The GPU shortage is over. The GPU surplus has arrived!

What to expect from Apple’s September 7 “Far Out” event

In addition, Microsoft revealed details about the upcoming Microsoft Flight Simulator 40th Anniversary Edition, which will land on November 11, 2022, for free to those who own the game and Xbox Game Pass subscribers. Here are the key features the update will soon bring to the simulator:

• Helicopters
• Gliders
• New airliner: Airbus A310
• 7 famous historical aircraft:
  • 1903 Wright Flyer
  • 1915 Curtiss JN-4 Jenny
  • 1927 Ryan NYP Spirit of St. Louis
  • 1935 Douglas DC-3
  • 1937 Grumman G-21 Goose
  • 1947 Havilland DHC-2 Beaver
  • 1947 Hughes H-4 Hercules
• New airports:
  • 4 classic commercial airports
  • 10 glider airports
  • 14 heliports
• 20 classic missions from previous versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator

Microsoft Flight Simulator is currently available on the Xbox Series X and Series S, PC (Microsoft Store and Steam), Xbox and PC Game Pass, and on other devices via Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Microsoft Flight Simulator gets first cities update, 40th Anniversary Edition coming soon

Postcards may be one of the most obvious examples of Marshall McLuhan's famous dictum, “the medium is the message.” Regardless of what you write on one, a postcard tells someone, hey, I was out and about in the world, and I was thinking of you.

I am an inveterate sender of postcards. For all the instantaneousness of today’s communication options, nothing quite conveys a message the way a postcard does. Another aspect I find McLuhanesque is the gap between when you mail the postcard and when the person receives it. The card is independent of both sender and receiver; third parties carry it to its fate.

I also love email, which I’ve always thought of as the digital equivalent of a postcard.

While email doesn’t have the physical limitations of a postcard (though email is similarly “open” in the sense that anyone with snooping skills can read one in transit), there is a shift in time between sending and receiving in both formats. And I would argue that the best emails follow the same format as a postcard: simple, focused messages.

Not everyone loves email, of course, but I am convinced that much of the dislike we have for email comes from the software we use to interact with it.

That is, email clients.

If we’re really going to learn to love email again, what we first need are better email clients.

The technology behind email is one of the longest-lasting, most-used sets of protocols on the internet. But while email technology, like the postcard, has stood the test of time, email clients have not. They’ve been corrupted, neglected, and relegated to the back of the class. If we’re really going to learn to love email again, what we first need are better email clients.

I’m not talking about web-based email (like Gmail), where you visit a URL and see your cloud-based inbox in the browser window. I’m talking about a stand-alone email client that downloads your mail from a mail server and lets you read and respond from your desktop, either in a dedicated application or in an email reader that’s built into another application, like a web browser. A stand-alone email client gives you the same advantages all native applications have over their web-based counterparts: speed, grace, and offline accessibility. This type of thing used to be common. The Opera web browser had a built-in email client, and Mozilla (makers of Firefox) supported the stand-alone client Thunderbird. But over the past 10 or 15 years came a shift to web-based email, led primarily by Gmail. This move prompted most browsers to drop their email clients, and even destroyed the market for some stand-alone email clients.

But many of us never found web-based email appealing. I tried Gmail briefly and found it a step backward. Slow to load, awkward to use, and insistent on trying to sort and organize my inbox for me by adding labels and shunting things into separate tabs. That’s not what I want, and so I have always relied on email clients to fetch, display, and send my email.

For reference, here’s the historical timeline of my relationship with mail client software: First there was Mutt, then Pine, then Eudora, then Mailsmith, then Opera, then Thunderbird. Now, I use a combination of Mutt and Vivaldi Mail.

Mutt is a console-based mail client that was first released in the mid-1990s. It loads in a text-only window and is controlled with keyboard commands.

That might sound anachronistic, but I believe Mutt is the main reason I still like email. All it does is display plain text. Those ridiculous signatures and disclaimers people put at the bottom of their emails? I don’t see them. Images? I open those separately, and only when I want to. The tracking pixels people sneak into emails to see whether I’ve read their message? Nope. Mutt keeps things simple and concise. It’s the back of the postcard, the meat of the message, and nothing else. Mutt also renders the text instantly; unlike Gmail or other web-based options, there’s no waiting for the message to load.
Unfortunately, there are people who believe that email should include formatting, special fonts, inline images, and all kinds of junk. Most of those emails I delete. But there are some I have to deal with–banking notifications, receipts for online purchases, calendar notifications, and other things I can’t just trash. For those emails, and as an extra backup, I’ve been using Vivaldi’s Mail client since it was released as a beta last year.

Singing a New Song

The Vivaldi web browser, which I have previously called the web’s best browser for its customization options and user-first design, recently started building an email client into the browser. I recommend checking it out if your relationship with email is ... not good.

Vivaldi Mail looks a lot like a web-based email client. The mail interface opens in a browser tab, and there are a variety of layouts to choose from, including some that look just like popular web-based interfaces. But it's not web-based email; Vivaldi is downloading your mail to your computer and giving you a nice, elegant tool for managing it that happens to live inside a browser tab.

Vivaldi’s mail client is aimed at a much wider audience than text-only Mutt. It includes all the features you’d expect in a modern mail client, including the ability to render HTML email and even create it. Though of course I would urge you to not inject HTML into your emails and to step away from the font selection tools. (Remember: postcard, simple.) Vivaldi offers a setting to render everything as text and compose everything as text. Find that setting and use it.

The other thing I highly suggest you do with Vivaldi’s Mail client—and every other client you use—is to turn off all the notifications and badges. The mail carrier doesn’t come up to your window and flick postcards in your face, so don’t let your mail client do that to you. In Vivaldi, both notifications and badges are unfortunately enabled by default. I can’t fault Vivaldi for that, the world being what it is. Just know that there is a setting to control notifications and badges, and you should turn both off. Check your email when you feel like it, not when a notification badge agitates your serotonin level past the point of resistance.

In addition to fetching and displaying your email, Vivaldi Mail will store your messages locally so you can search your inbox for hotel reservations or meeting details even when you’re offline. You can also compose messages while you’re offline and queue them to send later, when you connect again.

