After several leaks and last-minute spoilers, Microsoft unveiled the Surface Laptop Go 2, a sequel to the original Surface Laptop Go from 2020. The new model has a price tag of $599, and it will be available on June 7, with preorders starting now.

The Surface Laptop Go 2 is now slightly more expensive than its predecessor. It went up by $50, but Microsoft compensates for that with better storage. The company now offers 128GB of storage instead of the miserable 64GB in the original Surface Laptop Go base configuration. Microsoft also swapped the 10th gen Intel Core i5 with the newer 11th gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 and introduced a new version with 16GB of RAM.

Another change is that the Surface Laptop Go 2 provides four color options: Ice Blue, Sandstone, Platinum, and the new Sage. Microsoft promises up to 13.5 hours of use, an improved HD camera (still 720p), and better thermals that make the laptop less noisy. Other aspects of the computer remain unchanged, which means users have to deal with only 4GB of RAM in the base configuration and no backlit keyboard.

On the upside, Microsoft says the Surface Laptop Go 2 is better in terms of sustainability. Replaceable components now include not just SSD but also the keyboard, trackpad, display, battery, and the Surflink cable. Memory, unfortunately, is non-replaceable.

Would you consider the Surface Laptop Go 2 if you were shopping in its price range? Share your thoughts about Microsoft's latest Surface device in the comment section.

Microsoft announces $599 Surface Laptop Go 2

The researchers, led by Benjamin J. Puttnam, constructed a transmission system that supports a record optical bandwidth exceeding 20 THz by exploiting wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology. It incorporates the commercially adopted optical fiber transmission windows known as C and L-bands and extends the transmission bandwidth to include also the recently explored S-band. Two kinds of doped fiber amplifiers, along with Raman amplification with pumps added in a novel multi-core pump combiner, enabled transmission of 801 wavelength channels over the 20 THz optical bandwidth.

The large number of wavelength channels were transmitted in each core of a 4-core MCF that is notable for having the same cladding diameter as a standard optical fiber. Such fibers are compatible with current cabling technologies and do not require the complex signal processing needed for unscrambling signals in multi-mode fibers, meaning conventional transceiver hardware may be used. 4-core MCFs are thought to be the most likely of the new advanced optical fibers for early commercial adoption. This demonstration shows their information carrying potential and is a significant step toward the realization of backbone communication systems that supports the evolution of Beyond 5G information services.

The results of this experiment were accepted as a post-deadline paper presentation at the International Conference on Laser and Electro-Optics (CLEO) 2022 and presented on Thursday, May 19, 2022.

Comparison table of standard diameter fiber transmission demonstrations performed at NICT. Credit: National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)

Demand for enhanced data transmission capacity has inspired both investigation of new spectral transmission windows and advanced optical fibers exploiting parallelization in the spatial domain. In recent years, advanced fibers with the same cladding diameter as standard single-mode optical fibers but able to support multiple propagation paths have been proposed. These fibers can multiply the transmission capacity but are still compatible with existing manufacturing processes and have emerged as a likely candidate for near-term commercial adoption of these transformative communications technology.

NICT has achieved various world records by constructing various transmission systems using new optical fibers and in December 2020 succeeded in the first 1 petabit per second transmission demonstration in a standard diameter fiber using a 15-mode optical fiber. However, such fibers require complex MIMO (Multiple-input-multiple-output) digital signal processing to unscramble the signals, which are mixed during transmission, and practical deployment is expected to require large-scale development of dedicated integrated circuits.

NICT constructed the transmission system using 4-core MCF with standard 0.125 mm cladding diameter, WDM technology and mixed optical amplification systems. The system allowed transmission of 1.02 petabit per second over 51.7 km. Previously, 610 terabit per second was achieved in a similar fiber but only using part of the S-band.

Table comparing recent 4-core fiber transmission demonstrations. Credit: National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT)

In this experiment, by broadening the Raman amplification bandwidth to the full S-band and using customized thulium-doped fiber amplifiers (TDFAs) for S-band and extended L-band erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs), researchers were able to use a record 20 THz optical spectrum with total of 801 x 25 GHz spaced wavelength channels, each with dual-polarization-256 QAM modulation for high spectral density in all wavelength bands.

The 4-core MCF with standard cladding diameter is attractive for early adoption of new space-division multiplexing (SDM) fibers in high-throughput and long-distance links since it is compatible with conventional cable infrastructure and expected to have mechanical reliability comparable to standard single-mode fibers. Beyond 5G, an explosive increase of data traffic from new information and communication services is expected and it is therefore crucial to demonstrate how new fibers can meet this demand. It is hoped that this result will help the realization of new communication systems able to support new bandwidth-hungry services.

NICT will continue to promote research and development of advanced optical fibers for both near and long-term applications, seeking continuous improvement in optical communication systems for the benefit of society. We will further develop wide-band transmission systems and explore technologies for additional increases of transmission capacity of low-core-count multi-core fibers and other novel fibers. NICT will also aim to extend the transmission range of ultra-high-capacity systems.

The paper containing these results was presented at the International Conference on Laser and Electro-Optics (CLEO) 2022.

Source

The Surface Laptop Go 2 will be an uninspiring update of the fairly uninspiring computer. It is a medium-priced laptop with powerful enough specs for daily PC work. The existing model starts at $549 for the base configuration with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of eMMC storage (all models and configs are out of stock in the Microsoft Store).

The upcoming version will not bring many notable changes to the exterior or features. The main highlight of the update will be the newer 11th-gen Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor and a slightly upgraded 128GB base storage. Rumors also claim that Microsoft will offer the Surface Laptop Go 2 in a new Sage color, and the Korean retailer mentions an "improved HD camera".

Microsoft's new entry-level clamshell will offer the same 12.4-inch display, a modest number of ports (1 USB-A, 1 USB-C, and a 3.5 mm audio), and specs up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD. Like all modern Surface computers, the Laptop Go 2 will ship with Windows 11 by default. Battery-wise, the Surface Laptop Go 2 should offer up to 13.5 hours of use.

