AMD seems to be attacking Intel in two of the most popular categories: gaming desktops and mainstream laptops geared towards professionals and students. The company will be rolling out a new chip codenamed “Mendocino”, which will power laptops and notebooks running Windows and Chrome OS. The Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) will pack the newer RDNA 2 GPU but will have CPU cores based on the slightly older Zen 2 cores.

Portable computers running Windows or Chrome OS are about to get a small but significant boost in processing efficiency. Notebooks in the $399 to $699 range could occasionally double as casual-gaming devices as well. The AMD Mendocino is set to replace quite a few AMD SoCs. More importantly, AMD is trying to offer a lot more value than the Ryzen 5300U chipset.

AMD is essentially offering a slightly newer generation of APUs (CPU and GPU on a single die) than the current chipsets based on the Picasso architecture. The AMD Mendocino will have Zen 2 cores, RDNA 2 GPU, and could max out at 4 Cores with 8 Threads (4C/8T).

AMD’s Mendocino is a small, efficient SoC for laptops that are designed to operate reliably and efficiently while being away from an AC power outlet. This could be the primary reason why the chipset is not packing the latest Zen 3 cores. Still, buyers should benefit from the integrated RDNA2 architecture GPU.

With the new chipset, AMD can provide a solution that is capable of fully accelerating the video encoding and decoding tasks needed mainly for video conferencing software. The new laptop SoC will work with LPDDR5 memory, which can be deployed in dual channel (64-bit) or quad-channel (128-bit) memory bus configurations.

AMD loyalists will quickly realize that the Mendocino chipset is a lot similar to AMD’s Aerith APU (codenamed Van Gogh), which powers the Valve’s Steam Deck handheld console. The only major difference between the two is that Aerith was made on TSMC’s 7nm process, while Mendocino is being built on TSMC's 6nm node.

Laptops with AMD Mendocino should start arriving right around the holiday shopping period. In fact, Lenovo Ideapad 1 could be the first laptop with the new SoC to hit the markets in Q4 2022.

AMD Mendocino Zen 2 APUs promise to offer powerful RDNA2 GPUs in budget laptops

Heatsinks are the default when it comes to keeping components cool on your PC and practically every other electronic device, but researchers may have found a way to chill your components without the use of these slotted hunks of metal. A report from Science Daily (via Tom’s Hardware) highlights a new, sleeker approach to cooling that involves coating the entirety of the device with poly and copper.

If you aren’t familiar with heatsinks, they’re typically made of copper or aluminum, two metals that serve as thermal conductors. They often come with several metal fins that pull and spread heat away from the essential components on your device to help prevent them from overheating. The heat then gets pushed out of the system with a nearby fan.

A group of researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Berkeley published a study in Nature Electronics that substitutes traditional heat sinks with “a conformal coating of copper” and “an electrical insulating layer of poly” that’s spread over the whole device.

The researchers say this method of cooling gives you “very similar performance, or even better performance” when compared to heatsinks. Since it also eliminates the need for a bulky piece of metal, this could save a ton of space inside electronic devices, which researchers claim can increase a device’s power per unit volume by up to 740 percent. “You can stack many more printed circuit boards in the same volume when you are using our coating, compared to if you are using conventional liquid- or air-cooled heat sinks,” the study explains.

The researchers are still evaluating the effectiveness of this coating and plan on testing it on power modules and graphics cards. It’s too early to tell whether this kind of technology would be something that PC part makers would precoat their components with or if you’d have to do it yourself.

If the coating does serve as a viable alternative to heatsinks, it could drastically change the appearance of electronics in ways that I really can’t even fathom. Maybe the coating could even kill the heatsink altogether. While I would kind of miss the funky shields manufacturers create to conceal the heatsinks on motherboards, its absence would probably make for even more creative freedom on the look and functionality of a range of components.

The heatsink may finally have a much more svelte competitor

According to a report from Puck, Electronic Arts has recently been pursuing the possibility of a merger with NBCUniversal, as well as holding potential acquisition talks with Disney, Apple, and other companies such as Amazon, however, no party seems interested in the deal just yet.

Despite its lack of success, Electronic Arts have reportedly been “persistent in pursuing a sale, and has only grown more emboldened in the wake of the Microsoft-Activision deal.” According to the Puck report, the potential acquisition with NBCUniversal was the furthest along, however, negotiations have reportedly fallen apart over price. 

As you may have noticed Electronic Arts seemingly hasn’t approached any major players in the gaming space such as Microsoft, Sony, Tencent, or Embracer Group. While Microsoft is likely out of the question as owning EA may be a step too close to becoming a monopoly for lawmakers’ tastes, it’s unknown why Electronic Arts have not approached any other parties. 

One potential reason for shying away from these gaming giants is EA’s hopes for continued independency, as reportedly “EA is primarily interested in a merger arrangement that would allow Wilson [Electronic Arts C.E.O. Andrew Wilson] to remain as chief executive of the combined company.”

For now, Electronic Arts have denied the ongoing speculation, stating to Kotaku “we don’t comment on rumors and speculation relating to M&A.”

“We are proud to be operating from a position of strength and growth, with a portfolio of amazing games, built around powerful IP, made by incredibly talented teams, and a network of more than half a billion players. We see a very bright future ahead.”

Electronic Arts is reportedly looking to be acquired

Google’s past failures were on full display at I/O 2022

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Could the sound of your voice reveal hidden heart problems? A new speech analysis app predicts worsening heart failure weeks before the onset of symptoms. The app, used by heart failure patients at home, recognizes fluid in the lungs an average of 21 days before an unplanned hospitalization or escalation in outpatient drug treatment.

“The current standard of care just isn’t good enough for keeping patients with heart failure well and out of the hospital,” explains study co-author William Abraham, of The Ohio State University, in a statement. “The system tested in this study was able to predict 80 per cent of worsening heart failure in advance, compared to a 10 to 20 per cent success rate for daily weight monitoring shown in previous studies. In the future, speech analysis, together with other clinical information, could be used to modify treatments before a patient’s condition deteriorates and thereby avoid hospital admission.”

Abraham explains that in patients with heart failure, the heart does not pump blood around the body as well as it should. Fluid is not eliminated properly by the kidneys and the excess fluid builds up in the lungs or legs. Lung congestion is a common cause of hospitalization, and can be life-threatening.

Currently, lung congestion is monitored by asking patients to weigh themselves every day and report any substantial gain. Patients are also requested to report worsening symptoms such as shortness of breath, needing to elevate the head at night to breath comfortably and sleep, and swelling in the feet or ankles.

