Last week, we also saw a leaked photo of the RTX 4080 Founder's Edition. The specifications of the entire RTX 4000 series has also been leaked though we suggest you to take the information with a pinch of salt.

The 4000 series are expected to feature giant leaps forward in terms of power and efficiency when compared to their predecessor. A tweet from Qbitleaks has revealed internal testing numbers for an unnamed GeForce RTX 4000 series card. Although the exact SKU is not specified, it isn't a "flagship" model which means that it could be a GeForce RTX 4080 or lower.

The graph should be treated with skepticism as these are no final specifications. A mid-tier card like the RTX 4070 could boost up to 2.6Ghz while the high-end 4090 could also perform par the 3Ghz threshold.

Source: WinFuture

Nvidia hints RTX 40 series launch date with hashtag "ProjectBeyond"

President Joe Biden traveled to Ohio on Friday to celebrate the groundbreaking of Intel’s new $20 billion semiconductor plant, one of the first domestic chip-making facilities to come out of the recently passed CHIPS and Science Act.

Intel’s Friday groundbreaking ceremony kicked off construction of what the company has called the “largest silicon manufacturing location on the planet.” It’s part of Intel’s plans to invest $100 billion in Ohio over the next 10 years. The company has said that the project could take more than 7,000 workers to build the facility that is expected to house two separate factories and, once finished, employ 3,000 workers.

Intel had previously delayed the plant’s July groundbreaking ceremony because its plans largely relied “on funding from the CHIPS Act,” which Congress had yet to pass. But after a summer of negotiations, Biden signed the $280 billion tech and science bill last month, calling it “a once in a generation investment in America itself.”

The bipartisan deal to boost American innovation in opposition to growing Chinese competition in the tech industry hopes to protect US economic and national security interests following a global semiconductor shortage. The start of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 fractured global chip supply chains, making it more difficult for device makers to source semiconductors for their products. At the same time, demand for these goods surged as offices closed and people started working from home.

“As we saw during the pandemic, when the factories that make these chips shut down, chips shut down. The global economy comes to a halt,” Biden said at the Intel site Friday. “We need to make these chips right here in America to bring down everyday costs and create good jobs.”

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger joined Biden for the ceremony he said marked the end of the Rust Belt and the beginnings of a “Silicon Heartland.” Other major chip manufacturers have announced plans for new domestic semiconductor facilities following the bill’s passage. Earlier this month, Micron said that it would invest $15 billion to build a new plant in Idaho. On Friday, Wolfspeed announced a $5 billion investment to build a new semiconductor facility in North Carolina.

“Today we broke ground on a future that every Ohioan can be proud of,” Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), Ohio candidate for US Senate, said in a statement on Friday. “This multi-billion-dollar investment is a culmination of an unprecedented collaboration between federal, state, and private sector leaders that will transform Ohio’s economy and provide future generations an opportunity to build a stable middle-class life right here at home.”

President Joe Biden speaks after groundbreaking for Intel’s $20 billion semiconductor plant

Initially, Intel showed a five-game sample comparison but later, it published a 50-game sample covering several titles based on modern DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs. In terms of ray tracing (DXR) performance, however, the more powerful A770 was pitted against the RTX 3060.

In case you are wondering about the differences in specifications between the various Arc models, Intel today has shared the specs of the Arc desktop GPU line-up. A separate image detailing the specifications of the A750 and A770 Limited Edition cards has also been provided.

Bizarrely, however, Intel has listed the entry level Arc A380 as featuring 4 GB memory instead of the 6 GB it actually has. You can see Intel's own Arc website lists the SKU as a 6 GB model:

It is unlikely that the A380 model has undergone a memory configuration change, given how the card still features 186 GB/s memory (as you can see in the Arc website image above). For the card to suddenly become a 4 GB SKU, the memory interface must either be decreased or increased to 64-bit or 128-bit width, respectively. Either of these will also consecutively affect the memory bandwidth.

Source: Intel

Intel puts up video to clean up Arc confusion, ends up creating some more with wrong specs

With Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake launch fast approaching according to leaked reports, there are plenty of other leaks trickling out here and there. Alleged details regarding the SKUs have also surfaced, initially in the form of just basic specifications, followed later with more in-depth details. Today, courtesy of igor'sLAB, the entire purported official presentation slide deck for the Raptor Lake-S launch has leaked.

First up, we have a slide (left below) showing the basic comparison between the previous 12th Gen Alder Lake-S and the new 13th Gen Raptor Lake-S CPUs. The image on the right shows the SKU chart. Interestingly, although the slide only lists the a couple of SKUs each from the i9, i7 and i5 series, previous reports have indicated more lower power T SKUs are also in the works.

The spec list also says that 253W will be the Maximum Turbo power for the i9 and i7 chips. However, rumors have suggested that Intel may go even higher with an alleged 350W Extreme performance mode.

What's mostly new in today's leak are details regarding the upcoming Z790 chipset succeeding the previous Z690 chipset on the same socket LGA1700 platform.

From the slide, it looks like Intel will be lowering the PCIe 3.0 lanes in 700-series boards. On Z790, there will be eight PCIe Gen3 lanes instead of 16 on Z690. Meanwhile, PCIe 4.0 lanes go up from 12 to 20.

USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is also apparently going to get a slight upgrade from four ports on Z690 up to five in the upcoming Z790.

Source and images: igor'sLAB

Purported Intel Raptor Lake official launch slides leak revealing specs, Z790 details

The report claims that a trio of new 30-series cards are coming (the upgrades have been emboldened. They are:

• RTX 3060 8GB variant
• RTX 3060 Ti 8GB GDDR6X variant
• RTX 3070 Ti 8GB GDDR6X variant

While not necessary, an 8GB variant of the RTX 3060 isn't such a bad idea as the original 12GB version has too much VRAM compared to the performance on offer. The RTX 3060 is a 1080p gaming card that competes with AMD's RX 6600 and 6600 XT. Although the 12GB variant carries an official MSRP of $329, the GPUs typically are selling for around $399 currently.

Depending on how Nvidia designs the memory system of the new alleged 8GB 3060, the new card could be cheaper or priced similarly. A 128-bit memory interface could mean a very cheap RTX 3060 but it would also reduce the bandwidth of the card to around ~240GB/s and consequently its performance too.

So, a 128-bit 3060 seems highly unlikely as it wouldn't be much better than the RTX 3050 due to severe bandwidth-hit. Instead, Nvidia may use a 256-bit wide memory interface which will raise the memory throughput of the card by 33% to around 480GB/s. As such, the card may be able to catch up to the AMD RX 6650 XT or even the RX 6700 10GB in raster performance.

Moving on, the RTX 3060 Ti and the RTX 3070 Ti are also set to receive memory upgrades to GDDR6X. This will lead to an increase in bandwidth albeit the memory capacity is rumored to remain the same. Hence, the two new SKUs could catch up to the RX 6750 XT and the RX 6800 in terms of rasterization.

