Microsoft has a new, super-small $US400 Surface tablet, and it's taking on the iPad and the MacBook Air at the same time | Business Insider
Microsoft has a new, super-small $US400 Surface tablet, and it's taking on the iPad and the MacBook Air at the same time
Pricing for the Surface Go starts at $US400, but you’ll probably also need the keyboard type cover, which starts at $US99.
Surface Go pricing starts at $US400, but don’t be fooled: Just as with the bigger, more powerful Surface Pro, you’re going to want Microsoft’s specially-made $US99 keyboard cover to get the most out of the Surface Go. In other words, you’re looking at $US500, all-in, for the Surface Go setup you really want. You’ll be able to buy it August 2nd.
Under the hood, Microsoft says Surface Go owners can expect about as much computing power as 2014’s Surface Pro 3. This means it will be more than good enough for browsing the web, watching Netflix, and putting together a PowerPoint presentation. Maybe don’t expect to play “Fortnite” with the graphics settings cranked way up, though.
It runs an Intel Pentium processor. The base model has 4GB of RAM and 128GB of hard drive space, while a more expensive model, starting at $US549, will have 8GB of RAM and 256GB of hard drive space.
Microsoft further claims that the Surface Go gets 9 hours of battery life, which comes with the caveat that this was tested by playing a video file that was stored on the device. It also includes facial login by way of Microsoft’s Windows Hello system, similar to Apple’s FaceID, as well as a MicroSD card slot to expand its storage.
In terms of ports, the Surface Go is more limited than its larger brethren. It includes Microsoft’s proprietary Surface Connect port, which is mostly used for charging but can also be used to plug it in to a docking station. Otherwise, you get a single port for USB-C – a new universal standard that replaces the USB slot you might be familiar with.
The Surface Go will ship with Windows 10’s “S Mode” enabled, which means you can only install apps from the Microsoft Store – a tradeoff for better battery life and generally smoother performance. If you want, though, it’s easy to disable “S Mode” and go back to regular old Windows, which is good if you want Google Chrome as your browser.
Finally, Microsoft says that a model with LTE cellular connectivity is in the works, but won’t be ready until later this year.
First, as a tablet, the Surface Go will square off against Apple’s productivity-focused iPad Pro, which starts at $US649 for a 10.5-inch model. And second, as a fully-functional Windows 10 laptop, The Surface Go will try to eke some share away from Apple’s whole line of MacBook laptops, which starts at $US999 for the cheapest MacBook Air.
MicrosoftThe Microsoft Surface Go can be used as a lightweight tablet, too. It’s compatible with any Windows stylus, but doesn’t include one.
Because the Surface Go runs a full version of Windows 10, you can run most every piece of Windows software, past or present. That’s especially clutch in both schools and corporations, both of which often rely on specialised software. And because the Surface Go is a tablet, it’s both more portable than any Mac, plus it has a touchscreen.
Make no mistake, Microsoft’s Surface business in total is still a fraction of Apple’s enormous hardware revenues. And while the Surface has its diehard fans, myself included, it’s still a relatively niche product for Windows power users.
Still, at $US399, the Surface Go costs far less than the $US699 starting price for the larger Surface Pro. That could open up some doors for Microsoft’s hardware business, especially among budget-conscious consumers.
It’s been rumoured for a long time now that Microsoft was working on a tinier Surface: Microsoft released the 10.8-inch Surface 3 back in 2015, but there hasn’t been anything even sort of like it since. In that sense, the announcement of the slightly smaller Surface Go is just picking up where the Surface 3 left off.
However, in recent weeks, it’s been rumoured that Microsoft was closer than ever to revealing Andromeda, a brand-new pocketable Windows device with two screens. While ZDnet recently reported that the Andromeda project was on thin ice and unlikely to ever come to market, Microsoft enthusiasts were optimistic that it was close to debut.
Well, it’s certainly possible that Andromeda is still in the works. But while the Surface Go is indeed pocketable, it only has one screen, meaning that this ain’t it.
Sacha Baron Cohen's Showtime series, "Who Is America?," caused a stir before its premiere last month, as several Republican politicians felt the need to get ahead of the show in explaining how Cohen "duped" them to appear on it.
The former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the former congressman Joe Walsh, and the former US Senate candidate Roy Moore were among those who preceded the show's premiere with statements explaining their appearances on the series and criticizing Cohen.
In the show's first season, Cohen interviewed former vice president Dick Cheney disguised as an Israeli "anti-terror expert," and roped several Republican congressmen and former elected officials into voicing their support for a program that would arm toddlers with guns to prevent school shootings.
