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Originally announced way back in 2019, the original plan was to develop the sequel as a replacement for the first game (similar to how Overwatch was replaced by Overwatch 2 by Blizzard). However, that plan has now changed.

Today, Grinding Gear revealed that Path of Exile 2 will now be a separate game from the original and that both will run concurrently, and expansions will be released for both games in the future.

The good news is that most in-game purchases of virtual items will be available in both games, with a few exceptions for items that are made specifically for one game.

The bad news is that Path of Exile 2 is still going to take a while to finish. Grinding Gear announced that the closed beta for the sequel won't begin until June 7, 2024.

The developer will be letting people get their hands on early versions at certain events before then, like at Gamescom and PAX West in late August.

One of the reasons why the sequel will take so long is that it will have a ton of content. Path of Exile 2 will have six new character classes (Sorceress, Monk, Huntress, Mercenary, Warrior, and Druid) in addition to the six original classes from the first game.

The sequel will have a six-act campaign with 100 different environments, along with 600 monsters, 100 boss creatures, a new skill gem system, and more.

Grinding Gear has released a nearly 30-minute narrated gameplay walkthrough video, which shows part of Path of Exile 2's Act 3 campaign. The game is coming to PC, Mac, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5 consoles.

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Well, that situation has happened, but unfortunately, that powerful notebook chip is slated to only be in one gaming notebook, at least for now.

Late on Thursday night, AMD revealed the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D CPU for notebooks. It is the first mobile chip from AMD that uses its 3D V-Cache technology, with 128MB of L3 cache, codenamed "Dragon Range".

The chip, which uses the AMD Zen 4 architecture, has 16 cores, 32 threads, a boost clock speed of up to 5.4GHz, and an AMD Radeon 610M GPU.

The company states:

The AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D is the first mobile processor with stacked L3 cache, delivering unmatched 144 MB of on-chip memory paired with incredibly fast cores to create the world’s fastest mobile gaming processor.

Sounds good, right? Well, the problem is that this CPU is only slated to be in one gaming notebook.

That notebook is the ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 17 X3D. It will be a monster in terms of hardware specs.

It'll have a 17.3-inch 240Hz display, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop GPU with 16GB of VRAM, and Wi-Fi 6E wireless hardware.

It will also have some advanced features like vapor chamber cooling, keyboard switches that are supposed to last up to 20 million presses, and Dolby Atmos-powered speakers. In some regions, the laptop will be bundled with three free months of Microsoft's Game Pass Ultimate service.

While there's been no announced price tag for this notebook, we think ASUS will be asking people to pay a lot of cash to get the ROG Strix SCAR 17 X3D with the new AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX3D CPU. It's also likely that there won't be a lot of units made, so this notebook and chip could be very rare indeed.

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Keep in mind though that the blog post has been Google translated to English from Chinese and hence, it could be slightly erroneous. AMD China writes:

AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics card can be purchased through major e-commerce retailers in mainland China and specific SI partners around the world from today, with a suggested retail price starting at RMB 5299.

As you may have noticed, the RX 7900 GRE has been priced at RMB (Chinese Yuan) 5,299/-, which translates to around US$740. While this seems to be on the high side, it must be noted that the 7900 XT was RMB 7,399 SEP (MSRP) product at launch, which was $899 in the USA. Hence, the actual price for a standalone RX 7900 GRE will be around $649. This puts it $50 above Nvidia's RTX 4070 and when we look at the specifications of the 7900 GRE, it does seem like the AMD card will be ahead in terms of rasterization performance.

If we had to extrapolate, the RX 7900 GRE could be trading blows with last-gen's similarly specced RX 6950 XT and the 6900 XT. We guesstimate this performance based on how closely the RX 7600 matches the performance of the RX 6650 XT and the 6600 XT, which are also similarly specced products.

Speaking of the specs, they are detailed below:

• Compute Unit: 80

• Stream processor: 5120

• Base frequency: 1270MHz

• Boost frequency: Up to 2245 MHz

• Game frequency: 1880MHz

• Ray accelerator: 80

• AI Accelerators: 160

• Peak half-precision (FP16) computing performance: 92 TFLOPs

• Peak Single Precision Computing Performance: 46 TFLOPs

• Transistor count: 54B

• Typical board power (desktop): 260W

• AMD Infinity Cache Technology: 64MB

• Memory speed: Up to 18 Gbps

• Video memory: 16 GB GDDR6

• Memory interface: 256-bit

• Memory bandwidth: Up to 576 GB/s

• Effective Memory Bandwidth: Up to 2250 GB/s

• DisplayPort interface 2.1

• HDMI™ 2.1

• USB Type-C

You may find more details about the AMD RX 7900 GRE on AMD's official China website.

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• The most powerful technology companies simply cannot stop talking about artificial intelligence, and in particular, the “generative AI” flavor that can create human-like text, images, and code.

• Apple barely talks about artificial intelligence, and you shouldn’t expect to hear much about it during the company’s earnings next week.

• Apple’s AI works in the background. And the company doesn’t yell about it the way some of the other companies do because it doesn’t need to.

The most powerful technology companies simply cannot stop talking about artificial intelligence, and in particular, the “generative AI” flavor that can create human-like text, images and code.

During calls after this week’s earnings reports, Alphabet  CEO Sundar Pichai and his team said “AI” 66 times. Microsoft  CEO Satya Nadella and his execs said it 47 times. And on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook executive team said the magic phrase 42 times, according to a CNBC analysis of transcripts.

But Apple barely talks about artificial intelligence, and you shouldn’t expect to hear much about it during the company’s earnings next week.

Its sober approach to the new technology contrasts sharply with its rivals, which are stoking excitement and elevating expectations every chance they get.

During May’s Apple earnings call, CEO Tim Cook only said AI twice, and that was in response to a question. During Apple’s two-hour software launch event in June, it never said the phrase, although it announced several new features powered with AI.

Apple execs instead use the phrase “machine learning,” which is more popular with academics and practitioners. Apple execs also prefer to talk about what software does for the user, such as organizing their photos, improving their typing, or filling out fields in a PDF, as opposed to the technology that makes all that possible.

