Samsung's Raspberry Pi-like Artik 10 is priced higher than Pi at $150

Samsung’s Artik 10 developer board will compete with the Raspberry Pi 3, but not on price. The Artik 10 is priced at US $150, and can be ordered from Digi-Key’s website. That’s a much higher price than the $35 Raspberry Pi 3, but the Artik 10 offers a better GPU and more storage. A shipment date for the Artik 10 board wasn’t immediately available. The Artik 10 has all its components mashed onto a circuit board, much like Raspberry Pi. The board is targeted at enthusiasts looking to make smart gadgets, appliances, robots, drones, sensor devices, and industrial automation equipment.

Buster Keaton and ballot boxes, streaming this week

jma election1See larger image The eyes have it If this year's real-life presidential election hijinx have you wanting more, you've come to the right place. Two new movies streaming this week offer satirical, sometimes suspensful, takes on the down-and-dirty world of political campaigning. For the less cynical, there are three documentaries that do outstanding jobs of connecting us with real-life people—whether it’s a hospital staff in Oakland, CA, a mariachi who leaves San Francisco to return to Mexico, or a New York ballplayer whose pitching style makes him an outcast. Add to that a movie that highlights the inimitable gifts of Buster Keaton, a story about a martial arts master in post-WWII Hong Kong, a film by the renowned director Terrence Malick, and two movies featuring the work of famed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and you're looking at one hell of a weekend.

Acer's new Predator gaming systems are powerful beasts that will also run your VR headset

Acer is firing on all cylinders with its powerful new Predator gaming PCs, which will also provide the compute muscle for your virtual reality headset. The Predator 17X is a 17.3-inch laptop with an Intel i7-6820HK Core processor that can be overclocked to 4.0GHz. The GeForce GTX 980 GPU can be overclocked as well, to 1310MHz, which is a whole load of graphics performance. For a big laptop it's fairly portable, especially considering its "custom triple-fan cooling system," akin to what you might find on a desktop. The laptop sucks in air at the sides and pushes it out the back. But watch your electricity bill if the system is running at full speed for long periods of time. The 17X can be configured with a 1920x1080 pixel display, or a 4K display with 3840x2160 resolution. It has superfast NVMe storage and supports Thunderbolt 3 via a USB-C port. It will go on sale in North America in June starting at $2,799, with other countries to follow. Acer also announced the Predator G1 gaming desktop. The company claims this is portable too, though you'll need two hands to lug around the 16-liter chassis. Acer going after the "LAN party" crowd (is that still a thing?), where enthusiasts gather in groups to do their gaming together. The G1 has some features found in bigger gaming rigs. It can be configured with Nvidia's fastest GPU, the Titan X, for the best gaming experience available. To back that up, the system can be loaded with Intel's latest Skylake chips and 64GB of DDR4 RAM. Storage options are up to a 512GB solid-state drive or a 4TB hard drive. The desktop will be available in China in May and North America in June, with other countries to follow. U.S. pricing starts at $2,299. Both systems have the muscle to run virtual reality headsets, said Jason Chen, CEO of Acer, at a launch event in New York Thursday. He didn't say which headsets can be plugged into it, but presumably they include the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. He said Acer's Predator systems going forward will support all the major virtual reality platforms. Acer also announced the Predator Z1 27-inch monitor, a curved display that supports Nvidia's G-Sync technology for improved game play. G-Sync aims to reduce stutter and lag time by synchronizing display panels to the refresh rate of games. GPUs are connected directly to displays. The monitor has full HD resolution and a refresh rate of 144Hz. It has DisplayPort and HDMI ports, and five USB 3.0 ports. The monitor will be priced at $599 in the U.S. when it ships in June.

Two Sony Xperia Z3 phones now support Android N preview

Android N is sneaking out beyond just Nexus devices. Two versions of the Sony Xperia Z3 are now eligible for the preview version of Google’s operating system. Those with the D6603 and D6653 variants can grab the Android N Developer Preview and install it on their phones and get the forthcoming over-the-air updates until Google finishes off the software. These are the first mainstream phones to join the program, as the only other non-Nexus device is the General Mobile 4G, a low-end Android One phone. Get all the new features of Android N on a pair of Sony Xperia devices. The Android N build supports all the new features, such as split-screen mode, bundled notifications, and direct-reply notifications. Why this matters: This makes us wonder if we’ll see Android N previews branch out to other non-Nexus phones. It could be part of Google’s strategy to get Android N on as much hardware as possible as part of a plan to finally beat back the ecosystem’s rampant fragmentation. Google has always shied away from actually forcing more restrictive update policies, so it appears the plan to push out Android N faster is to make the process as trouble-free for handset makers.