The study included 180 patients with heart failure taking guideline-recommended medications. At the beginning of the study the participants recorded five sentences on a standard smartphone using the voice analysis app. During the study period, every morning before breakfast patients recorded the same five sentences using the app.

The app compared each day’s recordings with the original versions and alerted research staff when it detected lung congestion. “The system sets a baseline for each individual patient during a period of stability,” says Abraham. “It then detects changes in speech over time that indicate fluid in the lungs.”

The researchers examined whether the lung congestion alerts predicted heart failure events, defined as at least one worsening symptom which led to hospitalization or escalation in outpatient drug treatment. They did so by comparing the date of the alert with the dates of subsequent heart failure events. “True alerts” were those issued within a 31-day window before the heart failure event. “False alerts” were those issued outside of the 31-day window prior to an event.

Professor Abraham notes that a “true alert” would continue to be issued daily until the heart failure event occurred.

“In this study, the alerts were not acted upon by clinicians since the aim was to determine the diagnostic performance of the tool. In real life, notifications would be sent to the patient’s physician until it was responded to,” he explains. “Here we followed patients longitudinally for worsening heart failure events and then looked to see if there was an alert prior to that event – i.e. a ‘true alert’. If there was no alert then the system failed to predict the event. Alerts not followed by a worsening heart failure event were ‘false alerts.’”

During the study, patients provided recordings for an average of 512 days. A total of 49 heart failure events occurred in 37 patients, of which 80 percent were correctly predicted by the app and 20 percent were missed. True alerts were issued an average of 21 days before worsening symptoms. Each patient received a false alert every 4.8 months on average, resulting in an average of 2.5 erroneous warnings each year.

“In this community-based study, a voice analysis app was able to predict most cases of worsening heart failure well in advance, with very few false alarms. Weight gain and symptoms occur too late to allow medical interventions that keep patients out of the hospital,” says Abraham. “Future studies will investigate whether changing patient management following an alert, for example by increasing the diuretic dose to get rid of excess fluid, can prevent hospitalizations.”

The findings were presented at Heart Failure 2022, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in Madrid, Spain.

Source

This fall, AMD is planning a clean break with the past, and it thinks your need for speed might convince you to do the same. Today at Computex 2022, the company revealed the key facets of its next-generation Ryzen 7000 desktop CPUs, their Zen 4 architecture, and — for the first time in five years — a brand-new kind of motherboard you’ll need to buy. While even some of the company’s oldest AM4 motherboards can be updated to support its latest Ryzen 5000-series desktop CPUs, the upcoming Ryzen 7000 requires AM5.

As the company told us in January, the Ryzen 7000 are the first PC chips based on a 5nm process, and the AM5 motherboard platform is designed to support DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 out of the box.

But there’s a fifth “five” in the mix: AMD says Ryzen 7000 chips will be able to boost north of 5GHz, the first desktop chips from the company to do so. AMD showed off a 5.5GHz clockspeed during its Computex presentation while playing Ghostwire: Tokyo, matching the 5.5GHz turbo of Intel’s Core i9-12900KS. Not that megahertz mean much for performance in isolation — both Intel and AMD have many laptop chips that can turbo to 5GHz too, and that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re faster at tasks than a lower-clocked desktop CPU.

AMD CEO Lisa Su holds up a Ryzen 7000. Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

What should actually make a difference: between increased clockspeed and generation-on-generation process improvements, Zen 4 will also have “greater than 15 percent” faster single-threaded performance than Zen 3 (single-thread still being the most important metric for many apps, particularly games). The new chips might also have higher power consumption, though: the new AM5 motherboards can now give the chips up to 170W of power, up from a reported 142W previously.

Image: AMD

Under the unusual rook-shaped lid of a Ryzen 7000, you’ll still see three chiplets: two 5nm Zen 4 CPU modules, and also a new 6nm I/O die that has now integrated RDNA 2 graphics, DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 controllers, and built-in power management. Intriguingly, AMD marketing director Robert Hallock says every single Ryzen 7000 chip will have some amount of those integrated graphics, so you’ll only need a video card if you need the additional muscle for work or gaming. Integrated graphics aren’t exactly rare on either Intel or AMD desktop CPUs, but it hasn’t been a guarantee.

Another guarantee: at least one speedy PCIe 5.0 NVMe storage slot will be standard on every AM5 motherboard tier that AMD’s announcing today, including the new X670 Extreme, X670 and even the more affordable B650 (note we don’t have any actual prices yet). AMD says it’s already seeing 60 percent faster improvements in sequential read speed, the kind of thing that might give us the mythical 1-second game load times that Microsoft’s DirectStorage promises (but won’t necessarily deliver on day one).

Image: AMD

PCIe Gen 5 graphics support isn’t guaranteed, it depends on the tier: you’re sure to get it with an X670 Extreme motherboard, it’s optional for OEMs to included it on an X670, and you definitely won’t get it with a B650, where your long x16 PCIe slot will be PCIe Gen 4 instead.

Regardless of tier, AM5 is offering 24 lanes of PCIe 5.0 bandwidth, and says these motherboards will have up to 14 USB 3.x ports (I suspect AMD doesn’t specify which standard because the official naming is a mess), some of which will support 20Gbps and USB-C. You also get up to four display outputs on your motherboard itself, and manufacturers can outfit them with HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.

A handful of the first AM5 motherboards. Image: AMD

Will also this be enough to tempt enthusiasts and gamers away from AMD’s existing AM4 platform, which was so successful at luring so many of them away from Intel? Hard to say, but it’s also hard to fault AMD for moving on. The company made five different CPU architectures fit into the AM4 socket over the past five years, instead of asking all those CPU buyers to add a new motherboard, and even now it’s pledging to continue support. “We want to keep AM4 going into the future so people can continue to benefit from this amazing platform,” says Hallock.

And you won’t have to give away all your AM4 gear if you’re upgrading to an AM5 desktop PC: AMD designed the new socket and chip to work just fine with existing AM4 CPU coolers.

AMD’s not talking about specific chips you can buy today, but says it’ll be trickling out more details over the summer ahead of the fall release.

AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs will break the 5GHz barrier — and require a new motherboard

From the name itself it is quite obvious that the feature is related to some sort of storage boosting. Earlier, when it leaked for the first time, we speculated that it may be based on Microsoft's DirectStorage API. AMD today has confirmed our speculation and has also added that alongside DirectStorage, the company is also utilizing its own Smart Access Memory tech to offer GPU asset decompression that will immensely improve game load times and texture streaming efficiency.