Unfortunately, there are no signs of a backlit keyboard, and a fingerprint sensor will not be present on the base model. Many will consider that a severe limitation of a 12.4-inch laptop with a price tag of $650, according to a report from WinFuture.

Korean retailer leaks details of the upcoming Surface Laptop Go 2

Qualcomm wants to buy a stake in Arm alongside its rivals

The United States has regained a coveted speed crown in computing with a powerful new supercomputer in Tennessee, a milestone for the technology that plays a major role in science, medicine and other fields.

Frontier, the name of the massive machine at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was declared on Monday to be the first to demonstrate performance of one quintillion operations per second — a billion billion calculations — in a set of standard tests used by researchers to rank supercomputers. The U.S. Department of Energy several years ago pledged $1.8 billion to build three systems with that “exascale” performance, as scientists call it.

But the crown has a caveat. Some experts believe that Frontier has been beaten in the exascale race by two systems in China. Operators of those systems have not submitted test results for evaluation by scientists who oversee the so-called Top500 ranking. Experts said they suspected that tensions between the United States and China may be the reason the Chinese have not submitted the test results.

“There are rumors China has something,” said Jack Dongarra, a distinguished professor of computer science at the University of Tennessee who helps lead the Top500 effort. “There is nothing official.”

Supercomputers have long been a flash point in international competition. The room-size machines were first built for cracking codes and designing weapons, but now also play major roles in developing vaccines, testing car designs and modeling climate change.

The field was dominated by U.S. technology for decades, but China has become a dominant force. A system there called Sunway TaihuLight was ranked the world’s fastest from 2016 to 2018. China accounted for 173 systems on the latest Top500 list, compared with 126 machines in the United States.

Japan has been a smaller but still potent contender. A system called Fugaku, in Kobe, took the No. 1 spot in June 2020, displacing an IBM system at Oak Ridge.

Frontier gives that top position back to the lab. The system, built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise using two kinds of chips from Advanced Micro Devices, was more than twice as fast as Fugaku in the tests used by the Top500 organization.

“It is a proud moment for our nation,” said Thomas Zacharia, director of Oak Ridge, at an online briefing from an industry event in Germany. “It reminds us we can still go after something that is bigger than us.”

Building the system, composed of 74 cabinets that each weighs 8,000 pounds, was made more difficult by the pandemic and problems obtaining components in the supply chain crisis, Mr. Zacharia said. But he predicted that Frontier would swiftly have a major impact in studying the impact of Covid and aiding the transition to cleaner energy sources, for example.

Chinese researchers used to participate in the ranking process. But the country has adopted a lower profile in promoting its supercomputer progress as the United States has taken a series of steps to slow China’s technology advances — including by making it harder for some Chinese companies to acquire the foreign chips that can be used to make supercomputers.

But China has been making significant progress in designing its own microprocessors, a key to advances in supercomputers. David Kahaner, an authority in the field who heads the Asian Technology Information Program, reported details last year of two exascale-class supercomputers that he said use Chinese chip technology.

One is a successor to the earlier Sunway machine, called OceanLight, according to a presentation Mr. Kahaner shared at a technical conference. The other machine, Tianhe-3, succeeds a system called Tianhe-1A that in 2010 became the first Chinese machine to take a No. 1 spot on the Top500 list.

More evidence that China broke the exascale barrier emerged in November, when a group of 14 Chinese researchers won a prestigious award from the Association for Computing Machinery, the Gordon Bell Prize, for simulating a quantum computing circuit on the new Sunway system running at exascale speeds. The calculating job, estimated to take 10,000 years on Oak Ridge’s fastest prior supercomputer, took 304 seconds on the Chinese system, the researchers reported in a technical paper.

“They kind of let it leak that they had machines running at exascale levels,” said Steve Conway, an analyst at Hyperion Research. “A lot of the speculation is that they didn’t want to attract more U.S. sanctions.”

Mr. Conway and other experts said they believed that the chips in the new Chinese machines were manufactured in Taiwan, which is true of the key chips in Frontier. China remains far behind in advanced chip-making capability, he said.

The Oak Ridge machine, besides aiding scientists, could help suppliers popularize some new products. Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which in 2019 purchased the supercomputer pioneer Cray, contributed networking technology called SlingShot that had a significant impact on Frontier’s performance, Mr. Zacharia said.

And AMD contributed not only microprocessors but also a kind of graphics processing chip that has mainly been sold for supercomputers by a rival, Nvidia. The same two AMD chips were selected for an exascale system called El Capitan that is scheduled to be installed in 2023 at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

A third exascale machine at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, using three kinds of chips from Intel, was originally scheduled for delivery in 2021. But manufacturing problems at Intel delayed that system, which is now expected later this year.

Source

The Frontier supercomputer, powered by AMD EPYC CPUs, has achieved the title for being the world's most powerful supercomputer. The supercomputer is based at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. With a power of 1.102 exaflops, Frontier's performance is more than double the previous record holder, Fugaku. With such performance, it becomes the first machine to officially break the exascale barrier.

Forrest Norrod, senior vice president and general manager, Data Center Solutions Group, AMD, said in a press statement:

“We are excited that AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct accelerators power the world’s fastest, most energy efficient, and first supercomputer to break the exascale barrier.

Innovation and delivering more performance and efficiency for supercomputers is critical to addressing the world's most complex challenges. AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct accelerators continue to push the envelope in high performance computing, providing the performance needed to advance scientific discoveries.”

The supercomputer not only performs exceptionally well, but is also the most power efficient, delivering 62.68 gigaflops/watt power-efficiency from a single cabinet of optimized 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct MI250x accelerators.

The networking is done by HPE Slingshot-11 interconnect technology that is designed explicitly for accelerating high performance computing (HPC) workloads.

AMD says that it is leading the way in HPC by enabling partners and customers to deploy all sizes of clusters. These range across key research areas including manufacturing, life sciences, financial services, climate research, and more. One such example is how Thailand's National Science and Technology Development Agency is using its supercomputer to advance research in medicine, weather forecasting, and more.