Apple’s approach to AI as a core underlying component instead of the future of computing represents a way to present the technology to its consumers. Apple’s AI works in the background. And the company doesn’t yell about it the way some of the other companies do because it doesn’t need to.

A closer look at executive remarks this week from earnings calls shows that while Meta, Microsoft, and Google are eager to sell the shovels for the AI gold rush, such as cloud services and developer tools, it’s still unclear how AI could change their most important products and when it could start bolstering balance sheets.

Google, for example, has announced its plans to revamp its search engine using an AI model called Search Generative Experience. Microsoft’s biggest new initiative is a $30 per month “Copilot” subscription that integrates generated text or code from partner OpenAI’s ChatGPT into Word, Powerpoint and other apps. Facebook parent Meta’s most recent investment in AI technology is its own large language model it calls LLaMA, which could underpin new kinds of social media chatbots or automatically generate online ads.

Meanwhile, Apple still makes the bulk of its money from iPhones, which generated $51.3 billion of its $94.84 billion in revenue during the company’s fiscal second quarter. Why talk a big AI game?

Besides, mega-cap tech companies signaled to investors earlier this week in earnings calls that the rollout of AI products could take a while.

In Microsoft’s case, Nadella tempered investor expectations for Copilot, signaling that growth would take time, and finance chief Amy Hood said that its rollout would be “gradual.”

It could take until next year before investors understand how the Copilot subscription affects the company’s revenue. “In the second half of the next fiscal year, we’ll start getting some of the real revenue signal from it,” Nadella said.

Google and Pichai say that the company’s text-generating AI models will make its search engine better and could even answer questions that normal Google search can’t. From a business perspective, Pichai said, generative AI used for creating and serving ads will “supercharge” the company’s existing ads business, adding there are “opportunities” for new kinds of ads with AI-generated search.

But Pichai said it’s still “early days” for the new AI-powered search, and later, when pressed about how SGE might increase usage of the search engine, and therefore increase revenue, he said the company was experimenting.

“I think we are definitely headed in the right direction, and we can see it in our metrics and the feedback we’re getting from our users as well,” Pichai said.

Zuckerberg was effusive about AI technology and its applications in virtual reality, ad targeting and recommending content from accounts users don’t follow.

He was particularly optimistic about a concept called “AI agents,” in which software would be able to message business customers automatically without a human involved, or act as a coach, or be a personal assistant.

Still, Zuckerberg admitted he didn’t know how many people would use the new AI features.

“The reality is, we just don’t know how quickly these will scale,” Zuckerberg said. He said Meta was debating internally how much it should spend on servers for AI.

The slow rollout of revenue-generating AI products from Big Tech matters because many people in the industry believe that new foundational technologies go through a “hype cycle” based on research from analysis firm Gartner.

When new technology is introduced, according to the hype cycle model, it gains lots of attention and investment as it reaches a “peak of inflated expectations.” But, as the deployment of the tech moves slower than initially expected, enthusiasm and investment dry up, in a “trough of disillusionment,” before maturing and becoming productive.

For now, “shovel makers” and people seeking investment capital are benefiting from the AI boom. Nvidia stock has risen 220% so far in 2023 as investors have realized its graphics processing units are essential for the technology. Venture capital investment in AI startups has boomed, and many of those dollars are going to Nvidia for computer capacity, and to cloud providers for access to AI models.

But if everyday consumer applications for AI don’t catch on, then many AI companies could slip into the trough of disillusionment again. Analysts found earlier this month, for example, that downloads for OpenAI’s iPhone app slowed earlier this month after launching in May.

Some analysts are starting to understand that an investment opportunity based on new AI products won’t be immediate and that the costs could stack up.

“We cautioned investors that that process of translating early demand to large-scale implementations and recognized revenue will be a multi-year trend rather than an instantaneous flip of a switch,” JPMorgan analyst Mark Murphy wrote this week.

“We recommend investors invest elsewhere until Metaverse, Reels, Threads, Quest and Generative AI investments become accretive (if ever) to META’s [return on invested capital], rather than dilutive,” Needham’s Laura Martin wrote in a note.

UBS analyst Lloyd Walmsley wrote this week that generative AI was still an “overhang” over Google.

“Management expressed optimism around the ability to solve for ‘deeper and broader’ use cases with Search Generative Experience (SGE), but we do not believe the company is out of the woods with management still describing monetization as having a ‘number of experiments in flight including (for) ads,’” Walmsley wrote.

Apple iPhones are displayed at an Apple store in Chicago on Nov. 28, 2022.
Scott Olson | Getty Images

When Apple reports its earnings next week, analysts will likely press it on its plans for AI, given the industrywide obsession, and especially after a recent Bloomberg report that said the company was developing a ChatGPT-like language model internally.

Last month, Apple announced new iPhone keyboard software that uses the same transformers architecture as GPT, showing that it has substantial internal development of AI models. But the tech giant just doesn’t like to talk about products that aren’t out on the market yet to stoke investor anticipation.

Apple is unlikely to discuss AI at length next week as its mega-cap rivals did this week. During Apple’s earnings call in May, when asked about the technology, Cook quickly moved the conversation back to the company’s products and features.

“We view AI as huge and we’ll continue weaving it in our products on a very thoughtful basis,” Cook said.

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The Twitter rival rocketed to more than 100 million users within five days of its launch earlier this month.

But Mr Zuckerberg has acknowledged those numbers have now tumbled.

"If you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet," he said.

Mr Zuckerberg - who made the comments in a call to employees, heard by the Reuters news agency - described the situation as "normal" and said he anticipated retention to improve as new features were added to the app.

Threads has previously faced criticism for having limited functionality, for example over what posts are displayed and what content is available.

Meta's chief product officer Chris Cox told staff it was now focused on adding more "retention-driving hooks" to draw people back to the platform.

He gave the example of "making sure people who are on the Instagram app can see important Threads". The two platforms are closely tied - in order to sign up for Threads, users must have an Instagram account.

Mr Zuckerberg also updated employees on the company's enormous bet on a yet-to-be-created virtual reality world, called the Metaverse.