Source: @Zed_Wang (Twitter)

Amid RTX 4000 hype, Nvidia reportedly making RTX 3060 8GB, RTX 3060 Ti and 3070 Ti GDDR6X

AMD is making laptop CPU model numbers simultaneously less and more confusing

A cheaper Chromecast dongle with the Google TV iteration of Android OS, capable of streaming content in HD resolution, could launch soon. The long-rumored Chromecast HD may have already started appearing at retail stores and would feature a lower price tag.

The current generation of Chromecast streaming devices offers 4K output. However, Google had long refrained from confirming the same on the box. The company recently refreshed the packaging of the device to include “4K” on the box. This not only confirms the ability to stream in 4K, but also indicates Google is readying another device that has a different, and presumably lower, specification.

The new, lower-priced, Chromecast with Google TV seems to lack the ability to stream in 4K. Moreover, the device is reportedly "appearing at the first dealers", hinting that retail stock is already in place.

There’s no official word yet about the specifications, retail price, or launch date from Google. However, the search giant recently confirmed it will release the Pixel 7 and Pixel Watch on October 6. It is quite possible the company could also launch the new Chromecast, which has already been unofficially nicknamed the “HD” model.

The current generation of Chromecast, with the ability to stream in 4K, costs €69.99 in Europe. The cheaper variant with HD streaming is expected to cost €39.99, which is 40% off the cost of the 4K version. Incidentally, the €39.99 price tag is the same as what Google asks for the existing Chromecast dongle without Google TV.

At the rumored price tag, the new HD-only Chromecast with Google TV could compete with devices like the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite. This device could work well with non-4K TVs as a secondary streaming device. As Google hasn't upgraded the hardware, users will have to rely on software tweaks to manage RAM and memory.

Source: WinFuture

New cheaper 'HD' Chromecast lacking 4K HDR may launch soon

Anker’s making its smallest charger even smaller and cheaper at $22.99. The new Anker 511 Nano 3 charger is a 30-watt single USB-C charger that’s designed for fast charging an iPhone or iPad and can even power a MacBook Air — all with a charger that’s about the size of Apple’s old 5W charger it used to include with iPhones.

Just like last year’s model, the Nano 3 is a gallium nitride (GaN) charger that can output more power from smaller and cooler packaging. It doesn’t use the company’s new GaNPrime tech introduced in July, but the Nano 3 does have foldable blades that make pocketing it less stabby.

Compared to Apple’s 30W USB-C charger, the new Nano 3 is about 70 percent smaller, according to Anker. It also can charge an iPad Air up to 20 minutes faster compared to Apple’s included 20W charger.

The Nano 3 is available now on Anker’s website and Amazon for $22.99 and comes in black, white, blue, green, and purple colors. Anker is also selling matching Lighting cables that use a blend of plastic and plant-based materials for $18.99 (3ft) and $21.99 (6ft) each, as well as USB-C versions for $16.99 and $19.99, respectively. Unfortunately, bio-based plastic blends still aren’t biodegradable when they eventually hit the landfill, and even though their sources are renewable, experts warn that the crops the materials come from could lead to more water use and greenhouse gas emissions than regular plastics.

Anker’s 30W Nano 3 looks like Apple’s tiny iPhone plug, but it can charge laptops

Meta has announced that its Connect Conference will be livestreamed on October 11th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. In a post on the Oculus blog, the company says it’ll cover the progress it’s made on the metaverse and offer “a look at what’s to come in the near and far future.” The announcements can’t measure up to last year’s Connect, where the company changed its name from Facebook to Meta, but the company has said we’ll see information on the Horizon Worlds virtual reality app and hinted that the high-end “Project Cambria” headset will show up as well.

Last month, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the company is announcing a new VR headset in October, and on Tuesday, he backed up that idea with an image he posted to Facebook. The device he’s wearing in the photo looks very similar to what we’ve seen of Project Cambria already.

According to Zuckerberg, the headset will include eye and facial tracking and color passthrough, and it’s rumored to have a higher-res screen than what’s currently included on the Oculus Quest 2. It’s also expected to be significantly more expensive than the Quest 2, which recently got its price bumped up to $399.99.

Last month, Zuckerberg also announced that there would be details about “Major updates to Horizon and avatar graphics” announced at the Connect conference. Horizon Worlds is the company’s flagship metaverse app, which lets people create their own experiences and hang out in virtual reality (similar to programs like VRChat). Zuckerberg recently posted a screenshot of Horizon that earned a lot of ridicule — and generated a lot of memes — because of its relatively low-quality graphics. The Meta CEO responded to the memes by promising significant upgrades, which we should hear more about on October 11th.

The company has made a big bet that the metaverse will be the future and is spending billions of dollars a year on trying to make that happen. I suspect we’ll see it try to justify that expense at Connect, as well as try and convince the public that it should actually be paying attention to the metaverse rather than making fun of it.

Meta will reveal its new high-end VR headset on October 11th

Today, some third-party benchmarks for the 7600X have leaked and it shows performance is about where AMD had claimed. The two benchmarks tested were Cinebench R23 and CPU-Z and both stock as well as overclocked states were measured. The testbench had decently fast DDR5-6000 memory.

Here is a compilation of the single-threaded results as this was the point of reference for the 12900K comparison:

Here are the screenshots of the results with Cinebench on the top row and CPU-Z on the row below:

The gains compared to the Ryzen 9 5950X here look un-impressive though the performance is pretty much in line with AMD's claims. According to the company, Zen 4 features a 9% IPC (instructions-per-cycle) improvement in Cinebench and a mere 1% improvement in CPU-Z.

On the multi-threaded side though the 7600X apparently does not come close to the 12900K. In fact it struggles to even surpass the i5-12600K as the 7600X only scores around 15,000 points, as per Wccftech.

What is impressive however is the performance of the Ryzen 9 7950X which apparently scores over 41,000 points and does so while reaching 82°C on an all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler.

Source: 胆小鬼尹志平 (Bilibili) via @harukaze5719 (Twitter), Greymon55 (Twitter), Wccftech

AMD Ryzen 7950X and 7600X benchmarks suggest the latter isn't a 12900K killer by miles

The US–China technology rivalry became overt when a dispute erupted over 5G and Huawei after Washington designated Huawei as an embargoed company on its “Entity List” in May 2019.

At the center of the dispute are standards underpinning the fifth generation (5G) of mobile network technology. China is overtaking the United States — the traditional mastermind of international standards in information and communications technology — in setting the standards for 5G.

Chinese companies hold one-third of the world’s 5G-related “standard-essential” patents — patents that claim an invention must be used to comply with an industry standard.