And you can filter messages that match rules you define, and then save those rules as folders, just as you would in Gmail. For example, I have a personal address and work address, so I created a filter to label all my work emails “work,” and then I can view mail by label, so all work-related email stays separate from personal even though both are actually stored in the same inbox. Vivaldi also supports labels, including any you’ve already created in other clients, like Thunderbird and Apple Mail, so if you’re migrating you won’t lose your existing organization system.

There are also plenty of features you’ll recognize from popular web-based applications: calendar integration, an RSS reader, keyboard shortcuts.

But the biggest win with stand-alone mail clients is that you can make them work the way you want. Most email clients, especially web-based clients like Gmail, have a workflow in mind. If it’s not your workflow, too bad. You can bend them a little bit, but you never really get the freedom to use them the way you want. Vivaldi Mail has some sensible defaults, but just like the web browser it lives inside of, the settings are fully customizable.

This is the first step in improving your productivity—establishing a software workflow that conforms to your brain’s specific contours.

The next step is remembering that you are sending postcards, not colorful flyers or busy magazines. You are not writing novels, or even essays. Go back to sending postcards. And use a good email client to do it.

Source

Some existing methods address these concerns by applying algorithms to conceal sensitive information from the acquired images, such as image blurring or encryption. However, such methods still risk exposure of sensitive data because the raw images are already captured before they undergo digital processing to hide or encrypt the sensitive information. Also, the computation of these algorithms requires additional power consumption. Other efforts were also made to seek solutions to this problem by using customized cameras to downgrade the image quality so that identifiable information can be concealed. However, these approaches sacrifice the overall image quality for all the objects of interest, which is undesired, and they are still vulnerable to adversarial attacks to retrieve the sensitive information that is recorded.

A new research paper published in eLight demonstrated a new paradigm to achieve privacy-preserving imaging by building a fundamentally new type of imager designed by AI. In their paper, UCLA researchers, led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan, presented a smart camera design that images only certain types of desired objects, while instantaneously erasing other types of objects from its images without requiring any digital processing.

This new camera design consists of successive transmissive surfaces, each composed of tens of thousands of diffractive features at the scale of the wavelength of light. The structure of these transmissive surfaces is optimized using deep learning to modulate the phase of the transmitted optical fields such that the camera only images certain types/classes of desired objects and erases the others. After its deep learning-based design (training), the resulting layers are fabricated and assembled in 3D, forming the smart camera. After its assembly, when the input objects from the target classes of objects appear in front of it, they form high-quality images at the camera’s output – as desired. In contrast, when the input objects in front of the same camera belong to other undesired classes, they are optically erased, forming non-informative and low-intensity patterns similar to random noise.

Since the characteristic information of undesired classes of objects is all-optically erased at the camera output through light diffraction, this AI-designed camera never records their direct images. Therefore, the protection of privacy is maximized since an adversarial attack that has access to the recorded images of this camera cannot bring the information back. This feature can also reduce cameras’ data storage and transmission load since the images of undesired objects are not recorded.

To experimentally demonstrate this unique data-specific camera, the UCLA research team designed it to specifically and selectively image only one class of handwritten digits, and fabricated the designed camera using 3D printing. This 3D printed camera was tested using terahertz waves illuminating handwritten digits. Following the core principles of its design, the smart camera was able to selectively image the input objects only if they were handwritten digits “2”, while instantaneously erasing all the other handwritten digits from the output images, yielding low-intensity noise-like features. In addition to handwritten digits, UCLA researchers also demonstrated another variation of the same class-specific camera design by selectively imaging one type of fashion product (for example, trousers), while instantaneously erasing other fashion products from the output of the camera. The research team rigorously tested their camera design under varying lighting conditions that were never included in its training, and showed that this smart camera is robust to variations in illumination.

Beyond data class-specific imaging, this AI-based camera design was also used to build encryption cameras, providing an additional layer of security and privacy protection. Such an encryption camera, designed using AI-optimized diffractive layers, optically performs a selected linear transformation, exclusively for the target objects of interest. Only those with access to the decryption key (i.e., the inverse linear transformation in this case) can recover the original image of the target objects. On the other hand, the information of the other undesired objects is irreversibly lost since the AI-designed camera all-optically erases them at the output. Therefore, even if the decryption key is applied to the recorded images, it yields noise-like, unrecognizable features for other classes of undesired objects.

Except for the illumination light, this smart camera does not require any external power for its computation and operates at the speed of light. Therefore, it is fast, data- and energy-efficient, making it especially suitable for task-specific, privacy-aware, and power-limited imaging applications. The core teachings of this diffractive camera design can inspire future imaging systems that consume orders of magnitude less computing and data transmission power.

This research was led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan, the associate director of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) and the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Innovation at the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department at UCLA, along with Professor Mona Jarrahi, the Northrop Grumman Endowed Chair and the director of the Terahertz Electronics Laboratory at UCLA ECE. The other authors of this work include graduate students Bijie Bai, Yi Luo, Tianyi Gan, Yuhang Li, Yifan Zhao, Deniz Mengu and post-doctoral researcher Dr. Jingtian Hu, all with the ECE department at UCLA.

The authors report the support of the US Office of Naval Research and the US Department of Energy.

See the article:

Bijie Bai, Yi Luo, Tianyi Gan, Jingtian Hu, Yuhang Li, Yifan Zhao, Deniz Mengu, Mona Jarrahi, and Aydogan Ozcan. “To image, or not to image: Class-specific diffractive cameras with all-optical erasure of undesired objects”, eLight, DOI: 10.1186/s43593-022-00021-3 (2022)

https://elight.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s43593-022-00021-3

Source

Video game console emulators are not new. They have been there since ages. They allow people to play console games on their PC and other devices.

However, making an emulator software is not an easy task. This is because the hardware used in video game consoles is complex and hard to emulate. The other reason being the software used in video game consoles are proprietary, closed source and hard to decode. This means running the games on these emulators is not easy and not as smooth as they are on consoles.

Nintendo consoles in particular enjoy a huge amount of fan following worldwide. So it’s expected their emulators will be in demand too.

