News: Technology News

Intel teases plan to speed up chip advancements

Thu, 22 Jul 2021 23:22:23 +0000

Intel teases plan to speed up chip advancements

More news is coming on July 26th

Intel has struggled recently with getting its more advanced chip architectures out the door, but that might be changing soon. CEO Pat Gelsinger announced today on Intel’s Q2 earnings call that “7nm is progressing well,” and the company is gearing up to announce news on how its “accelerating its annual cadence of innovation with new advancements in semiconductor process and packaging,” at a webcast on Monday, July 26th.

The announcement comes alongside Intel’s Q2 earnings, where the semiconductor company managed to beat expectations and bring in $18.2 billion in revenue, up 2 percent year-over-year. Intel is feeling pretty optimistic about the future, too. It raised its 2021 outlook by an additional $1 billion to $73.5 billion, and now expects to achieve revenue growth year-over-year compared to 2020.

Intel’s earnings have been trending upwards for the past several quarters, despite its frequent delays and misses on production of both its 10nm and 7nm chips. That growth has been buoyed by spikes in demand for both personal computers and data-center chips in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw millions buy new laptops and computers to aid in remote work and education and an increased reliance on cloud services.

And Intel seems to still be riding that wave, recording $10.1 billion in revenue for its client computing group (up 6 percent year over year, and a Q2 record for the company), despite the global semiconductor shortage. Gelsinger commented during the call that he “expect(s) the shortages to bottom out in the second half [of the year, but] it will take another one to two years before the industry is able to completely catch up with demand.”

The boost for the client computing group also helped Intel make up for slower revenue from its data center group, which was down 9 percent year-over-year with $6.5 billion in revenue. There’s signs that that the impressive growth for the PC segment is starting to slow, however: both IDC and Gartner noted that growth of PC sales has slowed down considerably in Q2, which could indicate that the boost in sales there will diminish in the coming months.

The past year has been a tumultuous one for Intel. Last summer, the company was forced to admit that it would be severely delaying its upcoming 7nm architecture for its next generation of processors. That news was followed by the departure of the company’s hardware chief, Dr. Venkata (Murthy) Renduchintala, and the replacement of CEO Bob Swan with Pat Gelsinger (a former chief technology office and hardware engineer at the company) in an attempt to right the ship.

Gelsinger has wasted no time in trying to establish changes to get Intel back on track, announcing a new “IDM 2.0” initiative in March that aims to see Intel return as an industry leader in chip manufacturing. As part of that plan, the company will be outsourcing production for “products at the core of Intel’s computing offerings” to competitors like TSMC and Samsung starting in 2023.

Intel is also working to launch a new branch of its business, Intel Foundry Services, which will see the company take on manufacturing projects for third-party companies, including a $20 billion investment in expanding its manufacturing facilities in Arizona.

Given the overwhelming demand for more chip making companies in light of the global semiconductor shortage, Intel Foundry Services could be a big win for the company down the line. Intel announced today that it has over 100 potential customers interested in the service, and promised more news on Monday about the new initiative, but it’ll still be some time before that business ramps up.

Intel teases plan to speed up chip advancements

Amazon’s new MMO may be bricking Nvidia 3090s

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 23:24:40 +0000

Amazon’s new MMO may be bricking Nvidia 3090s

‘We have seen no indication of widespread issues with 3090s’

A screenshot from New World.

Image: Amazon

The closed beta for Amazon Games’ new MMO New World has been marred by reports that the game has bricked some players’ Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards. In a statement shared Wednesday, Amazon says that it has seen “no indication of widespread issues with 3090s,” but will be releasing a patch anyway.

Here’s Amazon’s full statement shared with The Verge on Wednesday:

Hundreds of thousands of people played in the New World Closed Beta yesterday, with millions of total hours played. We’ve received a few reports of players using high-performance graphics cards experiencing hardware failure when playing New World.

New World makes standard DirectX calls as provided by the Windows API. We have seen no indication of widespread issues with 3090s, either in the beta or during our many months of alpha testing.

The New World Closed Beta is safe to play. In order to further reassure players, we will implement a patch today that caps frames per second on our menu screen. We’re grateful for the support New World is receiving from players around the world, and will keep listening to their feedback throughout Beta and beyond.

The language in Amazon’s statement doesn’t completely rule out that the game may be causing problems, though. In particular, the phrasing “no indication of widespread issues” (emphasis ours) suggests there could be some issues, and since we don’t know how broadly or narrowly Amazon is defining “widespread,” we can’t be sure how many cards the company has determined may be affected.

Many of the bricked cards appear to be manufactured by EVGA, based on reports in a thread on the New World subreddit. And issues with EVGA cards may run earlier than the beta, as one player on the New World forums said they’ve had one EVGA card die on them during the game’s alpha and one die during this beta.

EVGA didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, but a company representative told Windows Central that “at the moment we are dealing with specific problems, if it is a problem really confirmed we will inform and inform you in our EVGA forums on our website.” But if you’ve got a 3090 card of any kind, you might want to wait to play the game until Amazon’s patch is out just in case.

The New World closed beta runs through August 2nd. If you want to try it, you can pre-ordering the game to get an invite or sign up for an opportunity to get access via this page. The game is set to release on August 31st following numerous delays.

Amazon’s new MMO may be bricking Nvidia 3090s

PlasticArm is a 32-bit bendable processor

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 23:21:55 +0000

PlasticArm is a 32-bit bendable processor

Flexible electronics have been done before, but not on this scale.

Enlarge

Biggs, et. al.