Holding 5G patents is important because 5G extends beyond conventional mobile communication in emerging technological sectors. Autonomous cars, artificial intelligence (AI), smart factories and smart cities are all connected through 5G networks.

As 5G standards are adopted, essential-patent owners will earn more profits and exert growing power over the path of standardization and innovation in related technologies.

This is why the US takes China’s increasing influence over international standardization so seriously. The word “standards” appears 10 times in the former Trump administration’s 2020 report on the “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China.”

The recurrence of a technical term in a top-level White House strategic document shows that Washington is suspicious of China’s standardization drive.
By promoting “a set of common standards for secure, resilient and trusted communications platforms”, the United States aims to work with allies and partners to push back against “discriminatory” industrial standards made by China.

Huawei’s 5G infrastructure is at the forefront of China’s tech standard drive. Image: Facebook

This vigilance is being strengthened under US President Joe Biden who published a paper in 2020 emphasizing that the rules of the international economy should not be rigged against the US.

The paper argues that the US should continue its “70-year” role in writing the rules of trade and technology. He also calls for cooperation between like-minded countries “in confront[ing] China’s abusive behavior.”

Standards are one of the pillars of global rule-setting. The Biden administration’s 100-day review of supply chains for products of strategic significance “identifies key areas where government could play a more active role in setting standards and incentivizing high-road business practices.”

China similarly sees standards as a strategic vehicle through which to achieve a new world order. Its Belt and Road Initiative emphasizes standards cooperation and Beijing has signed 52 standards cooperation agreements as of September 2019.

China’s growing influence over standardization and the US response illustrates that such standards are not just a tool for technical, industrial or economic competition — they are also a geopolitical consideration.

This confrontation will intensify as China formulates its “China Standards 2035” vision — a sequel to Beijing’s strategic industrial policy, “Made in China 2025.”

But while Made in China 2025 pursues dominance in the production of goods, China Standards 2035 aims to control the rules governing emerging technologies.

“Since global technical standards are still being formed”, Chinese companies and organizations want to enhance their “right to speak” in setting international technical standards for emerging technologies of the fourth industrial revolution and digital transformation like 5G, AI and quantum computing.

State-centric approaches to standardization are now being demanded by US lawmakers. Washington is known for being hands-off and industry-driven, but reports by key think tanks emphasize the role of the government in both domestic and international standardization.

 The “US Leadership in AI: A Plan for Federal Engagement in Developing Technical Standards and Related Tools” report published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology recommends that Washington play a role in overturning China’s standards-driven dominance of emerging technologies.

US President Joe Biden wants more advanced semiconductors produced in America. Image: Twitter

The US government officially expressed its support for the US candidate vying for the position of International Telecommunications Union Secretary-General, which has been seated by the Chinese Secretary-General for the last eight years.

Biden came forward to assert his support for this endorsement. This demonstrates that the US has changed its attitude toward international standardization and now recognizes its importance.

The decoupling of global supply chains is often identified as a consequence of the US–China technology rivalry. A recent report by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China notes “growing concern” about the decoupling of technical standards and data governance.

The politicization of standard-setting — “an essential tool to facilitate trade and interoperability”— risks fragmenting global standards and disrupting trade and innovation.

If the US–China conflict over technology and technical standards leads to the decoupling of international standards, companies may have to manage two separate global supply chains — each governed by its own independent system of standards.

In order to maintain a sound global economy, the US, China and the international community should strive to avoid this situation.

Source

Walk down any street and it’s a familiar scene: people craning their necks as they look at their phones. But in the not-too-distant future we’ll probably just stare at digital information hovering over the world in front of us, taking in a blend of the digital and real worlds, all thanks to augmented reality. In an ordinary office block in Saratoga, California, dozens of engineers are working to realize that future, churning out prototypes on a weekly basis of a smart contact lens stuffed with tiny circuits, batteries and one of the world’s smallest displays.

When I visited Mojo Vision’s office in July, I held its augmented reality smart contact lens about an inch in front of my eye to try out its features, shifting a cursor around the space in front of me by moving the lens. Since I couldn’t wear the contact lens, I used a virtual reality headset to test its eye-tracking technology and demo apps, directing a small cursor by simply moving my eye. I could read from a digital teleprompter that displayed a series of words as I moved my eye, and I could also look around the room to see arrows pointing north and west, designed to help eventual users with navigation outdoors.

To “click” on one of the apps dotted around a circle that hovered in front of me, I simply looked at a small tab next to the app for an extra second. Numbers and text appeared in my upper field of view, showing, say, my cycling speed, or displaying the weather, or giving me information on an upcoming flight. To close the app, I’d look away from that information for a full second.

Technologists have talked for years about what the next computing platform will be, a decade after mobile devices replaced desktop computing as our primary gateway to the internet. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is placing his bets on the metaverse, a fully immersive virtual world entered via a headset.

But I think the bigger shift will be to augmented reality, where glasses or contact lenses display information on the world around us so we can see both the online and real world at once. If there is one thing that humans love doing (albeit badly in many cases) it’s multitasking. Phones will become more like mini servers that coordinate all the different devices we’ll increasingly wear on our bodies: earbuds, watches and soon eyewear, the latest piece in the puzzle of invisible computing.

Mojo Vision’s lenses are a marvel in engineering and perhaps one of the most ambitious hardware projects in Silicon Valley today. The company had to develop its own chemicals and plastic compounds that would allow an eyeball to breathe through a lens covered with electronics. When I held the lens in my hand, it was noticeably thick, and large enough to extend beyond the iris to cover parts of the whites of the eyes.

“It’s not uncomfortable,” said David Hobbs, the startup’s senior director of product management who has worn several prototypes.

The lens includes nine titanium batteries of the sort normally found in pacemakers and a flexible circuit narrower than a human hair providing all the power and data. A slightly convex mirror bounces light off a tiny reflector, simulating the mechanics of a telescope, which magnifies the pixels that are packed into just two microns, approximately 0.002 millimeters. From a few feet away, that tiny display looks like a pinprick of light. But when I looked through the lens more closely, I could watch a video of Baby Yoda, an image as crisp and engaging as any video I’d seen on a screen.

I could imagine people watching TikTok videos on this one day, but Mojo Vision wants the lens to have practical uses. The information it displays on your eye should be “very tight, fast, quick snippets,” said Steve Sinclair, senior vice president of product and marketing. Still, the company is figuring out “how much information is too much information,” according to Sinclair, who previously worked on the product team at Apple Inc. that developed the iPhone.

For now, Mojo Vision is working on a lens for visually impaired people that shows glowing, digital edges overlaid on objects to make it easier to see those objects. It’s also testing different interfaces with companies who make running, skiing and golfing apps for phones, for a new kind of hands-free display of activity. Sinclair says that barring regulatory holdups, consumers could buy a Mojo lens with a bespoke prescription in less than five years. That may be an ambitious timeline considering other augmented reality projects have been delayed or, like Google Glass, didn’t live up to the hype.

