News: Technology News

Turns out Dying Light 2’s actual playtime is a lot more reasonable

Tue, 11 Jan 2022 20:38:19 +0000

Techland has revealed that Dying Light 2’s claimed 500 hours of playtime isn’t as daunting as it first seems, as the main story can be completed in a much more reasonable 20 hours.

In a statement issued following our article on Dying Light 2’s worrying 500 hours of playtime, Techland has said that their previously shared graphic and playtime “represents a very specific gameplay style amid many possibilities for players to play how they want,” so you won’t always be in for the 500-hour long haul.

Instead, “a focused playthrough of Dying Light 2’s main story can be completed in about 20 hours; more for some, less for others,” a spokesperson for the company explained.

For those after more from Dying Light 2, we were told that “completing all the side quests, learning about the world’s history, and engaging with all characters can easily take 80 hours or more, depending on playstyle.”

If you want everything, and Techland mean everything then you’ll need the full 500 hours of playtime which Techland boasted about on Twitter. This will supposedly be plenty of time to “find every collectable, listen to every dialogue, fetch every Easter egg, finish every possible ending, and visit every corner of the world.”

Dying Light 2 is currently planned to launch on February 4th 2022 for Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Turns out Dying Light 2’s actual playtime is a lot more reasonable

AMD suggests that DDR5 scalping might delay Ryzen 6000 desktop APU launch on AM5

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 20:38:42 +0000

Like many of the stuff based on silicon, the new DDR5 memory standard has also fallen victim to the global chip shortage. As a result of the crisis, massive scalping is going on at online marketplaces like eBay, and companies like Asus are forced to work around them by creating interesting products like this DDR5 to DDR4 adapter for Alder Lake motherboards.

In relation to these high prices, AMD has also issued an early caution that its upcoming Ryzen 6000 desktop APUs featuring integrated RDNA 2 graphics could also be delayed as a result. While the company didn't outright confirm this, it is definitely a throwing caution to the wind scenario that if the high DDR5 prices continue to persist, the possibility of RDNA 2 desktop Rembrandt APUs being delayed is real.

In an interview with Tom's Hardware, AMD's Corporate VP and GM of the Client Channel business, David McAfee said:

One of the dynamics that we do think about a great deal is how and when to introduce that AM5 ecosystem and ensure that the DDR5 supply, as well as pricing of DDR5 memory, is mature and something that's easily attainable for an end-user

And so there may be other forces beyond the product itself that slow down or meter the introduction of APUs into that AM5 socket.

AMD briefly talked about its upcoming Socket AM5 and next-gen Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 CPUs at CES 2022 (images below). It also launched the mobile RDNA 2 Ryzen 6000 Rembrandt parts at the event.

AM5 will be a massive departure for AMD as it will be the first AMD mainstream CPU socket to use a land-grid array (LGA) design. And alongside DDR5, Socket AM5 will also introduce PCIe 5.0 for AMD desktop systems, something Intel has already done with its Alder Lake-S CPUs.

Source: Tom's Hardware

AMD suggests that DDR5 scalping might delay Ryzen 6000 desktop APU launch on AM5

Dying Light 2 will supposedly take “at least 500 hours” to complete

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 20:27:24 +0000

Dying Light 2 developer Techland has stated on Twitter that their upcoming zombie-filled blockbuster will take “at least 500 hours” to fully complete and people aren’t all too happy about that.

“To fully complete Dying Light 2 Stay Human, you’ll need at least 500 hours,” Techland stated on Twitter over the weekend before equating that mammoth amount of time to “almost as long as it would take to walk from Warsaw to Madrid!”

From their enthusiasm, Techland is clearly pleased with themselves at how broad they’ve managed to make Dying Light 2, however the reception to almost 21 full days of playtime hasn’t been as enthusiastic as Techland may have hoped.

Across Twitter players began to recoil at the sheer supposed breadth of Dying Light 2, worrying that it’ll be predominantly a mindless hunt for collectables, or simply so insurmountably long that no one would ever finish it.

In response to this growing criticism, Techland took to Twitter once more, stating that “500 hours is related to maxing out the game – finishing all the quests, endings, and exploring every part of the world.”

“A regular player should finish the story + side quests and do quite a lot of exploring in less than 100 hours, so don’t worry,” Techland continued.

Dying Light 2 is currently planned to launch on February 4th 2022 for Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Dying Light 2 will supposedly take “at least 500 hours” to complete

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 goodies, Exchange Y2K22, and Pluton security

Sat, 08 Jan 2022 21:46:21 +0000

We are at the close of yet another week, which means that it is time to recap what happened in the Microsoft-verse in the past few days. With the holiday season out of the way, the flow of news once again returned to normal and there is lots to cover including an Exchange anomaly, some Windows 11 updates, and a few CES announcements. Without further ado, let's dive into the weekly digest for January 1 - January 7.

Windows 11 updates

This was quite an interesting week for Windows 11 users. People on the Dev Channel were treated to build 22526, which brings a bunch of changes including a new ALT + TAB experience, indexing of more files locations, and a long list of bug fixes that you can view in detail here.

Meanwhile, the revamped Notepad began rolling out to Beta Channel Insiders. This iteration of the classic app features a dark mode, Mica material theme, and rounded corners. There are a couple of known issues though which you should check out here. There were also non-conflicting reports of the redesigned Media Player app rolling out to non-Insiders, and while we haven't been able to confirm this yet, we do have a workaround to install the software on a general Windows 11 release. If you do want to give it a whirl, do keep in mind that this is an unofficial workaround and will replace Groove Music, so proceed at your own risk.

We also talked about how there are five configurations of Surface devices that have still not received Windows 11 driver packages, even though they support the OS. On the other hand, Windows 10 Enterprise customers should know that Microsoft has released an out-of-band update for certain configurations to resolve Remote Desktop server reachability and performance issues. Find out more about this topic here.

Exchange Server Y2K22

The new year ushered in a rather undesirable issue in the form of a Y2K22 bug on Exchange Servers worldwide. Essentially, this was caused due to a massive date processing failure issue as the new value chosen "2.201.010.001" exceeded what the Servers are capable of processing under the current Int32 data type. As a result, the malware checking engine is crashing, and consequently, emails and messages have been stuck in transport queues across Exchange Servers 2016 and 2019 with Application event log errors 5300 and 1106 (FIPFS). Microsoft eventually released a fix but it caused quite a major disruption, which was even more problematic because of the holiday season during those days.

Some more news that may interest enterprise and individual developers alike would be the release of Visual Studio 2022 17.1 Preview 2, which contains a host of improvements related to Git, .NET, C++, and more. Other notable features include Line-staging, support for multi-repository setups, color tabs, and branch management operations. Find out all the details here.

Pluton and CES announcements galore

Although CES is obviously not a Microsoft-focused event, there are naturally lots of announcements that relate to Microsoft in one way or another. An example from this year's CES is Qualcomm and Microsoft joining forces to design custom augmented reality (AR) chips that are lightweight, power-efficient, in the hope that they will drive metaverse adoption.

AMD also took to the stage to unveil its Ryzen 6000 Rembrandt mobile APU lineup. While the highlight of this announcement was the shift to RDNA 2 architecture, another notable feature is that these are the first processors to support Microsoft's Pluton security. If you're unaware of its significance, check out our explainer here.

Interestingly, ASUS announced the ROG Flow Z13 (2022), which many may view as a strong competitor to Microsoft's Surface lineup due to its form factor, gaming capabilities, and connectivity. No official pricing has been revealed yet but the 2-in-1 will be available in Q1 or Q2 2022.

And while it isn't a CES revelation, Google is planning to boost interoperability between Android and Windows devices through Fast Pair. Google is working with Acer, HP, and Intel to enable you to sync your compatible devices together which will enable the quick setup of Bluetooth accessories, enable the syncing of text messages, and allow you to share files with Nearby Share. These features are expected to arrive on select PCs this year.