Here's how AMD describes its new SmartAccess Storage technology:

AMD SmartAccess Storage

SmartAccess Storage gets you out of the load screen and into your gameplay

Traditional game loading takes a significant amount of compute power to decompress the game’s data, requiring the CPU to do the decompression and data transfer, which introduces latency and takes up considerable system resources

To help bypass these bottlenecks, AMD has created SmartAccess Storage, a suite of technologies supporting Microsoft DirectStorage that utilizes Smart Access Memory™8 with new AMD platform technologies along with Radeon GPU asset decompression to improve both game load times and texture streaming

You can find all of our AMD Computex 2022 product presentation coverage at this link.

AMD SmartAccess Storage marries Microsoft DirectStorage with Smart Access Memory

AMD's Computex 2022 keynote presentation is nearly upon us and as such, leaks about some of the upcoming product announcements have been trickling out with a steady flow. A few hours ago, we learned about the alleged performance details of the next-gen Zen 4 architecture alongside upcoming Ryzen 7000 CPUs. And now, details regarding the Socket AM5 (LGA1718) chipsets have also leaked.

So far, we have learned that AMD is introducing an all-new X670E flagship chipset which will be a new addition to the Ryzen chipset family. There is some interesting development around this new chipset alongside X670 as these two premium motherboard offerings will pack dual-chipsets.

With today's leak, we now know about the extent of PCIe support these upcoming AM5 motherboards will offer. According to the leak, courtesy of VideoCardz, AMD is bringing full PCIe 5.0 support on the X670E and X670 platform, though the company seems to clearly note that the support for PCI Gen5 on X670E is much more broader than just graphics and storage.

However, the mainstream B650 chipset will only support PCIe 5.0 for just storage and apparently PCIe Gen5 graphics cards won't be supported. There is no information on the entry-level A620 now and it is unlikely to support PCIe 5.0 either for storage or for graphics.

While PCIe 5.0 graphics cards are yet to become commonplace as even some of the upcoming GPUs like Nvidia Ada Lovelace don't purportedly support it, it can become a problem for users who want to hold on to their B650 motherboards for a long time.

Source and image: VideoCardz

Computex 2022: AMD AM5 chipset leak reveals limited PCIe 5.0 GPU support

Computex is just hours away and will feature keynotes from some of the biggest names in tech, including AMD, Nvidia, and Microsoft. There will almost certainly be some exciting announcements from each brand, but since Computex takes place in Taipei, Taiwan, the keynotes don’t occur at the most convenient times (at least for those of us in North America).

Microsoft and AMD’s keynotes will have you staying up into the wee hours of the morning tonight, while Nvidia’s keynote doesn’t take place until late tomorrow evening. Here’s how and when to tune into each keynote:

How to watch AMD’s keynote

AMD CEO Lisa Su is set to speak in a keynote titled “AMD Advancing the High-Performance Computing Experience,” which is set to highlight AMD’s latest innovations in laptop and desktop performance. The chip company is rumored to reveal Ryzen 7000 series desktop CPUs that use the new Zen 4 core architecture, as well as its X670E, X670, and B650 motherboards that support the next-gen AM5 platform.

You can watch the keynote on YouTube when it goes live early tomorrow morning on Monday, May 23rd at 2AM ET, 11PM PT, or 2PM local time in Taipei. If you’re unsure what time that is for where you live, you can check out this handy time conversion chart AMD posted to Twitter.

How to watch Nvidia’s keynote

Nvidia’s keynote will feature six different speakers, including Ian Buck, the company’s vice president of accelerated computing; Jeff Fisher, the senior vice president of GeForce; and Michael Kagan, the CTO of Nvidia. The keynote is set to cover a range of topics, such as accelerated computing, gaming, content creation, and data center solutions.

You can watch the keynote from Nvidia’s YouTube livestream tomorrow night, May 23rd at 11PM ET / 8PM PT, or 11AM on local Taipei time.

How to watch Microsoft’s keynote

Microsoft’s keynote includes a talk from Panos Panay, the chief product officer behind Windows and Microsoft Surface devices, as well as Nicole Dezen, Microsoft’s corporate vice president. The keynote is simply titled “A Conversation About Windows 11 with Panos Panay and Nicole Dezen.”

You can watch the 30-minute keynote from YouTube early tomorrow morning on May 23rd at 3:30AM ET / 12:30AM PT, or 3:30PM local time in Taipei.

How to watch AMD, Nvidia, and Microsoft’s Computex 2022 keynotes

And with the announcement now less than a day away, today we have information about the final piece of the puzzle, the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series CPUs themselves, courtesy of VideoCardz.

According to the report, AMD's Zen 4 CPUs are allegedly going to feature a 15% instructions per cycle (IPC) bump. This is lower than earlier leaked numbers that have suggested an 18% IPC improvement. However, just like the previous report, the frame of reference of comparison isn't available here which means it's not confirmed what the 15% gain is being compared to. The 15% IPC could be against Zen 3 (Ryzen 5000), Zen 3+ (Ryzen 6000) or Zen3D (Ryzen 7 5800X3D). The L2 cache size has also been doubled.

The chip package will consist of two 5nm Zen 4 core chiplets and a 6nm IO die. Interestingly, the report suggests that RDNA 2 integrated graphics will also be present on-board, which is a little strange as AMD has generally launched non-APU desktop parts first. The Ryzen 7000 Raphael CPUs are slated for launch "this fall".

Also with Ryzen 7000 series, AMD will be pushing clock frequencies past 5GHz for the first time with Ryzen. Apparently AM5 is designed to take upto 170W TDP processors and this could be one of the reasons why AMD has designed its new X670E chipset. However, the report notes that 170W SKUs aren't mentioned for the upcoming Ryzen 7000 CPUs so it may be a while before we see such a behemoth as AM5, just like AM4, will probably be a multi-generation platform.

Source and image: VideoCardz

Alleged AMD 5nm Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) details leak early, 5+GHz clocks, 15% IPC boost

source: Microsoft Bing

Microsoft believes it has the answer for that. Turing Image Super Resolution is using AI to enhance images. Already used on Bing Maps and currently being rolled out to some Microsoft Edge Canary users, Microsoft believes that its technology will do away with bad and low resolution images everywhere in the future.

The ultimate mission for the Turing Super-Resolution effort is to turn any application where people view, consume or create media into an “HD” experience. We are closely working with key teams across Microsoft to explore how to achieve that vision in more places and on more devices.