Google parent Alphabet Inc. also failed to deliver a smart contact lens for medical usebut overall, big tech firms have been driving much of the development around virtual and augmented reality. Apple is working on lightweight augmented-reality glasses which it plans to release later this decade, Bloomberg News has reported. Sometime next year, it also is expected to launch a mixed-reality headset, which it showed to its board of directors in May. Facebook currently dominates virtual-reality device sales with its Quest 2 headset, but it’s also racing to launch its first augmented-reality glasses in 2024, according to an April report in the Verge.

Why is augmented reality taking longer? Because it melds digital elements with physical objects in a view that is constantly moving. That’s a complex task that requires a lot of processing power. Even so, our desire to keep at least one foot in the real world means we’re likely to spend more time in augmented reality in the long run.

The big question is how to balance being present in real life while constantly seeing digital information. Today, it takes a few seconds to take out a phone, launch an app and carry out a task on its screen. In the future, we’ll be able to enter an app simply by looking at it for an extra second. That will throw up all kinds of thorny issues around addiction and how we interact with the world around us.

Sinclair says that same question came up for him years ago when he was working on the iPhone. “I can’t say how we at Mojo are going to completely mitigate that,” he said. “But the trend is moving in that direction, that people are going to have instant access to information.”

Whether with contact lenses or glasses, the human eye will point to a world swimming in more digital information than ever before. Our brains will have a lot to get used to.

Source

G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5. Credit: G.Skill.

DDR5 RAM prices have been quite high. If reports are to be believed, they are going to get significantly cheaper going ahead. Benefiting AMD Ryzen 7000 users.

When Intel released Alder Lake line-up of their processors. It was the first one to support DDR5 RAM in its CPUs. However, Intel realized that the prices of DDR5 RAM sticks are too high for them to support it exclusively. So Intel decided to implement a support for both DDR4 RAM and DDR5 RAM in its Alder Lake generation of CPUs.

In upcoming Raptor Lake processors, Intel has decided to do the same, stick to the support for both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM types. However, AMD has other plans.

When AMD announced Zen 4 based Ryzen 7000 processors, it was revealed that Ryzen 7000 series will support DDR5 exclusively. AMD revealed that it decided to do that to keep future upgrades and compatibility in consideration.

However, AMD’s announcement was just a confirmation of something we knew from months. That AMD Ryzen 7000 processors will not support DDR4 RAM and will exclusively support only DDR5.

There were many questions raised of AMD’s move. This is because when Zen 4 based Ryzen 7000 processors were in design and making process, the prices of DDR5 RAM were quite high – almost double or triple of DDR4 RAM. Looks like AMD’s move might well succeed, because DDR5 RAMs are getting cheaper.

DDR5 RAM Prices To Get Even Cheaper

According to a report by Digitimes Asia, the prices of DDR5 RAM are going to get cheaper even further.

Specifically, entry level DDR5 RAM (which most can afford), are going to get significantly cheaper going forward in the current second half of this year.

The sources of the report mention how prices of DDR5 chips were 200% above DDR4 chips and the price gap has now narrowed to just 100%. So much so that they reveal that they are selling DDR5 chips at a loss.

Not only that, the report reveals that in July alone the contract prices of DDR5 RAM chips got cheaper by 20% compared to 10-15% of DDR4. If that isn’t enough indication, then it further reveals that a DDR5 chip currently costs just $5. If we were to put about 8 of those chips into a RAM stick, we get a grand total of $40 (excluding other costs like PCB).

The report also suggests that, the prices of DDR5 RAM falling further means the adaption of it is going to increase further. With the prices hitting their sweet spot in 2023, its adaption is going to increase even more.

Benefit AMD

AMD’s move to stick with DDR5 is going to give it massive rewards as its prices get cheaper. It’s also going to be a big relief for them, as the high prices of DDR5 were all set to significantly hinder the adaption of it’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs. At least at the early stages of their release, that is. So this is good news for AMD. It also means that the gamble which AMD has taken is going to be worth it.

There are two important things though. Intel doesn’t exclusively support DDR5 RAM in Alder Lake and Raptor Lake. But it does support it. So if DDR5 RAM prices are getting cheaper, you might find Intel users to start using them too. So the faster RAM speeds is not going to benefit AMD users alone. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Second thing is. Will we actually see DDR5 RAM prices to get as cheap as DDR4 RAM levels. That’s a big question. Going by the report, we might. But there’s no guarantee that there won’t be another price setting event in these RAM making factories, which increases their prices again. Something which has happened before.

But meanwhile, let’s be happy that it’s all set to become cheaper.

DDR5 RAM Prices To Continue To Get Cheaper

CMA followed the statement with its intention to give the deal a deeper investigation as it could lead to problems in case Microsoft gets the power to keep Activision’s best-selling games away from its competitors. Recently, Microsoft said that it would keep “Call of Duty” on PlayStation for a number of years even after the deal ends. However, the company still didn’t make clear commitments to letting other subscription services access Activision Blizzard’s games. With this, different analysts highlighted the need for Microsoft to provide assurance to other competitors and put them into writing.

The competition regulator focused on the effects of the acquisition on the console market competition between Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Specifically, the CMA fears the possibility of Sony being refused to get access to new Call of Duty games.

“As the multi-game subscription market is still in its infancy, the effect of the Merger could be to tip or significantly increase concentration in the market in Microsoft’s favour before future rivals have a chance to develop,” CMA said regarding the Xbox Game Pass.

In addition, the UK’s competition watchdog said that the problem that could arise in the market for games consoles is not the only thing to mind, as it also covers “recent and future rivals in multi-game subscription services and cloud gaming.” CMA argued that Microsoft already has a well-established status in cloud gaming due to its subscription service, Xbox, cloud gaming service, Azure cloud platform, and Windows OS. And with Microsoft planning to bring the biggest Activision games on its different platforms via cloud game streaming, these claims from CMA are not far from possible.

The two companies are given until September 8 to address CMA’s concerns, or it will proceed to the second stage of a probe. “If our current concerns are not addressed, we plan to explore this deal in an in-depth phase two investigation to reach a decision that works in the interests of UK gamers and businesses,” said Senior Director of Mergers at CMA Sorcha O’Carroll.

Activision already released a comment about it, and although it didn’t deny CMA’s concern, it recognized the regulator’s view as part of the process.

“This week we heard from the United Kingdom, where we have more employees than anywhere except North America. We have entered the second phase of our review there, and we will continue to fully cooperate with the regulators there, and everywhere approvals are required,” said Activision CEO Bobby Kotick in blog post. “As our industry continues to see numerous companies investing aggressively in gaming, including many of the world’s largest technology and media companies, government regulators are taking appropriate and deliberate steps to better understand our industry and the growing competition from around the world.”