Dev channel

PowerToys 0.53.1 adds G-code support for thumbnails and preview pane in File Explorer
Playground Games Studio Director and co-founder Gavin Raeburn leaves Microsoft
You can now manually add passwords in Edge Canary
Ubisoft's Rainbow Six Extraction is coming to Xbox and PC Game Pass on day one
Microsoft accidentally disabled Developer Mode for some Xbox consoles, the firm is in the process of rectifying this error

Under the spotlight

This week, reporter Dean Howell took a look at a project called Burn My Windows, which basically allows you to enable classic Linux desktop effects like burning windows to Gnome 3x and Gnome 40x. The open-source initiative is already on version 7 and packs a number of interesting effects including Matrix, T-Rex Attack, and TV Effect. If that tickles your fancy, check it out here.

Logging off

This week's most interesting news item comes in the form of Chrome 97's release. While a new Chrome version is nothing unexpected, what's more interesting is the "enhancement" to the Keyboard API which allows web app authors to detect your keyboard layout. It has faced lots of backlash from both Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox development teams who have cited privacy concerns, saying that this API exposes a fingerprinting surface that can be used to identify and track you, especially if you're using a keyboard layout that is uncommon in a region. As such, the API change has been classified as "harmful" by Apple and Mozilla, and will not be implemented in Safari and Firefox, respectively.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 goodies, Exchange Y2K22, and Pluton security

Surface Pro X SQ1 and SQ2 are getting January 2022 firmware update

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 20:53:04 +0000

Microsoft is now rolling out 2022’s first firmware update to Surface Pro X SQ1 and SQ2. The latest January 2022 firmware update includes improved graphics stability and performance. The update also includes support for the new Surface Slim Pen charger, stability improvements, and improved performance in Windows 11. As expected, the update includes no new features. You can read the full official changelog below.

Changelog

Improves graphics stability and performance.
Enables support for new Surface Slim Pen charger.
Improves stability and performance in Windows 11.

Driver version	Device Manager
9.83.139.0	Surface Serial Hub Driver – System devices
1.14.137.0	Surface Pen 0C0F Firmware Update – Firmware
1.0.1600.0	Qualcomm(R) System Manager Device – System devices
27.20.1640.0	Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) 680 GPU – Display adapters

Meanwhile, Surface Pro X SQ1 and SQ2 owners can now go to Settings>Update and Security>Windows Update to download and install the latest firmware update.

Surface Pro X SQ1 and SQ2 are getting January 2022 firmware update

E3 is going all digital once again due to pandemic fears

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 20:50:47 +0000

The ESA has announced that, once again, E3 will be a digital-only event this year due to fears surrounding the highly transmissible Omicron COVID-19 variant.

“Due to the ongoing health risks surrounding COVID-19 and its potential impact on the safety of exhibitors and attendees, E3 will not be held in person in 2022,” the ESA said in a statement to GamesBeat. “We remain incredibly excited about the future of E3 and look forward to announcing more details soon.”

While the ESA isn’t confirming the schedule for this year’s event just yet, we can’t say that we’re all too excited for another all digital E3 showcase after last years rather lacklustre event which seemed needlessly spread over three days.

With a handful of companies, such as EA and Sony, sequestering their announcements away into separate presentations, E3 no longer quite commands all the attention it once did, especially with competing events such as Geoff Keighley’s Summer Games Fest running beforehand, while also providing an easier viewing experience.

Regardless of which show is the one to watch this year, there are plenty of reasons to look forward to 2022’s calendar of events, as they’ll be a chance to learn more about hotly anticipated upcoming games such as Arc Raiders, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Saints Row, and Starfield.

E3 is going all digital once again due to pandemic fears

Apple Silicon lead processor developer Jeff Wilcox leaves to rejoin Intel to design SoCs

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 04:00:17 +0000

Jeff Wilcox, one of the main guys at Apple has left the company and rejoined Intel Inc. He was Apple's director of Mac system architecture, and instrumental in designing Apple Silicon. Simply put, he literally engineered Apple’s independence from Intel CPUs with the M1 System on a Chip (SoC).

After eight years working for Apple to develop desktop and laptop products, Jeff Wilcox is heading back to Intel. Incidentally, prior to working at Apple, Wilcox worked at Intel. Wilcox confirmed the transition on his LinkedIn page.

“After an amazing eight years I have decided to leave Apple and pursue another opportunity. It has been an incredible ride and I could not be prouder of all we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the Apple Silicon transition with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max SOCs and systems. I will dearly miss all of my Apple colleagues and friends.”

A few weeks later, Wilcox reportedly updated his LinkedIn profile to confirm his new role at Intel:

“I'm pleased to share that I have started a new position as Intel Fellow, Design Engineering Group CTO, Client SoC Architecture at Intel Corporation. I could not be more thrilled to be back working with the amazing teams there to help create groundbreaking SOCs. Great things are ahead!”

Apple M1 silicon has been nothing short of a revolution for the iPhone maker. The SoC has managed to garner a lot of praise for its efficiency, performance, and battery endurance. The Apple M1 chipset is the first ARM-based SoC that Apple embedded inside its MacBook lineup of laptops as well as small form-factor Macs running macOS. The SoC basically allowed Apple to ditch Intel CPUs which were the only option within its products.

Intel has clearly hired Wilcox back to develop capable SoCs that are based on the x86 architecture. These miniature powerhouses, manage to house multiple components such as CPU, GPU, AI, RAM, and in some cases, storage as well. These are commonly found in Single Board Computers (SBCs) such as Raspberry Pi. The main drawback is that individual components of an SoC cannot be upgraded.

Apple Silicon lead processor developer Jeff Wilcox leaves to rejoin Intel to design SoCs

Mozilla pauses accepting crypto donations following backlash

Fri, 07 Jan 2022 03:57:38 +0000

Mozilla is the latest company to take heat for its involvement with cryptocurrency

Mozilla, the nonprofit organization that makes the Firefox web browser, announced Thursday that it would be pausing the ability to accept cryptocurrency donations following significant backlash spurred in part by a Mozilla founder, Jamie Zawinski (via Business Insider).

Zawinski, who stopped working for mozilla.org in 1999, tweeted scathing criticism to a December 31st Mozilla tweet promoting that it accepted cryptocurrency donations. Mozilla began accepting bitcoin for donations in 2014.

“Everyone involved in the project should be witheringly ashamed of this decision to partner with planet-incinerating Ponzi grifters,” Zawinski said on January 3rd. (Cryptocurrencies have come under significant scrutiny for their impact on the environment and the fact that the bulk of supposed crypto wealth seems to currently be available to a limited few.)

Peter Linss, who made the Gecko engine that underpins Firefox, tweeted his disapproval to Mozilla as well. “What. The. Actual. Fuck,” he said. “You were meant to be better than this.” And it’s not just them — many quote-tweets of Mozilla’s December 31st post are brutal.

On Thursday, Mozilla addressed the situation in a Twitter thread. “Last week, we tweeted a reminder that Mozilla accepts cryptocurrency donations,” Mozilla said. “This led to an important discussion about cryptocurrency’s environmental impact.” Mozilla says it will be “reviewing if and how our current policy on crypto donations fits with our climate goals,” and while that review is taking place, it will be pausing crypto donations. It also promised that the review will be “a transparent process” and that it will “share regular updates.”

However, Mozilla isn’t completely distancing itself from decentralized technologies like cryptocurrency, saying that “decentralized web technology continues to be an important area for us to explore.”

“I’m glad Mozilla reversed course here,” Linss said in a Twitter DM to The Verge after we first published this article. “They play a crucial role in keeping the web open and free. I’m also grateful for the support of all the fans of Mozilla helping to keep them accountable to the ideals they were founded under.”

Zawinski responded to Mozilla’s decision in a blog posted Thursday evening, where he kept up his sharp criticism. Here is an excerpt (included links are his):

I am happy for whatever part I played in getting them to rescind that terrible decision.

Cryptocurrencies are not only an apocalyptic ecological disaster, and a greater-fool pyramid scheme, but are also incredibly toxic to the open web, another ideal that Mozilla used to support.

So I hope that after they “conduct their review”, the conclusion they reach is the obvious one: ”Bury it in the desert. Wear gloves.”

Mozilla is just the latest company to take heat for its involvement with cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies. Tesla was lambasted for its decision to accept bitcoin as payment last year, and it reversed the policy soon after. And gaming companies have recently been heavily criticized for their NFT efforts, with the developer of the upcoming game STALKER 2: Heart of Chernobyl going so far as to entirely cancel its NFT plans in response to outcry.