Four Nintendo emulators across 3 generations of consoles in particular are quite famous. Dolphin emulator for Wii. Cemu emulator for Wii U. Then there are yuzu and Ryujinx for Switch.

There’s one difference between all the above ones. All of them are open source, except Cemu. Now that is changing.

Cemu Becomes Open Source

In an official announcement on Reddit, Cemu’s developer has announced that starting from latest experimental build 2.0, Cemu has become open source. The developer gives an explanation behind doing so.

The developer explains that he has been working on Cemu from last 8 years now. With him later becoming the sole developer from earlier this year due to his other colleagues leaving the project for their personal endeavors. He mentions how from last couple of years he felt the development of Cemu to be stuck and it’s development consuming all his spare time. Leaving no free time for his other programming projects and hobbies. He explains how recently he single-handedly also ported Cemu to Linux (with Linux builds now becoming available).

So he feels opening up the Cemu code is the best option available so that more people can contribute to it and take it forward. He also promises that while he will not take a lead role in maintaining the code, he will keep a role of a background contributor to the code on a part-time basis.

The Cemu developer reveals that at one point of time, there were over a million users of it and even now they get a quarter million downloads of the emulation software in a year.

Outcome of Cemu Becoming Open Source

The immediate outcome is something even the developer doesn’t know. This is because he reveals that new contributors might take some time reading and understanding the code. Going forward, we might see more improvements in the emulation and it’s reach.

One important point is to be made here, though. Nintendo hates piracy and emulators. There have been accusations of Cemu using a proprietary code of Nintendo in its emulator. This could have created a big rights issue for the developer. With him opening up the Cemu, this basically settles the debate as the code is for everyone to see.

While Wii U is not a new console. It had some very good games. Emulators help in preserving those games. While getting those games through illegal means is entirely possible, it is, illegal and we don’t recommend doing so. So if one has the console and the games, one can happily play them on Cemu on their PC, provided they have a fast PC for it. Also, whether games are fully compatible / run fine on Cemu. Whether it’s Zelda or Mario, it’s really enjoyable for everyone.

Nintendo Wii U Emulator Cemu Becomes Open Source

Solid State Drives (SSD) have been one of the biggest upgrades to the storage technology since decades of Hard Disk Drives (HDD). If anyone’s computer or laptop is running slow, they are advised to switch their HDD storage device to SSD one. It instantly will make the computer or a laptop faster as if a major upgrade was done to them.

SSDs were largely based on SATA interface, the same interface which powered the latest HDDs. It uses a SATA cable to connect to the drive. The speed limits of SATA meant that the speeds of SSDs were limited to just 600 MB/s.

To get rid of speed limits, companies came with a new technology. SSDs based on PCIe interface. PCIe basically connects the drive almost directly to the CPU. Making them extremely faster. The latest in that technology are the drives based on NVMe interface, on a M.2 form factor.

Till recently, Samsung 980 Pro was considered to be among the best NVMe SSD out there. Today, Samsung has announced its successor.

Samsung 990 PRO Announced

Today, Samsung has announced 990 PRO SSD. While it was expected it to be PCIe 5.0, it’s based on PCIe 4.0 instead. But that doesn’t stop the drive from being fast.

Based on new Samsung V-NAND 3-bit TLC and Samsung’s new proprietary in-house controller, 990 PRO will become the fastest SSD in the market. It will come with sequential read speeds of 7,450 MB/s and write speeds of 6,900 MB/s. While random read speeds will reach 1,400K IOPS and write speeds will reach 1,550K IOPS. Samsung claims 55% increase in random speeds over 980 PRO.

Samsung claims 990 PRO to be suited for heavy gaming as well as creative and productivity tasks. It also claims Samsung 990 PRO “is optimized for graphically demanding games and other intensive tasks including 3D rendering, 4K video editing and data analysis”.

Samsung claims that when tested on upcoming Action RPG game Forspoken, the map loading times were just 1 second, compared to 4 seconds for SATA SSD and 28 seconds for HDD.

Samsung also claims the new proprietary in-house controller is also 50% more power efficient than the one used in 980 PRO SSD.

The Samsung 990 PRO will release in October. The MSRP for the 1TB model will be $179 and the 2TB one will come for $309. A 4TB model will be releasing next year, with no information of pricing currently.

Samsung Announces 990 PRO NVMe SSD Based On PCIe 4.0

Both Nvidia and AMD are planning to launch their graphics card later this year. Some rumors suggest that September launch is also a possibility. Some reports suggest that both the graphics card makers might postpone the launch to October instead to clear their big current gen inventory.

Whatever it may be. There’s one thing for sure. Nvidia’s flagship offering, the production of the GeForce RTX 4090 has already started few days ago, on 16th of August.

Twitter based leaker @harukaze5719 has shared a leaked document that shows that the manufacturing of some batches of the RTX 4090 GPU / cards have started already.

Going by those dates, it’s no surprise if RTX 4090 releases either in September or October. With 4090 / Ti cards being first in the RTX 4000 series.

The leak however doesn’t stop there. @harukaze5719 has, in another tweet, revealed that RTX 4090 will come with a 24 GB of graphics card VRAM / memory.

It also comes with 3 display port connectors and 1 HDMI too.

The 24 GB VRAM for RTX 4090 hardly comes as a surprise though, considering that RTX 3090 and RTX 3090 Ti too came with 24 GB of VRAM.

What however is interesting is not mentioned in the leak. The VRAM speeds.

Faster VRAM in RTX 4090 And RTX 4000 Cards

When Nvidia announced RTX 3090 Ti in March, it announced that the card will come with then latest 21 Gbps of GDDR6X memory from Micron. Later Micron revealed that it has started supplying a newer 24 Gbps GDDR6X VRAM for 3090 Ti.

New reports suggest that RTX 4090 too will come with Micron’s latest 24 Gbps GDDR6X of RAM. With cheaper RTX 4000 series models switching from GDDR6 in RTX 3000 series to GDDR6X in RTX 4000 series, though slightly slower ones like 21 Gbps from the looks of it.

Leaked Documents Confirm RTX 4090 Manufacturing Has Started

Alexa knows what you look like, as does your Ring camera. And your Samsung Smart Things Hub is probably recording you right now.

