AMD today announced a refresh for the current RX 6000 GPU lineup. The newest models include the RX 6950 XT, RX 6750 XT, and RX 6650 XT. They do not differ much from their non-50 siblings but come with noticeable core clock bumps. The improved specs combined with the latest Radeon Software drivers provide up to 13% performance uplifts and up to 14% in specific games when paired with the latest Ryzen processors.

The RX 6950 XT leads the pack of three new GPU models from AMD. The company claims it is the most powerful graphics card in the Radeon RX 6000 Series family. It delivers "incredible performance and breathtaking visuals for the most demanding AAA and esports titles in 4K." The only difference between the RX 6950 XT and the old RX 6900 XT is increased core clocks to 2.1GHz and a slightly higher TDP at 335W. Price-wise, the RX 6950 XT should start at $1099.

Here is how the RX 6950 XT compares with the Nvidia RTX 3090 and 3090 Ti (via VideoCardz)

The RX 6750 XT is a mid-range option for gamers who want to get the best visuals and performance in 1440p. Compared to the RX 6700 XT, the newest model has a slightly faster core, memory, and a higher TDP at 250W. The MSRP is $549, which is $70 more expensive than the RX 6700 XT.

AMD claims the RX 6750 XT should be faster than Nvidia's RTX 3070 and RTX 3060 Ti.

Finally, the RX 6650 XT provides "ultra-smooth, high-refresh rate 1080p gaming with max settings in the latest titles." Improvements in this graphics card focus on faster core clocks, faster memory, and an increased TDP. AMD also changed the pricing, and the RX 6650 XT comes with the $399 MSRP, a $20 bump compared to the RX 6600 XT.

Despite having less memory than the Nvidia RTX 3060, the RX 5560 XT should provide better framerates across many popular titles.

The newest Radeon graphics cards are available today. You can get the RX 6950 XT and RX 6750 XT from AMD or board partners, while the RX 6650 XT comes only from board partners.

AMD refreshes the RX 6000 series with three new GPUs starting at $399

MP3 players reigned supreme back when phones had limited abilities and rudimentary screens, and mobile networks didn't offer high-speed data. This was the time when the Apple iPod truly revolutionized the experience. However, after two decades, Apple seems to have decided the iPod has run its course and announced plans to cease production. Speaking about the development, Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said:

Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impact more than just the music industry -- it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared.

Today, the spirit of iPod lives on. We’ve integrated an incredible music experience across all of our products, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch to HomePod mini, and across Mac, iPad, and Apple TV. And Apple Music delivers industry-leading sound quality with support for spatial audio — there’s no better way to enjoy, discover, and experience music.

Needless to mention, Joswiak has made it amply clear that Apple Music has replaced the company's consumer-facing, hardware-based solutions for streaming music. Moving ahead, the iPhone maker will obviously focus on improving the cloud-based, subscription-driven, music streaming service.

The modern-day iPod can stream music, but so does nearly every Apple product. Hence, it was painfully obvious that the hardware had become redundant. However, if anyone is interested in purchasing iPod, Apple is offering a limited stock of the iPod Touch on the official website, as well as through Apple Store locations, and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 7th-generation iPod Touch (2019) will be the final product in the series, and it is the only one available through Apple's official sales channels.

The iPod is retiring as Apple Music takes over streaming music across multiple platforms

Western Digital announces 26TB hard drives and 15TB server SSDs

Microsoft is preparing new PC peripherals designed for people with disabilities. On Tuesday, the company introduced “Adaptive Accessories,” which will arrive later in the fall.

“Each piece is designed in partnership with the disability community to empower people who may have difficulty using a traditional mouse and keyboard to create their ideal setup,” Microsoft said.

The Adaptive Accessories stand out by allowing the consumer to customize the peripheral with 3D printed add-ons.

(Microsoft)

The first component is the Adaptive Mouse. Users can choose to customize it by selecting from Microsoft’s existing “3D printed mouse tail designs,” which can then attach to the device. In addition, users can custom print their own mouse tail designs.

The second set of components revolve around the Adaptive Hub, which can wirelessly pair with up to three Adaptive Buttons. These buttons can include a traditional directional pad, a joystick or a dual button switch, which can all be further customized with 3D printed add-ons called "button toppers."

According to Microsoft, the Adaptive Hub can also work with standard 3.5mm assistive tech switches and it can be programmed with three distinct user profiles. “ The wireless and versatile design allows you to create the setup that works best for you, whether you are using a versatile 2 in 1 like Surface Pro, or any Windows PC,” the company added.

There's no word on the pricing. But interested users can visit the Adaptive Accessories webpage, and sign up for email updates for when the product formally launches. The peripherals were announced as Microsoft is also opening a new “Inclusive Tech Lab,” where it can work with the disability community on developing new products.

The company's past efforts on accessibility hardware include the Xbox Adaptive Controller and an accessory kit that can make Surface products easier to use for people with disabilities.

Source

For those who want to go, Apple says you must submit your request between May 9 at 9 a.m. PT and May 11 at 9 a.m. PT. It will then notify successful applicants by May 12 at 6 p.m. PT. Attendees must also follow the latest COVID-19 restrictions; masks are optional but proof of a negative COVID-19 test no more than three days before the event should be supplied. Any other health requirements will be given out before the event.