He said work on the augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technology that would power it was "not massively ahead of schedule, but on track", adding that he didn't anticipate it going mainstream until the next decade.

That prediction may intensify concerns that Meta has dedicated too much time and money to the Metaverse - its Reality Labs division, which produces VR headsets and other products, has racked up multi-billion dollar losses.

The company as a whole though continues to perform well financially - announcing this week it made a profit of $7.79bn in the last quarter.

Mr Zuckerberg also addressed one other headline-making issue - his proposed cage fight with fellow tech titan Elon Musk.

From the safety of their keyboards, the two men indicated in June that they were both keen on a bout - even going as far as suggesting a venue in Las Vegas.

However, when pressed about it on the call, Mr Zuckerberg said he was "not sure if it's going to come together".

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For a couple of years now, AMD has offered special versions of its desktop processors with an extra 64MB chunk of L3 cache included. This cache is layered over top of the existing CPU silicon, earning it the name "3D V-Cache," and it has proven especially successful for accelerating cache-sensitive software like games.

 

Today, AMD is announcing the first 3D V-Cache processor for laptops, the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D. It's a version of the regular 16-core Ryzen 9 7945HX with that same 64MB chunk of cache added in, giving it a total of 144MB of L3 cache.

 

The 7945HX is essentially a version of the desktop Ryzen 9 7950X repackaged for use in laptops instead of high-end desktops; while chips like the similarly named 7940HS use one monolithic silicon die for everything from the CPU cores to the chipset to the integrated GPU, the 7950HX uses a pair of 8-core CPU chiplets and a separate I/O die.

 

By the same token, the 7945HX3D is a mobile version of the Ryzen 9 7950X3D for desktops. The 3D V-Cache is layered on top of one of the CPU chiplets, giving it eight cores with access to the extra cache and eight cores without it; AMD's chipset software is responsible for making sure the "right" cores are used for any given task, to the extent that the non-V-Cache cores can be parked entirely when a game is running. (In our testing of the 7950X3D, the software worked as advertised, though as with many heterogenous CPU architectures, there have been hiccups).

 

One of the fringe benefits of the 7950HX3D was also lower power usage and higher efficiency since the CPU die with the cache stacked on top needed to be run at a lower voltage to prevent overheating (we don't know whether this is also the case in the 7945HX3D, but it seems likely). AMD says the 7945HX3D's performance advantage over the regular 7945HX increases as the processor's TDP is reduced; at 45 W, the 7945HX3D can be up to 23 percent faster than the 7945HX in games. At 70 W, the 7945HX3D has a smaller 11 percent performance advantage. AMD says you should expect it to be about 15 percent faster in games than the 7945HX on average.

 

For now, the 7945HX3D will only launch in a single laptop: a version of Asus's ROG Strix Scar 17, which launches on August 22. AMD said that the ROG Strix Scar would be the only 7945HX3D laptop "for the foreseeable future," though presumably any design that currently uses a 7000-series HX CPU like the 7945HX should also be able to use the 7945HX3D with minimal changes. The configuration AMD tested with includes 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a mobile Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090, which will make this one of the fastest (if not the fastest) gaming laptops you can buy, though, as with any gaming laptop, your performance will be limited a bit by power limits and temperature ceilings.

AMD didn't say what the 7945HX3D version of the Strix Scar 17 would cost, but the safe answer is "more than $3,300," which is the current street price of the same laptop with a 7945HX in it.

 

If that price makes you cringe, AMD has more budget-conscious X3D processor options for desktop buyers. Last month, the company announced a Micro Center-exclusive Ryzen 5 5600X3D, an upgrade targeted at owners of older socket AM4 Ryzen systems who want a budget-minded performance boost without having to upgrade to a newer AM5 system (or buy a fancy new laptop).

 

Listing image by AMD/Andrew Cunningham

 

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• Former top Twitter lieutenant Esther Crawford penned a lengthy post that alternated between criticizing and praising Elon Musk for his leadership at Twitter, now known as X.

• Crawford, former Twitter Blue product manager, said the billionaire lives in an “echo chamber” but expressed admiration for his skills.

• The product manager became, in some ways, the face of Musk’s whims at the social media company, which has seen plunges in ad sales since he took the company private.

A former top Twitter lieutenant said Wednesday that Elon Musk lives inside an “echo chamber” and that she is “surprised by his willingness to burn so much down,” as she alternated between defending and criticizing Musk in a lengthy post on the billionaire’s social media network.

Esther Crawford, the former Twitter Blue product manager who drew attention for sleeping in the company’s offices only to be laid off weeks later, said that during her tenure under Musk, she found herself “frequently looking at Elon and seeing a person who seemed quite alone because his time and energy was so purely devoted to work.”

“Money and fame can create psychological prisons which may worsen mental health conditions,” Crawford added.

It was a sharp critique of a man Crawford had publicly supported during her time at Twitter. Crawford oversaw the relaunch of Twitter Blue, one of Musk’s early and hotly debated decisions at the company.

But the initial rollout of Twitter Blue was full of turmoil, complete with impersonation issues, stacked verification badges and suspended launch in some areas. Widely panned by legacy verified users, the debut also precipitated steep slides in at least one company’s stock price after fraudulent accounts disseminated false but market-moving information.

Crawford alluded to the difficulties posed by working for Musk, whom she described as having a temper that could “turn on a dime.”

“Since it was hard to read what mood he might be in and what his reaction would be to any given thing, people quickly became afraid of being called into meetings or having to share negative news with him,” Crawford wrote.

“His lack of process and empathy is painful,” she continued, adding that in her view, Musk “has an exceptional talent for tackling hard physics-based problems, but products that facilitate human connection and communication require a different type of social-emotional intelligence.”

At some points, Crawford also defended Musk, writing that his track record made it impossible to count him out. Musk is also the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, the latter of which CNBC has reported is under investigation by the California Attorney General regarding safety and false advertising complaints.

“This may really irritate the internet but you cannot pigeonhole me into some radical position of either loving or hating every change that’s occurred,” Crawford wrote. “I escaped my fundamentalist upbringing and am a free thinker these days.”