Microsoft published a blog post on the official Microsoft Bing blog in which the company explains the technology. Several before and after photos are provided to highlight the changes that Turing-ISR made to the original photos. The thumbnail images that Microsoft posted lack quality, and it is necessary to open the images or save them to the local system to compare the full resolution versions against each other.

When you do, you may notice that Turing Image Super Resolution is capable of performing different operations on source images. Besides improving the resolution of images right away, it may also improve the clarity of images or enhance images in other ways.

source: Microsoft Bing

Microsoft is using the new technology on Bing Maps' aerial imagery feature already. Microsoft states that it has rolled out the functionality to "most of the world's land area" already, and that 98% of side-by-side test users preferred the enhanced imagery over the originals.

Some Microsoft Edge Canary users are already seeing image enhancements in the browser. Microsoft does not provide details on the implementation in Edge at this time, but explains, that it is using content distribution networks for enhanced images to avoid having to process images repeatedly.

The company's goal is to turn "Microsoft Edge into the best browser for viewing images on the web" according to the blog post.

The technical part of the blog post provides details on the model, including on how it cleans, enhances and scales images. The improvements work on all kinds of images, including images with text.

Closing Words

Improved image qualities of low quality images appears to be something that most Internet users would welcome. The implementation matters: is the functionality enabled all the time? what about on/off switches or exceptions? what about Telemetry and connections to Microsoft controlled CDNs whenever these images are displayed in the browser?

Now You: do you find AI image enhancements on the Web and elsewhere useful?

Microsoft Turing Image Super Resolution promises to do away with low-res images everywhere

Updates for Windows 10 and Windows 11

The highlight of this section is that Microsoft has announced that Windows 11 is now ready for broad deployment. This basically means that the OS is now available for all eligible users to update to and is no longer being rolled out in a staggered manner.

Insider channels for Windows 11 received some updates this week too. Build 25120 was released to the Dev Channel with the main features being a search widget - that does not respect your browser preferences - on the desktop and support for ARM64 PCs. This was followed up by build 25120.1010 (KB5015039) in the same channel but that was just a servicing update with nothing new being added. If you're on the Dev Channel, you'll also notice updated dialog boxes for Windows Shut Down and WinRE.

Meanwhile, Release Preview users were treated to build 22000.706 with Windows Spotlight on the desktop, an improved Family Safety verification experience, and a bunch of bug fixes.

On the other hand, if you're experiencing BSODs on the generally available version of Windows 11, that may be due to faulty drivers that are necessary for third-party anti-virus solutions, claims Sophos. Microsoft is yet to corroborate the cybersecurity company's findings.

But coming over to some Windows update shenanigans now too. Earlier this week, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) discouraged federal bodies from installing the latest Patch Tuesday updates on Domain Controllers. This is because the May update caused authorization failures. This forced Microsoft to roll out an out-of-band (OOB) update to fix the problem. Meanwhile, if you are an IT admin testing Windows Server vNext, there is a new build labeled 25120 (the same as the latest Windows 11 Dev Channel release), but as usual, there's no changelog.

Windows Server wasn't the only SKU to receive an OOB update, though. Microsoft released the same for the client (and server) version of Windows 10 to mitigate a problem that caused Microsoft Store app installs to fail on select Intel and AMD CPUs. Find out more details here.

Microsoft Teams in the store

Microsoft Teams finally made its debut in the Microsoft Store this week. The Windows 10 version works as expected, in the sense that it allows you to utilize Teams with personal, work, or school accounts. However, since Windows 11 already has integrations with the Teams Chat app for personal accounts, the Microsoft Store version only allows signing in from a work or school account. This is a bit annoying, to be honest.

However, some other customers are not so happy with their favorite apps being moved to the Microsoft Store. There has been significant backlash from IT admins following the announcement of Quick Assist's migration. For those unaware, this is Microsoft's in-house remote assistance app.

But if you're on Windows 11 and use Windows Subsystem for Android (WSA) downloaded from the Microsoft Store, you'll be happy to know that the implementation received a major update this week. This brought in support for Android 12.1, advanced networking configurations, an improved Settings app, and enhancement to Windows integration, among many other things.

And if you are a developer who publishes Edge extensions to Microsoft's storefront, you should know that you now have the ability to respond directly to customer reviews through the Microsoft Partner Center.

One Outlook

Following a bunch of leaks in the past few months, Microsoft finally made its One Outlook (codenamed Project Monarch) app available for testing. It is currently available for Office Insiders in the Beta Channel Version 2205 (Build 15225.20000) on Windows. The redesigned app doesn't have feature parity with the existing version but it does offer some new capabilities. These include integration with Microsoft Loop components, a board view for Calendar, a clearer RSVP mechanism, and a To Do list. In the same vein, Microsoft is also working on a capability that will allow Outlook for Mac users to "react" to emails.

While we are on the subject of features and apps that have not been generally released yet, you might also want to know about an upcoming app called "Designer". Details are scarce right now but it appears to be a standalone app that borrows functionalities from the component of the same name in PowerPoint. We'll likely hear more on this front soon.

And if the lengthy context menus in Edge are bothering you, fret not, as Microsoft is on the case. The company says that it is already planning around addressing some UI and UX changes in the Canary channel, and these will likely make their way to the Stable channel once they have been thoroughly tested. Other areas Microsoft is working on include better ways to close tabs, respecting the default PDF viewer, and enhancements to tools managing audio and video autoplay.

Git gud

We will kick off our gaming section with news about the second wave of titles hitting Xbox Game Pass this month. The latest selection include Jurassic World Evolution 2, Her Story, Sniper Elite 5, Skate, Cricket 22, and more. Touch controls have also been added to some games but there are others that are leaving the service too. Catch up on all the details here.

Meanwhile, Games with Gold subscribers can now claim The Inner World – The Last Wind Monk for Xbox One and Viva Piñata Party Animals for Xbox 360. The former can be claimed for free until June 15 while the latter is up for grabs until May 31.

And if you're looking to grow your Xbox backlog at a discount, look no further than our latest Deals with Gold article. The highlights this time around are primarily for the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty franchises.

But if you don't have money to spare for gaming at the moment and would still like to try out some new games, you'll be happy to know that PGA Tour 2K21, State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition, and SnowRunner free to play via Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate this weekend.

Finally, Microsoft Flight Simulator World Update IX has newly modeled cities for further upgrading those Italy and Malta, handcrafted airports, new activities for simmers, and more.