TechShielder looked at(Opens in a new window) what popular smart home devices collect to find out which ones know the most about you. It narrowed the list down to 10: the Amazon Echo Dot, Chromecast with Google TV, Samsung SmartThings Hub, Nest Protect, Ring Indoor Cam, Levoit LV-PUR131S, Sonos One, TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug, Roborock S6, and Philips Hue.

Nearly all of the devices TechShielder examined collect some basic information, such as your name, address, timezone, phone number, email, IP address, location, information shared with third parties, payment information, and device type.

Amazon Echo Dot with Clock (Credit: Amazon)

But lots go beyond that, with voice recording (70%), photo access (50%), video access (50%), user profile images (50%), video (40%), and personal description (40%). They even know you better than your family might when it comes to some things, since they know what you buy (70%), what you look at online (50%), apps you use (40%), all your internet searches (40%), and your personal interests (30%).

Out of the 10 devices, TechShielder found that the Amazon Echo Dot with Clock hoovers up the most data points (43%).

"The Echo Dot stores personal information like our name and address, has access to our photo and video files, and stores live voice recording data," TechShielder said. "This device collects more information about our online activity than all other devices, including data such as browsing history, downloads and web searches.

It is also one of only three devices (along with the SmartThings Hub and Chromecast) to store information about our contacts, such as their name or phone number," TechShielder added.

Source

With Ethereum, a major cryptocurrency, announcing a change in its algorithm, graphics card prices are expected to get even more cheap.

In recent years, the prices of graphics cards had reached unimaginable levels.

While all microchips were affected by this, graphics cards, which contain a microchip processor called GPU, in particular, were even more affected.

In fact, so much so were the prices that some graphics cards were sold at twice the MSRP prices.

Take Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 Ti graphics cards for example which have an MSRP of $1999. The MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 Ti 24GB, according to price tracker Keepa, was being sold at almost $4,500 on Amazon.com just a few months ago. It’s currently priced at $1,400.

Imagine paying $4,500 for a graphics card. While this is an extreme example, such a crazy increase in prices were seen across various graphics card models.

This had happened mainly due to two reasons.

The first reason was the pandemic induced international lock-downs and work from home meant that people were spending more time in home. This led many to spend more time on their computers and laptops and other gadgets. This led to a major increase in the demand and lock-downs meant that supply wasn’t able to fulfill it.

The second reason was the cryptocurrency mining. In recent years, we have seen many people invest in cryptocurrency and also indulged themselves in it’s mining. This is where graphics cards are used by some cryptocurrencies to mine the crypto-coins.

Environmental impact

Mining of Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies has an impact not only on the graphics card prices, it has had an impact on the environment too due to global increase in energy consumption. In-fact, data analytics site Statista, quoting Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance’s Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, had reported in 2021 that Bitcoin mining was consuming more electricity than some big countries in the world.

Just for example, Bitcoin mining was consuming 143 Terawatt-hour (TWh). Compare that to just 56 TWh used by countries like Switzerland. That’s how bad bitcoin mining has been.

It must be mentioned that, unlike the popular belief, Bitcoin is neither the only cryptocurrency out there neither it’s the main contributor to the graphics cards prices being so high. The main culprit for the graphics card prices and power consumption due to mining from graphics cards is Ether. It is the cryptocurrency from Ethereum. It’s look like it’s going to change soon.

Ethereum’s Algorithm Changes

Ethereum has announced, starting 15th of September this year, it’s going to move from Proof-of-work (PoW) protocol to Proof-of-stake (PoS) one. It’s calling it “The Merge”.

Proof-of-work meant that graphics cards were used for mining Ethereum cryptocurrency. Now switching to Proof-of-stake means graphics cards basically will not be required for mining cryptocurrency and instead servers will generate them for you – to put it in an extremely simple language.

It’s not a new thing, though. It’s been in the works since December 2020. When Ethereum announced depreciation of Proof-of-work graphics card mining protocol in October 2021, we saw a gradual decrease in mining with graphics cards.

Mining Ban And Reduction In Power Consumption

Bitcoin Mining Council, a voluntary global forum of Bitcoin mining companies, in its press released had noticed a 25% decrease in energy usage by Bitcoin mining in Q1 2022.

A big contributor to this was a ban. In September 2021, China decided to ban all cryptocurrency transactions. This meant that the biggest country contributing to the cryptocurrency mining was theoretically out of the race in Bitcoin mining.

To understand the impact of China’s contribution to Bitcoin mining, one needs to look at total international mining numbers. According to Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance’s Mining Map, China was responsible for 75% of world’s Bitcoin mining in September 2019. Even a year later, in 2020, China’s share was 67%. Compare that to just 21% in January this year. While latest figures are not being shown, we expect the numbers to decrease further.

All this has had a direct impact on the graphics card prices.

Continuous Decrease In Graphics Card Prices

German analytics site 3DCenter reports that for the first time ever, graphics cards are going below MSRP levels in Germany.

It touched 294% of MSRP levels in May 2021 and decreased to 97% of MSRP levels in August 2022 this month.

See how graphics card prices started decreasing. After one, things opening up, two, Chinese ban slowly taking effect and Ethereum announcing change in its protocol and it not being profitable anymore to mine cryptocurrencies anymore.

With newer reports emerging that graphics card companies are trying their best to sell all the current inventories before launching the new-gen graphics cards, it’s expected that the current generation of graphics cards will continue to get even cheaper for everyone.

Graphics Cards Get Cheaper As Bitcoin Mining To Reduce Further

Over 10 years after the launch of the original Dead Island, the elusive Dead Island 2 appeared today at the gamescom Opening Night Live event. The open-world RPG involving the undead was announced back in 2014 with another iconic trailer, which was even parodied recently by Goat Simulator 3. Watch the re-revealed cinematic trailer of Dead Island 2 above.

Thankfully, publisher Volition also had a gameplay trailer to share during the show, giving a look at all the gory ways players will be taking out zombies and what sort of characters players will meet in their adventures. Watch that below:

The game has gone through multiple studios through its development life, but finally under Dambuster Studios, it seems to be almost ready for prime time.