UK’s regulator expresses concerns over Microsoft using Activision deal to “harm rivals”

As usual though, Intel's Raptor Lake-S lineup is expected to be a long one with several SKUs belonging to the i9, i7, i5 and i3 series. While an earlier leak gave us a pretty fair idea of that, a new report today from fellow site Wccftech alleges to have got in-depth specification details of the full Raptor Lake-S lineup including per core clock speed details, DDR4 and DDR5 supported speeds, among many other things.

First up, we have the specs of the i9, i7 and i5 chips - both K (unlocked) and non-k (locked) - which will feature an Intel Xe LP integrated graphics. You can view the lineup in the image below. Interestingly it looks like DDR5 ECC support may be present on Raptor Lake right from the start. The 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs had the feature enabled long after it had launched.

Up next, we have the F-series SKUs which lack or have the integrated graphics disabled:

Finally, we hae the T-series lineup that are low TDP variants. The T series apparently consists of only two variants, the i9-13900T and i7-13700T:

With the expected launch of the Raptor Lake looming not too far away from now, we could receive even more details about the chips as we inch closer.

Source and images: Wccftech

More purported details on upcoming Intel Raptor Lake leaks: 13900K, 13700K and more

Windows 11 criticism

We'll start this section off with Microsoft's former User Design chief being "shocked" at the company's implementation of the Start menu and the associated Windows Search functionality. These comments were publicly made on Twitter by Jensen Harris, who left Microsoft in 2014 after a tenure of 16 years. Harris pointed out some glaring inconsistencies and claimed that an ad for Bing Wallpaper on top of the search bar actually looks like a virus. His criticism of the software and Microsoft's current design practices is quite lengthy, but you can find out all the details here.

Even if Microsoft is allegedly faltering in the design front, the company is making some gains on the backend. A Microsoft engineer recently talked in detail about how SMB compression is being significantly improved in Windows 11. And if you're prepping for version 22H2 of the OS on an Intel PC, don't forget to grab the latest Wi-Fi drivers too.

Speaking more about Windows 11, Oracle VirtualBox finally supports it as a host OS in its latest version. If mixing and matching operating systems is your thing, you might also be interested to know that Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) recently received its August 2022 update - as version 2207.40000.8.0. The update includes improvements to the Amazon Appstore and bug fixes for the app restart issue, among many other things.

Another thing that may catch your interest is the unearthing of an old Windows 10 build which contains indications of how long Microsoft had been planning Windows 11's strict hardware requirements.

To cap this all off, several Insider builds were rolled out this week too. The Windows 11 Dev Channel received build 25193 with Xbox subscription management in Settings, along with lots of improvements to File Explorer and the Start menu. Meanwhile, the usual hidden and A/B testing features also include the restoration of the new tablet UI and the half-baked tray area.

The Beta Channel also netted build 22621.590 / 22622.590 with enhancements to File Explorer, OneDrive, and Robocopy. Finally, Windows Server vNext Preview Build 25192 is available too, but as usual, there is no changelog.

Microsoft Edge builds

It wasn't just Windows which received all the builds, Microsoft Edge got some updates in this week too. Version 105 of the browser landed on the Stable Channel this week. It's not a particularly big update but it includes some improvements to Cloud Site List Management experience for IE mode as well as some security enhancements.

A Dev build landed in the form of version 106.0.1363.0 too. It's a nifty update that includes enhanced policies for Efficiency mode and fixes a bunch of bugs too.

In terms of the latest browser market share numbers, Edge remained mostly stagnant. There was an increase of 0.05 percentage points, but that is well within the margins of error. Overall, Microsoft Edge is still a very distant second in the browser race with its market share of 10.91%. Google Chrome leads the pack with 67.33%.

Talking about browsers, it's also worth knowing about all the features in Microsoft Excel in August 2022. This includes multiple platforms, including web, Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS.

App updates and cybersecurity

Microsoft disclosed a TikTok bug this week, obviously after privately sharing it with ByteDance first and getting it fixed before publicly announcing it. The Android version of TikTok was affected and allowed attackers to access user accounts with a single click and without their knowledge. Fortunately, the vulnerability has now been plugged.

Another interesting thing that happened is that Microsoft announced that it will allow IT admins to re-enable Basic Authentication for Exchange Online until the end of this year. This is in contrast to its previous announcement where it said that Basic Auth will be disabled in a staggered manner for everyone starting from next month and everyone would have to migrate to Modern Authentication (OAuth 2.0) by then without exception.

Switching over to app updates, you should know that Microsoft To Do is now rolling out to Outlook for Windows. Meanwhile, Office for iOS now supports PowerPoint slides in portrait mode as well as a toggle option for dark mode in Word. The Redmond tech giant is also rebuilding Stream mobile app from scratch with a beta now available.

Over on the cloud side, Microsoft has agreed to alter its license terms to allow more competition from smaller cloud providers in the European Union (EU). Its Azure virtual machines powered by Ampere Altra ARM processor have begun rolling out too.

Finally, there are some hardware-related upgrades to talk about as well. A new report has suggested that Microsoft could be merging its Surface Pro and Surface Pro X into a single lineup. In the same vein, promotional photos of the new keyboard, mouse, and pen for the upcoming Surface Studio 3 have leaked as well. Finally, the Surface Duo 2's source code has indicated that Microsoft may have been considering a Wi-Fi-only model for the hardware. The cellular-less Surface Duo concept is yet to become a reality though.

Git gud

Microsoft faced a bit of a setback this week when the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) raised quite a few concerns about its mega acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The regulator has cited the potentially anti-competitive nature of the deal, saying that Microsoft needs to satisfy its concerns within a couple of days or face a more detailed "Phase 2" investigation from an independent panel of experts.

Another bad piece of news that landed in Microsoft's camp in the past few days is that couch co-op has been canceled entirely and Season 3 has been delayed to March 2023. You can check out the updated roadmap here.

Switching gears to some good news now though. The Xbox Game Pass Friends & Family plan is now official. It allows up to five members to share the benefits of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at a price of €21.99/month in Ireland, which is great bang for your buck offer considering an individual membership costs €12.99/month.

If you enjoy streaming Xbox games from the cloud, you might be happy to know that Windows 11 Insiders can now launch cloud-streaming games directly from the controller bar. In related news, Microsoft has announced that it is moving to Linux distro CBL-Mariner to host its Xbox storefronts across all platforms due to the clear long-term roadmap of the OS. Windows 11 is the OS that is becoming popular among gamers though, it now has a 24% market share according to Steam's latest hardware survey.

Wrapping up this section, we have the latest Deals with Gold headlined by Bioshock and Cities: Skylines, September's Games with Gold featuring Thrillville and Gods will Fall, and as usual, this Weekend's PC Game Deals handpicked by News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe.