Update January 6th, 7:06PM ET: Added comment from Jamie Zawinski.

Mozilla pauses accepting crypto donations following backlash

AMD's new RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 limited to just PCIe x4, lacks AV1 decode and HEVC encode

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:54:03 +0000

AMD launched several products during its CES 2022 keynote presentation. And while the company went into great detail describing its upcoming Ryzen 6000 RDNA 2-based Rembrandt mobile APUs, it was rather tight-lipped about the new Radeon RX 6500 XT budget card.

For example, the Red team completely skipped the fact that the card comes with only 4 Gigs of video memory. Also, the official specifications of the 6500 XT on AMD's site reveal the new budget graphics card lacks AV1 decoding and H.265/ HEVC encoding, something that other larger Navi GPUs all feature.

The lack of AV1 support on the new Navi 23 RX 6500 XT and the RX 6400 essentially makes these GPUs quite ordinary as a modern Home Theatre PC (HTPC) driver as AV1 content is pretty widespread nowadays.

And even as a gaming solution, these new AMD Radeon cards seem pretty gimped. German outlet 3DCenter noticed on ASRock's site that the Radeon RX 6500 XT is limited to just four channels (x4) of PCIe bandwidth.

While the card does support PCIe 4.0 and that should be plenty for a GPU of this caliber, anyone running this card on a PCIe 3.0 motherboard will essentially be limited to just half the throughput, ie, 32GT/s or around 4GB/s. And in a VRAM intensive game like DOOM Eternal, the low PCIe bandwidth could lead to a very large performance loss.

Source: ASRock via 3DCenter

AMD's new RX 6500 XT and RX 6400 limited to just PCIe x4, lacks AV1 decode and HEVC encode

Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 announced: it is not getting easier

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:50:48 +0000

The Wi-Fi Alliance announced Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 on January 5, 2022. The new state of the art standard for wireless communication evolves Wi-Fi 6, a standard announced in 2018 and Wi-Fi 6E, another improved version of the standard.

The Wi-Fi Alliance changed the naming scheme with the release of Wi-Fi 6 to make things easier for customers. Previously customers had to look up the supported standards of a Wi-Fi supporting device, such as a router or modem, to find out which it supported.

This changed with the switch to numerical versions: Wi-Fi 6 certified devices support 802.11ax technology, while Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4 devices only 802.11ac and 802.n technologies respectively.

Then came the release of Wi-Fi 6E, which unlocked 6 GHz for Wi-Fi devices (opposed to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz for Wi-Fi 6).

The announcement of Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 introduces another Wi-Fi technology that users have consider when buying routers and other devices. While it is the newest right now, devices with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are still being sold, and it will take a while before the first devices with support for Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 become available.

Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 has several improvements when compared to the two previous Wi-Fi 6 standards. The press release highlights the improvements in the following way:

Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 adds support for uplink multi-user multiple input, multiple output (multi-user MIMO) to deliver smoother streaming services and video conferencing, faster uploads, and more reliable gaming. Additionally, three power management features improve Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 power efficiency, benefitting enterprise, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. New features apply across all bands supported by Wi-Fi 6 – 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz - bringing capacity, efficiency, coverage and performance benefits to residential, enterprise, and large public networks. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 delivers the best experience with advanced applications, while providing strong WPA3™ security and promoting interoperability between Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ devices.

Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 includes support for 6 GHz, which means that it supersedes both Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E. New features include improved Wi-Fi uplink performance by adding support for uplink multi-user MIMO. The addition enables "devices to upload content concurrently to an access point".

Uplink multi-user MIMO improves network performance and reduces latency while video conferencing, uploading documents, and any other mission-critical applications that require greater uplink capacity.

The new version of the standard improves power management as well by introducing new power management features and improvements in Enterprise and IoT environments.

New low power and sleep mode enhancements – including broadcast target wake time (TWT), extended sleep time, and dynamic multi-user spatial multiplexing power save (SMPS)– enable power optimization of multiple battery powered devices. This trio of features allow multiple devices to receive extended sleep periods, allow for specific “wake up” times for transmitting data, and enable dynamic shut off of redundant receive chains to optimize power consumption in Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 networks.

Tip: check out our WiFi basics series if you are new and want to read up on the technology.

Closing Words

Internet users who are looking for a new router or other Wi-Fi powered device currently may want to wait until devices that support the new standard are released. Certification is already happening and first devices that support the new standard are expected later this year. It is unclear whether existing devices may receive firmware updates to support the new standard.

Wi-Fi Certified 6 Release 2 announced: it is not getting easier

Asus takes a page from Lenovo with new foldable PC

Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:46:59 +0000

It's like a 17.3-inch OLED tablet that can fold in half.

The Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED can take many forms.

Asus/YouTube

When Intel unveiled its 12th-gen mobile CPUs on Tuesday, the company pointed to the chips' suitability for use in foldable PC designs by showing unidentified concept images. It didn't take long to figure out what Intel was talking about. On Wednesday, Asus announced a foldable PC—think of it as a 17.3-inch OLED tablet that can fold in half.

In addition to a 12th-gen i7 CPU, the Asus Zenbook 17 Fold OLED comes with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD. The components live in a device measuring 14.9 x 11.32 x 0.34–0.46 inches when open and housing an OLED touchscreen with a 2560 x 1920 resolution and a 0.2 ms GTG response time.

Asus announced several OLED laptops at CES this week, but this is the only one with a bendable display.

Asus

The display has a 4:3 aspect ratio, making it tall when fully open. If you fold it down the middle, the screen will act as two 12.5-inch displays with 1920 x 1290 resolutions and 3:2 aspect ratios. When you're done, you can fold the device shut so that it's "smaller than a sheet of photocopier paper," measuring 11.69 x 8.27 inches, according to Asus' announcement. And if you're worried about how many times you can fold the device, Asus claims the hinge lasts for at least 30,000 cycles.

Asus' foldable OLED screen can hit 350 nits brightness with SDR or 500 with HDR while covering an impressive 100 percent of the DCI-P3. OLED is known to deliver vivid colors, and Asus is touting a particularly wide range with the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED. The screen supports HDR with VESA's DisplayHDR 500 certification. The display can also use its built-in color sensor to adjust its brightness and color based on its environment.

The Zenbook 17 Fold OLED joins a very new category of foldable PCs that first bent into shape when Lenovo released the ThinkPad X1 Fold in 2020.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold came out in November 2020.

Lenovo

Lenovo's foldable PC was bogged down by limited CPU power, poor battery life, and, as is always the case with foldables and new tech, a high price tag. Plus, Windows 10 didn't mesh perfectly with the folding design, particularly since Microsoft had scrapped plans to create an operating system dedicated to folding devices.

Over a year later, Asus is producing a foldable PC with a bigger screen, a new generation of CPU, and a bigger battery. Asus hasn't shared a price yet, however, and that will be a big part of the story.

The Zenbook 17 Fold OLED stands out from the ThinkPad X1 Fold with its larger size. Lenovo's foldable has a 13.3-inch screen with a smaller resolution of 2048 x 1536. The Lenovo's size (11.8 x 9.3 x 0.5 inches when unfolded, 2.2 pounds) makes it feel more portable, though. Asus' 3.64-pound foldable is heftier.

Asus' machine will use the Intel Core i7-1250U. As Intel's 12th-gen mobile chips were just announced, we haven't seen them in action, but specs-wise, the processor looks more powerful than what's in the X1 Fold.

The i7-1250U is specced for a 1.1 GHz clock speed that can boost to 4.7 GHz with two performance cores, eight efficiency cores, and 12MB of cache. Lenovo's foldable uses an i5-L16G7, which has one power core, four efficiency cores, up to a 3 GHz turbo clock speed, and 4MB of cache. You can still buy it today, but with half the RAM and storage of the upcoming Zenbook.

Asus is claiming up to 500 nits and 100% P3 coverage.

Asus

The Zenbook 17 Fold OLED also comes with a larger, 75 Wh battery than the ThinkPad Xi Fold's 50 Wh one.