The open-world sandbox RPG experience will take players to a zombie-infested and devastated Los Angeles, dubbed HELL-A by the developer. The player will take the role of someone who is infected by the zombie virus, but is immune to it, also making them stronger in the process. The story will have players pulverizing through zombies as they investigate what is behind the outbreak.

As locations to explore, the game will offer everything from "verdant suburbia of Beverly Hills to the quirky promenade of Venice Beach", and the combat is focused heavily on gory first-person melee action. Six characters will be available as protagonist options, and cooperative play is available for up to three players.

Dead Island 2 is releasing across PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 on February 3, 2023.

Dead Island 2 finally returns to life, releasing February 3, 2023

According to Hardware Unboxed's new test which has compared 32 different CPUs from Intel and AMD, the Intel Core i9-12900K on a DDR5-6400 platform is up to 36% faster than one using DDR4-3200 CL14 memory. This happens when running the game at high settings with DirectX Ray tracing (DXR) set to high at the 1080p resolution. While 1080p itself is a completely CPU bound scenario for the involved GeForce RTX 3090 Ti, the extra DXR calculations add additional stress on the processor.

At 1080p very high with no ray tracing, the difference drops significantly down to 17% which shows that ray tracing is really taking up a lot of CPU cycles.

Meanwhile, at 1080p medium, the difference actually lowers a tiny bit more to 16.67% even though this is supposedly more CPU intense than the very high settings. However, it's possible the game may be running into an engine bottleneck here.

The data is interesting since official system requirements don't generally mention memory configurations and the case is same for Spider-Man Remastered too. This is also good news for those awaiting on upcoming Ryzen 7000 or Intel Raptor Lake-S CPUs.

Source and images: Hardware Unboxed (YouTube)

DDR5 buyers enjoying nearly 40% faster performance in Spider-Man Remastered

Buyers who need an inexpensive graphics card in the US now have one more option, which, this time, comes from Intel, not AMD or Nvidia. More than two months after the official unveiling, Intel has finally brought its entry-level desktop graphics card to the United States.

The Intel Arc A380 is currently available only from ASRock. It features a single fan with zero-dB support (the fan turns itself off during light loads), 6 GB of GDDR6 memory, and PCIe 4.0 connectivity. Ports include three DisplayPort 2.0 and a single HDMI 2.0.

The ASRock Challenger Arc A380 is a low-end graphics card with a price tag of $139 at Newegg, which means users should not expect much in terms of high-fidelity gaming. This GPU rivals other affordable graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia, such as Radeon RX 6400 and GeForce GTX 1650. You can see how the Arc A380 compares to its competition in our dedicated coverage.

Those keeping an eye on the Intel Arc A380 should also consider the fact that it requires a CPU and motherboard with Resizable BAR support. That means that the graphics card will work on systems with Intel 10th Gen CPUs and newer (Intel 400, 500, and 600 Series motherboards) and AMD Ryzen 3000 CPUs and newer (AMD X570 motherboards).

If you need something more capable than an entry-level GPU from Intel, EVGA currently offers Nvidia RTX 30 Series graphics cards with massive discounts.

Intel Arc A380 desktop GPU officially arrives in the US at just $139

Reports of an Xbox Elite-like "Pro" controller in development at Sony for its PlayStation 5 console arrived a couple of months ago, and already, official confirmation has arrived. Announced during gamescom 2022 with a quick trailer, the DualSense Edge Wireless Controller touts customizability down to easily swappable analog stick modules and more.

The analog stick module being completely removable and replaceable so easily is a major aspect considering the stick drift issue that has been plaguing controllers from every major console and hardware maker. Extra modules will be sold separately by Sony, but pricing was not revealed today.

A multi-stage toggle is also present on the back of the controller to enable trigger stops at various stages. Moreover, there are two new buttons on the back that can be configured to trigger another button's input when pressed.

On the software side, Sony is offering Edge users remapping capabilities for all buttons as well as dead zone and sensitivity adjustments for sticks. Multiple profiles for saving controller settings are here too. Sony is adding a new Fn button on the controller with its own UI to easily swap between saved profiles, adjust game and chat volumes, and other controller options easily.

Of course, the standard DualSense controller's haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, motion controls, and overall shape are all retained here. Aside from the Edge controller itself, the package includes a carrying case, three sets of stick caps, (standard, high dome, and low dome), two sets of back buttons (half-dome and lever), and even a USB Type-C cable.

The DualSense Edge Wireless Controller's Pricing and release date information has not been revealed yet, with more information coming later.

DualSense Edge controller revealed with replaceable analog sticks and more

Intel leans on more E-cores for performance boosts in leaked 13th-gen CPU lineup

The company says that it’s made it so the Google TV homescreen loads faster, reducing the amount of time before you can pick out which content to watch. Google says it achieved the performance improvements “through CPU optimizations and improvements to cache management” and that they’ve started to roll out on third-party devices and are “coming soon” for Chromecasts.

It’s faster to get to the homescreen and more responsive when you do

According to the post, users should be seeing faster performance in several areas — when loading the Live tab, scrolling through the homescreen, or using a kid profile. Some of these improvements, according to the company, are thanks to the fact that Google TV itself uses less RAM, leaving more for apps, especially when you’re switching between different screens.

The company’s also responding to complaints that have cropped up about how storage limitations can make it difficult to install apps for Google TV, especially on devices like the Chromecast, which only really has 5GB of usable space, according to Android Police. Google says it’s added a menu in Settings > System > Storage that’ll let you free up space by clearing the device’s cache and uninstalling apps, which has rolled out to the Chromecast and will be coming soon to smart TVs. It also says there’s an “automated process that runs in the background” to free up space for apps.

With recent reports about Google looking to integrate wearables and free channels into Google TV, it seems like the company could be getting ready to push users toward its big screen experience. If that’s the plan, it makes sense that it’s trying to improve on the basics now. However, as people need more and more apps to keep up with the growing number of streaming services, it may be time for hardware manufacturers (including Google) to consider upgrading the amount of storage that comes with Google TV devices. While software tricks may help reduce the number of low storage error messages, there’s really no substitute for just having more space.