Those who attend will view the WWDC22 keynote and Platforms State of the Union videos with Apple’s engineers and experts. There will also be the opportunity to explore the company’s new Developer Center and more.

Aside from this special event, Apple is opting to host WWDC22 online due to COVID-19. It will give its keynote address online and host sessions, labs, and lounges virtually too. If you’d like to submit your request to join the Special Event at Apple Park, just head over to the dedicated webpage and hit the submit request button.

Apple opens requests to join its free Special Event at Apple Park to begin WWDC22

NiceHash defeats Nvidia’s GPU crypto-mining limits, does not appear to be a scam

The European Union aims to begin enforcing the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in spring 2023, Commission executive vice president Margrethe Vestager announced at the International Competition Network (ICN) conference last week, as first reported by TechCrunch. Vestager previously stated that the antitrust legislation, which introduces a new set of rules to curb the power of Big Tech, could be implemented as early as October of this year.

“The DMA will enter into force next spring and we are getting ready for enforcement as soon as the first notifications come in,” Vestager said during her speech at the ICN. As noted by TechCrunch, Vestager suggests that the Commission will be prepared to act against any violations made by “gatekeepers” — a classification that includes Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon — as soon as the laws come into force.

The DMA, which still needs final approval from the Council and Parliament, defines gatekeepers as companies that have a market capitalization of over €75 billion ($82 billion) and own a social platform or app that has at least 45 million monthly users. These entities can face fines of “up to 10 percent of its total worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year” if found in violation of the DMA’s rules, a fee that could increase to 20 percent in the case of a repeat offense.

In accordance with the DMA, gatekeepers will have three months to declare their status to the Commission, followed by an up to two-month wait period to receive confirmation from the EU. This wait period, coupled with the delayed DMA enforcement, could mean that we won’t start seeing any real battles between the EU and Big Tech until the end of 2023.

“This next chapter is exciting. It means a lot of concrete preparations,” Vestager explained. “It’s about setting up new structures within the Commission... It’s about hiring staff. It’s about preparing the IT systems. It’s about drafting further legal texts on procedures or notification forms. Our teams are currently busy with all these preparations and we’re aiming to come forward with the new structures very soon.”

Pushing back the DMA’s enforcement could give the Commission more time to prepare, but as TechCrunch points out, the delay could also serve as a catalyst for criticism if the Commission fails to address any major violations that occur between now and the time the DMA becomes law.

When passed, the DMA will likely disrupt the business models used by the world’s tech behemoths. For one, it could require Apple to start allowing users to download apps from outside the App Store, an idea that Apple CEO Tim is adamantly against, as he argues that sideloading could “destroy” the security of an iPhone. It could also require WhatsApp and iMessage to become interoperable with smaller platforms, a policy that may make it harder for WhatsApp to maintain end-to-end encryption.

The EU could start enforcing rules to regulate Big Tech in spring 2023

Japanese game developer Square Enix is a household name in the gaming world. Rightfully so too. It owns gaming franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

Few days ago we had reported how Square Enix sold its studios responsible for making games like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Thief series to the Embracer Group for $300 million. Now it looks like Square Enix might get sold out completely to Sony.

Sony – Square Enix deal

Rumors suggest that Square Enix might get sold to Sony. There are two basis to these rumors.

The first information about this comes from comic writer and game designer Jeff Grubb. He explains on Twitter thread that while it is not a sure certainty, there are big rumors going around that Sony might acquire Square Enix. Jeff Grubb however has a warning that it cannot be said for sure that it’s actually going to happen.

He gave an example of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series developer Bethesda’s sale to Microsoft. No one knew until it actually happened.

He also opines that Square Enix might have sold some of its other studios to make itself in a better position for it to be acquired.

The second rumor comes from an industry insider Greg Miller. In his YouTube video, he says that he has heard rumors from multiple sources within the gaming industry that Square Enix might be sold to Sony. He however admits that the rumor of Square Enix selling some of its studios or Square Enix getting sold to Sony could have been mixed up.

He however does believe that anything is possible in the world of gaming, pointing out to the Microsoft’s acquisition of Call Of Duty, World of Warcraft and Starcraft developer Activision Blizzard in a $68.7 billion in January this year.

Just like Jeff Grubb, Greg Miller too feels Square Enix might have sold some of its studios so that it can the sell the whole company to Sony.

Microsoft and Sony’s competition

Microsoft owns the Xbox series of gaming consoles. Sony owns the PlayStation series of gaming consoles. Since years, both are trying to prove themselves as the top gaming companies. This fight has gotten even bigger recently when both the companies started acquiring different gaming studios.

Forbes reports that Microsoft might be looking to buy some Japanese studios like Capcom or Sega – both of them huge names in the world of gaming. So is Sony trying to buy Square Enix to continue the competition.

To add to these acquisitions and its rumors is some official sources. ScreenRant reports that a month ago, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan had said that they have plans to acquire more studios. Is Square Enix the one, we don’t know.

Likelihood of the deal and outcomes

Square Enix and Sony are quite close. From years, Square Enix has made games which are released exclusively for Sony’s PlayStation console. So Sony buying Square Enix is quite a possibility. But it’s also something we cannot say for sure, as we have no concrete evidence.