In the season finale, Cohen's Italian photographer character tried to get OJ Simpson to confess to committing murder, and his right-wing conspiracy character interviewed former congressman Barney Frank.
Though Palin's segment didn't end up making the cut for the season finale, Cohen listed Palin in the episode's closing credits as a "Special Publicity Consultant (Inadvertent)" for the free marketing she gave the show.
The show's first episode began with Cohen interviewing Sanders, the Vermont senator who was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2016, as a right-wing conspiracy theorist character named Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr.
Sanders, with a perplexed expression, politely dodged and shut down various absurd questions on income inequality and other topics from Cohen's Ruddick.
In the strongest segment on the pilot episode, Cohen's Israeli "anti-terror expert" character, Col. Erran Morad, introduced Pratt and several other conservative political figures to a fake program called "Kinderguardians" that would arm children as young as 3.
Pratt endorsed the program and, reading off a teleprompter, said: "Toddlers are pure, uncorrupted by fake news or homosexuality. They don't care if it's politically correct to shoot a mentally deranged gunman. They'll just do it."
Cohen's Morad character interviewed Gaetz for the pilot's segment on arming toddlers, but Gaetz wisely sidestepped the topic, saying, "Typically members of Congress don't just hear a story about a program and then indicate whether they support it or not."
In a montage of endorsements from conservative politicians, Lott, the former Mississippi senator and Republican Senate majority leader, advocated Cohen's fake program for arming children.
"I support the Kinderguardian program," Lott said in the pilot episode, adding that the US should consider arming "talented children or highly trained preschoolers."
Rohrabacher said in the same segment that training schoolchildren how to shoot a gun "might actually make us safer."
"A 3-year-old cannot defend itself from an assault rifle by throwing a Hello Kitty pencil case at it," Wilson said, adding: "Our Founding Fathers do not put an age limit on the Second Amendment."
"The intensive three-week Kinderguardian course introduces specially selected children from 12 to 4 years old to pistols, rifles, semiautomatics, and a rudimentary knowledge of mortars," Walsh said in the episode. "In less than a month — less than a month — a first-grader can become a first-grenade-er. Happy shooting, kids."
In an interview with CNN prior to the shows premiere, Walsh elaborated on a series of tweets he wrote last week by explaining how Cohen "duped" him into appearing on the show by offering him "an award from some Israeli TV station because I'm a great supporter of Israel."
Cohen's Morad character roped Spencer into participating in an "anti-terrorist" training video in episode two.
"All you damn sand-n----- over in the Middle East, we are tired of you coming to America and we are tired of you trying to threaten us," Spencer said in a post-credit scene, facing the camera. "We will cut off your dick, you understand? We will take your dick and we will shove it in your mouth."
Spencer told The New York Times that he believed the training video was real and meant for "elected officials who may be targeted by terrorists," and said he has "sought legal counsel" regarding his appearance.
"He played this crazy Italian man. He was screaming in a cheesy Italian accent the whole time, I was like, what's this dude's problem?" Olympios said in a new interview with The Daily Beast.
Cohen interviewed Koppel as the right-wing conspiracy character Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr. while spewing comical alternative facts about the size of Trump's inauguration crowd.
Koppel described his experience of appearing on the show in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter before the show's premiere last month.
Cohen's Morad character asked Cheney in an interview about his "favorite war" and the torture practices ("enhanced interrogation," as Cheney labeled it) of the Bush administration.
Cheney signed a "waterboard kit" from Cohen at the end of the segment, and it sold on eBay following the episode.
In episode three, Cohen's Morad interviewed Moore and concluded the segment by pulling out a metal-detector wand he said the Israeli military had been using to detect pedophiles.
Cohen tested the wand repeatedly on himself, Moore, and another man in the room, saying it must be "malfunctioning" for beeping only when it was waved over Moore.
"I've been married for 33 years and never had an accusation of such things," Moore said in the segment. "If this is an instrument — and certainly I'm not a pedophile, OK? I don't know, maybe Israeli technology hasn't developed properly."
Limehouse appeared in a joint interview with the Atlanta rapper Bone Crusher in a segment from Cohen's hyper-liberal-parody character Dr. Nira Cain-N'Degeocello, called "Heal the Divide."
The former South Carolina rep condescendingly patted Bone Crusher on the back when Cohen's character asked the rapper if he is offended by the word "black," and got increasingly perturbed at Cohen's series of absurd questions on race relations and gay sex.
Unlike the agitated Limehouse, Bone Crusher stayed level-headed and rolled his eyes at most of Cain-N'Degeocello's questions.