Next up for Frontier is continued testing and validation of the system till later 2022. The supercomputer will be open to a limited number of researchers by the end of the year and will be launched publicly in 2023.

AMD-powered Frontier is now the world's fastest supercomputer, breaks exascale barrier

Remembering Apple’s Newton, 30 years on

Build 2022 news galore

Microsoft held its annual Build conference this week and it had lots of updates to share across various developer, enterprise, and consumer domains.

For starters, Android apps on Windows 11 are finally coming to five more countries, namely France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the UK. This expansion will happen later this year. Talking about storefronts, Microsoft is working on an app restore functionality for the Microsoft Store so you can seamlessly transition between devices with all your apps being installed with a single click. The firm is also introducing better discoverability for Microsoft Store apps by showing ads for them in the storefront itself as well as surfacing them in Windows 11 Search results. Win32 app submissions are now open for all too and you can also leverage new features like automating submissions through a CI/CD GitHub Actions or Rest APIs pipeline, testing for app visibility, viewing app telemetry, and responding to user reviews directly.

Microsoft also confirmed that developers will be able to build companion widgets for their apps in Windows 11 later this year. And if you want to build and test ARM-native apps through your favorite toolchain and programming languages, keep an eye out on the Project Volterra hardware kit coming later this year.

Meanwhile, for organizations looking to scale their infrastructure on the cloud, Microsoft has announced Dev Box. This is a Windows 365-powered solution that offers powerful, development-ready workstations in the cloud. It also integrates with Intune and Microsoft Endpoint Manager. The service is currently in private preview with a waitlist.

Developers and teams investing in data solutions should check out Microsoft's Intelligent Data Platform. It aims to unify databases, analytics, and data governance on the cloud, enabling customers to rapidly adapt to changing landscapes while continuing to draw insights. The firm also announced a bunch of new features for Microsoft Purview, Azure Synapse, SQL Database, Cognitive Services, Machine Learning, Arc, and more.

For developers and teams working in low-code solutions, Microsoft revealed Power Pages that allows you to quickly build and customize fully functioning websites. There were enhancements made to existing Power Platform products including Power Apps, Power Virtual Agents, Power Automate, and Power BI too.

There were a bunch of announcements related to Microsoft Teams too. Link unfurling for rich actionable card previews is coming soon and so is integration with Power Apps. Independent software vendors (ISVs) can build new Live Share experiences. And the Teams JavaScript 2.0 SDK, Teams Toolkit for Visual Studio Code, and the Teams Toolkit CLI have all hit general availability (GA).

Windows 11 version 22H2 RTM

This week, a Microsoft document quietly confirmed that Windows 11 version 22H2 RTM build is build 22621 that was released to Windows Insiders earlier this month. In the same document, Microsoft also noted that Windows Hardware Compatibility Program (WHCP) submissions will continue until September 5, which means that we can expect the feature update to begin rolling out in that month or October. And if you're unsure about what to expect when updating to Windows 11 version 22H2, check out our detailed run-down on all the new features here.

Microsoft also rolled out build 25126 to the Windows 11 Dev Channel this week. It has improvements to the Accounts settings page, especially for people who are Microsoft 365 customers. That said, there are other improvements and known issues too, so do check out the linked article before you update.

Apart from this, Microsoft released an optional Cumulative Update to Windows 11 in the form of KB5014019 that bumped the build to 22000.708. The key highlight of this release is that it brings Windows Spotlight to the desktop but there are enhancements and bug fixes for other areas such as the Start menu too. That said, if you are a Trend Micro customer, know that this optional update also breaks its ransomware protection capabilities.

In the same vein, Windows 10 netted build 19044.1739 (KB5014023) as an optional update in the Release Preview Channel as well. The changelog is quite lengthy, but a key highlight is that it fixes numerous app crashes.

Although Microsoft's Panos Panay emphasized once again that Windows 11 is all about quality, it seems that the operating system's CPU usage reporting is buggy and Smart App Control isn't perfect either.

Linux XDP on Windows (and more!)

Shifting gears now a bit to apps, services, and product updates this week, we'll start off with Microsoft porting the Linux eXpress Data Path (XDP) to Windows as an open-source initiative. XDP allows apps to achieve low latency and a high throughput in networking and is currently ready for prototyping and testing on Windows.

Microsoft 365 Apps was updated to version 2205, the highlights include automatic groupings (like @TeamOwners) for Teams channel posts and a more natural Read Aloud voice in Outlook. The Outlook app on mobile is expected to get a new feed view and the option to save attachments to OneDrive for Business next month as well. Meanwhile, Teams is set to receive chat bubbles on Android and iOS around the same time.

Microsoft also offered a detailed look at the upcoming OneNote refresh for Windows. The app will receive Windows 11 design aesthetics, better pen support, and an enhanced UX in what will hopefully (finally?) be the unification of the OneNote product on Windows desktop.

Both Windows Terminal Stable and Windows Terminal Preview received updates this week. The former brings the ability to change the bell sound, configure default launch profiles for admins, a new action, and save and restore capabilities. Meanwhile, Preview now allows you to set a single background image split across multiple panes, among many other things.

Edge Dev 103 received its final update a couple of days ago too, new features include a better Microsoft Editor, new policies, and UX enhancements to tab group management.

Finally, the Surface app was updated just a few hours ago with notifications for Windows updates, improvements to the audio equalizer and headphones tutorials volume, among other things. You can check out the changelog here.

Git gud

A concept image of Xbox Keystone

Coming over to our gaming section, the highlight of this week was undoubtedly the fact that Microsoft confirmed that it is pivoting away from the current implementation of its streaming stick (codenamed Xbox Keystone) for Xbox Cloud Gaming and moving to a new approach. Although a release date is still unclear, the latest rumors also say that it may come with a stripped version of Xbox or Windows as its OS.