The foldable will run Windows 11, so it will be interesting to see how the newer OS handles foldable use cases.

Asus, like Lenovo, seems to have navigability in mind. There's still no dedicated form of Windows for foldables, but Asus' announcement highlighted features like "split windows," allowing up to three windows to show on the display at once. The feature uses the Asus ScreenXpert 2 app's "intelligent window management" and the Mode Switcher app.

Asus envisions people using the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED with a large on-screen keyboard (images show the keyboard taking up half the screen) or an included detachable Bluetooth keyboard, which has a touchpad and keys sporting 1.4 mm of travel, a 0.2 mm dish, a 19.05 mm pitch. If the laptop is folded, you can dock the keyboard onto the bottom half of the device.

You can use a virtual keyboard, set the included keyboard in front of the laptop, or dock the keyboard to the laptop as pictured.

Asus

The laptop, which has a magnesium alloy chassis, also comes with a fake-leather kickstand in a shade so dark that it's hard to tell it's green.

Built-in kickstand.

Asus

Completing the package, the foldable comes with four Harman Kardon-certified speakers and a 5MP infrared camera with Asus' brand of visual noise reduction. It comes with two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a headphone jack.

Asus said the Zenbook 17 Fold OLED will be available in mid-2022

Asus takes a page from Lenovo with new foldable PC

The Surface Pro may have some competition: ASUS announces the ROG Flow Z13 (2022)

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 21:16:31 +0000

ASUS has introduced a potential gem at CES 2022. The company is inviting people to "dive into the best tablet gaming on Windows 11" with its new ROG Flow Z13 (2022) 2-in-1 gaming tablet. While claiming to have the best gaming tablet may seem overtly ambitious, ASUS has some specs that may warrant its claim to fame. The 2022 ROG Flow Z13 packs up to an Intel Core i9-12900H as well as an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti GPU, up to 1TB SSD, and up to 16GB 5200MHz LPDDR5 memory into a relatively small form factor.

ASUS is advertising the tablet to remain "incredibly quiet" even under full load due to its vapor chamber cooling solution coupled with liquid metal and 0 dB Ambient Cooling. The chassis itself is coated with a premium anti-fingerprint layer and "makes cleaning the surface a breeze." On the rear of the device is a CNC-milled window that shows the mainboard of the tablet. The tablet (without keyboard attachment) comes in at 1.1 kg and 12mm thickness, and includes a 100W adapter which supports Fast Charging Technology and juices up 50% of the battery in only 30 minutes.

The tablet is propped up with 170 degrees of kickstand adjustment that looks akin to the Surface Pro line, along with a detachable full sized keyboard. The 13-inch display has a 16:10 aspect ratio and has two panel options: 4K 60Hz or FHD at 120Hz refresh rates. Speaking of refresh rates, ASUS is advertising Adaptive-Sync technology which will allow for variable refresh rates (VRR) based on the content. The advertised screen brightness goes up to 500 nits and supports Dolby Vision.

The ROG Flow Z13 (2022) has Dual Smart Amp speakers with support for Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Audio. The company even took it a step further and included a High SNR 3-mic array and AI Noise Cancellation for enhanced voice communication.

In terms of ports, the ROG Flow Z13 (2022) has a USB Type-A port, a dedicated USB-Type C port with Thunderbolt 4 support, and an XG Mobile port which allows for additional input supports such as DisplayPort 1.4 and a 3.5mm headphone jack. Underneath the kickstand is a slot for a microSD card for further storage expansion. It should be noted that the usage of the proprietary XG Mobile port will allow for eGPU usage with up to RTX 3080 mobile GPU performance or the new Radeon RX 6850M XT GPU via a PCIe 3.0 x8 interface.

Finally, the ROG Flow Z13 (2022) will also include support for the WiFi 6E standard for wireless connection. No official pricing has been announced and the tablet will be available in Q1 or Q2 2022.

The Surface Pro may have some competition: ASUS announces the ROG Flow Z13 (2022)

Amazon to Send Alexa to Lunar Orbit

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 15:27:46 +0000

After working to put Alexa into everything from hospitals to cars to microwave ovens, Amazon is now readying a version of its voice-driven personal assistant for NASA’s Orion space capsule.

Wednesday, the Seattle tech giant announced an initiative with the aerospace firm Lockheed Martin that will send Alexa on this year’s uncrewed Artemis 1 test launch of Orion and its Space Launch System rocket. Alexa will make this journey to lunar orbit as part of a technology payload called Callisto that will test how software smarts might help future astronauts.

“The Star Trek computer was part of our original inspiration for Alexa, so it’s exciting and humbling to see our vision for ambient intelligence come to life on board Orion,” the announcement quotes Aaron Rubenson, Amazon’s vice president of Alexa Everywhere.

The announcement further notes that this use case imposes unusual design constraints: vibrations during launch, radiation exposure above low Earth orbit, and an acoustic environment inside the four-person Orion spacecraft featuring many metallic surfaces and background noises from pumps and other machinery.

The Moon’s average distance of almost 239,000 miles from Earth will also impose non-trivial latency, so Orion’s version of Alexa will lean heavily on Amazon’s Local Voice Control on-device processing. What kind of questions might she answer for future astronauts? The release imagines Alexa tapping into spacecraft telemetry to report the status of Orion systems and retrieving news and sports updates from Earth that crew members can request.

Presumably, astronauts who elect to amuse themselves by saying “Alexa, open the pod bay door” will not get the current joke answer to that reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey: “I’m not HAL, and we’re not in space.”

Since Artemis 1 will not have people on board, Amazon plans to stage a “virtual crew experience” at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, where invited guests can interact remotely with Alexa. Amazon also plans to offer Earthbound Alexa users experiences to update them on Artemis 1’s progress, with a preview available if you tell the assistant “Alexa, take me to the Moon.”

The first crewed Artemis mission, a planned return of American astronauts to the moon that will send the first woman there, is now estimated to happen no earlier than 2025. But the history of cost and schedule overruns with the Space Launch System, a gigantic launch vehicle built around such Space Shuttle components as its main engines, gives reason to doubt that forecast.

It’s not clear if any version of Alexa will actually make that upcoming journey. But should that happen, NASA is at least positioned to avoid one common human-compatibility complaint: None of the space agency’s current and candidate astronauts are named Alexa.

Source

System recognizes hand gestures to expand computer input on a keyboard

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 15:07:56 +0000

Researchers are developing a new technology that uses hand gestures to carry out commands on computers.

The prototype, called "Typealike," works through a regular laptop webcam with a simple affixed mirror. The program recognizes the user's hands beside or near the keyboard and prompts operations based on different hand positions.

A user could, for example, place their right hand with the thumb pointing up beside the keyboard, and the program would recognize this as a signal to increase the volume. Different gestures and different combinations of gestures can be programmed to carry out a wide range of operations.

The innovation in the field of human-computer interaction aims to make user experience faster and smoother, with less need for keyboard shortcuts or working with a mouse and trackpad.

"It started with a simple idea about new ways to use a webcam," said Nalin Chhibber, a recent master's graduate from the University of Waterloo's Cheriton School of Computer Science. "The webcam is pointed at your face, but the most interaction happening on a computer is around your hands.

So we thought, what could we do if the webcam could pick up hand gestures?"

< Watch the video at: https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/video/2022/system-recognizes-hand.mp4 >

Credit: Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (2021). DOI: 10.1145/3486952

The initial insight led to the development of a small mechanical attachment that redirects the webcam downwards towards the hands. The team then created a software program capable of understanding distinct hand gestures in variable conditions and for different users. The team used machine learning techniques to train the Typealike program.

"It's a neural network, so you need to show the algorithm examples of what you're trying to detect," said Fabrice Matulic, senior researcher at Preferred Networks Inc. and a former postdoctoral researcher at Waterloo. "Some people will make gestures a little bit differently, and hands vary in size, so you have to collect a lot of data from different people with different lighting conditions."

The team recorded a database of hand gestures with dozens of research volunteers. They also had the volunteers do tests and surveys to help the team understand how to make the program as functional and versatile as possible.