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Google says its alert system can give users up to a minute's notice on their phones before an earthquake hits.

It says its alert was sent to millions before the first, biggest quake.

However, the BBC visited three cities in the earthquake zone, speaking to hundreds of people, and didn't find anyone who had received a warning.

The system works on Android phones, essentially any phone that isn't an iPhone. Android phones, which are often more affordable, make up about 80% of the phones in Turkey.

"If Google makes a promise, or makes an implicit promise, to deliver a service like earthquake early warning, then to me, it raises the stakes," says Prof Harold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

"They have a responsibility to be able to follow through on something that is directly related to life and limb."

Google's product lead on the system, Micah Berman, insisted it had worked. "We are confident that this system fired and sent alerts," he told the BBC.

However, the company did not provide evidence that these alerts were widely received.

More than 50,000 people died in February's earthquake.

Why was the earthquake so deadly?

After the first major 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck in the early hours of the morning, another major tremor shook the surrounding area at lunchtime.

The BBC was able to find a limited number of users who received a warning for this second quake.

How the system works

Google's Android Earthquake Alert System was announced in Turkey in June 2021.

The system is operational in dozens of countries around the world. The company describes the ability to send quake alerts as a "core" part of its Android service.

It works by using Android's vast network of phones. Smartphones contain tiny accelerometers that can detect shaking.

When many phones shake at the same time, Google can pinpoint the epicentre and estimate the strength of a quake. Google has made an explainer on how it works.

When an earthquake of magnitude 4.5 or greater is detected, the Android system can send a warning.

"This is an alert unlike any you've probably seen on your phone before. It takes over your phone screen," Mr Berman says.

The warning says "drop, cover, hold" and is accompanied by a loud alarm.

How Google's alert appears on Android smartphones

It should also override a user's do not disturb mode automatically, so you don't need to switch it on.

"No matter what state your phone is in, you should get that warning," Mr Berman says.

Google claims the system successfully sent alerts on 6 February to millions of people.

How much warning people should have got from Google would depend on how far away they were from the earthquake, Mr Berman explains. A message travelling over the internet can travel much faster than the waves of an earthquake travelling through the earth.

"Sometimes [the warning] might be a second or a fraction of a second, sometimes it might be 20 or 30 seconds, sometimes it might be 50 or 60 seconds," he says.

Despite extensive reporting across the earthquake zone in the hours, days and weeks after the quake, no-one mentioned getting an alert to the BBC.

So we began to search specifically for people who had got the warning.

Our team travelled to Adana, Iskenderun and Osmaniye, cities between 70km (43 miles) and 150km (93 miles) away from the epicentre.

We spoke to hundreds of people with Android phones.

Although we managed to find a small number of people who had got an alert for the second earthquake, we couldn't find anyone who got a warning ahead of the first, most powerful quake.

In Iskenderun, we spoke to Alican who lost his grandmother when a hospital collapsed. He says he had received the alert before, but he didn't get it this time.

We put our reporting from the earthquake zone to Google's Mr Berman.

He said: "It's possible, given the massive impact of the first event, that this just quietly happened in the background, while users were really paying attention to lots of other things. At the end of the day, I think that's probably the most likely explanation."

But the people we spoke to were adamant that none arrived.

Funda, who has been living in a temporary tent encampment since the quake, says she lost 25 members of her family.

"We literally dumped people into the ground. My brother-in-law and nephew were buried hugging each other," she says.

Funda lost 25 members of her family in the quake

She owns an Android phone but told us she was "certain" she didn't get an alert.

Quiet on social media

After an earthquake you would expect people to post on social media that they had received a warning. This is common in other countries where quakes have occurred since Google's system launched.

"One of the few feedback sources that we have is being able to look on social media," Mr Berman says.

And yet after the first earthquake in Turkey, social media was unusually quiet - something Mr Berman accepts.

"I don't have a resounding answer for why we haven't seen more reaction on social media to that particular event," he says.

The BBC asked for data that showed people had received the notification. The only evidentiary document Google shared was a pdf with 13 social media posts the company had found of people talking of a warning that day.

So we contacted the authors of the posts.

One was Ridvan Gunturk, who had posted that he had got a warning in the city of Adana. However, after speaking to the BBC, he clarified that this was for the second earthquake. He confirmed he had not received an alert for the first earthquake.

Ridvan Gunturk received an alert for the second quake

In fact, only one of the social media posts referenced a warning about the first quake, giving a detailed account. The BBC has spoken to the author of the post, but they wouldn't give their name.

The author said they believed they had received an alert, but couldn't be completely certain of their memory of events at the time.

Google also said it had received feedback from user surveys that say the system worked. However, it declined to share this information.

Prof Tobin told the BBC Google's system was relatively new, and could be useful, but that it was important for the company to be transparent.

"If you are delivering an essential life safety or public safety piece of information, then you have a responsibility to be transparent about how it works and how well it works," he says.

"We're not talking about an anecdote of, 'oh it's popped up here and there.' These are intended as blanket warning systems. That's the whole point."

Turkish earthquake expert Prof Sukru Ersoy told the BBC his wife was in the earthquake zone. She has an Android phone but did not receive an alert.

He says that he has not spoken to anyone who got a warning.

"If Google's system had worked, perhaps it could have been very beneficial," he says.

"But the system not working in an important earthquake such as this one begs the question: if this is a beneficial system, why couldn't we benefit from it in this major earthquake, one of the biggest earthquakes of the last 100 years?"

In a statement given to the BBC by Google after the interview, Mr Berman said: "During a devastating earthquake event, numerous factors can affect whether users receive, notice, or act on a supplemental alert - including the specific characteristics of the earthquake and the availability of internet connectivity."

Additional reporting by Alp Akis

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The 4060 Ti was bashed a lot for its 8GB VRAM and 128-bit bus. While 8 gigs of memory buffer at a price point of $400 in itself is already so bad, the chips were running at 18Gbps, and across its 128-bit wide bus, the total memory bandwidth is just 288GB/s. This was more than 35% lower than the 3060 Ti's 448GB/s which was 256-bit wide and the memory chips were 14Gbps. And sadly Ada Lovelace's large pool of L2 cache (32MB on the 4060 Ti compared to 4MB on the 3060 Ti) was not enough to compensate for this.