Meanwhile, on the software side of things, an expansion of Top Gun: Maverick to celebrate the launch of the movie of the same name is now freely available for Microsoft Flight Simulator players. The update includes new missions, challenges, maneuvers, and a super-secret aircraft.

On the other hand, Sea of Thieves received the Lost Sands Adventure. An interesting aspect of this chapter is that it is up to the players to decide which faction they want to aid in order to decide the fate of Lost Sands. That said, it's better to dive into the latest Adventure as soon as possible because it goes away on June 9. Close to that date (June 7, to be more specific), you can also get started with the highly anticipated The Wild Update in Minecraft, check out all the details here.

And if you're on the lookout for some Xbox deals, skim through the latest Deals with Gold offerings here, headlined by Star Wars and Batman. But if you play exclusively on PC, do not miss out on the list of this weekend's sales across multiple storefronts, curated by Neowin editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe.

Dev Channel

• Visual Studio 2022 for Mac 17.0 is here with native macOS UI and Apple Silicon support
• Azure Translator can now scan and translate PDF documents
• Surface Pro 8 gets inking improvements in the latest firmware update
• Dynamic Refresh Rate is now available on Surface Laptop Studio
• Microsoft has restored the previously broken storage firmware on Surface Book 3

Under the spotlight

In this digest, we have two handy guides to share with you. The first one is penned by Neowin co-founder Steven Parker and walks you through how you can update to the RTM build of Windows 11 version 22H2 right now, even though it will publicly start rolling out after a few months.

Meanwhile, the second guide is authored by Neowin News Reporter Taras Buria and explains how you can enable desktop stickers in Windows 11 version 22H2 right now, even though the feature hasn't even been officially announced by Microsoft yet.

Logging off

Our most interesting news item of this week isn't directly related to Microsoft but does give some indication about the next avenue tech companies want to explore. Basically, Samsung took a photo of a cat from its in-house 200MP ISOCELL image sensor and then printed it out on a gigantic 28m x 22m poster for public showcase. We are yet to see a phone with this sensor, but that may change by July.

Microsoft Weekly: Build excitement, Windows 11 22H2 RTM, and Linux XDP

In a recent interview with the PCWorld, AMD's Chief Architect of Gaming Solutions and Marketing, Frank Azor explained why the company was adding its SAM technology into the mix and how it will complement DirectStorage. When inquired about the minimum spec requirement for SAS, Azor revealed that not all NVMe (PCIe) drives will be certified for the tech and that qualified drives will have to meet certain performance requirements set by AMD, even if they are the latest PCIe 5.0 SSDs.

Here is Frank Azor's full statement:

So we have an authorized vendor list of parts that we are developing right now with NVMe drives and controllers that are meeting our performance requirements around SmartAccess Storage. Just because you have a PCIe Gen4 or the upcoming Gen5 drives ... it doesn't mean that those drives are going to be able to keep up with the performance demands and capabilities of SmartAccess Storage.

The base technology for SAS, ie, DirectStorage doesn't have such requirements. According to Microsoft, any NVMe drive (PCIe Gen3 or newer) and a DirectX12-ready Shader model 6.0 GPU are all you need.

Source: PCWorld

AMD says your current NVMe SSD may not be good enough for SmartAccess Storage

Computex is one of the most famous computer expo show in the world. It happens annually in Taipei, Taiwan around this time of the year. While the 2020 show was cancelled, the 2021 show happened virtually. This year the Computex happened in person after two long years.

Big companies wait for the Computex to announce their products. This year’s Computex 2022 is no different.

A lot of products were launched at Computex this year. We look into top three products that were announced at Computex 2022.

AMD Zen Ryzen 7000 Series CPU Processors

The biggest and most important announcement of Computex was the launch of the Ryzen 7000 series of processors by AMD.

Ryzen 7000 will be based on Zen 4 core, 5 nm process and will require the new AM5 CPU socket.

While the CPUs will be made of 5 nm process, compared to the slower 7 nm process of Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 series processors, the I/O part of the CPUs will be based on 6 nm process.

All the Ryzen 7000 processors will come with a built-in integrated graphics processor inside the CPU. However, in an interview to Digital Trends, an AMD executive said that these integrated graphics are only there for consumer’s convenience and are not made for gaming.

Ryzen 7000 will only support newer gen DDR5 RAM as we had reported earlier and will also support PCIe 5.0 too.

The Zen 4 core architecture comes with 1 MB per core L2 cache. 15% single thread performance increase over Zen 3 (which isn’t much, maybe AMD is understating) and will reach 5 GHz and above clock speeds.

AMD 600 chipsets

AMD also announced 600 series chipsets for the Ryzen 7000 processors. The X670E (Extreme), which would support two graphics cards and one NVMe SSD at PCIe 5.0. The X670, which will support one NVMe SSD at PCIe 5.0, but the support for the graphics cards on PCIe 5.0 will be onto the motherboard manufacturers. Then there’s the mainstream B650 chipset, which will only support NVMe SSD at PCIe 5.0. Interestingly, PCGamer reports that all these chipsets might produced the same but would either be used singularly or combined into two in the higher models.

The newer AM5 CPU socket will support 24 PCIe 5.0 lanes for storage and graphics, up to 14 SuperSpeed USB with 20BGbps and Type-C, 6E Wi-Fi Support with DBS and BT LE 5.2 and Up to 4 HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2 Ports. Importantly, AM5 will be based on the LGA socket and not the PGA one. Meaning, unlike the previous generation AMD processors, the pins will be on the motherboard and not on the CPUs, similar to Intel ones.

Various motherboard manufacturers have already detailed their top of the line X670E products. This includes the likes of ASRock, ASUS, BIOSTAR, Gigabyte and MSI.

Some confusion about CPU speeds and power

AMD’s announcement wasn’t without some confusions.

AMD showcased a 16-core CPU, possibly 7950X, running at massive 5.5 GHz speeds. At first, there were allegations that it was overclocked. An AMD executive later clarified in the PCWorld’s YouTube video that it wasn’t overclocked and ran on a liquid cooler. Which is a great feat.