"We're always setting out to make things people can easily use," said Daniel Vogel, an associate professor of computer science at Waterloo. "People look at something like Typealike, or other new tech in the field of human-computer interaction, and they say it just makes sense. That's what we want. We want to make technology that's intuitive and straightforward, but sometimes to do that takes a lot of complex research and sophisticated software."

The researchers say there are further applications for the Typealike program in virtual reality where it could eliminate the need for hand-held controllers.

The study, Typealike: Near-keyboard hand postures for expanded laptop interaction, authored by Chhibber, Matulic, Vogel, and team-member Hemant Bhaskar Surale, was recently published in the journal for the proceedings of ACM Human Computer Interaction.

Source

Apple becomes the first U.S. company to be worth $3 trillion

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 22:06:40 +0000

Apple became the first United States company worth $3 trillion on Monday, according to a report by The Guardian. At the time of writing, the total price of all the firm’s stock was valued at a little under, sitting at $2.99 trillion. The firm first reached the $1 trillion mark in 2018 and the pandemic has given it, and other tech stocks, a boost due to the increase of working from home.

Over 2021, Apple’s market cap grew by almost $1 trillion and Microsoft’s grew at a similar pace. As of the fourth quarter, Microsoft sits at $2.5 trillion so it might not be long now until it passes the $3 trillion mark too. While Apple will no doubt be pleased with its stock price, they also benefit people who have pension pots or other savings linked to stocks as the value of the pot will likely have gone up.

According to The Guardian, Apple is now more valuable than a whole host of household names combined including Boeing, Coca-Cola, Disney, Exxon-Mobil, McDonald’s, Netflix, and Walmart. In October, the firm reported quarterly profits of $20.6 billion and that’s despite the supply chain issues going on around the world. Reports like that only add to confidence in the firm and boost its stock price.

As the world continues to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, it will be interesting to see what happens to the price of these tech stocks as more people return to the office. They were doing well before the pandemic but a return to normality may affect the speed of the stock price increases.

Apple becomes the first U.S. company to be worth $3 trillion

Dell announces UltraSharp 32 4K video conferencing monitor with IPS Black Panel technology

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 22:04:59 +0000

At CES 2022, Dell today announced UltraSharp 32 4K Video Conferencing Monitor U3223QZ with several class leading features.

This new 4K monitor features a webcam that includes a 4K HDR Sony STARVIS CMOS sensor and multi-element lens for great images during video calls. It comes with dual 14W speakers and dual echo cancelling mics for great audio experience.

This new monitor is Microsoft Teams certified and you can join Teams meetings and respond to Teams notifications using the dedicated buttons.

The Dell U3223QZ also features ExpressSign-in technology that will allow you to securely log you in automatically when you are close by.

Dell also highlighted that this new UltraSharp 32 4K Video Conferencing Monitor is the first one its class to feature the IPS Black technology for greater color accuracy.

Finally, this monitor comes with a host of posts including USB-C, HDMI 1.4 and RJ45.

Tech Specs:

Dell UltraSharp 32 4K Video Conferencing Monitor U3223QZ will be available in March 2022.

Source: Dell.com

Dell announces UltraSharp 32 4K video conferencing monitor with IPS Black Panel technology

AMD announces one last Ryzen 5000 CPU while teasing all-new Ryzen 7000 series

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 21:56:22 +0000

Ryzen 5800X3D will probably be the last stop for the venerable AM4 CPU socket.

AMD's Lisa Su holds up an early sample of a Zen 4 CPU.

AMD

AMD didn't offer much news on its desktop processors at its CES press conference this morning, but it did offer a brief preview of its next-generation Ryzen 7000 processors and its Zen 4 architecture. These chips will be released in the second half of 2022 and will require an all-new motherboard with a new AM5 processor socket.

We know few details about the Ryzen 7000 CPUs, except that they'll be built on a 5nm TSMC manufacturing process and that the sample AMD demonstrated onstage was running at 5 GHz (the current 5950X tops out at 4.9 GHz). We also didn't hear anything about the AM5 socket that we didn't already know—just that it will be a Land Grid Array (LGA) socket that puts the pins on the motherboard rather than on the bottom of the processor, the same as Intel's desktop chips. We also know that CPU coolers made for AM4 motherboards should continue to work on AM5 boards.

AMD has been using the physical AM4 socket since 2016, but it still has a little life left in it—the new Ryzen 7 5800X3D CPU is an 8-core, 16-thread chip that uses the AM4 socket and improves speeds by stacking L3 cache on top of the processor die, something that AMD calls "3D V-Cache technology." This both increases the cache's bandwidth and the amount of cache; the standard 5800X includes just 32 MB of cache, compared to the 5800X3D's 96 MB.

AnandTech goes into more depth about the technology in this piece, but the short version is that gaming performance improves by an average of 15 percent thanks to 3D V-Cache, even though the Ryzen 7 5800X uses the same Zen 3 architecture, the same 7 nm manufacturing process, and the same 105 W TDP as other Ryzen 5000-series chips and slots into the same motherboards (presumably a BIOS update will be required).

AMD didn't announce pricing for the 5800X3D or whether it had more 3D V-Cache processors to announce. But with manufacturing capacity limited by the ongoing chip shortage, a smaller selection of chips that is consistently available to buy is probably better than announcing a full refresh that no one can find. AMD was having trouble meeting demand for its 5000-series CPUs early in 2021, but it caught up to demand later in the year. And AMD didn't say whether there would be Ryzen 6000-series desktop processors—though it's looking like Ryzen 6000 will be reserved for laptop chips and APUs, like the Ryzen 4000 nomenclature was.

The 5800X3D should be a decent stopgap for people who want to drop a new CPU into their existing AMD system instead of paying more money for a 12th-generation Intel Core CPU or waiting for Ryzen 7000 to roll around. But it still doesn't address the sub-$200 processor market, which Intel just made a lot more interesting with some of its new Core i5 and Core i3 chips. Whether AMD will introduce new products or drop prices to compete with these budget processors remains to be seen.

AMD announces one last Ryzen 5000 CPU while teasing all-new Ryzen 7000 series

Intel’s desktop CPU lineup gets a comprehensive overhaul with new 12th-gen chips

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 21:54:05 +0000

Alder Lake Core i5, Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron CPUs round out the lineup.

Intel is giving its desktop processors their first top-to-bottom overhaul in years.

Intel

Intel released its first 12th-generation Core desktop processors a little over two months ago, and we were pretty impressed with the results; the chips still consume a lot of power, but they generally come with the performance to back it up. Today, Intel is announcing the rest of the lineup, including non-overclockable versions of its Core i9, i7, and i5 processors; new Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron chips that bring the Alder Lake architecture to lower-end PCs; and low-power versions of the processors suitable for mini PCs and other systems where space and cooling capacity are at a premium.

New processors, from Core i9 to Celeron

Intel is announcing a total of 22 new CPUs today, and they replace most of the company's currently available 11th- and 10th-generation desktop CPUs. Like the overclockable K- and KF-series processors that are already available, these chips will require a new motherboard with an LGA 1700 socket and can support either DDR4 or DDR5, depending on the motherboard you buy (more on those in a bit).

All of these processors are built on the "Intel 7" process, formerly known as "10nm Enhanced Super Fin." Intel justifies the name change by saying that the Intel 7 transistor density is similar to 7 nm-branded manufacturing processes from competitors like TSMC and Samsung. The 12th-generation Core lineup is the first time in about six and a half years that Intel has moved beyond some version of its 14 nm process for desktop processors.

Some of the new processors use Intel's hybrid processor architecture, which combines performance and efficiency cores (P- and E-cores) to improve power-efficiency when the computer isn't very busy and provide better multi-core performance when you need all the processor speed you can get. Load balancing in these hybrid chips is handled by Intel's "Thread Director" technology, which needs to be supported by your operating system for optimal performance. Right now, Windows 11 has it, Linux support is in the works, and Windows 10 doesn't have it and won't be getting it (you can use Alder Lake chips with Windows 10, but performance can be a mixed bag).

But at the Core i5 level and below, most of these chips only include P-cores. This will be just fine for gaming or any other task where a few fast cores will get the job done—Tom's Hardware has run an early review of a Core i5-12400 paired with DDR4 RAM, and in gaming benchmarks, it holds its own with much more expensive Ryzen 5000-series and 11th-generation Core chips. But you might miss the E-cores for CPU-based video encoding or any kind of rendering work that can effectively use all your processor's cores at once.