When one contrasts this to the RTX 3090 vs the 4090, it is clear why the 4090 was such a big jump in performance while the 4060 Ti is barely any faster than its predecessor. While both feature 24GB of memory, the bandwidth of the 4090 is actually higher by around 7.7% (1,008 GB/s vs 936.2 GB/s) , as both are 384-bit wide. Meanwhile, the L2 cache on the 4090 sees a colossal 12 11 times increase (6MB vs 72MB), compared to a four three times increase on the x60 Ti. Hence there is no memory configuration bottleneck on the 4090 but the same cannot be said for the 4060 Ti.

The comparison between the 3090 Ti and the apparently-now-canceled RTX 4090 Ti would have been similar in line with the x90 cards as the memory system is alike. Moving forward, according to leaker kopite7kimi, Nvidia is planning to increase the bus width on its next-gen RTX 50-series cards (allegedly codenamed "Blackwell").

While a narrow bus helps to lower the power draw, Nvidia may feel it needs more bandwidth for its next-gen cards as it is purportedly increasing it from 384-bit to 512-bit. What this means is that the next Nvidia flagship GPU (RTX 5090 or 5090 Ti) will likely have 32GB of VRAM.

With this increased bus interface and capacity, it is hoped that some of the benefits will trickle down to the RTX 5060 and 5060 Ti class of cards as well and Nvidia does not heavily cripple the memory subsystems of these GPUs like on the present 4060 Ti.

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However, the rumor mill almost never stops and it seems especially true for tech. As such, reports of the 4090 Ti soon began to emerge. Popular leakster and YouTuber Moore's Law is Dead (MLID) leaked the picture of what he claimed was an alleged Ada Lovelace Titan, that could possibly be remade as the RTX 4090 Ti. The photo showed a massive four-slot wide GPU that featured not one, but two 12VHPWR 16-pin PCIe 5.0 power connectors.

Later on, another leaker and X (formerly Twitter) user MEGAsizeGPU posted a couple more pictures of the alleged RTX 4090 Ti or RTX TITAN, one of which showed the I/O shield of the GPU. The size and the dimensions of the leaked card seemed to be in line with the previous image. The golden tinge of the cooler shroud is apparent in both pictures so it indeed looks like photos of the same product taken from two different angles by two different sources.

However, for those people looking forward to something more powerful than the 4090, there is probably some bad news, at least for this generation. According to kopite7kimi, who is generally a reputable leaker of upcoming stuff, Nvidia has purportedly dropped plans for the 4090 Ti. Instead, they suggest the company may be preparing more mid and lower range RTX 4070 or 4060 variants based on AD103 and AD106 GPUs.

While we are not sure, it is probably somewhat fair to suggest that AMD's inability to compete with Nvidia has led to this. Radeon's flagship RTX 7900 XTX is only able to just beat RTX 4080 in raster, while it is quite far behind the latter in ray tracing, which is probably also why AMD has had to price its card around $250 lower. This means the 4090 is whole tier above anyway and the 4090 Ti would only widen the gap.

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Microsoft, after infuriating gamers by killing Xbox Live Gold, just faced another controversy once again. The green console just launched a new Xbox Home Screen, and it’s safe to say that there has been quite a polarizing view on this one.

Now rolling out to all Xbox SeriesX/S and Xbox One consoles, the new Home screen actually does look fresh. The interface includes a convenient quick-access menu at the top of the screen, providing easy navigation to Library, Search, Settings, Xbox Game Pass, and other options. The background layout has also been simplified, with recently played games at the center. 

Additionally, there is a feature allowing you to change your background to match the highlighted game, as well as curated game discovery and the ability to pin your favorite games, among other features. In the next week or two, the new Xbox Home screen is expected to be rolled out to all users eventually, as Microsoft is currently taking a gradual and slow approach to its release.

“This update is designed from player feedback and makes it easier to discover new games, rediscover games you already love, connect with communities, and create a more personalized experience,” says senior product manager Ivy Krislov.

Apparently, not everyone’s too happy about it. Insiders have also expressed their concerns about the new dashboard since its initial testing phase, but it appears that Microsoft is not paying much attention to their feedback.

In a post on Reddit, with almost 800 upvotes and 360 comments for now, one gamer complained that the “Most played games” tab is “unmovable” and contains games that they do not even own. Another gamer said that they would prefer for their custom groups to be at the top of the screen, rather than being buried further down.

“This wouldn’t be entirely horrible if it contained MY most played games but it doesn’t. It contains Xbox’s most played games, most of which I don’t even own. Generally I don’t mind the new Xbox Home Screen layout but I don’t feel like it’s much better either,” the post reads.

What are your thoughts on the new Xbox Home screen? Are you happy about it? Let us know in the comments!

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The corporate photography and videography company Orange Photography's Gene X Hwang had previously had the handle. The organization formerly known as Twitter congratulated Hwang for his devotion in a letter and extended an invitation to visit its headquarters and a selection of X merch as a "reflection of our appreciation."

Given the corporate rebranding, Hwang was surprised the company hadn't contacted him about the @x account he owned and had put it private. However, he stated he would be open to a conversation with the corporation if they desired the handle for themselves.

When sold on secondary markets, popular online usernames typically fetch thousands of dollars in compensation. The handle was simply taken away from Hwang; nevertheless, it turns out that no monetary recompense was provided. Of course, Twitter is correct, but the conclusion is not ideal for the owner.

According to TechCrunch, Hwang received a letter from X informing him that since the @x account is connected to X Corp., he would be given a new handle. All of his information, including his followers, and following information, would be transferred to his new account, according to the business.

Alternatively, he might reply to the email and inform X of his preferred handle. In appreciation, the business gave him merchandise and an HQ tour if he wanted to meet the X team.

Twitter is working on changing its HQ sign to "X"

The company wanted to remove the Twitter logo from its San Francisco office as part of the rebranding process, but the cops prevented it. The equipment on the street apparently wasn't permitted. That is why the construction was stopped in the middle of the process.