In episode four, Arpaio, whom Trump pardoned in 2017, told a new Cohen character of a Finnish YouTuber that he wouldn't be surprised if Trump participated in a golden shower, the most salacious, unverified claim from the infamous Trump dossier of 2016.
Cohen also asked the sheriff: "If Donald Trump calls you up after this and says, 'Sheriff Joe, I want to offer you an amazing blow job,' would you say yes?"
Lewandowski largely managed to avoid embarrassing himself in conversation with Cohen's right-wing conspiracy character, Billy Wayne Ruddick Jr.
The fifth episode aired on the one-year anniversary of the white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where violent clashes with counterprotesters left one woman dead. Cohen's Ruddick tried to get Lewandowski to defend fascists against the rally's counterprotesters.
"You can't be attacking honest, fascist people who just want to express their right to start a genocide. That is their right," Cohen said.
"Look, I don't know about that, but what I do know is this: If the law says that people can do a peaceful protest, then they should be allowed to do that," Lewandowski replied.
Clarke was not as cautious as Lewandowski in his replies to Cohen's Finnish YouTuber character's questions about fascists and anti-fascists, which eventually turned to the subject of 1930s Germany.
"Well, you have to act aggressively," Clarke said of anti-fascists. "When I say that, you have to use force to disperse the crowd. You have to be willing to arrest people and take them to jail."
"It's a shame that there weren't brave sheriffs like you around in Germany in the '30s, because you could have protected the fascists and let them speak their mind a bit clearer, and then things could have been done a bit quicker," Cohen said, disguised as OMGWhizzBoyOMG.
The cofounder of lyric annotation site Rap Genius (now called Genius) got a similar treatment to "The Bachelor" contestant Corinne Olympios, as Cohen's Italian photographer character, Gio Monaldo, photoshopped Moghadam into helping feed hungry children in Sudan.
Stein pushed back on ludicrous claims about global warming from Cohen's right-wing conspiracy character Ruddick in an unremarkable segment in episode six.
Cohen's Ruddick confronts Dean with a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton is a man by showing Dean a picture of Clinton with a photoshopped bulge in her pants.
Dean jokingly denies but halfway entertains Ruddick's theory by saying, "We're not gonna find out" if Clinton is a man, adding, "Maybe the trouser presser did a lousy job."
Frank eventually walks out of his interview with Ruddick in the season finale, after Ruddick plays him a doctored version of Trump's infamous Access Hollywood tape in an attempt to convince Frank that Trump was actually telling Billy Bush to buy a cat to counter a rat infestation.
Cohen's Italian photographer character, Gio Monaldo, tried to get Simpson to confess to committing murder in the season finale by joking about killing his girlfriend, but Simpson repeatedly said "stop" while laughing.
SEE ALSO: Sheriff David Clarke told Sacha Baron Cohen 'you don't want to take sides' on fascists in 1930s Germany
The New York Fed thinks higher caps on student loans are responsible for rising tuition. Think Advisor cites data obtained from the New York Fed, which showed "the increased availability of subsidized student loans and Pell Grants accounted for 55% to 65% of the increase in tuition costs, as measured by their sticker price." However, the New York Fed suggests the increased costs might be worth it, because a college degree brings in higher wages. Not everyone agrees with the New York Fed's findings. Mark Kantrowitz, an expert on financial aid and college planning, told Think Advisor, "Nobody in their right mind believes that a $5,775 federal Pell Grant causes a college to charge $50,000 to $60,000 a year."
Goldman Sachs is the latest company to enter the exchange traded fund space. On Monday, the firm launched its ActiveBeta U.S. Large Cap Equity ETF, the first in a series of active funds. Investment News notes the ETF carries a fee of 0.09% of assets annually, well below the 0.49% average of funds tracked by Morningstar.
There are already 11.8 million households in the US that spend at least half their income on rent. According to Bloomberg's Patrick Clark, that number is likely to climb to 13.1 million over the next decade if wages and rents grow at 2% annually. Typically, renters are told not to spend more than 30% of the their income on rent.
A team of five advisors has left Triad Advisors for Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network. The team, led by principal Thomas Gray, brings $120 million AUM to Wells Fargo with the hopes of growing that number to $250 million over the next five years. "Just going down the line, [they've got] voluminous assets that a wealth management firm like ours can tap into, so the support is tremendous," Gray told Financial Planning.
Andrew Parish, the founder of broker gossip site AdvisorHUB, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for failing to pay federal employment taxes for workers his separate business, Axiom Consulting Group, Reuters reports. In addition to his prison sentence, Parish must pay a $10,000 fine and the $341,336.46 he owes in back taxes.