Another confusion is AMD’s claims. It showed a synthetic benchmark against Intel Core i9-12900K and claimed that the AMD processor took only 204 seconds to complete the work versus the 297 seconds of the Intel processor, making the AMD processor 31% faster. Except the math doesn’t add up. Actually it should be 46% faster going by those numbers. Not 31% faster, as claimed by AMD. They haven’t clarified yet. Maybe their selection of wordings weren’t correct. What makes them underrate their own processors is anyone’s guess.

The third confusion AMD created is about the 170W max power usage we had reported earlier. First they claimed 170W was the max power usage. Then they claimed it was just TDP (base power). Then AMD clarified to Tom’s Hardware that 170W is the TDP and max power usage will be around 230W TTP.

ASUS announcing 500Hz gaming monitor

ASUS, in collaboration with Nvidia, announced the fastest gaming monitor we can imagine, the ROG Swift 500Hz.

Co-developed by AU Optronics, the ROG Swift 500Hz is a 24 inch, 1080p, G-Sync enabled monitor.

It features a new “eSport TN” display panel. Which, as the name suggests, seems to be made for eSports games like multiplayer shooters.

It will come with Nvidia’s G-Sync eSports Mode and Reflex Analyzer. Nvidia has also shared a video showcasing the 500Hz tech.

It’s likely to cost a huge amount. So it might attract only eSports players. However, it’s impressive to see the new technology available. While yes, TN panels are not great for anything except higher refresh rate, it’s basically a huge counter to the people who claim that the human eye can only see till 60 frames per second. Someone tell them that mainstream 144Hz monitors already exist.

Ultrafast PCIe 5.0 based SSD by Apacer

Taiwan based company Apacer has announced one of the fastest NVMe based SSD based on PCIe 5.0.

Named AS2280F5 under in Apacer brand and TWSG5 under its gaming oriented Zadak brand. Apacer claims upto 13,000 MB/s read and 12,000 MB/s write speeds. Which is massive, considering that previous generation SSDs could not go above 7,000 MB/s speeds.

Both the models will be based on the PCIe 5.0 and latest NVMe 2.0 standard, support the same speeds. The main difference being the cooling heat sinks.

Unlike the popular belief, they are not the first ones having announced PCIe 5.0 based SSDs. Many companies have done so already. What makes this announcement special is that other announcements have been mostly business oriented products. This is a consumer oriented one.

With AMD with its Ryzen 7000 series going to support PCIe 5.0 and Intel’s Alder Lake supporting interface already, these SSDs are much welcomed ones.

Companies and products missing in Computex

While Computex is indeed among the most important expos around, it doesn’t mean everyone comes or everything gets announced.

For example, missing in action this year in Computex is Intel. It couldn’t attend the event due to the pandemic reasons.

However, what was surprisingly missing in product announcements were the graphics cards. While Nvidia did announce a liquid cooled version of server graphics cards, there was no mention of either RTX 4000 series graphics cards nor any mention of the much rumored upcoming ultra-cheap GTX 1630 graphics card. AMD didn’t speak about its upcoming graphics cards, either.

Maybe we will hear from them somewhere later in some other ways.

From AMD to Nvidia: Top Products Announced In Computex 2022

The initial batch of Raptor Lake-S CPUs, which are generally high-end models, will be accompanied by the Z790 motherboards first, followed later by the H770 and B760 in Q1 of 2023. Meanwhile, the entry-level H710 may be the same as the H610 for Alder Lake-S. As such, the report suggests that Raptor Lake may also support DDR4 memory, much like Alder Lake did, which means those who purchased a DDR4 600-series chipset Intel motherboard maybe able to re-use it with the upcoming 13th Gen SKUs.

Chinese (original)

English (machine translated)

The report also alleges that AMD's Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs, which were recently shown off at the Computex 2022 event, will be launching around August. This means we are set to see Intel and AMD with two new CPU launches in a head-on collision soon, which will also coincide with the GA of Windows 11 22H2 feature update.

The report also adds a bit more detail about Intel Sapphire Rapids. The workstation lineup has evidently been delayed as it was supposed to be out by now, at least in small numbers. The report alleges that Sapphire Rapids and its accompanying W790 chipset motherboards will be also be launching alongside Raptor Lake in October.

Source and image: ECSM_Official (Bilibili) via Wccftech | Image (English): VideoCardz

22H2 will see Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake lock horns with AMD's Ryzen 7000 (Zen 4)

"Almost everything we do on the internet is encrypted for security. The strength of this encryption depends on the quality of random number generation," says Nithin Abraham, a Ph.D. student at the Department of Electrical Communication Engineering (ECE), Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Abraham is a part of a team led by Kausik Majumdar, Associate Professor at ECE, which has developed a record-breaking true random number generator (TRNG), which can improve data encryption and provide improved security for sensitive digital data such as credit card details, passwords and other personal information. The study describing this device has been published in the journal ACS Nano.

Encrypted information can be decoded only by authorized users who have access to a cryptographic "key." But the key needs to be unpredictable and, therefore, randomly generated to resist hacking. Cryptographic keys are typically generated in computers using pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs), which rely on mathematical formulae or pre-programmed tables to produce numbers that appear random but are not. In contrast, a TRNG extracts random numbers from inherently random physical processes, making it more secure.

In IISc's breakthrough TRNG device, random numbers are generated using the random motion of electrons. It consists of an artificial electron trap constructed by stacking atomically-thin layers of materials like black phosphorus and graphene. The current measured from the device increases when an electron is trapped, and decreases when it is released. Since electrons move in and out of the trap in a random manner, the measured current also changes randomly. The timing of this change determines the generated random number. "You cannot predict exactly at what time the electron is going to enter the trap. So, there is an inherent randomness that is embedded in this process," explains Majumdar.

The performance of the device on the standard tests for cryptographic applications designed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has exceeded Majumdar's own expectations. "When the idea first struck me, I knew it would be a good random number generator, but I didn't expect it to have a record-high min-entropy," he says.