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Zuckerberg continued on to say that the product roadmap is the most exciting he has seen in a while with the launch of Llama 2, Threads, Reels, new AI products coming down the pipeline, and the launch of Quest 3 in the autumn.

The revenue during the second quarter came in at $32 billion compared to the $28.8 billion the company reported for the same period the year before. That’s an increase of 11%.

Going past revenues, another interesting tidbit from the report was that daily active people across its family of services was 3.07 billion for June 2023, a 7% rise year-over-year. Its monthly active people across the same services was 3.88 billion as of 30 June, an increase of 6% year-over-year.

Facebook specifically saw its daily active users rise 5% year-over-year to 2.06 billion and its monthly active users rise by 3% to 3.03 billion. The fact that the company is still managing to grow its users means it should be able to keep increasing revenues, which investors should like.

In terms of future outlook, Meta said that it expects to see revenues in the third quarter be in the range of $32-34.5 billion. In terms of expenses, it expects them to be in the range of $88-91 billion for the full year, up due to legal-related expenses recorded during the second quarter.

The company also said that it would continue monitoring the regulatory landscape. It said it continues to see increasing ‘legal and regulatory headwinds in the EU and the US that could significantly impact’ its business and financial results.

Meta released its report after trading hours. At the close, it was at $298.57 but in after-hours trading, it almost managed to reach $319 on the back of this report.

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Days after US major Micron announced it would invest nearly $3bn (£2.3bn) in an assembly and test facility in the western state of Gujarat, Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn withdrew from its $19.5bn joint venture with India's Vedanta to build a chip-making plant in the country.

Plans of at least two other companies appear to have been stalled, local media say.

But as Mr Modi's government waits for high-value investments from chipmakers to match a $10bn incentives outlay, it has been inking a bunch of technology partnerships to get the industry on a firmer footing.

Following an agreement with the US on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) to enhance bilateral collaboration on semiconductor supply chains, India signed a similar memorandum of understanding with Japan last week.

Separately, at least three Indian states have announced individual policies aiming to secure investments in this sphere.

While generous subsidies and a strong policy push have created a springboard for the sector to take off, time is of the essence and transfer of technology will be key to India's emergence as a manufacturing hub, says Konark Bhandari, a fellow at Carnegie India.

"Whether companies commit to bringing these technologies will hinge upon an agglomeration of multiple factors, such as business climate, domestic market, export potential, infrastructure and talent," he says.

As things stand, only parts of this puzzle appear to have fallen into place.

India advantage

Semiconductors power every aspect of modern, digital life - from tiny smartphones to mega data centres that control the internet.

Advanced semiconductor technologies also play a key role in the auto industry's transition to climate-friendly electric vehicles and the development of AI applications.

India makes up 5% of the global demand for chips. That's likely to double by 2026, according to Deloitte, driven by greater adoption of smartphones, consumer appliances and new trends like self-driving cars.

The domestic market is evidently thriving. But across key phases of the chip production value chain - product development, design, fabrication, ATP (assembly, test and packaging) and support - India has a strong presence only in the design function and will have to start from scratch when it comes to manufacturing.

"India houses 20% of the global talent in chip design. There are 50,000 Indians doing this work," Kathir Thandavaryan, a partner at Deloitte, told the BBC.

Most semiconductor manufacturers - including Intel, AMD and Qualcomm - also have their largest research and development centres in India, leveraging local engineering talent.

Getting trained personnel, however, could become a major headwind for companies, according to Deloitte, with an estimated quarter million people required to work across the value chain when investments start flowing in.

Greater industry-academia collaborations in this area will, therefore, be crucial.

To its credit, the government has been working towards enabling this by training 85,000 engineers, for instance, through its 'Chips to Startup' scheme.

A number of other factors too - such as an improvement in global rankings on logistics, infrastructure and efficiency, and a more stable electricity grid, a critical prerequisite for semiconductor manufacturing - have fortified India's preparedness to be part of this global race, experts say.

Geopolitics also seems to be in India's favour, with increased focus in the US to seek alternative locations to China to outsource parts of its own semiconductor supply chain.

India, as an increasingly close ally, can become a viable "friend shoring" destination for US companies seeking to outsource support functions, according to Mr Thandavaryan.

But its protectionist trade policy, particularly its absence in multilateral trade pacts like RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), could prove costly.

"If semiconductor companies based out of China were to diversify, they would be unlikely to face major changes to the tariff scheme applicable to their components if they were moved to Vietnam. This is because there is likely to be more uniformity among countries that are part of the same regional trade arrangement," says Mr Bhandari.

Stumbling blocks

New Delhi's single biggest challenge to positioning itself as a global option for chip makers, however, is one that's all too familiar to manufacturers across industries - a notoriously difficult 'doing business' environment.

The country, known for its software prowess, doesn't really have hardware capabilities. The manufacturing sector's share of GDP has remained stagnant for years because of the lack of a facilitating ecosystem.

India will need to undertake "fundamental and enduring reforms" to change this and make its semiconductors mission a success, say experts.

"That entails addressing investment barriers such as customs/tariffs, taxation, and infrastructure," Stephen Ezell, vice president for global innovation policy at the US-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, told the BBC.

"India's not going to be able to compete in the long-run with competitors such as China, the European Union, or the US if incentives are its first-order strategy to attract semiconductor ATP or fabs."

That's primarily because India's semiconductors incentives policy is just one among several in the world. The subsidies simultaneously being offered by blocs like the EU or the US are far larger.

Most companies will also not relocate their operations at the drop of a hat for subsidies "because they have an existing ecosystem of suppliers, partners, consumers, a logistics network - all of which make it difficult to offshore operations to other jurisdictions", says Mr Bhandari.

India's subsidies could also be better directed, say experts.

Right now, it offers them across all ends of the chip-making value chain. Instead, the country could play to its strengths.

For example, it can invest in training schools for engineers or double down on its competitiveness in semiconductor ATP and design support rather than on the actual fabrication of chips, which is hugely capital-intensive and has long gestation periods.