What we do know is that if the deal does happen. We might see most of the games by Square Enix to be completely exclusive to PlayStation. Having said, Sony is releasing some of its PlayStation games years later on PC these days. So that might not be a bad thing as long as exclusivity is not followed completely.

Title image credit: Just Cause 4. © Square Enix.

Sony might be looking to buy Square Enix: Report

A new report from DIGITIMES alleges that the upcoming Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series processors (codenamed "Raphael) are launching in September 2022, though it is possible that the company gives us a tiny glimpse of it at Computex 2022 where the firm expected to talk about Smart Access Storage (SAS), a purported new storage speed boosting technology that might be inspired from DirectStorage.

In terms of what to expect, the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 series CPUs are confirmed to be using 5nm technology and rumor has it the new core architecture from AMD will bring an 18% instructions per cycle (IPC) jump over previous architecture, though it isn't confirmed whether that's against Zen 3 or Zen 3D or Zen 3+. The upcoming CPUs will be compatible with next-gen AM5 or LGA1718 socket and pack DDR5 as well as PCIe 5.0 support.

In related news, the purported launch schedule for the Ryzen 7000 processors alongside that of the next-gen RDNA 2 desktop APUs has also leaked.

Source: DIGITIMES

AMD Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series (Raphael) alleged launch date leaked

Exclusive Intel plans to start selling a software platform that promises to simplify and speed up the training of AI models for computer vision, according to internal company documents seen by The Register.

The software, code-named Sonoma Creek, is set to launch this fall, and the semiconductor giant plans to sell it as a subscription or license, which is part of a fresh push by the x86 giant to buoy chip sales with a growing stable of commercial software products. Intel also sees Sonoma Creek as a way to boost adoption of its free OpenVINO software toolkit for AI inference work.

Intel is pitching Sonoma Creek as an "end-to-end AI development platform" that simplifies computer-vision model training for subject matter experts who don't have data science experience.

The chipmaker thinks Sonoma Creek will benefit multiple industries. This includes manufacturing, where computers can monitor assembly lines and look for defects, and healthcare, where computers can detect anomalies in medical imaging. Other industries cited include smart agriculture, smart cities, retail, and video safety.

Development of Sonoma Creek has been under wraps for some time. However, there have been some public references to the software. This includes a publicly accessible online workshop Intel held for users in South Korea last year that featured a company representative discussing the software. The CEO of Intel's Korea business also mentioned Sonoma Creek in a Korean news article in December.

How Sonoma Creek works

In one presentation, Intel says Sonoma Creek brings together five important steps of AI model training said to be fragmented across multiple services in a "single workflow." These five steps are data collection, data labeling, model selection and training, model optimization, and deployment.

A slide from a South Korea workshop showing Intel's view of fragmented AI development.

A slide from a South Korea workshop showing how Intel's Sonoma Creek software addresses the five steps of AI model development.

Sonoma Creek starts training computer-vision models using the PyTorch and TensorFlow frameworks with as few as 10 to 20 images, or a video.
Users then annotate the data using what Intel calls "smart assistants," which helps Sonoma Creek learn and improve the model's accuracy.

Once enough data is annotated, Sonoma Creek will automatically train the model and make predictions, which users will approve or edit to also improve the model's accuracy.

After that, users export the model for inferencing using the model's original framework or using Intel's OpenVINO toolkit, which optimizes the model for a variety of Intel hardware, including CPUs and GPUs.

If a model isn't accurate, users can make corrections by adding new images and labeling those images before exporting the model again. This process of continuous model improvement is dubbed "active learning."

In an internal explainer for Intel employees, the company says Sonoma Creek comes with an intuitive web-based graphical user interface. This, combined with the annotation assistants, "help[s] expedite annotating data and reduce[s] time to deployment," according to Intel. Sonoma Creek also allows users to "combine multiple tasks," such as detection and classification, "for a more granular model development."

Intel says these and other features "set the platform apart from other" no-code or low-code development platforms that have become popular.

Sonoma Creek runs on Intel CPUs and Nvidia GPUs for desktop PCs and servers, though Intel plans to support its own GPUs in the future.

A slide from a South Korea workshop illustrating how Intel's Sonoma Creek software works.

ntel began prototyping Sonoma Creek with early users in the second half of last year, and the software has been in an early access program for the past few months, according to one document. All of this is building up to the company's plan to launch the software as a commercial offering this fall.

The x86 giant plans to sell Sonoma Creek as a subscription service or software license. The software will be available for on-premises servers and through cloud services providers. For cloud deployments, users will be able to access the software in virtual machines or Kubernetes containers.

Intel also plans to provide professional support and services for the suite, which includes "on-prem solution activation, project level consultation and enterprise level support."

One route to market Intel is looking at are system makers, which is how the company has already been selling some of its current software products.

Sonoma Creek to boost Intel's AI and software strategies

Intel is working on Sonoma Creek as the company hopes to buoy chip sales with software revenue and become a bigger player in the AI space.

The x86 giant has been working to catch up with Nvidia, which has built a comprehensive portfolio of hardware and software for AI over the past several years that has made it a favorite on Wall Street.

On the hardware front, Intel is taking multiple tracks, putting new AI features into its CPUs, while expanding its portfolio of specialty chips, which will eventually include new discrete GPUs the company plans to release for servers later this year.