Wearable electronics, like watches and fitness trackers, represent the next logical step in computing. They've sparked an interest in the development of flexible electronics, which could expand the category to include products like clothing and backpacks.

Flexible electronics run into a problem, however: Our processing hardware is anything but flexible. Most efforts to deal with that limitation have involved splitting up processors into a collection of smaller units, linking them with flexible wiring, and then embedding all the components in a flexible polymer. To an extent, the process is a throwback to the early days of computing, when a floating-point unit might reside on a separate chip.

But a group within the semiconductor company Arm has now managed to implement one of the company's smaller embedded designs using flexible silicon. The design works and executes all the instructions you'd expect from it, but it also illustrates the compromises we have to make to produce truly flexible electronics.

Not quite CMOS

The basic idea behind flexible electronics is remarkably simple: start with a flexible substrate (like plastic or paper) and use it as a substrate for fabricating a thin layer of a flexible semiconductor. A variety of semiconductors fit the bill, ranging from atomically thin materials to semiconducting polymers. But most of the options aren't mature technologies with respect to their use in the fabrication of logic gates, so working with them involves two layers of experimentation—both with the materials themselves and with their flexibility.

Amorphous silicon is a somewhat familiar option. The silicon used in the manufacture of existing processors is crystalline, meaning it's in the form of an ordered array of atoms. Amorphous silicon isn't, and it's flexible as a result. Plus, we know how to work with amorphous silicon, since we use it for things like solar panels and LCDs. It's also inexpensive, partly because it can be processed into transistors through simpler techniques than needed for crystalline silicon.

The downside is that amorphous silicon comes up short in several measures, including performance, power efficiency, and circuit density. That said, many of the potential uses for flexible electronics don't require much in the way of performance.

PlasticArm

In keeping with the idea of minimal performance requirements, the team at Arm worked with PragmatIC Semiconductor to implement a version of Arm's Cortex M0+ processor termed "PlasticArm." The M0+ is a 32-bit processor that can execute a simplified subset of the Arm "thumb" instructions; it's optimized for small sizes and low power use, and it is generally used as an embedded processor.

Even by the standards of a very simplified processor, PlasticArm had some distinct features that set it apart. For one thing, the small bits of memory that processors use to store the data they're working on (called "registers") are normally located in the processor itself because it kills performance to go to external RAM in order to read this memory. To simplify the PlasticArm's processor, the CPU's registers are located in a reserve section of the RAM—and the system was made with only 128 bytes of RAM.

The system and applications that run on PlasticArm are held in a 456 byte ROM chip that is also separated from the processing hardware. Right now, the ROM can't be updated (it's read-only), but the team hopes to change that in the next iteration.

All the key pieces—the processor, the RAM, the ROM, and the interconnects—were made using amorphous silicon and fabricated on a flexible polymer. The system also has pins for off-chip communications.

Overall, the performance isn't good. Its maximum clock speed is a stately 29 kilohertz, and it consumes about 20 milliwatts at that speed. That may sound like very little, but an M0+ implemented on standard silicon only needs a bit over 10 microwatts to hit a megahertz. On the positive side, it has over 18,000 individual gates, which is over an order of magnitude higher than any previously described flexible processor. It also successfully executed all the software in its ROM, although the researchers only did tests without bothering to use the processor's distinctive feature—they never actually flexed it.

Next steps?

The team is already planning its next steps, which mainly involve reducing power consumption. That reduction is appropriate given the gap between the performance of the processor and that of standard silicon. The researchers also hope to get the gate count up to over 100,000, though they think the approach will end up maxing out somewhere below a million gates.

The paper describing the processor finishes by speculating about the potential of an "Internet of everything," where things like clothing and food packaging can have a flexible processor slapped on them. The paragraph is vague about what this expansion will get us, simply suggesting that it would "unravel innovations."

That said, plenty of researchers are working on embedding sensors and small power sources into things like clothing to monitor everything from activity to environmental exposures. Some of these uses will need a system to manage their behavior and data, and a flexible processor would fit the bill.

Nature, 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03625-w (About DOIs).

PlasticArm is a 32-bit bendable processor

Netflix confirms gaming venture with focus on mobile experiences

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 05:43:53 +0000

Netflix confirms gaming venture with focus on mobile experiences

We reported a few days ago that Netflix may be entering the video game space after signing on ex-EA and Facebook executive Mike Verdu as the VP of game development. Today, the company has confirmed those rumors and revealed some more details.

In a letter to its shareholders, Netflix revealed the nitty gritty details of its financial margins, quarterly revenues, and viewing figures for its popular TV shows and movies. If you are interested in those details, feel free to peruse the 12-page document here.

The particularly interesting bit tucked away in the letter is confirmation of Netflix' venture into the domain of game development. As excerpt from the document reads:

We’re also in the early stages of further expanding into games, building on our earlier efforts around interactivity (eg, Black Mirror Bandersnatch) and our Stranger Things games. We view gaming as another new content category for us, similar to our expansion into original films, animation and unscripted TV. Games will be included in members’ Netflix subscription at no additional cost similar to films and series. Initially, we’ll be primarily focused on games for mobile devices.

We’re excited as ever about our movies and TV series offering and we expect a long runway of increasing investment and growth across all of our existing content categories, but since we are nearly a decade into our push into original programming, we think the time is right to learn more about how our members value games.

For those unaware, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is a choose-your-own-adventure-style TV episode where your choices affect the outcome. Meanwhile, Stranger Things: The Game is a top-down RPG adventure available on mobile devices and stylized in a retro format reminiscent of handheld console games of yesteryear.