The government mustn't get locked in a "shiny-object syndrome" of focusing on fabrication, warns Mr Ezell.

However, being competitive in it would mark a "major technological leap for the country" and the government is right to try and seek more investment in this category, he adds.

Not having some domestic fabrication facilities would also have "serious implications for India's import costs", says Mr Bhandari, as domestic electronics production crosses the significant $100bn mark.

High-stakes gamble

Much is clearly at stake with India's semiconductor gamble. It has had several false starts in the past. But after years of delays, a dedicated policy that broadly gets it right is just the first step in the right direction.

This is a "fresh opportunity to correct the earlier misses," says Mr Bhandari. "The geopolitical stars have aligned to aid this opportunity. In a fractious world with fragmented supply chains, India finds itself at a crossroads - it can either undertake a serious attempt at nurturing hardware manufacturing or let yet another opportunity slip."

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One of them was seriously injured and taken to a hospital burn centre, officials said.

The blaze was probably caused by an overheated e-scooter battery that firefighters later spotted plugged into a charger near the unit’s front door, according to Captain Jonathan Baxter, a spokesman for the San Francisco Fire Department.

It was the 24th fire in San Francisco in 2023 that has been linked to rechargeable batteries, he said.

The city isn’t alone. Fires associated with rechargeable batteries have had a devastating effect in New York City (NYC), ripping through buildings, including public housing complexes and luxury towers – and have killed more than 20 people there since 2021.

“Fortunately, we’re not seeing it to that same degree here in San Francisco,” Capt Baxter said. “However, one fire is one too many.”

Battery-related fires have increased steadily in San Francisco as e-bikes and e-scooters have proliferated in recent years.

According to the Fire Department, there have been 202 battery fires in the city since 2017, killing one person and injuring eight. Fifty-eight of them broke out in 2022, up from 13 in 2017, and 2023 is on a pace to equal or exceed 2022.

The figures include fires linked to rechargeable batteries used in e-scooters and e-bikes (the most common culprits), as well as electric cars, motorcycles and skateboards.

While dozens of structures have been damaged, a majority of the fires have erupted at homeless encampments, where, Capt Baxter said, people are probably tinkering with electric scooters and other vehicles in ways that make them more likely to burst into flames.

Off-market, refurbished, damaged or improperly charged lithium-ion batteries can explode, igniting fast-moving fires that are difficult to extinguish.

Lithium-ion batteries are also used in computers and cellphones, but so-called micro-mobility vehicle batteries are bigger and tend to be damaged by a lot of wear and tear, experts say.

“All it takes is for one small battery cell to be defective, overcharged or damaged, and a tremendous amount of energy is released in the form of heat and toxic flammable gases all at once,” Mr Daniel Murray, the New York Fire Department’s chief of hazmat operations, told The New York Times.

E-bikes and e-scooters are less regulated than electric cars, which start fewer fires even though they require far more energy. Hoping to get ahead of the fire problem, New York will ban the sale of e-bikes and similar devices that do not meet recognised safety standards, starting in September. It’s the first American city to do that.

Officials in San Francisco are warning residents not to charge e-bikes or e-scooters while they are asleep, or to use any charging device other than those made by the bike or scooter’s manufacturer.

And they say that if a battery fire does erupt in your home, don’t try to put it out yourself – you probably can’t. Instead, evacuate right away and call 911.  NYTIMES

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Some time ago, Intel announced that starting with the Meteor Lake generation of processors, it would switch to a tile-based architecture. This was a change from the usual monolithic CPUs we usually see from Intel.

There was a good reason for this change. Making smaller tiles is cheaper and less likely to result in defective chips. Additionally, AMD started doing something similar with its Ryzen processors, giving very good results depending on how one sees it.

However, to everyone’s disappointment, it was revealed not so long ago that Meteor Lake would not release on desktops. They will be limited to mobile computing devices like notebooks and others. Desktop users will have to wait for 15th-gen Arrow Lake CPUs to get their hands on the new tile-based design.

Desktops, however, are going to get a Raptor Lake Refresh from Intel. Which is rather concerning as some of the CPUs in Raptor Lake itself were a refresh of the previous-gen Alder Lake series.

Either way, while we do know that the 14-gen Intel Raptor Lake Refresh is going to release in the later part of this year, we didn’t know about its specs. Now we do have some ideas.

Raptor Lake Refresh Specs

A few days ago, well-known Twitter-based leaker chi11eddog leaked some information about the specs of Intel’s 14-gen Raptor Lake Refresh processors. However, that information was incomplete, as it didn’t have the CPU speeds in it.

However, today, the same leaker shared more information for all the non-K series processors in the Intel Raptor Lake Refresh series.

In the tweet, it is revealed that almost all the processors in the Intel Raptor Lake Refresh series get very minor improvements.

They get a minor boost of 200MHz, except for the Intel i5-14400, which will get only a 100MHz improvement over the previous-gen version, as noticed by VideoCardz.

Another minor but important change is going to be the Intel i7-14700, which will see the E-Cores increase from 8 cores to 12 cores. This is in addition to the 3MB increase in L3 cache on the same CPU.

Otherwise, there seems to be no difference between the Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors from Intel, at least as per the leaks.

Specs Table

To make people understand, we have made a simple table from the leaks above. It contains the specs of both Raptor Lake and Raptor Lake Refresh processors.

We are not mentioning threads, as it would overly complicate things. That’s because Intel P-Cores have hyper-threading, which means two threads per core. But the Intel E-Cores don’t have hyper-threading.

Interestingly, there are no K models in the list, as mentioned previously. We don’t know what the specs of K models are, but it’s likely to have a similar 200MHz increase in the clock speeds. What’s also interesting is that these boost clocks are similar to what the K series offered in the previous-gen Raptor Lake.

As for performance, expect a very minor increase in performance in the Raptor Lake Refresh because of just a 200MHz increase in the boost clock. The only performance that will raise interest will be in the CPU in the i7 series.

As for pricing, chi11eddog mentioned in the previous tweet that he expects it to be the same as the original pricing of the Intel Raptor Lake series. However, PCGamesHardware (translated) via TechSpot, reports that Intel intends to increase the price of all the Intel processors.