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 Saudi Arabia is the first regulatory authority to approve the Xbox x Activision Blizzard acquisition. https://t.co/1N9AJNosVL pic.twitter.com/8HzrHGRgnY

 — Klobrille (@klobrille) August 21, 2022

When asked by another Twitter user why Saudi Arabia had to approve the deal, Klobrille responded that every country where Microsoft wants to sell Activision Blizzard products in, has to approve the acquisition. If any countries have an issue, Microsoft will likely have more discussions with authorities, make compromises and go to court if necessary. Ultimately, if nothing works, an individual country could block products in its country.

The news that Microsoft was buying Activision Blizzard was announced in January. The Windows maker said it would be paying $68.7 billion in cash for the company. America’s FTC has been looking into the acquisition since the end of January and its decisions will likely be crucial to Microsoft, as the U.S. is the biggest market for the products Microsoft wants to sell.

In February, Microsoft was expecting the deal to be closed in 2023, but if regulators take too much time, this process could be slowed down. It’s certain to be intensely scrutinized because Microsoft already has a large gaming presence through Xbox, and Activision Blizzard has control of lots of popular titles including Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush.

Source: Klobrille (Twitter) via Video Games Chronicle

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Originally launched in April of this year Apple's Self Service Repair Store has allowed customers who own faulty iPhone handsets from the iPhone 12 family, iPhone 13 family and iPhone SE (3rd Gen) to access repair manuals and genuine parts to fix their own devices at home rather than taking them in to an Apple Genius Bar.

With 'right to repair' coming up more and more in the news as consumers look to maintain their current gadgets instead of replacing them every time there is a fault, this shows that Apple is keen to give owners the tools that they need to accomplish this themselves.

The site itself will launch on August 23rd, with parts available for the display, trackpad, and top case with battery, with Apple stating that there will be "more to come" in the future. Customers first require a service kit, which can be purchased separately or rented directly from Apple for $49 including shipping and 1 week rental.

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Windows everywhere

After announcing a private preview back in May, Microsoft finally released Dev Box as a public preview this week. For those unaware, this managed service offers developer-ready workstations hosted in the cloud. These integrate with Azure Deployment Environments, Intune, and Endpoint Manager, so you can get up and running in no time with existing project templates. The idea is to reduce the headache of infrastructure management for IT teams while also allowing developers to spin up environments with pre-installed tools to hit the ground running when building solutions.

Windows 11 Insiders in Japan also received some good news related to the preview availability of Android apps support. These are offered via the Amazon App Store.

Meanwhile, Windows 11 Dev Channel Insiders all over the world were treated to build 25182. It contains some fixes for the File Explorer and Start menu, but also has a few known issues. Interestingly, the secret Taskbar animations introduced in build 25179 last week have been removed too.

Similarly, Release Preview Insiders on Windows 11 netted build 22000.917 (KB5016691) with improvements for file compression, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and more. Insiders on the same ring, but for Windows 10, got build 19044.1947 (KB5016688) with tons of improvements. On the other hand, those on Windows Server 2022 received build 20348.946 ( KB5016693) with similar enhancements to those offered on Windows 11.

And if you're on the edge of your seat waiting eagerly for Windows 11 version 22H2 to become generally available, expect it to land next month. In the meantime, you should know that Microsoft is rolling out a new Web Experience Pack that enables Windows 11 Widgets to send you notifications on the Taskbar. It doesn't seem like they can be disabled, for now at least.

Finally, if you're looking to spice up your PC with some new colorful wallpapers, maybe have a look at these "Windows 12" images generated by AI.

BitLocker woes

As is common almost every week, some new Windows issues emerged in this one as well. After KB5012170 caused some problems for Secure Boot DBX last week, the same update has resulted in issues for people utilizing BitLocker. After installing the update, Windows 11 asks users to enter the recovery key on the BitLocker recovery screen, which is a bit of an annoyance, to say the least. Fortunately, Microsoft has acknowledged the issue after widespread reports and is working to fix it, while also issuing some temporary workarounds.

Speaking of issues, it's probably worth knowing about some cybersecurity concerns that have arisen in recent days. Microsoft has published an advisory about the SEABORGIUM phishing campaign where attackers befriend you through fake profiles before delivering your malicious URLs and attachments that can steal your credentials. As always, it is important to be cautious and keep your guard up when opening unknown URLs and files.

Meanwhile, those who are engaged in tech support scams are also sending USBs supposed to contain installations and keys of Microsoft software such as Office. It seems that these threat actors are also putting in a lot of effort to make the packaging look legitimate. However, when a target plugs in the USB, you start getting fake warning messages and pop-ups about your PC being infected and a Microsoft tech support number that you can reach out to. This is obviously the contact number of the scammer and triggers the regular scamming process for unsuspecting victims.

At times like these, it is important to keep your anti-virus systems and related monitoring solutions up to date. Microsoft has rolled out version 14.0 of Sysmon that can block processes from creating .exe or similar executable files - this is useful to impede malware. Microsoft Defender has scored quite well in its latest AV-TEST rankings too.

However, all defensive measures fall apart if the weakest link in the chain is the human themselves. This is kind of what happened when Microsoft employees accidentally leaked credentials of an Azure tenant to GitHub. You can check out the details here.

Edge gaming sidebar

This week, Microsoft Edge received another update to version 104 in the Stable Channel. Version 104.0.1293.63 introduces policies to take advantage of new sidebar features including the ability to access games, Outlook, Office, and much more. However, it is worth noting that this is a controlled rollout which means you may not immediately find the sidebar upon updating.

Those who prefer UX consistency in the software that they utilize will also be happy to know that Microsoft Edge Canary received an update that finally fixed the missing dark mode support in one of the browser's context menus. Now, when you switch Windows and Edge to dark mode, the window frame context menu also changes its theme. No more light context menus when using the operating system and browser in dark mode.

Meanwhile, Edge Dev 106.0.1349.1 introduced the ability to give nicknames to passwords and filter by dates in the browser history. On the other hand, Edge 105 in the Beta Channel was a pretty quiet affair with policy updates and enhancements to IE mode management.