Dev Channel

• Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability offers tools to track and measure carbon output
• Ryzen PCs with Windows 11 might be able to leverage faster Wi-Fi in the future
• Bill Gates uses a foldable phone, but it's not a Surface Duo
• Surface Duo 2 has received the May firmware update
• OneNote preview for Android has a revamped home page

Under the spotlight

This week, News Reporter Taras Buria wrote a massive guide on what you can expect to see in the next feature update to Windows 11, which is version 22H2. Frankly, there is a lot to unpack so your best bet is to just give Taras' piece a read-through here.

In a related stream, Taras also wrote a guide on how you can uninstall Windows 11 updates. There can be multiple reasons to do this, with the primary one being a botched update. In times like these, it is important to have a guide like this one handy.

Also, remember we talked about the latest Dev Channel build featuring a new search widget on the desktop? Check out Taras' guide here about how you can enable or disable it.

And while we are on this topic, it's important to remember that widgets in Windows 10 and 11 don't respect your default browser preferences. This includes the new desktop search widget too. So if you'd like to use the browser of your choice with these services, find out how to do so by reading Neowin co-founder Steven Parker's guide on the topic here.

Logging off

Our most interesting news item of this week is related to Windows 11 and Microsoft Teams' security struggling against white hat hackers at Pwn2Own 2022. On the first day of the event, the security of these software was breached multiple times with contestants netting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Microsoft as rewards. On the second day, Windows 11 fared a bit better and was able to prevent one out of two exploitations attempted on it. All in all, it is important to remember that events like these are good for consumers at the end of the day as vendors work more rigorously towards fixing security holes in their products.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 updates, Teams in the store, and One Outlook

Today, images of a Socket AM5 motherboard PCB blueprint showing what appears to be dual chipsets has leaked. The diagram belongs to an Asus PRIME X670P WIFI model, and it also seems to confirm reports that the dual chipsets will not only be on the new flagship X670E chipset, but also on the familiar X670.

You can view the PCB blueprint diagram of the Asus PRIME X670-P WIFI board below. The dual chipsets are indicated by the black circles pointed towards at by two white arrows. The chipset supplier is reportedly AMD's long-time partner ASMedia, but this has not been confirmed at the moment. It is also not known what kind of benefits and features this dual-chipset design will bring to AM5.

The diagram also shows four DIMM DDR5 memory slots, an Asus logo, the AM5 LGA1718 socket itself, and a robust VRM phase design, among various other electronic components.

Source and image: Baidu via HXL (Twitter)

Leaked X670 AM5 motherboard image shows not one but two chipsets

Graphyne has long been of interest to scientists because of its similarities to the "wonder material" graphene—another form of carbon that is highly valued by industry whose research was even awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010. However, despite decades of work and theorizing, only a few fragments have ever been created before now.

This research, announced last week in Nature Synthesis, fills a longstanding gap in carbon material science, potentially opening brand-new possibilities for electronics, optics and semiconducting material research.

"The whole audience, the whole field, is really excited that this long-standing problem, or this imaginary material, is finally getting realized," said Yiming Hu, lead author on the paper and 2022 doctoral graduate in chemistry.

Scientists have long been interested in the construction of new or novel carbon allotropes, or forms of carbon, because of carbon's usefulness to industry, as well as its versatility.

There are different ways carbon allotropes can be constructed depending on how sp2, sp3 and sp hybridized carbon (or the different ways carbon atoms can bind to other elements), and their corresponding bonds, are utilized. The most well-known carbon allotropes are graphite (used in tools like pencils and batteries) and diamonds, which are created out of sp2 carbon and sp3 carbon, respectively.

Using traditional chemistry methods, scientists have successfully created various allotropes over the years, including fullerene (whose discovery won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996) and graphene.

However, these methods don't allow for the different types of carbon to be synthesized together in any sort of large capacity, like what's required for graphyne, which has left the theorized material—speculated to have unique electron conducting, mechanical and optical properties—to remain that: a theory.

But it was also that need for the nontraditional that led those in the field to reach out to Wei Zhang's lab group.

Zhang, a professor of chemistry at CU Boulder, studies reversible chemistry, which is chemistry that allows bonds to self-correct, allowing for the creation of novel ordered structures, or lattices, such as synthetic DNA-like polymers.

After being approached, Zhang and his lab group decided to give it a try.

Creating graphyne is a "really old, long-standing question, but since the synthetic tools were limited, the interest went down," Hu, who was a Ph.D. student in Zhang's lab group, commented. "We brought out the problem again and used a new tool to solve an old problem that is really important."

Using a process called alkyne metathesis—which is an organic reaction that entails the redistribution, or cutting and reforming, of alkyne chemical bonds (a type of hydrocarbon with at least one carbon-carbon triple covalent bond)—as well as thermodynamics and kinetic control, the group was able to successfully create what had never been created before: A material that could rival the conductivity of graphene but with control.

"There's a pretty big difference (between graphene and graphyne) but in a good way," said Zhang. "This could be the next generation wonder material. That's why people are very excited."

While the material has been successfully created, the team still wants to look into the particular details of it, including how to create the material on a large scale and how it can be manipulated.

"We are really trying to explore this novel material from multiple dimensions, both experimentally and theoretically, from atomic-level to real devices," Zhang said of next steps.

These efforts, in turn, should aid in figuring out how the material's electron-conducting and optical properties can be used for industry applications like lithium-ion batteries.

"We hope in the future we can lower the costs and simplify the reaction procedure, and then, hopefully, people can really benefit from our research," said Hu.

For Zhang, this never could have been accomplished without the support of an interdisciplinary team, adding: "Without the support from the physics department, without some support from colleagues, this work probably couldn't be done."

Source

However, with its latest available 12th Gen Alder Lake P series mobile chips, it is found that the Core i7 parts are getting outperformed by the i5 counterparts. The report comes from NotebookCheck which has found this in its testing. Although the results for the Alder Lake P Core i5-1240P in a Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro 14. The site notes:

After we took a closer look at the new Intel Core i7-1260P, we had the chance to review more new laptops with Intel’s new mobile CPUs and some of the results are surprising. We were worried that the actual performance only depends on the TDP configuration of each laptop and we were correct. Intel only specifies the maximum TDP power, so there can be massive performance differences even between two identical CPUs. The result so far is that the Core i5-1240P in the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 Pro 14 (review will be published end of next week) is the most powerful Alder Lake-P chip we tested so far ahead of the Core i7-1260P and Core i7-1270P.

While in a way people buying i5 laptops will be elated, those who purchase an Alder Lake P Core i7 will be sorely disappointed if they come to know their more expensive device gets smashed by another cheaper i5-based PC and this is in a way misleading. In this regard the report remarks:

 It is also a problem for customers, because a Core i5 can be more powerful than a Core i7 and there can be massive performance differences in general.