Min-entropy is a parameter used to measure the performance of TRNGs. Its value ranges from 0 (completely predictable) to 1 (completely random). The device from Majumdar's lab showed a record-high min-entropy of 0.98, a significant improvement over previously reported values, which were around 0.89. "Ours is by far the highest reported min-entropy among TRNGs," says Abraham. 

The team's electronic TRNG is also more compact than its clunkier counterparts that are based on optical phenomena, says Abraham.

"Since our device is purely electronic, millions of such devices can be created on a single chip," adds Majumdar. He and his group plan to improve the device by making it faster and developing a new fabrication process that would enable the mass production of these chips.

Source

The autonomous Mayflower ship is making another attempt at a transatlantic journey from the UK to the US, after engineers hauled the vessel to port and fixed a technical glitch. 

Built by ProMare, a non-profit organization focused on marine research, and IBM, the Mayflower set sail on April 28, beginning its over 3,000-mile voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. But after less than two weeks, the crewless ship broke down and was brought back to port in Horta in the Azores, 850 miles off the coast of Portugal, for engineers to inspect.

With no humans onboard, the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) can only rely on its numerous cameras, sensors, equipment controllers, and various bits of hardware running machine-learning algorithms to survive. The computer-vision software helps it navigate through choppy waters and avoid objects that may be in its path.

Its first transatlantic crossing attempt ended in failure due to a mechanical fault with its generator. Thankfully, the technical problem this time around was minor and ProMare and IBM managed to get the ship back out to sea to resume its latest attempt to get to the US.

"ProMare identified the issue as an isolation switch that failed," an IBM spokesperson told The Register. "The IBM technology on board remained functioning as designed and continues to function as designed."

The switch affected the Mayflower's electrical supply system, sapping its power. After the team fixed the issue, they ran tests, refilled its diesel tanks, and waited for good weather to send it back into the ocean. "As of 0900 BST May 20, MAS was back underway with its transatlantic crossing," the IBM spokesperson said. It is aiming to complete the remaining 2,225-mile voyage in 16 days. Now, nearly a week into resuming its journey, the ship has made it to its furthest distance yet, a little over halfway to America. 

The Mayflower's AI software runs on four computers containing Intel processors, six Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier GPUs, two Nvidia Jetson Xavier NX boards, and a few other chips. Live camera footage streaming from a webcam onboard the ship is back up online for viewers to follow. 

"We've made lots of improvements – the computer vision system has been significantly improved through at-sea testing, and similarly the data fusion algorithms are functioning better and better with every deployment and have greatly improved over the course of the past year," Brett Phaneuf, co-director of the Mayflower project and a former board member and president of ProMare, earlier told The Register in a statement.

"We've also improved many mechanical systems, particularly the air intake and exhaust for the generator on the hybrid drive line – and we've reduced power consumption significantly as well, over the past year, through applied research, testing and trials, and we've made the boat more robust in general." ®

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As such, leaks continue to slip out and so far they have been about the GeForce RTX 4090, with the most recent report suggesting that the card could be much better than what previous rumors had suggested.

Today, alleged specifications of the rest of the lineup are also out which include the GeForce RTX 4080, the RTX 4070, and finally, the RTX 4060.

The biggest jump in performance is expected from the top-dog RTX 4090 which is purported to pack 53% more CUDA cores compared to the RTX 3090. Pair that with potentially higher IPC or higher clocks on the upcoming Ada Lovelace architecture and the 4090 could even end up being nearly twice faster than its predecessor.

Meanwhile, the RTX 4080, 4070 and 4060 respectively feature 23% (10,752), 25% (7,680) and 28% (4,608) more CUDA cores compared to the RTX 3080, 3070 and 3060.

Note that image above which shows the alleged specifications of the upcoming Ada Lovelace RTX 40-series GPUs mislabels the memory interface bus width of the RTX 4060 as 192-bit. The card cannot have 8GB of VRAM with a 192-bit bus and instead it should be 128 bits wide.

The image above shows the purported total graphics power (TGP) figures of the Ada Lovelace graphics cards. While we already had some idea about the 4090's power draw, today we have the alleged TGP numbers for the RTX 4080, 4070 and 4060 too which are 350W, 300W, and 200W, respectively.

Source and images: 科技猎手 (Bilibili) via BullsLab Jay (Twitter)

Alleged specifications of Nvidia RTX 4090, 4080, 4070 and 4060 Ada Lovelace leak

When inquired about the matter, AMD had confirmed earlier to Paul Alcorn from Tom's Hardware that the 170W figure was indicating PPT and not TDP. This would imply that the maximum TDP for a Socket AM5 CPU could be ~125W.

In a recent interview with the PCWorld, AMD's Robert Hallock once again repeated this detail that the 170W figure was implying the PPT.

However, it looks like AMD had made a mistake perhaps due to some internal communication issue. The company has issued a new statement to Tom's Hardware and has confirmed this time that the 170W number is in fact TDP and not PPT. Here's what the AMD representative has stated:

AMD would like to issue a correction to the socket power and TDP limits of the upcoming AMD Socket AM5. AMD Socket AM5 supports up to a 170W TDP with a PPT up to 230W. TDP*1.35 is the standard calculation for TDP v. PPT for AMD sockets in the “Zen” era, and the new 170W TDP group is no exception (170*1.35=229.5).

This new TDP group will enable considerably more compute performance for high core count CPUs in heavy compute workloads, which will sit alongside the 65W and 105W TDP groups that Ryzen is known for today. AMD takes great pride in providing the enthusiast community with transparent and forthright product capabilities, and we want to take this opportunity to apologize for our error and any subsequent confusion we may have caused on this topic.

Like Socket AM4, which still has some life left as confirmed by AMD itself, the company also plans to make AM5 a multi-generation socket. Therefore, AMD explains that the 170W TDP will provide plenty of headroom for upcoming Ryzen generations for years to come. In fact, according to a leaked MSI slide, the upcoming Ryzen 7000 CPUs too could have SKUs featuring 170W TDP.