While that may clue us in to some of the formats that Netflix might be exploring, it is important to note that the company says that it will focus on "games for mobile devices" initially. Although some might find this bit of news disappointing, it's likely that these plans may evolve and expand depending upon the success of the initial venture.

It may also be heartening to see that the games will be tied to your Netflix subscription so you don't have to may extra for them. However, it remains to be seen how this content will be distributed since its previous Android game was a free offering that did not require a Netflix subscription.

The company hasn't stated when it will start releasing more mobile games, but the previous rumor had hinted at 2022. We'll likely find out more in the coming weeks.

Netflix confirms gaming venture with focus on mobile experiences

Microsoft Weekly: Another round of updates, Inspire 2021, and shifting release dates

Sun, 18 Jul 2021 23:11:36 +0000

Microsoft Weekly: Another round of updates, Inspire 2021, and shifting release dates

As yet another batch of seven days has passed, it’s time for us to look back at the various things that have taken place in the world of Microsoft. Among them this week, there was the ever-familiar Patch Tuesday, a set of announcements from the company’s Inspire event, and even a small helping of gaming news. You can find additional details about those and more below, in your Microsoft digest for the week of July 11 – 17.

Another round of updates

To the surprise of very few, the second Tuesday of the month rolled on by, a sufficient cue for Microsoft to deploy its usual Patch Tuesday fixes.

On this occasion, everything was focused even more so on security (given the PrintNightmare exploit), with updates as follows:

Windows 10 21H1, 20H2, 2004 (May 2021, October 2020, May 2020 updates): KB5004237, builds 19043.1110, 19042.1110, and 19041.1110, respectively.
Windows 10 1909 (November 2019 Update): KB5004245, build 18363.1679;
Windows 10 1809 (October 2018 Update): KB5004244, build 17763.2061;
Windows 10 1607 (Anniversary Update): KB5004238, build 14393.4530;
Windows 10 1507 (RTM): KB5004249, build 10240.19003.

The usual monthly roll-ups made their way to Windows 7 and 8.1 systems too:

Windows 8.1: KB5004298, KB5004285 (security-only)
Windows 7: KB5004289, KB5004307 (security-only)

That is of course not all, as Microsoft has also detailed the upcoming Windows 10 21H2 feature update. Beyond support for technology like WPA3 H2E, the release of this update will also mark the point when the next LTSC (Long-Term Servicing Channel) variant is set to be released.

Windows 10 21H2 is specifically targeted at those PCs that don’t support Windows 11. The latter, while set for release later, is still in testing in the Insider Program. The latest build, 22000.71, has added an Entertainment widget, as well as tweaks to the design of the context menu.

Inspire 2021

Microsoft’s Inspire partner conference took place this week, with the Redmond firm outlining a number of enhancements it has made to existing products, as well as announcing new ones.

For one, those running Server 2021 on Azure will get free extended security updates, similar to Server 2008 R2 instances, which are getting yet another year of security updates (for free).

Sticking a tad more to Azure, the cloud platform’s Event Grid managed service is now able to integrate with Azure API Management (in preview), as well as Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). Furthermore, Azure Synapse and Stack HCI have gotten improvements of their own, centered around partner solutions.

In addition, Dynamics 365 data is now accessible in Teams, and Microsoft has outlined its efforts for sustainable technology via a brand new initiative called the Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability Initiative – built off of similar initiatives that the firm is involved in, like the Green Software Foundation.

Beyond the above, Microsoft commercial marketplaces will reduce fees to 3%, and as of August 2, organizations will be able to start making use of Windows 365 Cloud PC. This brand-new virtualized cloud operating system solution is Microsoft’s answer to what it calls the “hybrid personal computing category”, offering a personalized experience, and remotely delivering Windows 10 (or 11) to a specific endpoint. This is all underpinned by the familiar Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) tech.

Shifting release dates

This week has also been the host of a few bits of gaming news, starting with Ghostwire: Tokyo, the upcoming game from the Shinji Mikami-led Tango Gameworks. The title originally slated for an October 2021 launch window has been pushed to early 2022.

More first-party game news also surfaced, as the Echoing Void DLC for Minecraft Dungeons was revealed to be releasing on July 28. It’ll add a brand-new region, new enemies, gear, and more, and will be priced at $5.99.

Until then, there are Xbox Deals with Gold for Call of Juarez, various Lego games, deBlob and more to peruse, and Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break, as well as Midway Arcade Origins to claim for free if you’re an Xbox Live Gold subscriber.

Dev channel

Microsoft has acquired cybersecurity company RiskIQ for over $500 million.
Windows Terminal Preview 1.10 is now out with Quake Mode added to the system tray.
Edge Dev 93.0.946.1 has now gained the same flag previously found in Canary, enabling you to switch on the in-progress Windows 11 redesign.
The Redmond giant has redesigned over 1,800 emoji in 3D, and has also brought back Clippy.
JavaScript can now be debugged in Visual Studio Code without needing an extension.

Logging off

We end with some news around cyberattacks and security.

Late last year, Microsoft, VMware, SolarWinds and others were victims of a targeted supply chain attack. As a result, through exploitation of said supply chain, attackers were able to even access private emails and documents of some companies.

The latest development surrounding this attack is an RCE (Remote Code Execution) exploit making use of SolarWinds’ Serv-U Managed FTP and Secured FTP software. Extensive guidance regarding Indicators of Compromise has been published by Microsoft, with upgrade paths outlined by SolarWinds itself.

As a result of the above, Microsoft has also begun cracking down on private business that sell cyberweapons, spurred on by the recent DevilsTongue malware discovery, which was distributed thanks to 0-day exploits in Windows and single-time-use URLs sent through WhatsApp.

Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Microsoft Weekly: Another round of updates, Inspire 2021, and shifting release dates

Intel's Alder Lake may not be arriving until next year, according to leaked roadmap

Sun, 18 Jul 2021 23:08:59 +0000

Intel's Alder Lake may not be arriving until next year, according to leaked roadmap

Back in April, an alleged Intel roadmap had leaked, according to which the company appeared to be planning the upcoming 12th gen Alder Lake-S desktop launch for mid-Q3 or Q4 of this year. This may still be true, but a new roadmap has leaked today that's dated back to January, containing information on Alder Lake vPro parts. According to it, Intel's Alder Lake platforms - both the desktop-based Alder Lake-S as well as the mobile Alder Lake-P -, might not be arriving before Q1 of 2022.

Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing which one of the leaked roadmaps is the latest. In general, companies delay product launches and rarely expedite them. In this time of global chip shortage, the former seems more likely. Then again, Intel has been struggling against AMD's Ryzen offerings in the desktop segment and would want to get its processors out as early as possible.

There are hints that Alder Lake - at least on desktops - is probably not too far away, considering we already have compatible DDR5 memory out, as well as spares of socket LGA 1700 selling online. And vPro parts do normally tend to be launched close to the general SKUs.

Moving on from there, we are also greeted today with purported new information regarding Alder Lake mobile platform. There is the mention of Alder Lake-M, as well as all-new H55 parts that now raise the TDP level of the chips beyond 45W. We were already aware of Alder Lake going up to 14 cores and 20 threads (14C/20T), comprising six large Golden Cove cores and eight Gracemont cores for a (6+8) layout. However, the apparent new H55 parts will rival that of desktop SKUs with a 16C/24T configuration.

The integrated graphics in these chips appear to be cut down significantly compared to the 14C/20T Alder Lake-P parts. It is alleged that there will only be 32 graphics Executions Units (EUs) in H55 SKUs, compared to 96 EUs on Alder Lake-P.

Lastly, there is a slide relating to the Windows support for Alder Lake platforms, according to which the 12th gen Intel processors are supported by Windows 10 version 20H2 and newer.

Source and images: VideoCardz

Intel's Alder Lake may not be arriving until next year, according to leaked roadmap

Helicopters are officially heading to Microsoft Flight Simulator

Sun, 18 Jul 2021 23:05:07 +0000

Helicopters are officially heading to Microsoft Flight Simulator

Great news for the Microsoft Flight Simulator community as the development team has agreed to address their most-requested feature – the addition of helicopters to the flight simulator app.

In a development update, the Asobo Studio team revealed their most popular feedback requests, and helicopters are top of the list.

The good news is that the snapshot also indicates that support is being planned, for delivery in 2022.

You can of course already add helicopters as a mod to the game, but official support should bring a lot more realism to the performance of the aircraft.

via PureXbox

Helicopters are officially heading to Microsoft Flight Simulator

Valve unveils Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC powered by AMD

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 23:45:12 +0000

Valve unveils Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC powered by AMD

Valve, the company behind the popular Steam game distribution platform and maker of games like Counter-Strike and Half-Life, have unveiled Steam Deck, a handheld PC designed specifically for gaming.

Steam Deck looks like the powerful cousin of Nintendo's Switch, but the two devices cannot really be compared. Valve calls it an all-in-one portable PC gaming device and claims that Steam Deck runs the latest AAA games "really well".

Steam Deck is powered by Steam OS and AMD hardware. The device plays Steam games using Valve's Proton technology. Since it is a PC, it can also be used for other activities thanks to the full Linux-based environment.

The device supports Bluetooth, which means that gamers can connect mice and keyboards to the device. A direct connection to external displays is supported by the base device, but Valve revealed that it will release a dock in the future which will expand the capabilities further.

Steam Deck will launch in select regions, United States, European Union, Canada and United Kingdom, with more regions to come in 2022. Interested gamers may reserve a single unit on Valve's SteamPowered website; first units will be shipped in December 2021.

Three packages are available for preoder:

A 64GB eMMC storage version with a carrying case for €419.
A 256GB NVMe SSD with a carrying case for €549.
A 512GB NVMe SSD with a carrying case, premium anti-glare etched glass, for €679.

Every other hardware spec is identical.

Steam Deck: the hardware

Steam Deck is powered by AMD hardware. A Zen 2 processor with four cores and eight threads, and a RDNA 2 1.6 Teraflops GPU. All devices have 16 Gigabytes of LPDDR5 RAM (5500 MT/s), and come with 64 to 512 Gigabytes of storage space. A high-speed microSD card slot is available to extend storage on all devices.

The touch-powered display has a 1280x800 pixel resolution and a 16:10 aspect ratio. It has a size of 7" diagonally, a refresh rate of 60Hz, and a brightness of 400 nits.

Connectivity-wise, it features Bluetooth 5.0 and dual-band Wi-Fi support (IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac). The base device

Steam Deck supports stereo audio channels, has a 3.5mm stereo headphone hack, a dual microphone array, and multichannel audio via DisplayPort.

A 40Whr battery is in the device which is good for 2 to 8 hours of gameplay, depending on the game.

The device's dimensions are 298mm x 117mm x 49 mm.

IGN published a hands on video on YouTube

Closing Words

Steam Deck is not really that expensive if you compare it to gaming PCs. The 64 GB storage version uses slower storage technology and lacks the storage space needed to play some storage hungry games.

Battery life depends on the games that are played on the device and how good the battery actually is.