The issue seems to arise out of the fact that the Intel Alder Lake P parts have high base and boost clocks and the i5-1240P in the Yoga Slim Pro 14 was seen gobbling up the entire 64W turbo power limit (PL2) provided by Intel. This means the higher i7 models have no more headroom to spread their legs and in devices that are calibrated for lower TDPs, the i5 will surely be better. Higher than 64W TDP designs are also highly unlikely in UP3 form factor compact devices that these Alder Lake P chips aim for.

For the Core i7 laptops to shine, the Alder Lake H lineup is probably the best place to start which offers up to a 115W PL2. Meanwhile, for the Core i9 laptop chips, the newest Alder Lake HX are probably suitable which take the PL2 all the way up to 157W.

The company also has Alder Lake U9 (PL1 = 9W) and Alder Lake U15 (PL1 = 15W) lineups and if the Alder Lake P is any indication, it is likely that the i7 processors will be held back in the U-series notebooks too, unless they have loads of power and temperature headroom available.

Source: NotebookCheck

Source

Created in the lab of Chemist Xavier Roy, CrSBr is a so-called van der Waals crystal that can be peeled into stackable, 2D layers that are just a few atoms thin. Unlike related materials that are quickly destroyed by oxygen and water, CrSBr crystals are stable at ambient conditions. These crystals also maintain their magnetic properties at the relatively high temperature of -280F, avoiding the need for expensive liquid helium cooled to a temperature of -450F,

"CrSBr is infinitely easier to work with than other 2D magnets, which lets us fabricate novel devices and test their properties," said Evan Telford, a postdoc in the Roy lab who graduated with a PhD in physics from Columbia in 2020. Last year, colleagues Nathan Wilson and Xiaodong Xu at the University of Washington and Xiaoyang Zhu at Columbia found a link between magnetism and how CrSBr responds to light. In the current work, Telford led the effort to explore its electronic properties.

The team used an electric field to study CrSBr layers across different electron densities, magnetic fields, and temperatures—different parameters that can be adjusted to produce different effects in a material. As electronic properties in CrSBr changed, so did its magnetism.

"Semiconductors have tunable electronic properties. Magnets have tunable spin configurations. In CrSBr, these two knobs are combined," said Roy. "That makes CrSBr attractive for both fundamental research and for potential spintronics application."

Magnetism is a difficult property to measure directly, particularly as the size of the material shrinks, explained Telford, but it's easy to measure how electrons move with a parameter called resistance. In CrSBr, resistance can serve as a proxy for otherwise unobservable magnetic states. "That's very powerful," said Roy, especially as researchers look to one day build chips out of such 2D magnets, which could be used for quantum computing and to store massive amounts of data in a small space.

The link between the material's electronic and magnetic properties was due to defects in the layers—for the team, a lucky break, said Telford. "People usually want the 'cleanest' material possible. Our crystals had defects, but without those, we wouldn't have observed this coupling," he said.

From here, the Roy lab is experimenting with ways to grow peelable van der Waals crystals with deliberate defects, to improve the ability to fine-tune the material's properties. They are also exploring whether different combinations of elements could function at higher temperatures while still retaining those valuable combined properties.

Source

From years we have known, the more the CPU cache the better.

CPU caches are like mini-RAM, directly and quickly accessible by the CPU, without it needing to use the long route of contacting the RAM for information requiring quick processing. This is because the CPU caches are installed right on the processor, so to speak.

Because of lesser headroom inside a CPU processor, the size of the CPU caches are quite small – in double-digit megabytes. Compared that to RAM, which come in double-digit gigabytes. Still, caches play a huge role in the CPU speeds because of how close they are to the CPU.

Types of caches

Basically, there are three types of caches. L1, the fastest and the smallest. L2, slightly slower but bigger. Then there’s L3 cache with is the slowest of all three but also the largest one. In spite of being larger than other caches, L3 is still faster than RAM chips.

Over the years, processor manufacturers have tried to increase the cache, knowing that doing so has direct benefits in certain workloads like in gaming performance.

AMD leads the way

Just a month ago, AMD released Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor with 3D stacked 96 MB L3 cache. AMD used a special technology which it called 3D V-Cache. In it, AMD stacked 64 MB cache on top of 32 MB L3 cache, equalling 96 MB L3 cache in total.

Benchmarks showed that while the 5800X3D couldn’t beat some other processors in raw power, the $449 processor defeated all the competition in gaming performance, including Intel’s most Core i9-12900KS priced at $739.

This by no means was a small feat. An above mid-range processor defeated a flagship competitor in gaming performance.

All this happened due to the higher cache in Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which AMD marketed as a gaming CPU.

If AMD could beat Intel using more cache, then why should Intel stay behind.

Intel Alder Lake

The current 12th generation Intel processors named Alder Lake are no joke. They are defeating the resurgent AMD (with its Ryzen line of processors) with some margins. It’s after years that Intel gave us something so powerful with such a good increase in performance.

It’s important to remind that Intel 12th gen Alder Lake came with multiple powerful performance cores (P-cores) and power saver cores (E-cores). Which is something common now in smartphone processors, but entirely a new thing in desktop processors.

However, with Ryzen 7 5800X3D, Intel probably risks losing some fame with the race for the fastest gaming CPU around. Looks like Intel finally has an answer.

Intel readying CPU with higher cache

A famous Twitter based leaker OneRaichu has posted an interesting screenshot which suggests that the next generation of Intel processors, named Raptor Lake, might come with higher cache count.

As per the screenshots, the processor is expected to have 2 MB of L1 cache, 32 MB of L2 cache and 36 MB of L3 cache. With L1 and L2 distributed among all the cores respectively.

This, if it turns out to be true, is going to be massive. No other consumer processor in the market has such a big L2 cache. Intel Core i9-12900KS for example comes with 16 MB L2 cache, compared to just 8 MB which AMD Ryzen 9 5950X offers. Both of them being top of the line processors of both the companies respectively. Even AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D has just 4 MB of L2 cache.

As far as the rumored Intel processor is concerned, when combined with 2 MB L1 cache and 38 MB L3 cache, the total CPU might reach 70 MB. Which itself is not a small thing, either.

Importance of larger L2 cache

Simply put, L2 cache can be anywhere 3 to 4 times faster than L3 cache. So a larger L2 cache is quite important.

Unlike AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, which showed gains mostly in gaming due to higher L3 cache, Intel’s L2 cache increase might have a different outcome.

Intel processors with it larger L2 cache will perform nicely on all fronts.