Dev Channel

• WinDynamicDesktop 5.1 brings macOS Ventura dynamic wallpapers to Windows

• Microsoft is giving away a Pac-Man World Re-Pac Xbox Series S

• Microsoft is bringing 36,000 new data center jobs to Qatar

• HONOR has announced its latest Windows 11-powered MagicBook 14 with a 12th Gen Intel CPU, RTX 2050, and a 17-hour battery life

   

Under the spotlight

Neowin co-founder Steven Parker gave a re-purposed Galaxy Note10 from a company called iodé. The product has a rather interesting pitch where it offers you your privacy back by essentially "de-Googling" you. It's a rather intriguing option if you're privacy-conscious, check out Steven's thoughts here.

Meanwhile, Neowin's Christopher White reviewed the QNAP TS-233, which he described as a two-bay NAS for "modest" needs. If you're tech-savvy and looking for cheap, local storage solutions, give Christopher's piece a read here.

Finally, Neowin's forum member Adam Bottjen - also known as "Warwagon" - wrote a guide on how you can enable Aero Shake on Windows 10 and Windows 11. It may be a handy capability for some, find out if you are one of those people by taking a gander at Adam's piece here.

Logging off

Our most interesting news item this week is quite unusual. Microsoft has announced that Teams users in China may face a degraded experience throughout the entire month of September. This is due to a maintenance window in which Microsoft is upgrading the dedicated network that Teams users in China use. In the meantime, Teams users in the region will have to rely on the regular internet infrastructure used by all of China, which may result in performance degradation. There is one rather odd workaround, you can find out what it is here.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 criticism, Edge improvements, and app updates

LG's OLED Flex LX3 TV won't pick a side.

LG

 

If you've been watching display tech lately, you may have noticed an interesting feature: bendable displays. Yes, monitors and TVs that you can bend to be either flat or curved are purportedly coming out soon. The feature is meant to appease those who can't settle on flat or curved, and most upcoming products feel similarly indecisive, exhibiting identity crises that make it hard to see where they fit... literally. Does something like this belong in a living room, office, or gaming den?

 

In the case of the LG OLED Flex LX3 4K TV announced Wednesday (no price or release date), the most obvious answer is the living room. It's a 42-inch TV with a tuner, LG's webOS, and even LG Display's OLED Evo technology used in the LG C2 TV. The primary difference from every other TV is that this one has buttons (including buttons on the remote) for changing the screen from flat to a 900R curvature across 20 steps. That provides the potential for an extremely curved TV.

 

The thing is, you probably don't want to watch curved television. Vendors tried making this a thing years ago, but as we wrote back then, curved TVs mostly accommodate people sitting pretty close to and directly in front of the TV. That's not how most people gather 'round the heart of the living room. Living room TVs are frequently shared, with people sitting at various distances from the screen and at varying angles. But up close and centered sounds awfully similar to how most people use monitors.

 

A Switching Hub is supposed to make it easy to use the TV's microphone and USB-connected peripherals with an HDMI-connected PC. A dedicated button on the stand toggles between TV and HDMI input. HDMI supports version 2.1, which means the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S can connect and use the TV's 4K, 120Hz refresh rate. There's also lots of Adaptive-Sync compatibility, and you can even adjust the viewable screen size down to 27 inches.

 

These days, gaming is the most popular use for curved screens, as players sit close to the display and feel the virtual world enwrap them. But many living room setups won't accommodate that sort of setup. Someone with a lot of flexibility may be able to roll a gaming chair up to the TV for an intense gaming session, but we wouldn't bet on that driving massive sales of bendable TVs that are sure to come at a premium.

A bendable monitor, too

The Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 monitor announced last week (price and availability should be announced this year), meanwhile, seems to target PC gaming dens based on specs. It's a 45-inch monitor with 3440 x 1440, 21:9 resolution, up to an 800R curve, and a W-OLED panel from LG Display. Gray-to-gray response time is reportedly 0.03 milliseconds. Clearly, this is for serious gamers for whom a curved ultrawide monitor with supremely limited motion blur is the ultimate display.

 

So why put tacky handles on the monitor that let you bend it curved or flat? Surely it can't just be for the nauseating feeling that must come with physically manipulating a 45-inch OLED panel that you paid for with your own money. No, it must be for versatility. Many people prefer productivity and other types of computing on a flat panel (although I've known some obsessively dedicated workhounds to use curved ultrawides to wrap themselves up in work as well), and the 45WQHD240 should make it so you don't need multiple monitors for work and gaming.

 

However, the 45WQHD240's gaming specs and its likely high price will make it most fitting for extreme gamers who also like ultrawide curved monitors. Users will need a powerful PC with a beefy graphics card to push 4,953,600 pixels at 240 frames per second. The extremely fast video motion processing is made for hardcore players who take the battlefield seriously. And for such players, gaming is a top priority, increasing the chances of the 45WQHD240 mostly being used as a curved ultrawide gaming monitor.

Here come the bendable TVs and monitors that no one asked for

Initially, Intel showed a five-game sample comparison but later, it published a 50-game sample covering several titles based on modern DirectX 12 and Vulkan APIs.

Today, the company has moved its sight to the ray tracing aspect of Arc. However, it looks Intel has admitted that the ray-tracing performance of Arc is not going to be as good the RTX 3060. That's because the firm has dropped the Arc A750 this time and has instead used the more powerful Arc A770, the flagship Alchemist graphics card, and has pitted it against Nvidia's 3060.

Intel notes however that in Ghostwire Tokyo, it saw an uplift of 25% with a new beta driver, implying that more performance could potentially be extracted in the future with further updates. Though for now, it should be good enough, in terms of ray tracing, against AMD's Radeon RX 6000 series GPUs as the RDNA 2 cards too, are quite a distance behind their Nvidia counterparts.

Source: Intel

Intel admits Arc isn't as good as Nvidia for ray tracing, pits A770 against RTX 3060

If the rumors are to be believed, AMD might release three CPUs with 3D V-Cache. They might be modeled 7950X3D, 7900X3D and 7800X3D.

Two days ago, AMD announced its Ryzen 7000 series of processors. They announced four new CPUs in the series. The Ryzen 9 7950X, the Ryzen 9 7900X, the Ryzen 7 7700X and the Ryzen 5 7600X. They are going to be available this September 27.

During their keynote. AMD revealed its CPU roadmap. It showed how 5nm based Zen 4 CPU architecture will be succeeded by 4nm based Zen 5 processors in or before 2024.

During the roadmap, AMD also revealed something else. They revealed that they are also going to release 3D V-Cache based Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors later. For the unaware, these 3D V-Cache based processors contain a 3D stacked level 3 cache on the CPU, which allows the L3 cache to be far bigger in size. This gives these processors a tremendous boost in speeds during the tasks which utilize these higher caches, like in gaming and other such things.

Looks like we will be getting new 3D V-Cache based processors soon.