The slide also seems to confirm AMD's EXPO memory overclocking technology which had leaked earlier.

Source: Tom's Hardware via PCWorld (YouTube) | Image: Andreas Schiling (Twitter)

AMD issues correction statement regarding Ryzen 7000 170W TDP and PPT data

Are we on the verge of an 8K resolution breakthrough in gaming?

An Xbox Keystone concept inspired by Chromecast

As it turned out, Microsoft did not abandon Xbox Keystone. The company continues working on the idea of giving users a cheap device for streaming games from the cloud. In a statement to Windows Central, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that Xbox Keystone is in the works with some changes that pivoted the project away from its current iteration.

Our vision for Xbox Cloud Gaming is unwavering, our goal is to enable people to play the games they want, on the devices they want, anywhere they want. As announced last year, we’ve been working on a game-streaming device, codename Keystone, that could be connected to any TV or monitor without the need for a console.

As part of any technical journey, we are constantly evaluating our efforts, reviewing our learnings, and ensuring we are bringing value to our customers. We have made the decision to pivot away from the current iteration of the Keystone device. We will take our learnings and refocus our efforts on a new approach that will allow us to deliver Xbox Cloud Gaming to more players around the world in the future.

Windows Central speculates that Keystone might come to stores with a stripped version of Windows or Xbox OS. Such an approach would let Microsoft bundle the device with its services, such as Movies & TV.

Microsoft recently revealed that more than 10 million gamers use Xbox Cloud Streaming to play console games on smartphones, tablets, computers, and consoles. Xbox Keystone can make the service even more accessible to the masses.

Unfortunately, we do not know when Microsoft plans to announce and ship Xbox Keystone. The statement from a Microsoft spokesperson confirms that the company has already spent several years designing Keystone, and it keeps experimenting with various interactions and feature sets. That means you probably should not expect Microsoft to announce it during the upcoming Xbox and Bethesda Showcase event on June 12.

Microsoft confirms Keystone, a dedicated streaming device for Xbox Cloud Gaming

With Broadcom paying $61 billion for VMware, it makes it the second-largest acquisition this year after Microsoft agreed to buy Activision. The motive behind the purchase was that Broadcom wants to be “the world’s leading infrastructure technology company.”

Providing comment, Hock Tan, President and CEO of Broadcom, said:

“[T]his transaction combines our leading semiconductor and infrastructure software businesses with an iconic pioneer and innovator in enterprise software as we reimagine what we can deliver to customers as a leading infrastructure technology company. We look forward to VMware's talented team joining Broadcom, further cultivating a shared culture of innovation and driving even greater value for our combined stakeholders, including both sets of shareholders.”

The announcement said that the Broadcom Software Group will also rebrand and operate as VMware which will allow Broadcom’s infrastructure and security software to be used in the expanded VMware portfolio. Broadcom said that the transaction is expected to be completed in its 2023 fiscal year.

Broadcom to buy VMware for $61 billion, the second-largest deal agreed this year globally

After 30 years, the world can now play the lost Marble Madness II

In a paper published in the science journal Nature, a team of physicists from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands explained how they made a breakthrough in qubit teleportation.

We can say that quantum computers have been there some time now. In fact, Google has also achieved 'quantum supremacy' by doing an experiment on a quantum computer that is impossible on a traditional one. But quantum computers cannot reach their full potential without the magical powers of qubit teleportation, or the 'quantum internet'.

Quantum computers are fundamentally different from traditional computers. Just like a normal computer stores data in bits, a qubit is the basic measuring unit for quantum computers. However, this is where the similarity ends.

A binary bit is a boolean data type. This means that it can only have either zero as its value or one. A qubit, on the other hand, can have both the values at the same time. This is similar to how a coin behaves when it is tossed up - it has the values of both 'heads' and 'tails' at the same time before finally landing. A qubit can thus store substantially more information than a traditional bit. This means a single qubit can store two values, three qubits can store eight, four qubits can store 16 values and so on. As the number of qubits grow, the information they can store exponentially increases.

The physicists teleported data between three nodes. Previously, this was possible only between two. With this experiment, the scientists have indicated that qubit teleportation can be achieved between multiple sites. “We are now building small quantum networks in the lab,” said Ronald Hanson, the Delft physicist who oversees the team. “But the idea is to eventually build a quantum internet.”

Tracy Eleanor Northup, a researcher at the University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Experimental Physics who is also exploring quantum teleportation, said:

“This not only means that the quantum computer can solve your problem but also that it does not know what the problem is. It does not work that way today. Google knows what you are running on its servers.”

A quantum computer is able to generate a qubit because of the strange way particles behave when they are very small, like an electron or a light particle, or very cold, like an exotic metal cooled to nearly absolute zero kelvin (or -273.15°C and -459.67 °F).

Researchers believe that quantum computers can potentially speed up the development of new medicines, power advances in artificial intelligence and could even be used to create even more secure encryption technologies.

Since there is no conductive material between any nodes, quantum internet allows a reliable transfer between nodes even in the presence of highly lossy network connections, but without losing any actual data.

The way this works is by the quantum property of 'entanglement'. A change in the state of one quantum system instantaneously changes the other distant quantum system that is entangled. “After entanglement, you can no longer describe these states individually,” Dr. Northup said. “Fundamentally, it is now one system.”

Alice, the receiver of the teleported quantum information. Credits: Marieke de Lorijn for QuTech.

Dr. Hanson and his team used a nitrogen vacancy system. This is a tiny empty space in a synthetic diamond that can be used to trap electrons. The team built three of such systems - named Alice, Bob, and Charlie. The researchers first entangled two electrons belonging to Alice and Bob by sending individual photons (particles of light) to them. Both the electrons were given the same spin and thus, entangled them.

The researchers then transferred the state of the electron to a carbon nucleus inside Bob's synthetic diamond. This freed up Bob's electron using which they could entangle Charlie as well. By doing a quantum procedure, the researchers glued the two entanglements together - Alice and Bob with Bob and Charlie.