However, the problem here is that in real world usage, as the L1 and L2 caches are distributed with per core, the software and games which utilize higher cores would be the ones which actually benefit from it. Which actually isn’t an issue as these days they are better optimized for higher cores. But real world software and games are unlike benchmarking software, which are designed to utilize everything given to it.

Model numbers, pricing, launch dates and features

We expect the above higher cached CPU processor to be Core i9-13900 and it’s variants like Core i9-13900K and Core i9-13900KS, Core i9-13900F, Core i9-13900KF and the likes.

Pricing is likely to be around $500 to $750. But there’s no proper information yet.

Intel Raptor Lake processors are expected to release by later this year. Rivaling AMD’s Zen 4 line of Ryzen 7000 series processors, which too are set to release later this year.

While AMD Ryzen 7000 series is stated to support only DDR5 RAM, some rumors suggest that Intel might continue to support both DDR4 and ultra-expensive DDR5 RAM too.

Either way. Making faster processors is getting harder day by day. So innovative ideas like higher cache size, among other things, is the best way going forward in the world of processors.

Title image credit: Intel Corporation.

Average rating 5 / 5. Vote count: 2

Next-Gen Intel Processors Might Come With 32 MB L2 Cache

In a YouTube video that was meant to be published after AMD's Computex announcement (preview no longer available as the video has been made private), the motherboard vendor seems to have confirmed that the X670E is going to be the most capable AM5 chipset, even more than X670.

The description of the video seems to suggest that the X670E Taichi will be the flagship AM5 offering from the company alongside a special edition X670E Taichi Carrara motherboard to celebrate the 20th birthday of ASRock.

ASRock reveals a series of motherboards based on the revolutionary AMD X670 chipset. The new motherboards are equipped with many exciting features and new technology

[...]

the X670E Taichi, it is the most powerful AM5 product ASRock can offer

Though the video is no longer available, you can view a screenshot of what appears to be a X670E or X670 Taichi Carrara.

While at first glance it may be difficult to ascertain whether this is an Intel or an AMD board as both the companies are now going to be LGA (AM5 is LGA1718), the Taichi symbol on the chipset heatsink is clearly visible in the image, alongside the letter "T" and a small section of "A" from the word Taichi.

The video thumbnail also advertises the upcoming audio features on the Taichi X670E motherboard. The board will feature Realtek ALC4082 audio codec and ESS SABRE9218 DAC chip.

Source: COMPUTEX V (YouTube) via Wccftech

ASRock seemingly confirms X670E as the new flagship AM5 chipset for AMD Ryzen 7000 (Zen 4)

Overclocking RAM isn’t new. In fact, the practice has existed for a few decades. However, just like overclocking a processor, overclocking RAM has its own risks. Data corruption or damaged memory modules due to higher voltage and heat aren’t uncommon. Overclocking is generally a hobby of enthusiasts who are willing to take these risks for increased performance.

AMD has filed a patent for automatic memory overclocking technology. The patent and the resultant platform promise to tune memory modules for maximum performance, and that too without extensive manual testing.

Settings for memory modules can be configured according to vendor profiles or user input specifications. These profiles are often generated and tested using system configurations differing from a user system. Additionally, user input specifications may be restricted using margins determined and tested using these differing system configurations.

What this essentially means is that AMD’s tool will perform all the steps for overclocking the installed RAM. The tool will test overclocked memory frequency settings and ensure they pass the memory stability test. Thereafter, the tool will attempt to push the system to its limits by determining the most aggressive timing settings for passing the said test.

All the aforementioned steps will be used to generate a profile that includes the overclocked memory frequency and latency settings. These will be saved locally and loaded when the system boots up. Besides stability, it is assumed that AMD's tool will also prioritize safety and reliability.

The patent does not seem to go into detail about memory voltages. This suggests AMD’s tool will ensure the installed memory modules maintain their SPD voltages. Alternatively, those interested in overclocking may have to manually set these parameters in the UEFI BIOS or rely on third-party solutions.

The patent office published the patent on May 19, 2022, which AMD filed in February this year. It is not clear if or when the company will deploy its automatic memory overclocking technology.

Via Tom's Hardware

AMD patent outlines automatic RAM overclocking tool

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is reportedly discussing plans with the Singaporean government to open a plant in that country. 

TSMC is well-known for manufacturing Apple’s A-series and M-series chips, as well as AMD processors, but the tech giant also produces chips for display drivers and power management, which are in short supply thanks to supply constraints due to COVID-19-related lockdowns. These supply constraints have already cost Apple $6 billion in the last two quarters, and that amount could go up to $8 billion.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, the Singapore plant would theoretically help tackle this shortage by manufacturing more of these critical chips. TSMC is studying how feasible production lines that make seven to 28 nanometer chips would be, according to reported sources. This would be based on older production tech already in use by cars, smartphones, and other devices.

The new plant is still under negotiation and has not been finalized as of now.

Analysis: Why the move?

TSMC has other reasons for wanting a new factory in another country. The first is that it would be easier to work around China, which has a complicated relationship with China to say the least, and prevents having too much chip production in a single country.

The company is also interested in building six plants in the US, but has hit several snags in the year since plans were first announced. Opening a plant in Singapore would further help with global diversification, while potentially avoiding what TSMC founder Morris Chang stated as a dearth of manufacturing talent in the US as well as the high cost of chip production.

Quanta Computer, the sole supplier of high-end MacBook Pro models, has also been looking into moving production from Shanghai to the Chongqing factory in order to help relieve supply constraints as well, so TSMC is not the only Apple supplier looking to diversify its production in response to the supply chain crisis.

Chip manufacturer TSMC plans to open Singapore plant to tackle chip shortage

On April 27th, Netgear released firmware update 4.6.8.2 for the Orbi RBR750, Orbi RBS750, Orbi RBR850, and Orbi RBS850 mesh Wi-Fi systems.

Soon after its release, users began reporting that they could no longer connect to their router's admin console using a web browser or the Orbi app.

While the admin interface was down, the router did work, and you could ping the assigned IP address and receive a response. However, you could no longer administer the router and, therefore, make any configuration changes.

This author helped someone with this issue on their Orbi router on May 6th, and the only way we could restore access to the admin console was to reset their devices to factory defaults.

Unfortunately, as they had no access to the console to backup their configuration, he had to reconfigure the router from scratch after we performed the reset.

Netgear starts pushing out a fix

On May 13th, Netgear announced that they were aware of the issue and were trying to determine what was causing it.

"We are aware of an issue affecting the Orbi RBK85x and RBK75x Series Mesh WiFi 6 Systems," Netgear explained on their status page.