It’s going to start releasing in the later part of this year. By that time, we will have confirmed specs of them.

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"To meet our own high expectations and ambitions to create the best role-playing games, we not only want to have the best people but also the right teams," said CD Projekt CEO Adam Kiciński regarding the decision. "What we mean by that is having teams that are built around our projects’ needs; teams that are more agile and more effective.

Kiciński says that after the company assessed the current projects and their development teams, it had come to the conclusion that overstaffing is a problem. "We have talented people on board who are finishing their tasks and — based on current and expected project needs — we already know we don’t have other opportunities for them in the next year," he added.

Around 100 people affected will not be laid off in a single group, according to CD Projekt, with some members only being affected as far as Q1 2024. "In the spirit of transparency, we’ve chosen to share the information now," the blog clarifies.

This move arrives soon after 29 employees were laid off by the studio back in May. The developers affected in that round of layoffs were mostly from The Molasses Flood, a team that CD Projekt acquired in 2021, which is working on a Witcher spin-off codenamed Sirius.

The studio has a large number of projects in development. Aside from Sirius, a complete remake of the original The Witcher RPG, a brand-new Witcher trilogy, a new Cyberpunk entry, plus a mystery game based on an original IP are in development. Of course, Cyberpunk 2077's first and final expansion, Phantom Liberty, is releasing this September too.

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In many states, Americans can now ditch their physical wallet and verify their identity simply by tapping their device on a scanner. And just as digital wallets from Apple and Google have made commerce more convenient, digital ID systems could potentially make government interactions faster and more efficient. But they also raise the ominous specter of government surveillance. Can we have the efficiency of a digital ID without letting government track our every move? 

Yes, but that's not the path we're on. 

Take Colorado. Since 2019, Coloradans have been able to use a digital ID as a legal form of personal identification throughout the state. Users download an application to their smartphone, enroll in the service, and have their identity authenticated by taking photos or videos of a valid ID card or other government issued documents to prove that they are who they claim to be. Then that information is encrypted, and the user is granted a digital ID and an associated key or code that serves as an identifier.

Colorodans can simply show their digital ID to verify their identity in much the same way as you would show your driver's license to a bartender to prove you are over 21. That means of verifying identity is relatively private. However, many services, both public and private, are increasingly turning to electronic verification, which requires pinging a government server. This ping creates a data record outlining who, what, when, and where. Over time, these records create a government-controlled ledger of information about its citizens.

Built and maintained by third-party vendors, Colorado Digital ID collects troves of information from users. As outlined in the privacy policy for myColorado, the app collects data "including, but not limited to your IP address, device ID and browser type," and information on the "general geographic area" of the user. The privacy policy further details that the government shares information with third-party service providers and, much more concerningly, with law enforcement and other government agencies upon request. 

The fundamental flaw in digital ID systems like Colorado's is that they are centralized. In order to work, citizens must trust the government to protect their data from malevolent actors and from the state itself, despite the fact that government agencies have not been good stewards of citizen data. 

When implementing digital ID systems, many states claim they will respect the privacy and civil liberties of their citizens, essentially promising that they will not use their newfound power for evil. But far better than Google's longtime motto "Don't be evil," is the idea of "Can't be evil." It's easier to trust state actors to respect our privacy when they lack the ability to violate our privacy. 

And yet, digital IDs do show promise. These systems could streamline and modernize archaic procedures by introducing secure, easily verifiable credentials that work seamlessly across our physical and digital lives. Digital IDs can help make governments more accessible and efficient, reducing costs and increasing civic participation by automating many processes that would otherwise require physical interactions. For example, digital ID systems can allow citizens to securely apply for permits online, eliminating the time and hassle of doing so in person. 

How do we get the good and not the bad? For inspiration, we should look to the cypherpunks of the late 1980s and early 1990s who had a clear vision centered around robust privacy secured by encryption. "We cannot expect governments, corporations, or other large, faceless organizations to grant us privacy out of their beneficence," wrote Eric Hughes in A Cypherpunk Manifesto. "The technologies of the past did not allow for strong privacy, but electronic technologies do." 

Decentralized networks now make it such that there need not be a trusted intermediary in a digital system, so digital IDs could theoretically cut the government out entirely. Similarly, advanced cryptographic methods such as zero-knowledge proofs allow information to be verified without the verifier needing access to the information. Combining these two characteristics, we can create systems that grant us all the benefits of digital IDs and are resistant to surveillance. In fact, several projects already have protocols and products that operate based on these principles.

Hughes is right that governments, by their very nature, resist privacy and are more than willing to exploit new technologies to surveil citizens. Thus, as more states and localities choose to implement digital ID systems, it is up to the citizens to demand that those systems be built in ways that protect their civil liberties. The technology exists. All that is left is for it to be implemented. 

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We had already covered such cases before where Crucial's T700 and Corsair's MP700 were seen as severely underperforming and thermally throttling, respectively, due to the enormous amount of heat produced that the NAND chips couldn't cope with. The issue was happening with Phison's PS5026-E26 controller which is fairly common in PCIe Gen5 drives, and hence, back then, we speculated that other SSD models using the E26 would likely be affected as well.

German tech site ComputerBase (CB) tested the Seagate FireCuda 540 and found that the drive was throttling heavily under load and was eventually shutting down. As you can see in the image below, the drive reached 87C which is prime throttle territory. The read speed of the drive drops heavily once such temperatures are reached. After encountering a shutdown, CB notes that the FireCuda 540 requires a cold (hard) reboot as a simple restart is not enough.

Last time, Phison had stated that a heatsink is a must with PCIe 5.0 SSDs. In a statement, it explained:

It is important to note that all E26 SSDs shipped without a heatsink are intended to be used with a heatsink. Most motherboards shipping with PCIe Gen5 enabled also include cooling specifically designed for Gen5 SSDs. We offer the 'bare drive' option to allow customers to use their existing cooling products.

And this wasn't the first time either. Previously the company had suggested that for cooling Gen5 NVMe drives, even active cooling with fans may become necessary.

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