The chipmaker has also started selling AI software products on top of free offerings like OpenVINO. These commercial products include the Cnvrg.io managed AI service and SigOpt AI model optimization platform.

As one document states, Intel views Sonoma Creek as the "next level" in the company's AI strategy. The big questions are whether enough organizations will find the software useful and whether it will fall in line with the "ecosystem-friendly" promise Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has made.

Sonoma Creek will join a growing stable of commercial software offerings that Gelsinger believes will help Intel better compete against rivals by making its hardware more attractive. After making $100 million on software last year, the biz hopes to increase that to $150 million this year.

That $150 million figure may be a pittance compared to the $76 billion Intel expects to collect in sales this year, though Gelsinger has promised that software will have an outsized impact on the company.

"We're going to grow it rapidly, but we're going to pull through platform differentiation, which is going to [have a] very disproportional business benefit, even though the near-term revenues are rather small," he said at an investor meeting in February. ®

Source

Windows 3D Movie Maker

This week, Microsoft surprised everyone by making Windows 3D Movie Maker open-source after a person requested it on Twitter. Microsoft's Scott Hanselman led this effort which saw the release of the 1995 software as an open-source GitHub repository.

The ancient software was released almost three decades ago to showcase the graphical prowess of Windows 95 and help children learn the basics of 3D animation. Although the project doesn't have a real-world use-case now, it may be fun to fork it and have at it with all sorts of whacky experiments and force it to run on modern hardware.

In terms of other open-source Microsoft software that received updates this week, we got version 0.58.0 for PowerToys. It doesn't contain any new consumer-facing features as the focus this time around is on " upgrading to new dependencies and building for native ARM64".

It appears that Microsoft Edge is gaining traction among more users too. According to the latest figures from StatCounter, Edge now commands a market share of 10.07%, which further solidifies its place as the second most popular browser available.

Leaked Outlook client

Although Microsoft has been talking about its "One Outlook" strategy to unify Outlook across all platforms through Project Monarch for some time now, we finally saw the fruits of that endeavor this week thanks to some screenshots from the leaked app.

The screenshots make it look almost identical to the web version, which makes sense because this is a web-powered app after all. It remains to be seen when Microsoft will start rolling out the new client publicly, but until that happens, feast your eyes on the gallery containing a bunch of screenshots from the leaked client. And if you're more interested in the current version of Outlook on Windows, you may want to know that there's a new place you can access your @ mentions.

Speaking of stuff that isn't public yet, a new report claims that the next feature update to Windows 11, version 22H2, may hit RTM this month. There have been conflicting statements on this matter from other unofficial sources too so it is important to temper your expectations accordingly. The jury's still out on when Windows 11 version 22H2 will start rolling out publicly too.

For now though, Microsoft has rolled out Windows 11 build 22616 to the Windows Insider Dev and Beta Channels. There are a bunch of fixes and improvements included in this release but the highlights are a fixed "Show hidden icons" flyout in the system tray and a preview of the Controller Bar to offer quick access to games.

But if you're not satisfied with the current state of Windows 11, Stardock's Start11 version has some improvements in the form of returning the seconds to the Taskbar clock and the pinning of Edge tabs to Start menu Search, among many other things.

Microsoft is also working on a fix for its KB5012643 optional Windows 11 update causing problems from .NET Framework 3.5 apps, but in the meantime, you can check out some workarounds here.

There's a new Windows Server Insider Preview release in the form of build 25110 too, but as usual, there's no changelog.

Ups and downs for Defender

Microsoft's Defender suite of products had an eventful week, to say the least. First, we received reports that multiple customers using Defender for Endpoint are experiencing high memory usage, black screens after logging in, and difficulties in opening apps. Then, AV-Test's latest results also revealed that Defender is a resource hog, the anti-malware service fared quite poorly in the latest rankings and barely received a "Standard" rating.

Microsoft did launch Defender for Business, though. It's an endpoint security solution that’s designed to fend off troublesome ransomware attacks and other cyber threats in small and medium business environments.

Speaking of security threats, beware of the Magniber ransomware being distributed through fake Windows update standalone files. Once the malicious files are installed, they go on to delete the backup volume shadow copy of the encrypted drives and creates a "README" HTML file that contains the ransom notes asking for 0.068 BTC (~$2,600), an amount that is set to double if the payment is not made within five days.

In the cybersecurity space, Microsoft, Google, and Apple have formed a partnership expanding support for a common password-less standard developed by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium. In the same vein, Microsoft is once again asking customers to ditch passwords completely and shift to password-less solutions such as Windows Hello, Microsoft Authenticator, and security keys.

Git gud

In this new section, we'll talk about gaming news primarily covering Microsoft and deals across multiple platforms.

Starting us off, we have the latest free offerings from Xbox Games with Gold from this month. Games currently included in the refresh are Yoku's Island Express (May 1 - May 31) and Hydro Thunder Hurricane (May 1 - May 15). You need to have either an active Xbox Live Gold subscription or Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to claim these freebies. Speaking of the latter, you can even utilize Xbox Cloud Gaming to play Fortnite on any supported device.