The base version can be connected to external displays and the Dock will expand the capabilities.

One of the main appeals of Steam Deck is that it brings the entire Steam library to the device in a matter of seconds. Just fire it up, sign-in to a Steam account, and all purchased games become available. You do need to install those on the device first before you may play them, and this is where storage available on the device comes into play.

The 64 Gigabyte version is not only ill-equipped when it comes to storing games on the device, it also uses slower storage technology, something that you may notice when it comes to game loading times on the device.

Who is it for then? Steam Deck may appeal to gamers who don't want to lay a thousand or more Dollars for a gaming PC, and gamers who like the game-wherever-you-go option the game offers. Many PC games don't work that well with controllers and while you may connect mouse and keyboard to the Steam Deck, doing so while on the go is not practicable.

In the end, it depends largely on the games you like and where you like to play them. It may even appeal to gamers who have a powerful gaming rig at home, but would like to take their gaming to other rooms of the home, e.g. to play a last round of Dota 2 or Faster than Light in bed before going to sleep.

Valve unveils Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC powered by AMD

Intel is reportedly in talks to buy the $30 billion foundry company AMD spun off a decade ago

Fri, 16 Jul 2021 04:46:08 +0000

Intel is reportedly in talks to buy the $30 billion foundry company AMD spun off a decade ago

Intel isn’t saying either way

In 2008, chipmakers Intel and AMD took two distinct paths: Intel kept manufacturing its own chips to maintain full control, while AMD decided to spin off its semiconductor business as GlobalFoundries, relying on it and other manufacturers to provide the actual silicon. Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Intel is looking to snap up AMD’s former fabs as well, in a deal that could value them at $30 billion.

It’s clear from the WSJ story that the deal isn’t a sure thing, and GlobalFoundries outright denied that it was in talks with Intel. But it’s possible Intel’s negotiating with the investment firm that owns GlobalFoundries instead, as the WSJ points out. It’s also intriguing that the Journal doesn’t have a “no comment” from Intel itself — that’s sometimes a canary to indicate a company did comment, just off the record or on deep background.

(“We will decline to comment on rumor and speculation,” an Intel spokesperson told The Verge, though.)

There’s an obvious reason why Intel might want GlobalFoundries — it’s actually ramping up its foundry business now. In an attempt to turn around the struggling company, new Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger announced in March that the company would no longer go it alone, outsourcing more of its chip production to third-party foundries, agreeing to produce more chips for other companies using its own foundries, and also investing in new fabs itself. That included a $20 billion investment in new facilities in Arizona, but it could take many years for new buildings to get constructed and ramp up.

Meanwhile, it sounds like the #4 foundry in the world (according to TrendForce) may be up for grabs, one that accounts for 7 percent of all foundry business by revenue. That won’t put Intel on the same footing as a giant TSMC or Samsung (which together account for an estimated 74 percent), but it’d be a start.

The Washington Post took a tour of GlobalFoundries’ facility in Malta, NY just last week, if you’d like to hear what it’s like.

Intel is reportedly in talks to buy the $30 billion foundry company AMD spun off a decade ago

TSMC signals global chip crunch may be easing

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 21:49:43 +0000

TSMC signals global chip crunch may be easing

Semiconductor group says carmakers can expect upturn in supplies over coming weeks.

Carmakers can expect a sharp upturn in chip supplies in the coming weeks, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) said, signaling that a global shortage may have moved past its most crippling stage.

In the first six months of 2021, TSMC increased its output of micro-controlling units, an important component used for car electronics, by 30 per cent compared with the same period last year, the world’s largest contract chipmaker told investors on an earnings call on Thursday. MCU production is expected to be 60 percent higher for the full year than in 2020, it added.

“By taking such actions, we expect the shortage to be greatly reduced for TSMC customers starting this quarter,” said CC Wei, TSMC’s chief executive.

TSMC’s announcement follows more than nine months of severe shortages of chips, which disrupted global automotive production. The crisis began after carmakers pulled chip orders last fall, leaving them without supplies when demand suddenly surged weeks later.

Analysts have recently raised their outlook for automotive chip supplies.

IHS Markit said in a note in late June that it expected the disruption to recede in the third quarter. “We expect an improvement over the first or second quarter because the situation is becoming better understood and great efforts are being made to enhance visibility within a very complex supply chain,” it wrote.

“We see evidence of this in some of the more relaxed announcements coming from General Motors starting back operations earlier than initially planned and Toyota’s ongoing commitment to its planning.”

Analysts at JPMorgan estimated that production cuts by global carmakers related to the semiconductor shortage would fall to 399,000 vehicles in the third quarter compared with 1.9 million during the second quarter.

In a move set to also boost confidence in longer-term supply security, TSMC said it was ready to keep investing in mature production technology, which auto chip supplies mainly rely on.

“Our strategy more recently in mature nodes is to work more closely with our customers to create specialty solutions; we expect that this structural demand will continue,” said Mark Liu, TSMC’s chair. “We will focus our investment on specialty. For manufacturing greenfield expansion, we don’t rule it out, as long as demand can justify it.”

United Microelectronics Corporation, TSMC’s smaller Taiwanese rival, earlier this year announced a significant expansion of its manufacturing capacity at 28 nanometers, one of the most important nodes for car chip production.

TSMC’s willingness to reinvest in older technologies, a departure from its past practice, is part of a broader strategic adjustment. Liu also announced that the company was ready to invest in more new fabrication plants, or fabs, in countries other than Taiwan.

“There are several projects still under planning,” Liu said, adding that investment in any of those would come on top of the $100 billion in capital spending TSMC has earmarked for the next three years.