Speaking of IE, it is worth knowing that Microsoft will be disabling TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1 protocols by default in Internet Explorer and EdgeHTML from September 13. However, those intent on using outdated technologies in legacy browsers can still re-enable support for these protocols via Group Policy and browser settings.

Git gud

We'll kick this section off by talking about a big news item: Death Stranding is landing on PC Game Pass on August 23. The title originally launched as a Sony PlayStation-exclusive in 2019 before arriving on PC in 2020. Now, subscribers to Microsoft's PC Game Pass service can grab it at no additional cost from the coming week. For now, they can nab Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Wolfenstein 3D, An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire, Quake 4, and other classics right now.

Xbox Game Pass subscribers haven't been left out in the cold either, they can grab Immortals Fenyx Rising, Commandos 3, Immortality, and more within the next few days. However, a bunch of titles are leaving the service too, check out the list here. On the other hand, Games with Gold subscribers can grab Monaco and ScourgeBringer right now.

When it comes to individual titles, those who pre-order Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II on Xbox will be able to play the campaign early, a full week ahead of launch. Multiplayer beta dates have been revealed too. And those who prefer more fantastical adventures should check out the new "A Hunter's Cry" limited-time event in Sea of Thieves; it lasts until September 1. And gamers who prefer the skies rather than the water might want to consider the $14.99 Beechcraft Bonanza in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

In terms of Xbox updates, the latest invite-only Alpha-Skip Ahead Ring update offers improved settings with a clearer explanation of how to set a Home console, along with dashboard performance enhancements.

Finally, those on the lookout for gaming deals should check out this week's Deals with Gold headlined by Borderlands and Grim Dawn. Meanwhile, the latest Xbox Free Play Days promotion has Just Die Already, Outriders, and The Elder Scrolls Online available to play for free this weekend, along with massive discounts. And as usual, PC purists shouldn't forget to take a gander at this Weekend's PC Game Deals, curated personally by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe.

Dev Channel

• Microsoft and Canonical are bringing native .NET 6 to Linux starting with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS

• PowerToys is soon getting an OCR utility to extract text from images

• Microsoft is replacing Teams Rooms Premium with cheaper "Pro" and offering the "Basic" plan for free

• To Do for Android now has a rich text editor and widgets customization

• Microsoft has updated Surface Pro 6 and Pro 5th Gen with new drivers and security enhancements

   

Under the spotlight

As he does every week, forum member Adam Bottjen (better known as "Warwagon") wrote a guide for his Tech Tip Tuesday series. This time, it's related to how you can search inside specific websites through Google Search with ease.

Similarly, News Editor Paul Hill published a guide on how you can set up end-to-end encryption for your emails, if you're a Mozilla Thunderbird customer.

Meanwhile, News Reporter Taras Buria authored a couple of guides this week as well. The first is about how you can create a bootable Windows 11 USB using a utility called Rufus. If this is something that fits your wheelhouse, check it out here.

The other guide is about how you can set up Encrypted Client Hello in Microsoft Edge to improve your privacy posture.

Taras also penned a list of the top 10 features and changes that Windows 11 users are requesting from Microsoft when it comes to Widgets. The list is quite interesting, especially if you have a strong opinion on Widgets.

Logging off

Our most interesting news item of the week relates to a Microsoft engineering detailing a rather interesting bug from the olden days on Windows XP which caused PCs with 5400RPM hard drives to crash if the music video of Rhythm Nation by Janet Jackson was played. This happened due to the song's resonant frequencies which caused hard drives to malfunction and even caused PCs in the vicinity to crash.

Although OEMs raced to fix the issue by adding filters for the problematic frequencies, the MITRE Corporation has deemed the issue to be an official exploit with a CVE ID and everything. It sounds crazy considering that the bug was discovered and supposedly fixed by OEMs almost two decades ago, but it could still be used as a side-channel exploit on legacy hardware and software that is still in use (for whatever reason).

Microsoft Weekly: Windows everywhere, BitLocker woes, and Edge gaming sidebar

Today, an alleged picture was posted on Chinese social media site Bilibili which seemingly leaks the entire upcoming Raptor Lake-S lineup including their core specifications.

The “Cores” column in the table in the image above signifies the distribution of the Bigger P-cores (performance cores) and Big E-cores (efficiency cores). It looks like the P-core specifications in the upcoming Raptor Lake lineup haven't changed over the 12th Gen Alder Lake chips.

The E-core specs however see some significant change as there appear to be double the E-cores in each of the SKU for Raptor Lake-S barring the Core i3-13100 which will seemingly feature the same core configuration as the 12100, basically making it a poor upgrade if we are to believe these specs. On the opposite spectrum, the Core i5s seem to gain the most with up to 8 E-cores, whereas most Alder Lake i5 SKUs except the 12600K had 0 E-cores.

Source and image: EP极致玩家堂 (Bilibili) via @harukaze5719 (Twitter)

Full alleged lineup of Intel 13th Gen desktop Raptor Lake including i9, i7, i5, i3 leaks

Image: Asus

Did you buy a flagship Asus motherboard for your 12th Gen Intel processor anytime before December 2021? You’d best check if it’s the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero and get it swapped out if so because it could potentially start a fire in your house.

In January, a savvy YouTuber figured out that Asus installed one of that $600 board’s capacitors backward, and the company promised to work with government agencies on a replacement program. Today, seven months later, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Asus are finally formally announcing that recall.

According to the CPSC’s recall announcement, roughly 10,000 motherboards were affected with serial numbers starting in MA, MB, and MC — a serial number which you can find on a label next to the 24-pin ATX power connector or the motherboard’s box if you happened to keep it.

You can check your serial number here, but weirdly, Asus’ recall site doesn’t yet seem to be live. It looks like you may have to go through customer service in the meanwhile.

The CPSC says there have been 10 reports of melted motherboards so far but no injuries. It doesn’t say whether any other property was damaged. Presumably, the issue has been fixed for boards sold since January 2022 — as of today, the board is definitely still on sale.