But if you'd rather purchase games, do check out this week's Deals with Gold, which feature massive price cuts on major franchises such as Assassin's Creed and Battlefield. And if you game exclusively on PC, you might want to check out this weekend's deals curated by our News Editor Pulasthi Ariyasinghe here.

And if you're on Xbox Game Pass, you'll be pleased to know that a bunch of games have arrived on the service and more will be available in the next few days. These include Loot River, NHL 22, Trek to Yomi, This War of Mine: Final Cut, among many others.

The Xbox app received an update that introduced Stories and Xbox consoles were also treated to Quality of Service (QoS) tagging for reduced latency in the May 2022 update. Halo Infinite players can finally dive into Season 2 as well. The six-month season features new maps, modes, battle pass, and more.

If you live in Portugal and prefer Xbox as your primary gaming platform, Microsoft has introduced its Xbox All Access service in the region. There are two tiers: the first grants the buyer the Xbox Series S at €24.99/month. The second tier costs €32.99/month, offering the much more powerful Xbox Series X console. Both options come with 24 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate regardless of the selected console. The firm has also launched a pretty Deep Pink Xbox controller globally, it can be purchased from the Microsoft Store for $64.99.

And we already talked about this in our second section, but just for the purpose of restating in an equally relevant section, you can now try out a preview of the Xbox Controller Bar to have quick access to your games if you're on the latest Windows 11 Insider Preview build. Windows 11 itself now commands nearly 19% of the Steam market share, if Valve's hardware survey is anything to go by.

We'll end this section with a bittersweet news item. Multiple critical Xbox Live services experienced issues yesterday, but the good news is that almost all of them are now back up, so yay!

Dev Channel

• Microsoft has updated the Surface app on Windows 10 and Windows 11 with improvements to Smart Charging
• Microsoft is deprecating Basic Auth for most protocols in Exchange Online in October 2022
• SwiftKey for Android now has a new swipe gesture
• Surface Pro 7 has received camera and pen improvements in the latest firmware update

Under the spotlight

This week, I published a piece providing some details about Microsoft's top 10 most popular open-source GitHub projects. These include Visual Studio Code, Windows Terminal, Windows Calculator, and a bunch of other interesting initiatives, and if you're interested in contributing to open-source software used by millions of users, this is definitely a listicle you shouldn't miss.

Logging off

This week's most interesting news item is undoubtedly Beijing issuing an order that all government offices should replace foreign-branded PCs and their associated operating systems with domestic alternatives that can be locally maintained. This means that over the next two years, over 50 million PCs and Windows are on the way out with Lenovo hardware and Linux being the likely replacements, respectively. Check out all the juicy details here.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 3D Movie Maker, leaked Outlook, and Defender troubles

Today, vBIOS (VGA BIOS) details for the 6950 XT were spilled inadvertently by TechPowerUp which maintains a database of vBIOS for various Radeon and GeForce graphics cards. While the link has since been pulled from TechPowerUp's site, a Chiphell forum member was quick to spot it and VideoCardz managed to take screenshots of two of 6950 XT aftermarket AIB variants.

The leaked vBIOS data reveals two interesting details about the upcoming Radeon RX 6950 XT. First, the new GPU is not based on the Navi 21 XTXH chip which has been used by AMD previously for its top-end enthusiast 6900 XT variants. Instead this is a new chip apparently dubbed "Navi 21 KXTX".

The memory subsystem on the new KXTX chip is seemingly more versatile than the previous 6900 XT GPU as it apparently supports both Samsung as well as Hynix GDDR6 memory, as opposed to just Samsung GDDR6. Outside of minor performance differences, sourcing the memory from two vendors should help AMD maintain a decent stock for the Radeon RX 6950 XT which in turn should help keep the price of the GPU low.

Source: TechPowerUp via ljy1414 (Chiphell forum) | Image via VideoCardz

Leaked AMD RX 6950 XT vBIOS suggests the card is more versatile than 6900 XT

Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and Twitter’s new owner — expects Twitter to earn almost $10 billion in revenue from subscriptions by 2028, a projection that doubles the $5 billion in total revenue the platform made last year, according to a report from The New York Times.

In a pitch deck viewed by the Times, Musk gave investors a taste of what to expect under his ownership. This reportedly includes driving up Twitter Blue subscribers to 69 million by 2025 and more than doubling that number to 159 million by 2028. Launched last year, Twitter Blue is the service’s $2.99 / month subscription that gives users access to an “undo tweet” button, app customization, ad-free articles, and other exclusive features. Musk expects a huge growth in total Twitter users as well, growing from the 217 million users reported last year to 600 million Twitter users in 2025 and, eventually, 931 million in 2028.

The pitch deck also outlines plans for an unnamed subscription service outside of Blue, called “X,” which Musk expects to bring in nine million subscribers in 2023 and 104 million by 2028. Earlier this week, Musk hinted at charging governments and corporations a “slight cost” to use Twitter. Whatever subscription “X” may be, revenue from it and Blue combined is supposed to hit the $10 billion mark by 2028, making up a large fraction of the $26.4 billion in total revenue Musk thinks the service will reach that same year.

According to the Times, Twitter is supposed to make up the rest of its total projected revenue with ads, something that Musk predicts Twitter will earn about $12 billion through by 2028. Twitter has been reliant on advertising as its primary stream of revenue in the past, but Musk, who said in a now-deleted tweet that Twitter should remove ads for paid subscribers, wants ads to make up just 45 percent of Twitter’s total revenue.