The company said it would not rule out expanding its manufacturing base in Arizona beyond the $12 billion fab due to start production in 2024. TSMC also announced that it is doing due diligence on a proposal to build a specialty semiconductor fab in Japan, a country it had previously only considered for research and development.

Liu said that while TSMC would continue its policy of starting cutting-edge technology production in Taiwan and keep R&D there, the need for semiconductor infrastructure security made a more diverse manufacturing footprint necessary “to sustain and enhance our competitive advantage and better serve our customers in the new geopolitical environment."

TSMC on Thursday reported net profits of NT$134.4 billion (US$4.8 billion) for the second quarter, an 11.2 per cent year-on-year increase. It forecast that revenue would rise 21 per cent to 23 per cent in the third quarter, a slight acceleration from the second quarter.

TSMC signals global chip crunch may be easing

Detailed specifications of Alder Lake-S Core i9-12900K and more SKUs reportedly leak

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 07:30:40 +0000

Detailed specifications of Alder Lake-S Core i9-12900K and more SKUs reportedly leak

The alleged specifications of the upcoming Intel 12th gen desktop processors dubbed Alder Lake-S have leaked today, courtesy of '我用第三人称', a user on the Chinese Q&A website Zhihu. The new leak expands on some of the details we came to know earlier where the upcoming Alder Lake-S flagship 16-core, 24-thread (16C/24T) Core i9-12900K was outscoring the current AMD mainstream flagship Ryzen 9 5950X in the Cinebench R20 multi-core test.

For example, in the earlier report, it was mentioned that the i9-12900K is able to turbo up to 5.3GHz on a single thread on the larger Golden Cove cores. This has been slightly altered in today's leak which now mentions this speed is applicable to a couple of cores/threads. So while we are only speculating, it might be possible that the single-core turbo goes even higher. The all-core turbo has been stated to be 5GHz. For those unaware, the Core i9-12900K is rumored to feature eight "Bigger" Golden Cove cores and eight "Big" Gracemont cores for an (8+8) configuration.

Note here that the larger Golden Cove cores have been indicated by "P-Core" likely standing for 'performance core'. On the other hand, the "E-core" probably means 'efficiency core' and that's indicating the smaller Gracemont cores. Specifications of some of the other purported Alder Lake-S SKUs, namely the 12C/20T Core i7-12700K (8+4) and the 10C/16T Core i5-12600K (6+4), have also been provided.

Thanks to the addition of the smaller Gracemont cores, it seems Intel has been able to reduce the boost TDP (PL2) of the Alder Lake-S parts from 250W in Rocket Lake-S down to 228W.

Source and image: 我用第三人称 (Zhihu)

Detailed specifications of Alder Lake-S Core i9-12900K and more SKUs reportedly leak

Netflix will reportedly enter the gaming space next year

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 07:27:42 +0000

Netflix will reportedly enter the gaming space next year

A couple of months ago, rumors started floating around that Netflix is getting into the video games space. Although the company did not confirm the report, it did not deny it either like it did in 2018 when similar rumors emerged. Today, another report has claimed that the firm will be entering the gaming scene as early as next year and has also signed on a leadership role for the venture.

Bloomberg (paywall) says that Netflix has hired Mike Verdu as the "vice president of game development". The executive has previously worked at Electronic Arts and was also the managing director of augmented and virtual reality at Facebook. The title of the designation implies that Netflix will be developing its own games rather than just licensing titles from third-parties, although this has not been confirmed yet.

While the report claims that Netflix will enter this space in 2022, it does not indicate what kind of experience the firm is planning. The distribution format of video games is also unclear, but sources close to the matter have suggested that the company does not plan to charge more for this capability.

Although some may find it odd that the TV streaming giant is venturing into video games, it is important to note that the firm competes for leadership over media content being played on TVs, which doesn't necessarily have to be traditional movies and TV shows. Further evidence of this experiment can be seen in 2018's release of interactive thriller Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

That said, it is important to note that none of these plans have been officially confirmed by the firm, so they are susceptible to change, if they ever do come to fruition.

Source: Bloomberg (paywall) via Kotaku

Netflix will reportedly enter the gaming space next year

16C/24T Intel Core i9-12900K Alder Lake-S reportedly batters the 16C/32T Ryzen 9 5950X

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 22:57:45 +0000

16C/24T Intel Core i9-12900K Alder Lake-S reportedly batters the 16C/32T Ryzen 9 5950X

Intel's 12th gen 'Alder Lake-S' desktop processor lineup is expected to launch later this year in Q3 or Q4. The market is already bustling with activity in anticipation of the launch with the first compatible DDR5 RAM kit already being available and spare parts of the LGA 1700 socket also selling online.

LGA 1700 spares

Of course, it is likely that Alder Lake-S parts are currently being tested internally and if rumors are to be believed, then one such performance score has leaked which shows the upcoming flagship Alder Lake-S CPU, allegedly named Core i9-12900K, outperforming the Ryzen 9 5950X in Cinebench R20.

The Core i9-12900K is thought to be a 16 core, 24 thread (16C/24T) part where eight of the cores are based on the bigger Sunny Cove architecture while the remaining eight cores are smaller Gracemont cores (8+8). Only the Sunny Cove cores are hyper-threaded which leads to the bizarre 16C/24T layout.

The processor tested here is apparently a qualification sample (QS) part which means the final retail part won't be too different. The bigger Sunny Cove core was purportedly able to turbo up to 5.3GHz on a single thread while the smaller Gracemont cores were able to reach 3.9GHz. The i9-12900K allegedly has scored ~11,300 points in the Cinebench R20 multi-core test while we know the 16C/32T Ryzen 9 5950X generally gets in the ballpark of 10,000 points in this rendering benchmark.