These processors represent the 12th-gen desktop chips that will be most common for desktop computers.

As usual, T-series processors drop the clock speeds by quite a bit so they can also drop the power requirements.

The images above have all the specs and prices, but here's a broad overview of everything that has been announced:

Core i9 chips include eight P-cores and eight E-cores (and note that only the P-cores include Hyperthreading, which is why you have 24 threads instead of the 32 you might expect).
Core i7 chips have eight P-cores but only four E-cores.
Unlike their K-series counterparts, the non-K Core i5 chips include six P-cores and no E-cores. At its list price of $167, the Core i5-12400F should be especially interesting to gamers on a budget.
Core i3 chips have four P-cores and no E-cores.
Both the Pentium and Celeron chips only have two P-cores, but the Pentiums include Hyperthreading and the Celerons don't.
F-series chips don't include GPUs.
T-series chips have the same core counts as the non-T versions but with lower "base power" and much lower base clock speeds—the speeds the processors fall back to for heavy, sustained workloads that generate a lot of heat.
All the processors include 20 PCI Express lanes and officially support the same DDR4 and DDR5 memory speeds, from Core i9 all the way down to the Celeron.

Despite their lack of E-cores, the new Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron chips are noteworthy because Intel hasn't meaningfully refreshed these lower-end processors in two years. The low-end chips released alongside Intel's 11th-generation desktop CPUs were small speed bumps that still used 10th-generation branding and the Comet Lake architecture. Given that 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th-generation chips were all iterations on 2015's Skylake architecture and that core counts have been the same since 2017's 8th-generation Coffee Lake chips, these ought to be the best-performing budget processors we've seen in a while. (It also helps Intel that AMD has essentially ceded the $200-and-under processor space with its Ryzen 5000-series chips.)

You'll notice that Intel has included a "base power" figure with all of these processors in the place of a Thermal Design Power (TDP) measurement. TDP has been less than accurate as a power-consumption figure for a long time now, and the much-higher Maximum Turbo Power figure is more in line with what you'd see if you had the entire processor working on something at once. This is where you'll see the biggest difference between the T-series low-power processors and the standard versions; the Core i9-12900 lists a Maximum Turbo Power value of 202 W, while the i9-12900T maxes out at just 106 W.

That Maximum Turbo Power figure can also be customized by your computer or motherboard manufacturer, and many motherboard makers even include several power presets you can tweak to squeeze more speed out of your CPU. Though non-K-series processors technically can't be overclocked, raising (or lowering) the maximum power limits will affect how long they can stay at their max turbo clock speeds. Just know that more power generates more heat, and you'll want better CPU coolers than the ones Intel ships in the processor box.

A CPU’s biggest fan

Intel has redesigned the fans that come bundled with its desktop processors.

Laminar RS1 is the most basic of the bunch, an all-aluminum cooler that comes with Pentium and Celeron chips.

Core i3, i5, and i7 chips step up to this copper-cored Laminar RM1 cooler with a blue accent (it looks like an LED light in these photos, but leaked in-the-wild photos suggest that it isn't).

The Core i9 gets the Laminar RH1, an even larger copper-cored heatsink with a customizable RGB LED ring.

Intel's utilitarian bundled CPU coolers are best described as "adequate," and they haven't changed much in the last decade. The 12th-generation desktop chips come with redesigned fans. They won't be able to replace a watercooling loop with a huge radiator or a tower cooler festooned with heatpipes, but they should be OK for stock performance, and at a bare minimum, they'll look a bit better in builds with transparent side panels.

The Pentium and Celeron chips include the Laminar RS1 cooler, a basic model with no lighting and a small heatsink. Core i3, i5, and i7 chips step up to the Laminar RM1, which has a blue accent (not an LED, according to leaks) around the top and a beefier heatsink with a copper core and a quieter fan. And the Core i9 chips get the Laminar RH1, which includes customizable RGB lighting and an even larger copper-cored heatsink. Whether or not the more-stylish Laminar fans were inspired by AMD's three-tiered Wraith cooler lineup, they're all being positioned similarly.

New chipsets for cheaper motherboards

New 600-series chipsets for 12th-gen processors.

Intel

With cheaper processors come less-expensive chipsets. If you don't intend to overclock, or if you buy a 12th-generation Core-equipped desktop from one of the big PC makers, you'll probably get one of these chipsets instead of the flagship Z690.

Intel is introducing three new chipsets alongside the Alder Lake lineup, summarized in the image above. The H670 retains most of the features that make the Z690 chipset interesting, aside from overclocking support and a handful of PCI Express lanes and USB ports. The new chipset supports RAID arrays for NVMe SSDs, plus eight lanes of DMI 4.0 (put simply, the CPU will have more bandwidth to talk to chipset-connected SSDs and other components that aren't using the CPU's 20 PCI Express lanes).

The B660 chipset halves the number of DMI lanes to four and cuts the number of chipset PCI Express lanes from 24 to 14, spread out across four PCIe 4.0 lanes and eight PCIe 3.0 lanes. In practice, this means B660 boards won't be as well-suited for tons of high-end PCIe 4.0 SSDs, though for most gaming and general-use PCs, they should still offer more than enough connectivity and speed.

The H610 chipset rounds things out, and compared to the others, it has been cut to the bone: bizarrely, it only supports single-channel memory, and it offers no PCIe 4.0 lanes, memory overclocking support, or USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (read: 20 Gbps) ports. Your processor will still be able to provide PCIe 4.0 lanes for a GPU and a single PCIe 4.0 SSD, but H610 will be best-suited for office work and casual gaming.

All three of these new chipsets should be capable of supporting either DDR4 or DDR5, though, as with the Z690 boards, the more budget-oriented models are likely to stick with DDR4 until DDR5 RAM becomes more widely used and affordable. Only Z690 boards paired with K-series chips are capable of true CPU overclocking, but motherboard makers are generally free to allow for power-limit tweaks that can improve performance by letting processors Turbo Boost for longer.

There are still some question marks about the Alder Lake lineup—we're particularly curious to see how much lower power consumption is compared to that of the power-hungry K-series chips. It also remains to be seen whether Intel can overcome the ongoing worldwide chip shortage so that people can actually buy these CPUs at their intended prices. But at first glance, this is easily as interesting as Intel's desktop lineup has been since AMD's Ryzen chips became competitive a few years ago, especially if you want to spend less than $250 to get a competent processor.

Intel’s desktop CPU lineup gets a comprehensive overhaul with new 12th-gen chips

Nvidia expands the RTX 3000 series with new high- and low-end GPUs

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 21:47:44 +0000

Plus a new "dual format" monitor that switches between 1440p and faster 1080p.

Nvidia's "next BFGPU."

Nvidia used its CES "special address" today to tease the company's top-of-the-line RTX 3090 Ti GPU alongside other GPUs and a completely new class of "dual format" gaming monitor aimed at esports pros.

The 3090 Ti, which Geforce Senior VP Jeff Fisher referred to as the company's "next BFGPU," will include a hefty 24GB of G6X memory, capable of up to 21Gbps of bandwidth (Nvidia called it the "fastest ever" in its GPUs). That will help the card push out an impressive 40 Shader-Teraflops, 78 RT-Teraflops, and 320 Tensor-Terfalops, Fisher said. Pricing and release date info weren't discussed, but more details will be available "later this month," he added.

The RTX 3050 promises big frame rate boosts over older budget-minded 50-series GPUs.

Nvidia / YouTube

Even with ray-tracing enabled, the 3050 will be able to surpass 60 fps on recent games with DLSS on, Nvidia said.

Nvidia / YouTube

Elsewhere in the RTX line, Nvidia announced the RTX 3050, a $249 GPU available starting January 27. Sold in the presentation as an upgrade to the aging GTX 1050 budget workhorse, the 3050 sports 2nd-generation RT cores and 3rd-generation tensor cores using Nvidia's Ampere architecture. That will let it run AAA games like Doom Eternal and Guardians of the Galaxy at 60 fps or higher with DLSS on, even with ray-tracing enabled, Fisher said. The 3050 will be capable of 9 Shader-Teraflops and 18 RT-Teraflops and come with 8GB of G6 memory.