"Some customers can no longer access or manage their Orbi systems through the Orbi app or the web user interface. A factory reset usually resolves this issue. We are working to understand the root cause and identify an alternative recovery method that doesn't require a factory reset."

As Orbi users continued to download and install the firmware, more people began experiencing the issue leading to Netgear finally pulling the firmware.

Finally, almost three weeks later, Netgear has started rolling out patches to affected customers to resolve the issues.

Initially, Netgear required users to contact their support team and provide a serial number for their device. After a serial number was provided, Netgear pushed out a fix to the affected devices, allowing access to the admin console after rebooting the device.

Netgear now says they are deploying a fix to all devices shortly. However, those who do not wish to wait can still contact Netgear support to have the patch pushed out to them.

"Christine here from NETGEAR. I am reaching out to confirm u/mary55330 message and note that we have had a lot of positive feedback that this fix does in fact recover the ability to access the router settings via the app and web user interface," a Netgear support member posted to Reddit.

"We will be deploying the fix to the general audience in the very near future so you're welcome to wait. For those who may not want to wait, please send me your serial number via direct message and I'll have the fix rolled out to you promptly."

While a fix is now available, Netgear has not provided any details as to what caused the issue in the first place.

BleepingComputer has reached out to Netgear to learn more about the problem but never received a response.

Netgear fixes bad Orbi firmware update that locked admin console

AMD has already announced earlier that it will be hosting a keynote at the upcoming Computex 2022 event on May 23. The keynote theme is "AMD Advancing the High-Performance Computing Experience" which essentially means we are going to see the introduction of some powerful chips and systems.

While there is no confirmation yet of whether the company will debut its next-gen Ryzen 7000 Raphael CPUs based on Zen 4, a new report by TechPowerUp alleges that AMD is going to introduce a new class of chipset for the accompanying Socket AM5 motherboards at the Computex 2022 event.

The new chipset is apparently called "X670E" where the "E" is meant to denote "Extreme". Hence X670E could be focused on ultra-enthusiasts who will be doing some hardcore overclocking on the next-gen Ryzen 7000 processors. Also, X670E will reportedly be PCIe 5.0 only whereas motherboard vendors may have the option to offer PCIe 4.0 on X670. The report also alleges that "dual-chipsets" for X670 and X670E are indeed true though it is unconfirmed at the moment what kind of benefits it will offer.

Alongside X670E, AMD will also be introducing the X670 chipset, which has traditionally been the enthusiast class of motherboards for Ryzen, and also the mainstream and the most popular B650 chipset. There is no word on the entry-level A620 yet.

Source: TechPowerUp

AMD's Socket AM5 for Zen 4 (Ryzen 7000) will reportedly debut a completely new chipset

The GTX 1630 should replace the Pascal-based GT 1030 Nvidia announced five years ago. The new model reportedly has the 12nm TU117-150 die based on the Turing architecture that powers GTX 16 and RTX 20 lineups. It will rival integrated graphics in Intel and AMD processors, plus the recently announced budget-friendly and somewhat lame AMD RX 6400.

Compared to the GTX 1650, the GTX 1630 offers fewer CUDA cores, half the memory bus, and lower bandwidth. At the same time, it will feature much higher boost clocks, which might be why TDP is the same at 75 W.

VideoCardz claims Nvidia is set to launch the GTX 1630 on May 31. The graphics card will be the first x30-series GPU to leave the GT lineup and move under the GTX brand.

Source: VideoCardz

Specs of the upcoming Nvidia GTX 1630 leak with launch date set for May 31

Apple showed a mixed reality headset capable of both augmented and virtual reality to its board of directors last week and has engineers hard at work on an operating system for the device, according to a report from Bloomberg. The story notes that while this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see a headset announced at WWDC next month, it may indicate that an announcement is drawing closer.

Bloomberg says there’s historical precedent for the board seeing devices shortly before an announcement. Apple’s board reportedly got an early demo of Siri in 2011.

It also makes sense that Apple wouldn’t want to go all in on software development until the hardware is close to completion, so it knows what features and software to build. To that point, Bloomberg says Apple has “ramped up development” of “Reality OS,” or rOS, the operating system that would run on the headset. There’s also another reason a software push could mean that the device is nearing its final stages; it’s easier for hints and traces of software to leak out before an announcement. We’ve previously seen rOS mentioned in early iOS 13 beta builds, and it’s also shown up in logs.

This device has been in the works for quite a while. According to a story recently published by The Information, Apple board members got to demo a few prototype AR / VR devices in 2016. The report does make it clear that they were extremely early-stage devices (some were apparently modified HTC Vives, and one reportedly had a crane to keep the headset’s weight off the board members’ necks), made mostly to act as a proof of concept and to get funding for the project. Given Bloomberg’s report that the headset’s consumer release is planned for late this year or 2023, it’s likely the one recently shown off was much closer to its final state.

Leaks indicate that it’ll be capable of both completely immersing you in virtual content, as well as adding virtual elements to the real world, likely through a pass-through video feed. Form factor-wise, The Information reported it will have AirPods Max-esque fabric mesh and a headband that almost looks like a fancy Apple Watch loop.

There are also rumors from noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that it’s powered by an M1-class chip. This seems to track with Bloomberg’s report from earlier this year that Apple had to push back the announcement thanks to “challenges related to content and overheating,” as well as difficulties getting the cameras just right. After years of waiting, though, we may finally be getting close to actually seeing Apple’s next new category of device.

Apple’s board of directors reportedly tried out its upcoming AR / VR headset

Now, right as the game's seventh anniversary passes by, there is a new launch plan. CD Projekt RED has announced via Twitter that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Next-Gen version will be hitting stores in the fourth quarter of 2022. But once again, there isn't a firm date attached to the project, opening the door for more slippage.

The original developer behind the hugely popular RPG, CD Projekt RED, is back on the driving seat of this enhanced edition now, as it also works on future Cyberpunk 2077 content.

Only the original announcement details regarding the enhanced edition are still available, with CD Projekt saying in 2020 "a range of visual and technical improvements" as well as ray tracing and faster loading times will be present. In addition to the base game and all expansions and DLC, the package will also ship with new content inspired by the popular Netflix series.

In the latest numbers shared by CD Projekt, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has sold over 40 million copies since its launch seven years ago. That count should get bumped up by a good margin once the next-gen edition hits PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. It will arrive as a free upgrade to those who have already purchased the previous generation version.

The Witcher 3 next-gen edition now aiming for a late 2022 launch