Ryzen 7000 CPUs With 3D V-Cache

Famous Twitter based leaker, @Greymon55 who has had quite a big success in revealing all the information these days, has new information about next-gen 3D V-Cache processors by AMD.

He has revealed that AMD is going to release not one, not two, but three processors with 3D V-Cache in its Ryzen 7000 series. It’s likely that they might be named 7950X3D, 7900X3D and 7800X3D.

He also revealed that AMD is going to announce them at CES, which happens in January every year.

He reveals these processors are already in mass production and will take time to come to the market. The reason, he suggests, it takes so longer to come to the market, when compared to normal Ryzen CPUs, is that making these 3D V-Cache chips takes a long time (possibly quite complex to manufacture too).

That’s not it. When asked, he reveals that these processors (at least the 7950X3D for sure) are faster in gaming than even the next-gen Ryzen 7950X processor AMD, which is a top of the line flagship processor.

Exciting revelations

Now, these revelations are massive for many reasons. First is, the current gen 3D V-Cache based processor, the Ryzen 5800X3D has been a game changer. There hasn’t been any such processor in the industry so far. It completely destroys the competition in gaming and other such tasks. So we are getting new processors based on same technology is excellent. This means the trial by AMD is a successful one and this new technological upgrade is not going to continue only on the paper.

The second point being that it’s not going to be one processor in the series, but we are going to get three of them. It’s entirely possible that a cheaper 7800X3D might, again, might, even beat Ryzen 7950X in gaming.

Third point being that these processors are already in mass production and are coming this CES. Which is just like 3 months from now. So they aren’t far.

By releasing these processors, AMD is setting a new standard of gaming optimized processors. It’s a much welcomed one.

AMD To Release Not 1, But 3 Ryzen 7000 CPUs With 3D V-Cache

The next version of USB could be one of the fastest connectors we’ve seen yet. The USB Promoter Group says that USB 4 version 2 will be capable of speeds up to 80 Gbps, double what the original USB 4, and even Thunderbolt 4, are capable of.

The actual technical specification from the USB Implementers Forum, which is in charge of the standard itself, hasn’t been released yet, but the details coming out today are a little stunning. The Promoter Group writes in a press release that USB 4 version 2 cables will use the USB-C connector, which is to be expected, but the real bombshell is this line: “Key characteristics of the updated USB4 solution include: Up to 80 Gbps operation, based on a new physical layer architecture, using existing 40 Gbps USB Type-C passive cables and newly-defined 80 Gbps USB Type-C active cables” (emphasis theirs).

Joe Balich, a spokesperson for the USB-IF, confirmed that if I were to go out and buy a USB 4 cable right now that was rated for 40 Gbps, it would be able to do twice those speeds in the future. That is, frankly, extremely impressive. USB has always been good about backward compatibility (and USB 4 version 2 is no exception), but being able to use the same cable and still reap the flagship benefit of the new spec is another level.

Balich didn’t explain how that was technically possible but said that “this benefit was made a requirement when the new specification was developed and the specifics as to how 80Gbps signaling is accomplished will be disclosed once the final specification is released.” That’ll apparently be before the USB DevDays developer events scheduled to happen on November 1st and 2nd in Seattle and November 15th and 16th in Seoul.

According to the USB Promoter Group, which is made up of companies like Intel, Apple, Microsoft, HP, and Texas Instruments, the USB-C and power delivery specs will be updated to “enable this higher level of data performance.” The USB 4 version 2 specification will also apparently include updates that provide better speeds when you’re using USB 3.2 — the promotors group promises over 20 Gbps — as well as improved support for DisplayPort and PCIe since it’ll be using the latest version of those standards (the first USB 4 only let you use DisplayPort 1.4a when “tunneling,” or carrying DisplayPort and USB signals at the same time).

Finally, though, we have to talk about the name. It’s a strange move to label this as just a “version 2” of USB 4 when the leap in speed definitely feels like it’d warrant being called USB 5. The standard has been confusing for a few years now, though — USB 3.2 is actually a few different standards: USB 3.2 Gen 1 (AKA original USB 3.0), USB 3.2 Gen 2, USB 3.2 Gen 1×2, and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (which is the full-fat 20 Gbps spec). USB 4 kind of simplified this since it basically had the same specs and capabilities as Thunderbolt 3, but now it seems that we’re going back to a slightly more confusing naming scheme — the cable compatibility could certainly help, but I can certainly see device spec sheets being a bit of a minefield for a while.

Not that we’ll likely have to deal with that anytime soon. The press release says that the update is “specifically targeted to developers at this time,” with final branding and marketing guides (including things like logos) to come later. Still, it’s exciting to see what’s in the pipeline and to imagine being able to transfer a 4K Blu-ray’s worth of data in around five seconds.

Next-gen USB promises to be twice as fast, using cables you may already own

Lenovo is the latest company promoting a USB-C monitor made for your face. The company’s new Glasses T1 put a Full HD OLED screen in front of each of your eyes and were revealed today during IFA and on Lenovo’s virtual showcase.

This wearable private display, as Lenovo puts it, is very much like other consumer smart glasses, including TCL’s NxtWear Air, which puts two 1080p micro-OLED screens in front of your eyes, just like Lenovo’s T1. Another similar product is the Nreal Air, though that one has a 90Hz screen refresh rate compared to the T1’s 60Hz.

You aren’t getting any VR or AR experiences with these types of glasses, and you can’t safely walk around wearing them as your vision would be entirely obscured, and the cable keeps them tethered to whatever your source is. Instead, it’s designed for you to stay put as if you were watching an actual TV or monitor, but the effect makes it feel like a huge theater screen. You can watch movies, play games, and do your confidential digital paperwork, all while looking like Marvel’s Daredevil — without his hyper-awareness.

Lenovo is betting that mobile gamers will want these glasses, too, citing a Global Industry Analysts report that predicts a $160 billion global market for that industry by 2026. Similarly, it’s expecting the eclipsing video streaming market to mean more people might want to watch shows inside their own T1 bubbles.

The Glasses T1 use a physical wire to connect to devices like PCs, tablets, smartphones, Macs, and other devices that can output video through USB-C. If you’d like to use the glasses with iOS devices like your iPhone, you’ll have to buy Lenovo’s HDMI adapter, as well as Apple’s Digital AV adapter — all because Apple still hasn’t moved on from its 10-year-old Lightning port. The T1 glasses also work with Motorola’s secondary “Ready For” interface that lets you use apps in a desktop style.

Additionally, the glasses come with multiple nose pads that’ll be helpful for extended use and a prescription frame if you need it. The T1 glasses are battery-powered but can pull power from capable devices. They also have built-in speakers in case you want only the video to be ultra-private.

Like many other display glasses, the Lenovo Glasses T1 will be released for the Chinese market first. They’re called the Lenovo Yoga glasses in China and will come by the end of the year. The company also plans to release them in “select markets” later in 2023. No pricing has been released.