The RTX 3050 announcement comes literally minutes after AMD's announcement of the RX 6500 XT, which is positioned in the same general performance tier for $50 less. We’ll need to see how each one performs in real-world tests, of course—and whether you can buy either of them for anything approaching their list prices in the coming months.

In the laptop space, Nvidia said 160 new RTX-powered laptops will be coming soon, starting at $799. That includes RTX 3080 Ti laptops capable of 120 fps performance and RTX 3070 Ti laptops capable of 100 fps (both rated here at "1440p Ultra" settings, apparently). The 3080 Ti laptops will start at $2,499, while the 3070 Ti laptops will start at $1,499, and both will be available starting on February 1.

Nvidia's new line of 27-inch monitors will support 1440p gaming at up to 360 Hz...

Nvidia / Youtube

...but can switch to a 25-inch 1080p mode for situations where frame rate and latency need to be prioritized.

Nvidia / Youtube

Aside from graphics cards, the most surprising announcement in Nvidia's presentation was a new category of "dual-format" gaming monitors. Targeted at esports pros, these 27-inch monitors can run games at 1440p and up to 360 Hz when detail and aiming accuracy are important. Many popular esports titles can run at those resolutions these days without sacrificing the top-end frame rates that pros require. When players want to prioritize frame rate and lower latency on higher-end games, though, the monitors can switch to a 1080p mode that blacks out the edges of the screen for a 25-inch diagonal display area.

AOC, Asus, MSI, and Viewsonic will all be making displays that support this new function; they will also feature G-Sync adaptive refresh rates and Nvidia's Reflex latency analyzer. There are no details on pricing or release dates for any of these models.

Nvidia expands the RTX 3000 series with new high- and low-end GPUs

AMD’s RX 6500 XT provides $199 entry point for desktop GPU line on Jan. 19

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 21:44:16 +0000

Company also rolls out new chips aimed at gaming on ultra-thin laptops.

At a CES press conference this morning, AMD announced the RX 6500 XT, a budget version of the 6000-series line of desktop gaming GPUs launched in 2020. The new card will be available on January 19 starting at $199—if you can find it amid continuing chip shortages, that is.

AMD is touting the 6500 XT's "fastest sustained GPU clock rates ever" at 2.6 GHz, the inclusion of 16 compute units with ray accelerators, and the card's 16MB of Infinity Cache, which can provide faster effective bandwidth to other components. Other 6000-series cards sport anywhere from 32 to 80 compute units and 32 to 128 MB of Infinity Cache, making the 6500 XT a decidedly low-end option (as if the price wasn't enough of a clue). Still, the card should provide frame-rate boosts of 23 to 59 percent over the aging RX 570 on popular games running at 1080p, according to AMD's presentation.

AMD also announced a new line of RX 6000S chips specifically focused on "light and thin" gaming laptops (i.e., those weighing less than 4.5 pounds). The three chips in this line are being optimized with efficiency in mind and should be able to provide 80 to 100 fps gameplay at "high" detail settings for recent "AAA and esports titles," according to AMD.

The existing 6000M series, for bigger laptops, is being revamped with 6 nm technology and slight boosts in memory and clock speeds. The RX 6850M XT is 7 percent faster than the existing RX 6600M, for instance, while the 6650M (and an XT variation) will deliver "up to 20 percent more performance" than the 6600M.

AMD’s RX 6500 XT provides $199 entry point for desktop GPU line on Jan. 19

Backwards capacitor causes fiery failure for some high-end Asus motherboards

Tue, 04 Jan 2022 01:58:52 +0000

Asus has issued a statement and recall about affected Z690 boards.

Burned out MOSFETs on an Asus Z690 motherboard.

Reddit user Duhjahno

Intel's high-end 12th-generation Core processors use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat, but Asus' ROG Maximus Z690 Hero motherboard takes things to the next level. A "potential reversed memory capacitor" in some boards can cause them to catch on fire.

The problem was initially hunted down by the Actually Hardware Overclocking YouTube channel, which diagnosed the issue using images from Reddit users and posters on Asus' support forums whose boards had failed. The reversed capacitor causes increased current leakage, which generates heat that subsequently burns out the neighboring MOSFET transistors. Users with the flipped capacitors noted that they noticed a burning smell or even fire before their systems shut down. Once the MOSFETs have burned out, the motherboard's built-in status display will show error code 53, indicating that the motherboard doesn't detect any installed RAM.

Not all ROG Maximus Z690 Hero boards have the capacitor installed backwards, and the Actually Hardware Overclocking video shows you the exact place to look to see if the capacitor has been installed properly or not. Entering your motherboard's serial number into Asus' support page for the problem will tell you for sure whether your board is affected, and the page will walk you through contacting Asus support to get a replacement.

Backwards capacitor causes fiery failure for some high-end Asus motherboards

Despite decent availability, Nvidia and AMD GPU prices showing no real intent of coming down

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 21:17:05 +0000

Around six months ago in June of 2021, there were positive indications that suggested that graphics card prices could be coming down gradually. However, that obviously didn't pan out as expected and the latest report from German media outlet 3DCenter shows that the general trend of high prices has continued into 2022.

And although AMD does see a slight dip, Nvidia prices have stayed almost unchanged. The average prices of the cards from both Green and Red camps are still nearly double at +89% and +85% above MSRP levels respectively.

The report has been prepared using data from the major German retailers like Mindfactory, Caseking, Computeruniverse, and more, and only the current-gen AMD and Nvidia cards, ie, Radeon RX 6000 (RDNA 2) and Nvidia GeForce 3000 series (Ampere), are considered.

Another worrying trend has also been reflected in this chart. During Q4 of 2021 in the months of October to early December, there was a hefty improvement in the availability of the cards. However, the prices, instead of falling actually went up indicating that the end of chip shortage, expected around 2023, may also not bring the low GPU prices that a lot of gamers desire.

The graphics card prices in fact seem to be in almost perfect tune with Ethererum rates instead. Hopefully, upcoming Intel's ARC GPUs could finally give the market the much-needed shakeup it needs.

Source and image: 3DCenter

Despite decent availability, Nvidia and AMD GPU prices showing no real intent of coming down

Microsoft Weekly: Surface Trio, throwback to Windows 8, and Games panel in Edge

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 21:43:44 +0000

It's the end of yet another week and the start of a new year. Due to the ongoing holiday season, there hasn't really been an influx of news in the past couple of weeks, but that doesn't mean that nothing eventful happened in the latest news cycle. In fact, this week, we received some interesting pieces of information related to Microsoft Edge, Windows 8, and more. Find out in our digest for December 25, 2021 - December 31, 2021.

Throwback to Windows 8

Although we are familiar with swiping toast notifications to the right in order to dismiss them, this method could have been considerably different if an unnamed "senior Microsoft executive" had their way with Windows 8 several years ago. According to a report, the executive wanted notifications to be swiped to the left first so they would zoom off to the right similar to a slingshot when you lifted your cursor. A GIF of the proposed toast notification animation can be seen below:

Fortunately, the design team was eventually able to convince the executive to drop the idea, likely on the grounds that the swipe left behavior would have been wasted on a pointless animation. Had the executive managed to successfully lobby for the swipe left animation, we would have likely seen it make its way to Windows 10 and Windows 11 too. You can read more about this here.

Talking more about Windows, those using Windows 11 for photo and video editing should know that color rendering may break on some custom profiles. Microsoft is currently investigating the issue and a fix is expected later this month.

Surface Trio

In a bit of a surprise, a Microsoft patent filing from last year gave us what could be an early look at a triple-display device, or a "Surface Trio", if you will. To be clear, the patent is mostly about the hinge and describes the hardware as a "multi-panel display device", it's interesting that the company used a Duo-like handset with an extra display. While it's unknown if such a device will ever see the light of day, what makes the purported Trio different from the Duo - apart from the extra screen - is also that can fold it in such as way that exactly one display is always visible. This would be a significant improvement over the Duo in which you can either expose both of the displays or none of them. That said, one does have to wonder about how the accompanying software and existing apps will be designed to make use of the third panel as well as new form factors.