Musk’s pitch deck reportedly includes plans to rake in $15 million from some sort of payments business as well, which he expects to grow to $1.3 billion by 2028. Twitter currently lets users tip creators, purchase Super Follows, as well as interact with limited shopping features that link users out to vendors’ websites to make purchases. With Musk being one of PayPal’s co-founders, however, he might see some room to expand.

The Times notes that Musk also expects Twitter to earn an unspecified portion of revenue through data licensing, a business that involves selling the millions of daily tweets on its platform to companies and developers that analyze the data for market insights or consumer trends. Last year, Twitter earned $572 million (PDF) in data licensing and “other revenue,” but it’s unclear how or if Musk plans on expanding this business. If Twitter were to resell individual tweets, our editor-in-chief Nilay Patel points out that Elon “would have to radically change the terms of service” of Twitter, not to mention face “huge revshare and fair use issues,” as the copyrights of tweets belong to the users who posted them.

Building out Twitter’s services will take some work, a likely factor behind Musk’s plans to hire 3,600 additional employees. The Times notes that Musk aims to have 11,072 employees by 2025, although the pitch deck reportedly shows Twitter’s number of employees increasing in 2022 and then dipping in 2023 prior to trending upwards again.

Elon Musk thinks he can double Twitter’s revenue through subscriptions alone

In November 2020, Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer revealed you’d likely be able to stream Xbox games to your TV “in the next 12 months.” And, in June 2021, the company confirmed it would soon offer both a smart TV app and an Xbox streaming stick to make it happen.

But it’s been 11 months since “soon” and 17 months since Spencer suggested it’d be 12 months. And, now, both VentureBeat’s Jeff Grubb and The Verge’s own Tom Warren are reporting that the wait isn’t over.

Grubb now says we can expect the Xbox puck “in the next 12 months,” which I will remind you is the same exact phrase Spencer uttered 17 months ago, alongside the words, “I don’t think anything is going to stop us from doing that.” (I will also remind you that Microsoft already developed a similar product last decade but canceled it before a planned E3 2016 debut.)

But both my colleague Tom — a man who does not quite understand the meaning of the word “vacation” — and Grubb have good reasons to believe Microsoft is serious this time around. They’re both namedropping a so-called “Xbox Everywhere” initiative within Microsoft, and they point to how Microsoft just made Fortnite free to play on any iPhone or Android handset or PC as a signal that the initiative has legs.

We, at The Verge, have spilled quite a bit of ink writing about how well-positioned Microsoft is with cloud gaming and how its Xbox Game Pass subscription service is the true next-gen Xbox, particularly now that it’s buying Activision Blizzard and becoming one of the biggest game companies in the world.

Cloud gaming still has a lot to prove, but when you can just slap a controller on a phone and call it a portable Xbox or load it on a machine like the Steam Deck, it’s hard not to see the potential.

Microsoft’s Xbox streaming stick and TV app are less than 12 months away — again

Wi-Fi 7 home mesh routers poised to hit 33Gbps

Retail photo of the Mini 3 Pro. Image: DroneDJ

On Thursday, DJI tweeted a teaser for a May 10th announcement, saying it’s about to reveal “a twist in the plot.” It seems likely that the company plans on releasing a new drone — especially given that a YouTube video showing a DJI Mini 3 Pro and its controller being unboxed was uploaded on the same day as DJI’s teaser (via DroneDJ).

In their video, YouTuber DM Productions says they got footage of the unboxing from someone who received the unannounced DJI Mini 3 Pro drone early. The video gives us a good look at the drone itself, with its bevy of obstacle avoidance sensors as well as its controller.

As DM Productions points out, the controller is similar to DJI’s current RC Pro, with a few buttons and ports removed. The Mini 3 Pro’s controller also doesn’t have any antennas sticking out from the top, and I’d bet good money on the screen not being as bright or crisp as the one found on the $1,100 RC Pro.

Having a controller with a built-in screen is nothing to sneeze at. The one that comes with the Mini 2 uses your phone. Image: DroneDJ

At this point, we’ve gotten a lot of details about this drone. Last month, a leak showed that it would still weigh under 250 grams (meaning that Americans won’t legally have to register it) and that it would add front-facing collision avoidance sensors. That leak also contained information on the drone’s battery (which will apparently be around 2,453mAh) and camera, which we later got even more details about thanks to two retailers listing it for sale early.

Another image from the retail leaks, showing the camera, gimbal, and front sensors. Image: DroneDJ

According to DroneDJ, the Mini 3 Pro will cost somewhere around $1,000, and its camera system will be a massive improvement over the Mini 2. (Though you’d hope that’d be the case given that the Mini 2 currently sells for $449.) The 3 Pro is rumored to have a bigger sensor, a lens with a wider aperture that’ll let in more light, and the ability to record at 4K 60fps, instead of the 30fps the Mini 2 tops out at. Oh, and it should be able to do that in HDR, hopefully making it so you don’t have to decide between too-bright skies or too-dark ground.