It has also been added that in the same test, the Core i7-12700K with an (8+4) configuration - an alleged 12C/20T processor - reportedly scores 9,500+ points. The Core i5 part, a 12600K with a (6+4) configuration or 10C/16T, has purportedly achieved 7,400+ points.

Do bear in mind though that the information comes from an unofficial source and it's advised to take these with a small pinch of salt.

Source: NGA forum

16C/24T Intel Core i9-12900K Alder Lake-S reportedly batters the 16C/32T Ryzen 9 5950X

The desktop PC is making a comeback - here's why

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 05:26:25 +0000

The desktop PC is making a comeback - here's why

Consumers turned to desktop PCs when notebooks were hard to find

Sales of desktop PCs continued to surge worldwide during the second quarter of this year according to new research from the International Data Company (IDC).

According to the market intelligence firm's latest tracker, worldwide shipments of traditional PCs including desktops, notebooks and workstations reached 83.6m units in the second quarter which is up by 13.2 percent when compared to sales during the same quarter last year.

While business laptop sales were increasing before the pandemic, elevated PC demand and component shortages impacted the supply of notebooks last quarter which led to desktop PC growth outpacing that of notebooks.

Research manager for IDC's Mobile and Consumer Device Trackers, Jitesh Urbani provided further insight on the results of the firm's latest Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker in a press release, saying:

"The PC market's hot streak continued to drive heavy investments from the supply side including the entry of new vendors as well as additional spend from underdogs,. And while the top 5 continue to drive volume, the smaller vendors have helped drive growth by offering unique features or niche designs."

Worldwide PC shipments

When it came to the vendors with the most PC shipments during the second quarter of 2021, Lenovo took the top spot with 23.9 percent market share followed by HP Inc and Dell Technologies. Meanwhile, Apple and Acer tied for fourth place with 7.4 and 7.3 percent of the global market share respectively.

Although annual growth remains high in the PC market, it has begun to taper off somewhat as most consumers already purchased new devices while working from home last year. The 13 percent growth rate in Q2 of this year is far lower than the 55.9 percent growth rate during the first quarter and the growth rate of 25.8 percent seen during the fourth quarter of 2020.

While consumer demand looks to be slowing down somewhat, businesses are preparing to implement hybrid work policies when they return to the office and this could lead to higher demand for mobile workstations as well as 2-in-1 laptops.

Via IDC

The desktop PC is making a comeback - here's why

Microsoft Weekly: Continued print nightmares, Windows 11 updates, and test builds

Sun, 11 Jul 2021 22:34:56 +0000

Microsoft Weekly: Continued print nightmares, Windows 11 updates, and test builds

Yet another week has gone by, and as a consequence, another recap is in order. On this occasion, we’ll be covering the ongoing mitigations for the PrintNightmare flaw, additional Windows 11 news, and some Insider builds. You can find all the details about that, and more below, in your Microsoft digest for the week of July 4 – 10.

Continued print nightmares

If you checked for updates this week, you might’ve seen that Microsoft has pushed out a set of mandatory patches for the most recent versions of Windows 10 going back to 1809, as well as supported instances of Windows 7, 8.1, Server 2008, 2012, and others. This is to provide a fix for the RCE-allowing PrintNightmare flaw in the Print Spooler service.

According to some security researchers however, the fix above can be bypassed, though as per Microsoft itself, the bypass can only happen when folks are using modified registry values. The firm says that by default, the configuration of the registry entries in question is secure.

As part of the mitigation process, the functionality of Zebra printers has been broken, though the Redmond giant is working on a fix. We could be seeing yet another set of patches quite soon.

Windows 11 updates

Ever since the unveiling of Windows 11, a number of questions have remained, if not unanswered, at least not answered completely. One such question, concerning hardware support for TPM 2.0, was clarified a tad by OEMs this week.

Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and others have published a list of hardware that’s set to be compatible with Windows 11 at launch. This hardware includes – covering both standalone components and those part of pre-built systems – AMD’s TRX40 and 300 motherboards, as well as Intel’s X299, C621, C232, C236 platforms, among others.

It’s important to stress that Microsoft is still testing the waters with support for 1st gen Ryzen and 7th gen Core chips, meaning that the currently published list isn’t the be all end all of supported hardware.

Speaking of support, even though the Redmond giant hasn’t come out to specifically state this, some of its OEMs have published FAQ pages outlining the fact that Windows 8 and 7 users will be able to upgrade to Windows 11. That said, in the case of the latter, it seems as if a clean install is required.

For folks trying out the test version of Windows 11, there’s a new Dev channel build – 22000.65 -, which brings the search box back to the Start menu, as well as including fixes for the PrintNightmare exploit, and a number of other quality of life improvements. Coincidentally or not, the firm has also kicked off its first Windows 11 bug bash.

Last but not least, if you’re running the Canary variant of Edge, you can now enable an “in-progress” visual refresh of the browser that brings it more in line with the design of Microsoft’s next major iteration of Windows. All you have to do is switch on the “Enable Windows 11 Visual Updates” under edge://flags.

Test builds

In case you’ve signed up to be an Office Insider, you may start seeing the beginning of the rollout for a UI refresh meant to bring the productivity suite closer visually to Windows 11. If you see any updates available, and especially if you get v16.0.14301.20004, you could be presented with the new UI, thought the rollout seems to be staggered at the moment.