Speaking of apps, WSATools has a few copycats listed on the Microsoft Store, so be wary. What's more is that the original app itself wasn't showing up in search results on the storefront, but that problem has now been rectified. For those unaware, WSATools enables you to easily sideload Android apps on Windows 11 in a streamlined fashion.

Games panel in Microsoft Edge

Microsoft Edge has been the topic of some controversy recently due to the browser offering new features and utilities that many believe should not be a part of the core browsing experience. This includes shopping features, a Word-like Citations tool, Office integration, a Math Solver, and now a Games panel. Essentially, Edge will offer a shortcut in the omnibar to quickly launch MSN games in the browser window. Although it will be disabled by default, the "feature" has many of our readers debating the pros and cons of integrating something like this directly in a browser versus offering it as an extension. Dive into the discussion here.

In other Microsoft 365 news, the Germany state of Hessen has lost a court case to dump Teams and Office 365 in favor of a "local solution" in schools. However, the court found the proposed solution to be lacking in capabilities compared to Microsoft's offering, so it has ruled against such a decision. Find out more details here.

Dev channel

Disco Elysium, Prince of Persia, and more have gone on sale in this week's Deals with Gold promotion
NeuroVoider and Radiant Silvergun are now free for those with an Xbox Live Gold subscription

Under the spotlight

This week, we published a guide on how you can uninstall problematic updates on both Windows 10 and Windows 11. That said, it is important to note that Windows updates make your PC more secure and patch other issues too, so if you proceed to uninstall select updates, do so at your own risk. Find out more details about the process here.

Logging off

Our most interesting news item of this week came from reporter Dean Howell, who took a trip down the memory lane with OldWeb.Today. Similar to the Wayback Machine, the website offers you a look at how some webpages looked like up to several years ago. However, it differs from the aforementioned by offering browser emulation (kind of) with some JavaScript tooling. It's definitely a very nice tool for those feeling particularly nostalgic with the advent of the new year. Check out all the details here.

Microsoft Weekly: Surface Trio, throwback to Windows 8, and Games panel in Edge

DDR5 is too expensive so ASUS makes a DDR5 to DDR4 adapter for Intel Alder Lake

Thu, 30 Dec 2021 21:25:49 +0000

The 600 series chipset motherboards for Intel's Alder Lake-S come in a couple of flavors offering both DDR5 and DDR4 motherboard options. We made a handy guide to try and make the choice easier for buyers. However, DDR5 desktop DRAM right now is nearly impossible to get as stocks are low and prices are exorbitant. On places like eBay, scalpers are demanding up to $5,000 for DDR5 kits.

So for those who have already bought a DDR5 motherboard, ASUS has devised a new adapter that can fit a DDR4 kit onto a DDR5 motherboard.

The product is certainly interesting, though it could prove impractical in the case of those users where the air cooler obstructs the installation of this device. That's because the adapter is quite tall as it has to accommodate a lot of the power delivery functions on the adapter PCB itself since DDR5 motherboards lack such functionality due to the power management integrated circuits (PMIC) being on the DDR5 modules themselves.

This adapter is necessary since the pinout and module keying of the two DRAM types is different even though both feature a 288 pin count.

via Kingston

Although the product still appears to be a prototype, it will be interesting to see if ASUS really brings it to the market and at what price.

Source and image: 林大餅Bing (YouTube) via HXL (Twitter)

DDR5 is too expensive so ASUS makes a DDR5 to DDR4 adapter for Intel Alder Lake

CES 2022 will introduce HDMI 2.1a, another confusing new spec

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 18:58:13 +0000

Brace yourself for yet another new HDMI standard

The HDMI standards are a mess. HDMI 2.1, in particular, is a uniquely frustrating mess, with haphazard support among TV manufacturers, cable makers, and devices that make setting up, say 120Hz gaming on a PS5 or Xbox Series X a uniquely harrowing experience.

Fortunately, the HDMI Forum is swooping in ahead of CES with its latest revision to the HDMI specification stack, HDMI 2.1a, which is here to make everything better and simpler.

... I’m kidding, of course. It’s gonna make things more complicated. It’s a new HDMI standard, what on earth did you expect?

Let’s start with the good: HDMI 2.1a is an upcoming revision to the HDMI 2.1 stack and adds a major new feature, Source-Based Tone Mapping, or SBTM. SBTM is a new HDR feature that offloads some of the HDR tone mapping to the content source (like your computer or set-top box) alongside the tone mapping that your TV or monitor is doing.

SBTM isn’t a new HDR standard — it’s not here to replace HDR10 or Dolby Vision. Instead, it’s intended to help existing HDR setups work better by letting the content source better optimize the content it passes to the display or by removing the need to have the user manually calibrate their screens for HDR by having the source device configure content for the specific display. Other use cases could be for when there’s a mix of content types, like for streamers (who could have an HDR game playing alongside a window of black and white text), displaying each area of content

The HDMI Forum does note that it’ll be possible for set-top box, gaming companies, and TV manufacturers to add support through firmware updates for HDMI 2.1a and its source-based tone mapping “depending upon their design.” Given the usual trajectory of TV spec updates, though, it seems virtually guaranteed that in the majority of cases, users won’t be getting the new features until they buy a new TV that supports HDMI 2.1a right out of the box (which, as of now, is precisely zero of them, given that the spec has yet to be fully released).

Now here’s the bad: like every other unique HDMI 2.1 feature, including variable refresh rates, automatic low latency connections, and the bandwidth necessary to offer things like 10K resolution or 120Hz refresh rates, SBTM will be an optional feature that manufacturers can support — but not something that they’re required to support.

That’s because the HDMI Forum and HDMI Licensing Administrator (the two organizations that define and license out HDMI standards, respectively) run the standards as a set that contains all the previous standards. As TFTCentral explains, according to the HDMI Licensing Administrator, now that HDMI 2.1 exists, there is no HDMI 2.0 standard anymore: all new HDMI 2.0 ports should be lumped into the HDMI 2.1 branding, despite not using any of the new features included in the “new” 2.1 standard.

HDMI 2.1a will function in a similar manner: once the standard is released, by the HDMI Licensing Administrator’s rules, all new ports will, in theory, be labeled HDMI 2.1a — but they won’t have to offer the new SBTM or even any HDMI 2.1 features. The HDMI Forum’s argument is that this is always how its standards have worked, and that optional features allow manufacturers to have flexibility in what functionality they offer (an entry-level set, for example, probably doesn’t need ports that support 8K 120Hz VRR gaming). And the group says companies are required to list what features their hardware supports so that it's clear to customers what their hardware is capable of, beyond the number expectation.

That argument doesn’t really hold up, though. The whole point of standards is that they’re meant to simplify this sort of thing by, you know, standardizing it across devices — if you have to dig into a spec sheet to figure out if the specific refresh rate feature you want is supported on a new TV, why bother with the HDMI 2.x branding in the first place?

Even better, TFTCentral’s report notes that most manufacturers aren’t following the HDMI licensing recommendations for port labeling. At least for now, TV companies have for the most part still listed HDMI 2.0 ports as “HDMI 2.0” and reserved the HDMI 2.1 labeling for ports that actually support the newer features. But the crucial issue is that under the rules of the organization that licenses out the standard, these companies don’t have to do this — and technically, shouldn’t be labeling things like this, despite the fact that it’s more helpful to customers. This means that there is a chance less scrupulous (or simply more ignorant) companies could start to market HDMI 2.1 ports that don’t actually offer any 2.1 or 2.1a features.

That leaves the upcoming HDMI 2.1a standard and its new SBTM feature in much the same place as the rest of HDMI 2.1 and its feature set: a potentially helpful new feature that could make the content you watch and play look better, but that will likely require buying new hardware and cables, and which may not even be actually supported by devices that claim to have “HDMI 2.1a” ports. That means that as CES 2022 and its slew of TV announcements are about to arrive, the only way to make sure that you’re getting the HDMI features that you want is to — as always — make sure to read the fine print.

CES 2022 will introduce HDMI 2.1a, another confusing new spec