As for the “twist in the plot” that DJI’s promising, both the retail leaks and the unboxing video mention that you’ll be able to easily switch between shooting portrait video and landscape video with the drone. That’s an interesting feature for those making content for phones — and there is some humor in that DJI’s next drone will be able to shoot vertical content when a drone made by Snapchat doesn't.

It seems unlikely that there’s much left to leak about this drone, especially in the short amount of time before it’s officially revealed. DJI’s website says the announcement is scheduled for the 10th at 9AM ET.

The DJI Mini 3 Pro has thoroughly leaked in an unboxing video and retail post

Basically, the SEC has stated that in multiple consecutive quarters during fiscal year 2018, Nvidia did not disclose that its notable increase in revenue and GPU sales is due to increased interest and demand for cryptomining rather than gaming. In fact, the SEC says that the firm filed its cryptomining revenue under its gaming finances. As such, investors were unaware that Nvidia's financial performance is due to a volatile business rather than its stable gaming sector.

The Verge notes that when the crypto market eventually crashed in late 2018, Nvidia ended up cutting its quarterly sales projections by $500 million, which obviously had an adverse effect on shareholders and prompted a lawsuit from them. For its part, Nvidia has neither accepted or denied the SEC's finding but will still pay the $5.5 million penalty. The SEC highlighted that:

NVIDIA’s disclosure failures deprived investors of critical information to evaluate the company’s business in a key market. All issuers, including those that pursue opportunities involving emerging technology, must ensure that their disclosures are timely, complete, and accurate.

Volatile demand and interest in cryptomining have led to constant and negative fluctuations in the GPU market, including shortage of hardware and increasing costs. Stabilization in this area for consumers has become a matter of moving goalposts for the past couple of years.

Nvidia fined $5.5 million for misleading investors about crypto market

Commenting on the matter, Saeid Moshkelani, senior vice president and general manager of Client business unit at AMD said:

AMD is raising the performance bar for modern Chromebooks. With up to eight cores, the Ryzen 5000 C-Series processors give Chromebook users the flexibility to stay unplugged all day without sacrificing performance and productivity.

In total Team Red is launching four new Ryzen 5000 C-series Chromebook APUs. The SKUs alongside their specifications are given in the image below (click to enlarge):

And in terms of performance, the company says that the new 5000 C-series Ryzen APUs are more than twice as fast compared to the previous generation AMD 3000 C-series Chromebook processors. That's because the new 5000C chips will have double the CPU cores alongside the new Zen 3 architecture. And in GPU horsepower too, the company is promising close to double the performance gains.

AMD says that the HP Elite c645 G2 featuring the Ryzen 7 5825C will be the first Chromebook with the new Ryzen 5000 C-series chips. The model will launch next month in June. Acer will also launch the Chromebook Spin 514 with a Ryzen 5000C chip later in the year.

You can find AMD's official press release on the new Ryzen 5000 C-series chips here.

AMD brings 8 core/ 16 threads of Zen 3 goodness to Chromebooks with new Ryzen 5000 C-series

The gains on the AMD platform are also far more pronounced than what we get on the Intel 10th Gen Comet Lake processor indicating that a lot of long overdue optimization has finally been made on the Ryzen side.

For this test, a couple of OnLogic fanless edge embedded PCs were used. On the Intel side, we have the OnLogic Helix 500 with the Core i7-10700T eight core, sixteen threaded (8C/16T) 35W CPU. Meanwhile, on the AMD side, the OnLogic ML100G-41 with the 8C/16T Ryzen 4800U 15W APU was used.

First up, we have the integrated graphics processor (iGP) test and in some of the benches here, the numbers on the 22.04 LTS side are significantly better for the AMD part. Meanwhile, the Intel Comet Lake i7 SKU loses performance here.

Up next, we have some tests that leverage the CPU and here too, the performance boost on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS systems for the 4800U are very notable and significant:

Overall, the AMD Ryzen 4800U Renoir APU has gained nearly 8.7% on Ubuntu 22.04. Meanwhile the improvement on the Intel Comet Lake Core i7-10700T is much more modest at just 0.7%.

You can find the full results on Phoronix's website here.

AMD Ryzen 4000 Renoir Zen 2 APUs see huge gains on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, not so for Intel

Lenovo’s new Slim laptops delight the digits with carbon and glass

Intel says it will release Arc Alchemist desktops GPUs in Q2 of this year and if you are someone who is expecting Intel to completely disrupt the GPU market like Zen did when it launched back in 2016, you may be in for some disappointment. According to a Wccftech report, Intel is planning to position some of its Arc SKUs in similar price brackets as comparably performing Nvidia GeForce or AMD Radeon GPU models. In fact, some of the MSRPs may even be higher if we take Nvidia's MSRPs as reference.

The alleged launch prices for the Intel Alchemist GPUs are given in the table below:

While these prices seem decent at first glance when compared to current GPU prices, it must be kept in mind that graphics cards are getting cheaper gradually, and by the time the Arc desktop lineup is out, it may be too late as AMD and Nvidia may already begin launching their next-gen RDNA 3 RX 7000 series and Ada Lovelace RTX 4000 series GPUs.

In case you are wondering what the specifications of Alchemist will look like, SiSoftware had already leaked some of that in its early review of Arc where it noted that the performance of Intel Arc was "nothing special".