This allowed data to be directly teleported from Alice to Charlie since they were now entangled with each other. When data travels using qubit teleportation, it cannot be lost or even hampered with. This could potentially allow a theoretical level of encryption that would be impossible to decrypt.

Although the teleportation occurred between a mere distance of about 60 feet, scientists are hopeful that this can be done between many miles. Eventually, it could create a new network of quantum computers or quantum internet that is highly secure, safe and reliable.

Source: Nature via: Qutech

Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in data teleportation using "quantum internet"

Despite sporting the word "expansion", the Top Gun: Maverick expansion is a completely free update to the game, offering players ways to develop their piloting skills and fly just like real Top Gun pilots in authentic locations.

Three missions for training radical flight drills, "unrestricted take-offs, split S maneuvers, and low altitude, high-speed maneuvering through complex terrain" as well as five high-speed challenges that has players skirting mountain tops and diving through canyons are here with the update. There is also a challenge involving landing on a carrier deck, which is deemed a really challenging operation.

Moreover, the development team is teasing a "never-before-unveiled hypersonic aircraft" that is included in the free expansion. There is a small glimpse of it in the trailer above. While players will need to find it in-game for themselves, the unnamed aircraft is touted to reach speeds of up to Mach 10 and fly 150,000 feet above the sea level. It seems there is a mission attached to this mysterious aircraft too, which has its pilots reaching the stratosphere.

Tom Cruise isn't here to lead fans through the new challenges, but a special livery for the F/A-18E Super Hornet is available celebrating his role in the movie.

Microsoft Flight Simulator's new Top Gun: Maverick free expansion is now available across PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, as well as Xbox and PC Game Pass subscribers.

'Top Gun: Maverick' free expansion to Microsoft Flight Simulator is now out

Dyson has shown off a series of prototype robots it’s developing, and announced plans to hire hundreds of engineers over the next five years in order to build robots capable of household chores. The images are designed to show off the fine motor skills of the machines, with arms capable of lifting plates out of a drying rack, vacuuming a sofa, or lifting up a children’s toy.

The company, best known for its range of vacuum cleaners, says that it aims to develop “an autonomous device capable of household chores and other tasks,” with The Guardian noting that such a device could be released by 2030. It comes over half a decade after the company released its first robotic device, the Dyson 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner, in 2014. Dyson has long emphasized its interest in AI and robotics to underpin its future products.

Vacuuming an armchair. Image: Dyson

Another prototype shown handling plates. Image: Dyson

The announcement was made to coincide with the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Philadelphia, and serve as a recruitment tool with a prominent “Start your Dyson career” link placed near the top of Dyson’s press release. The company says it’s in the midst of the “largest engineering recruitment drive in its history.” It’s currently recruiting 250 robotics engineers with expertise in “computer vision, machine learning, sensors and mechatronics,” and hopes to hire 700 more over the next five years. Dyson says it’s already added 2,000 new employees to its workforce this year.

As well as making hires, the company is also building out what it hopes will be the UK’s largest robotics research center, The Guardian reports. The center will be based at Hullavington Airfield near the company’s existing design center in Malmesbury, Wiltshire, where it’s refitting an aircraft hanger where 250 roboticists will work. The site had previously been earmarked for development of Dyson’s electric car, before the project was canceled in 2019. Research will also take place in a lab in London, as well as at the company’s global headquarters in Singapore.

“This is a ‘big bet’ on future robotic technology that will drive research across the whole of Dyson, in areas including mechanical engineering, vision systems, machine learning and energy storage,” said Jake Dyson, the company’s chief engineer and son of company founder James Dyson. In 2020, Dyson announced plans to invest £2.75 billion (around $3.45 billion) in areas including robotics, new motor tech, and machine learning software by 2025. It plans to spend £600 million (around $750 million) of that investment this year.

Dyson eyes robots that can do your household chores

The new Asus ROG 500Hz G-SYNC gaming monitor is a 24" 1080p screen and it features an all-new kind of panel dubbed "Esports TN" or E-TN for short. According to Nvidia, the E-TN is designed for providing maximum motion clarity which is essential for very high framerate Esports gaming, which this monitor is primarily aimed at.

Other features in this new 500Hz ROG gaming monitor include NVIDIA G-SYNC Esports Mode and Nvidia Reflex Analyzer support. The former offers color vibrancy specifically tuned for fast-paced esports gaming and the latter provides a latency analysis toolset based on Nvidia's Reflex technology.

You can read about the other Computex 2022 announcements from Nvidia on its official blog post here.

Asus outs world's fastest 500Hz G-SYNC gaming monitor with new E-TN (Esports TN) panel

Microsoft announces a brand-new Arm-powered desktop PC and Arm-native dev tools

And although AM5 (LGA1718) is AMD's new socket with many features like DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, among others, the Santa Clara company also confirmed that the existing Socket AM4 will be around for a while as President Su stated during the Computex keynote presentation that "AM4 is a great platform that will continue for many years to come".

Although it isn't explicitly stated whether AMD will continue providing future AGESA and firmware updates for AM4, nor has the company promised new AM4-based CPUs today, there are other positives we can take away from this.

DDR5 memory is still very expensive compared to DDR4, and currently, the next-gen memory standard does not really offer much more than what we already have with DDR4. The speeds on DDR5 aren't high enough yet to justify the poor CAS latencies (CL) compared to DDR4 and outside of integrated graphics, the benefits of DDR5 currently make it a very poor value proposition for general usage.

Another benefit of AM4's longevity is the fact that users can also re-use their old coolers with a new AM5 socket as AMD has confirmed complete cooler compatibility between AM4 and AM5. This means that if someone gets an AM4 platform now in 2022 with a very expensive cooler, they can re-use that on a new AM5 platform in case they go for an upgrade.

Source: AMD (YouTube)

Computex 2022: AMD CEO Lisa Su confirms socket AM4 is far from dead yet