claimants aim to force their countries to exit the treaty and are supported by the Global Legal Action Network, a campaign group with an ongoing case against 33 European countries they accuse of delaying action on climate change. The prospects for the current application going to a hearing at the ECHR look good. But how simple is it to prise countries from the influence of this treaty?

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images )

As sea levels rise, coastal areas face a growing risk of flooding. But humans and environments near urban centers and the ocean may face issues beyond rising water. These areas have also been home to a large number of manufacturing facilities.

Over the years, many of them may have left toxic chemicals in the soil. And now, those areas are also being threatened by floods. When it rains too hard or the sea rises too much, people nearby can expect to be exposed to a wide variety of leftover material and chemicals, some of which aren’t meant to be ingested or touched by humans.

How big is the risk? Many of our largest cities lie near the sea. By some counts, in 2020, around 400 million people lived within 20 meters of sea level and within 20 kilometers of a coastline.

Enlarge / A VW worker dismantles an electric vehicle battery pack for recycling. (credit: Volkswagen)

Volkswagen Group announced on Thursday that it is consolidating its battery development and production in a new project called Mission SalzGiga. The name refers to Salzgitter in Germany, where VW has built more than 63 million internal combustion engines—it has now broken ground on a massive new battery factory at the site, the first of six planned for Europe. Each plant should be able to accommodate an annual production capacity of 40 GWh, sufficient to power 500,000 electric vehicles.

To that end, the company has set up a new Salzgitter-based business unit called PowerCo that will cover all of the automaker's global battery activities. VW says it will require more than $20.4 billion (€20 billion) in investment between now and 2030, but with an equal potential in revenue, plus the addition of 20,000 new jobs.

"In building our first in-house cell factory, we are consistently implementing our technology roadmap," said Thomas Schmall, VW board member in charge of technology. "PowerCo will become a global battery player. The company's major strength will be vertical integration from raw materials and the cell right through to recycling. In future, we will handle all the relevant activities in-house and will gain a strategic competitive advantage in the race to take the lead in e-mobility."

Enlarge / Acer's 2022 Swift 5 laptop. (credit: Scharon Harding)

The Acer Swift 5 ( $1,500 MSRP) may not be your dream ultralight laptop, but it's not a bad one. You won't squeeze the most performance out of the Swift, and its touchpad still bothers me after weeks of use. But with perks like a good port selection and a strong keyboard, the laptop is worth a look if you want to save some money. Even though there are some compromises, it's a decent option with a lower price tag than similarly specced alternatives.

Colorful design

The Swift 5 is priced lower than other ultralights with 12th Gen CPUs, a fact that is apparent when you hold it. According to Acer, the chassis is made from 6053 aluminum alloy with a 75 HV hardness and anodization to fight degradation (its gold accents are double-anodized). But instead of a luxurious metallic-like finish, like Lenovo's Yoga 9i carries, it looks and feels like lightweight plastic that can still fall victim to scratches.

Subtle texturing helps the design, though, and prevents the laptop from feeling too slippery during use. The keyboard showed subtle flex when I typed aggressively, and that flexing became more apparent when I pressed down on the keyboard.

Enlarge / This Fine Guidance Sensor test image was acquired in parallel with NIRCam imaging of the star HD147980 over a period of eight days at the beginning of May. (credit: NASA, CSA, and FGS team)

We are now just five days away from the public release of the first science images from the James Webb Space Telescope, and anticipation is running pretty high. After more than two decades, and $10 billion, it's time for Webb to pay off.

Early indications are that it will.

On Wednesday evening NASA released a "test" image from the telescope that suggests the forthcoming scientific images and data will be spectacular. The release of the test photo, which NASA casually says is "among the deepest images of the Universe ever taken," almost feels like a flex because it is so good for a throw-away engineering image.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images )

A number of course-altering US Supreme Court decisions last month—including the reversal of a constitutional right to abortion and the overturning of a century-old limit on certain firearms permits—have activists and average Americans around the country anticipating the fallout for rights and privacy as abortion “trigger laws,” expanded access to concealed carry permits, and other regulations are expected to take effect in some states. And as people seeking abortions scramble to protect their digital privacy and researchers plumb the relationship between abortion speech and tech regulations , encryption proponents have a clear message: Access to end-to-end encrypted services in the US is more important than ever.

Studies, including those commissioned by tech giants like Meta, have repeatedly and definitively shown that access to encrypted communications is a human rights issue in the digital age. End-to-end encryption makes your messages, phone calls, and video chats unintelligible everywhere except on the devices involved in the conversations, so snoops and interlopers can’t access what you’re saying—and neither can the company that offers the platform. As the legal climate in the US evolves, people who once thought they had nothing to hide may realize that era is now over.