Source: Wccftech

Intel's upcoming Arc Alchemist GPUs may be more expensive than AMD and Nvidia's

VideaHealth, a dental AI startup spun out of MIT and Harvard, has received FDA approval in the US to commercialize its cavity-detection algorithm for clinical use. 

The software is designed to help dentists look for signs of tooth decay in X-ray scans. Officials granted Videa 510(k) clearance, meaning it has successfully demonstrated its product can be marketed as safe and effective for human use and functions similarly to an approved device. 

The algorithm demonstrated it could reduce the number of caries missed by dentists by up to 43 percent, and slash dental lesion detection errors by 15 percent on average in the FDA trial, the biz said.

"Our technology supports the dentist's ability to detect diseases more reliably and more accurately. It streamlines workflows and also increases case acceptance rates since our AI detection solution offers an impartial secondary analysis," a Videa spokesperson told The Register.

The cavity detection algorithm is based on a convolutional neural network, and was trained and tested on a giant dataset with over 100 million samples of X-ray images collected from the dental industry, insurance companies, and universities. 

"Our biggest priority as a team is ensuring that our solution is effective across diverse patient populations and helps dentists deliver the most accurate diagnoses," the upstart's CEO Florian Hillen explained in a statement. "This paves the way for more appropriate dental treatment recommendations and the opportunity for dentists to foster deeper patient engagement."

Videa argued that dental technology had been pretty stagnant before machine learning came along. "With the exception of the introduction of digital sensors and intraoral cameras, dental technology advancements have been scarce in the last 30 years," the spokesperson said. 

The company believes AI will better standardize care for patients. "There [is] a lack of standard quality in dentistry. If you go to three different dentists you might get three different opinions."

"AI is the next big thing that will help move the industry forward. It will radically accelerate and improve decision-making for dentists and dental insurers and ensure patients receive more accurate diagnoses and better preventative care," the spokesperson added. 

Videa was founded in 2018, and was spun out of Harvard and MIT research. It has raised a total of $26.4 million so far with funding rounds led by Zetta Venture Partners and Pillar VC. ®

Source

Raxium is based in Fremont, California and will now be joining Google’s Devices & Services team where it will carry on its work and integrate products into future Google hardware. The announcement put out by Google was very brief and didn’t share any more details regarding what the Raxium team would now be working on.

According to some key facts from the Raxium website, its technologies are 300x smaller, 1000x brighter, and use 50% less power than the competition. It also says that its MicroLED technology will enable an entirely new class of smaller and more powerful display products such as augmented and virtual reality micro-displays and life-size panel-based light field arrays. With light field arrays, users could experience 3D without the need for eyewear.

Given Google’s brief comments on the matter, it’s not clear how long we’ll be waiting for products to come out that leverage Raxium hardware. One of the technologies Raxium shows on its website is a pair of glasses with a display in the lens so perhaps we could see some updated Google Glass products emerge.

Google has bought Raxium, a firm building 3D displays without the need for eyewear

As you can see above, the RX 6950 XT is reportedly around 6.55% faster than the RTX 3090 Ti. This is especially impressive considering the fact that the 6950 XT is unlikely to be anywhere near as expensive as the 3090 Ti. Also, compared to the current flagship, the RX 6900 XT, the performance boost is apparently about 20.35%, which is a very significant improvement as well.

Keep in mind though that Time Spy runs on the 1440p resolution which means it generally favors AMD's Navi GPUs, and it's possible the gap between the 3090 Ti and RX 6950 XT would be narrower in the 4K Time Spy Extreme test.

Here are the purported Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme results of the RX 6950 XT, alongside RX 6750 XT and RX 6650 XT:

Alongside the Time Spy numbers, alleged DirectX 11-based Fire Strike results have also been provided:

Finally we have some Port Royal benchmarks, which are tests based on DirectX Ray Tracing (DXR):

Ray Tracing is an area where AMD's RDNA GPUs struggle compared to Nvidia's RTX 3000 cards. The numbers here suggest that AMD has made modest improvements here too. However, for a truly game changing experience, Radeon fans would likely have to wait for next-gen RDNA 3 GPUs.

Source and images: Wccftech

AMD's upcoming Radeon RX 6950 XT purportedly hammers Nvidia's RTX 3090 Ti in DirectX 12

In one of his recent tweets, Elon Musk has confirmed that Twitter will always be free for casual users. In the same tweet, he also proposed that governments and commercial users may need to pay a small fee to use the micro-blogging platform.

We've already heard rumors of Elon Musk pitching to his lenders that he would monetize viral tweets and tweets that contain important information. But now, Musk seems to have made up his mind to talk more about Twitter as paid service publicly. What still remains unknown is the future of the Twitter Blue service.

Since Musk wants to keep Twitter free for casual users, one of the steps the company could take includes getting rid of the Blue subscription service to launch a new set of plans for both governments and commercial users, but nothing is confirmed at this moment. And we should not rule out the possibility of Musk once again deciding to keep Twitter's existing subscription model.

The Twitter Blue service currently costs $2.99 a month. Even if Musk doesn't discontinue the service, he, in all likelihood, will allow users to pay the fee in dogecoin. Before the purchase, the new Twitter owner also showed his intentions to slash the subscription price.

Elon Musk says governments may need to pay to use Twitter