Desktop PC part recalls aren’t particularly common, but they’ve been popping up more often as knowledgeable YouTubers have begun investigating why their parts failed. Gamers Nexus was instrumental in pushing NZXT to recall its H1 mini-ITX case due to a fire hazard, not to mention Gigabyte’s “exploding” power supply units.

Asus recalls 10,000 Z690 Hero motherboards because of a backward capacitor

The video shows an Intel Core i9-13900KF QS chip, where QS stands for Qualification Sample, which is essentially the same as a pre-production engineering sample, being overclocked all the way up to 6.2HGHz on all its P-cores or Performance cores (big cores). This is an impressive feat especially since the sample in question here is not a final retail one and is only a QS. The E-cores or Efficiency cores aren't as fast, but they can do 5.3GHz, an equally impressive thing in their own rights.

However, this could be done only using a water chiller though the overclock is somewhat stable as it was apparently able to pass CPU-Z run.

The 6.2GHz i9-13900KF scored 991.6 and 19,550.5 points in CPU-Z single thread and multi thread tests respectively. Meanwhile, in Cinebench R23, the all-core P-cores overclock was 5.8GHz and at these frequencies, the 13900KF was able to score 42,790 points in the multi-core test and 2263 in the single thread test.

Source: EP极致玩家堂 (Bilibili) via HXL (Twitter)

Intel Raptor Lake Core i9-13900KF QS goes 6.2GHz OC using a chiller

The flagship Raptor Lake-S SKU, the Core i9-13900K is a 24-core 32-threaded part and early reviews have shown that the SKU is capable of some extreme power draws of up to 420W in its Power Limit 4 (PL4) state, albeit reaching 100°C even with a 360mm AIO cooler, when doing so. The chip was probably capable of going even higher but thermal throttling had set in.

PL4 is something that is generally not available to the user by default unless tweaked. However, a new report by Hungarian outlet PROHARDVER suggests that the i9-13900K will include a new "extreme performance" mode which will allow the CPU to boost all the way up to 350W. This will basically provide additional headroom for the 13900K over the PL1 or base TDP of 125W as the PL2 of 241W will be purportedly raised to 350.

Intel isn't the only company that is apparently looking to throw more power at it. Next-gen RX 7000 and RTX 4000 GPUs from AMD and Nvidia, respectively, are expected to be massive power hogs as they bump up the TGPs of their chips.

Source: PROHARDVER via Hardware Times

Intel Raptor Lake Core i9-13900K to allegedly feature 350W extreme performance mode

It turns out a Janet Jackson song had the power to crash some laptops back during the Windows XP era.

Microsoft software engineer Raymond Chen recounted the incident in a blog post(Opens in a new window) on Wednesday, saying he heard the story from a colleague in Windows XP product support. According to the blog post, Jackson’s 1989 hit song “Rhythm Nation” could disrupt a model 5400rpm laptop hard drive that was used across various notebooks.

Microsoft learned of the problem when a laptop manufacturer told the company’s Windows team about the mysterious flaw. Initially, the company thought it had something to do with the Rhythm Nation music video playing over the laptops.

But what made the issue even stranger was how the Rhythm Nation music video would also crash Windows laptops belonging to the manufacturer’s competitors.

“And then they discovered something extremely weird: Playing the music video on one laptop caused a laptop sitting nearby to crash, even though that other laptop wasn’t playing the video!” Chen wrote in the blog post.

This discovery led Microsoft to determine the problem was with laptop hard drives and how they had a natural resonant frequency. This is the frequency where an object will naturally vibrate when exposed to a certain external force. For example, glass can vibrate and even shatter(Opens in a new window) when a soundwave bombards it with the glass's natural frequency at high enough amplitude.

“This song (Rhythm Nation) contained a frequency that matches the natural resonant frequency of the hard drive that these laptops were using,” Chen said(Opens in a new window) in a video. As a result, playing the song would cause the hard drive’s moving disks to vibrate too much, resulting in a crash.

To address the problem, Chen said the laptop manufacturer added a custom filter in the device’s audio system that could remove the resonant frequency during any audio playback. “And I’m sure they put a digital version of a 'Do not remove' sticker on that audio filter,” he wrote while adding: “Though I’m worried that in the many years since the workaround was added, nobody remembers why it’s there.”

The risk of sound vibrations disrupting a hard drive is certainly surprising. But the problem has actually been known in IT circles for years now. In his blog post, Chen linked to a 2008 video(Opens in a new window) of how shouting at a data center's storage drives can cause latency to spike.

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It’s said that as microchip technology progresses, the transistors inside the chip get smaller in size. The smaller the transistors, the more you can pack them inside a chip or a processor.

We have come a long way in transistor size. We aren’t talking in mm sizes, we are talking about nm sizes. In recent years, the size of microchip transistors have reached into single digit nm.

Most companies, except for the likes of Intel, Samsung and others, don’t manufacture their chips themselves. This is because microchip manufacturing is an extremely high skilled and complex process. These companies, called fabless companies, give contract to companies which are expert in manufacturing this complex processes.

In microchip manufacturing, Taiwan based TSMC is considered among the best, if not the best. Worldwide, companies run after TSMC to request them to manufacture chips for them. TSMC has pre-signed contracts running into years. TSMC chips are the best and fastest and have the least amount of issues. Looks like TSMC is going to take another big leap into the chip technology.

TSMC’s 3nm to start manufacturing next month

Tom’s Hardware is reporting, quoting Commercial Times (non-English), that starting next month, TSMC is going to start mass manufacturing of latest generation of 3nm process soon. With delivery starting from early next year.

Usually, TSMC starts manufacturing of its 3nm process from March to May part of the year, but due to some issues, it has been delayed to September this year, which is still within the original intended timeframe of this year.

But wait is well worth it. TSMC claims that when compared to its 5nm process, it’s 3nm process will provide 15% processor speed improvements at same power usage and big 30% improvements in power usage at same speeds. It also claims up to 70% transistor density increase, which means more transistors inside a single chip.

TSMC is also going to work on an enhanced version of its 3nm process, named N3E, which is said to improve transistor density even further. But that will take at least a year more to come.

Either way, these 3nm chips and processors made out of them are going to break records everywhere.

TSMC To Start Mass Manufacturing 3nm Chips From September