Lenovo’s Glasses T1 let you bring a private big screen display with you

After multiple leaks, Ubisoft has confirmed Assassin's Creed Mirage as the next entry in the long-running and expansive franchise. Other than key art from the game, seen above, the company is keeping details close to its chest for now. A full reveal is slated to arrive in September as previously announced.

While official details are scarce, recent leaks regarding the game seem to have been largely accurate. Per these, players will take the role of Basim in his youth before his appearance in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. The setting is said to be Baghdad during the Anarchy at Samarra. Development of this project originally began as a Valhalla expansion according to another report from earlier this year.

Most importantly for Mirage, Ubisoft will reportedly not include any of the RPG elements it featured in the most recent Assassin's Creed entries, letting the gameplay go back to the originals' stealth, parkour, and action-focused sequences.

It is said Ubisoft is aiming at a spring 2023 launch window for Assassin's Creed Mirage. To find out what exactly the game is about, and much more about the franchise's future, be sure to tune into Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed dedicated Forward event on September 10 at 12PM PT.

Ubisoft announces Assassin's Creed Mirage, official reveal on September 10

According to recent reports, Microsoft plans to unveil next-gen Surface devices in October this year. Users anticipate a new Surface Pro and Pro X (potentially merged in a single lineup) and long-overdue Surface Studio 3. Microsoft's all-in-one has not received hardware updates in four years, which makes it the oldest Surface computer the company continues selling (now out of stock). Interestingly, it is the only Windows 11-compatible device with a 7th-gen Intel processor.

Here is some good news for those patiently waiting for a refreshed Surface Studio: renders uncovered in the recently updated Surface app revealed new accessories Microsoft plans to unveil soon. Those include a keyboard, mouse, and pen.

The new Surface keyboard features a brand-new design and color scheme alongside refreshed iconography matching Windows 11 style. You can also spot the redesigned Windows logo, plus dedicated keys for emojis and Windows Widgets. Here is how the new keyboard compares to the old one:

Among the three new accessories, only the keyboard offers distinct changes and upgrades. The mouse is virtually the same as the one Microsoft unveiled in 2016, and the only visible difference on the stylus is the old-school clip.

According to Windows Central, Microsoft will bundle all three devices with the upcoming Surface Studio 3. Unfortunately, the latter remains a mystery, but you can expect some last-minute leaks to spoil the surprise as we get closer to October 2022.

Here are the new keyboard, mouse, and pen for upcoming Surface Studio 3

With its recent Nuvia acquisition, Qualcomm has a real shot at dramatically expanding Arm's market share in the world of servers and Windows laptops. Before Qualcomm can go after Intel, though, the company will have to deal with a lawsuit from... Arm?!

That's right, as Reuters was first to report (case PDF here), Arm is suing Qualcomm over its $1.4 billion acquisition of Nuvia. Arm says that Qualcomm's purchase of Nuvia "caused Nuvia to breach its Arm licenses, leading Arm to terminate those licenses, in turn requiring Qualcomm and Nuvia to stop using and destroy any Arm-based technology developed under the licenses. Undeterred, Qualcomm and Nuvia have continued working on Nuvia’s implementation of Arm architecture in violation of Arm’s rights as the creator and licensor of its technology." As a result of the license breach, Arm wants "Qualcomm and Nuvia to stop using and to destroy the relevant Nuvia technology."

Nuvia has never sold a product, but it is famously founded by lead engineers from Apple's SoC division. Nuvia's CEO (and now SVP of Qualcomm Engineering), Gerard Williams III, was Apple's chief CPU architect for nearly a decade, including for the M1 SoC. The Nuvia acquisition represents Qualcomm borrowing the Apple playbook and attempting to scale up Arm designs to bigger, typically x86 powered, devices.

According to the lawsuit, both Nuvia and Qualcomm held an "Architecture License Agreement (ALA)," the highest (and reportedly most expensive) tier of Arm licensing. Arm doesn't make chips itself—the company's entire business model is designed around licensing its IP to manufacturers. Often that's a license for an "off-the-shelf" Arm-made CPU design that uses the "Cortex" branding. A handful of really big Arm customers have an ALA license, though, which, rather than use an Arm design, lets you design your own Arm chip from scratch. This is the license Apple uses to make all its custom Arm-based SoCs.

So Nuvia and Qualcomm both had a license to make custom Arm chips, but having one company buy the other still leads to licensing problems. Arm's complaints are about the scope and transference of the work done under Nuvia's ALA license. The lawsuit says that "Nuvia’s licensing fees and royalty rates reflected the anticipated scope and nature of Nuvia’s use of the Arm architecture. The licenses safeguarded Arm’s rights and expectations by prohibiting assignment without Arm’s consent, regardless of whether a contemplated assignee had its own Arm licenses." Nuvia was originally a server CPU company, but Qualcomm is adding to that mission with chips for laptops, smartphones, cars, and AR/VR headsets.

Arm says: "Neither Qualcomm nor Nuvia provided prior notice of this transaction to Arm. Nor did they obtain Arm’s consent to the transfer or assignment of the Nuvia licenses." Arm continues: "Soon after the announcement of the merger, Arm informed Qualcomm in writing that Nuvia could not assign its licenses and that Qualcomm could not use Nuvia’s in-process designs developed under the Nuvia ALA without Arm’s consent. For more than a year, Arm negotiated with Qualcomm, through Qualcomm Inc. and Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., in an effort to reach an agreement regarding Qualcomm’s unauthorized  acquisition of Nuvia’s 'in-process technologies' and license." Apparently the talks broke down at some point, and now it's time to break out the lawyers.

Qualcomm gave its side of the story to The Verge, with general counsel Ann Chaplin saying, “Arm has no right, contractual or otherwise, to attempt to interfere with Qualcomm’s or NUVIA’s innovations.” She continued, “Arm’s complaint ignores the fact that Qualcomm has broad, well-established license rights covering its custom-designed CPUs, and we are confident those rights will be affirmed.”

From a big-picture perspective, it's hard to see much sense in Arm going after Qualcomm. Qualcomm and Nuvia represent Arm's biggest shot at near-term market growth, which means more royalties for Arm. Qualcomm has stated it wants to use Nuvia's Arm designs to go after the laptop and server markets, two areas where Intel and AMD are dominant. Arm has 100 percent of the smartphone market and 100 percent of the Apple hardware market, including bigger devices like laptops and PCs. You would think Arm would be thrilled that Qualcomm would want to go after Intel like this.

It's also wild that things got to this point. There is a ton of Arm experience between Qualcomm and Nuvia's Apple pedigree. You would think everyone would know how to navigate the Arm licensing rights by now.

Source: Ars Technica

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/09/arm-sues-qualcomm-over-its-1-4-billion-nuvia-acquisition/