In other UI and/or UX news, if you are one of the three people who bought a Surface Duo, and also happened to be a Skype Insider, support for split windows is now available on the dual-screen device. Though this is the consumer version we’re talking about, the timing seems a tad odd, with Microsoft prepped to sunset Skype for Business at the end of this month.

Last but not least, remaining on the subject of EOL and shuttering of solutions, Microsoft has suspended the beta for SQL Server on Windows Containers, instead recommending folks use Linux.

Dev channel

Microsoft is planning some improvements for Visual Studio Code, improvements aimed at Java devs.
The DoD has scrapped the $10B JEDI contract awarded to Microsoft, and will now award a revamped variant to the Redmond giant and Amazon instead.
The Cloud PC could be announced by Microsoft on July 15.
Teams is set to add the option to automatically delete meeting recordings form the cloud.
Microsoft will be handing out a $1,500 pandemic bonus to nearly all employees.

Logging off

We wrap things up with a look at a small selection of gaming news.

For one, UFC 4, Tropico 6, Farming Simulator 19, The Medium, and others have either already arrived (in the case of the first two) or will be arriving to Xbox Game Pass across console, PC, and Cloud. As is the case with subscriptions, Endless Space 2, Downwell, CrossCode, UFC, and UFC 2 will be leaving the subscription in mid-July.

Last but not least, we should mention that Dark Souls III now supports FPS Boost, bumping the framerate to 60FPS on Xbox Series X|S.

Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Microsoft Weekly: Continued print nightmares, Windows 11 updates, and test builds

Need to Fit Billions of Transistors on a Chip? Let AI Do It

Fri, 09 Jul 2021 22:28:58 +0000

Need to Fit Billions of Transistors on a Chip? Let AI Do It

Google, Nvidia, and others are training algorithms in the dark arts of designing semiconductors—some of which will be used to run artificial intelligence programs.

Artificial intelligence is now helping to design computer chips—including the very ones needed to run the most powerful AI code.

Sketching out a computer chip is both complex and intricate, requiring designers to arrange billions of components on a surface smaller than a fingernail. Decisions at each step can affect a chip’s eventual performance and reliability, so the best chip designers rely on years of experience and hard-won know-how to lay out circuits that squeeze the best performance and power efficiency from nanoscopic devices. Previous efforts to automate chip design over several decades have come to little.

But recent advances in AI have made it possible for algorithms to learn some of the dark arts involved in chip design. This should help companies draw up more powerful and efficient blueprints in much less time. Importantly, the approach may also help engineers co-design AI software, experimenting with different tweaks to the code along with different circuit layouts to find the optimal configuration of both.

At the same time, the rise of AI has sparked new interest in all sorts of novel chip designs. Cutting-edge chips are increasingly important to just about all corners of the economy, from cars to medical devices to scientific research.

Chipmakers, including Nvidia, Google, and IBM, are all testing AI tools that help arrange components and wiring on complex chips. The approach may shake up the chip industry, but it could also introduce new engineering complexities, because the type of algorithms being deployed can sometimes behave in unpredictable ways.

At Nvidia, principal research scientist Haoxing “Mark” Ren is testing how an AI concept known as reinforcement learning can help arrange components on a chip and how to wire them together. The approach, which lets a machine learn from experience and experimentation, has been key to some major advances in AI.

The AI tools Ren is testing explore different chip designs in simulation, training a large artificial neural network to recognize which decisions ultimately produce a high-performing chip. Ren says the approach should cut the engineering effort needed to produce a chip in half while producing a chip that matches or exceeds the performance of a human-designed one.

“You can design chips more efficiently,” Ren says. “Also, it gives you the opportunity to explore more design space, which means you can make better chips.”

Nvidia started out making graphics cards for gamers but quickly saw the potential of the same chips for running powerful machine-learning algorithms, and it is now a leading maker of high-end AI chips. Ren says Nvidia plans to bring chips to market that have been crafted using AI but declined to say how soon. In the more distant future, he says, “you will probably see a major part of the chips that are designed with AI.”

Reinforcement learning was used most famously to train computers to play complex games, including the board game Go, with superhuman skill, without any explicit instruction regarding a game’s rules or principles of good play. It shows promise for various practical applications, including training robots to grasp new objects, flying fighter jets, and algorithmic stock trading.

Song Han, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, says reinforcement learning shows significant potential for improving the design of chips, because, as with a game like Go, it can be difficult to predict good decisions without years of experience and practice.

His research group recently developed a tool that uses reinforcement learning to identify the optimal size for different transistors on a computer chip, by exploring different chip designs in simulation. Importantly, it can also transfer what it has learned from one type of chip to another, which promises to lower the cost of automating the process. In experiments, the AI tool produced circuit designs that were 2.3 times more energy-efficient while generating one-fifth as much interference as ones designed by human engineers. The MIT researchers are working on AI algorithms at the same time as novel chip designs to make the most of both.

Other industry players—especially those that are heavily invested in developing and using AI—also are looking to adopt AI as a tool for chip design.

Google, a relative upstart that began making chips to train its AI algorithms in 2016, is using reinforcement learning to determine where components should be laid out on a chip. In a paper published last month in the journal Nature, Google researchers showed that the approach could produce a chip design in a matter of hours rather than weeks. The AI-created design will be used in future versions of Google’s Cloud Tensor Processing Unit for running AI. A separate Google effort, known as Apollo, is using machine learning to optimize chips that accelerate certain types of computations. The Google researchers have also shown how AI models and chip hardware can be designed in tandem to improve the performance of a computer vision algorithm.

Ren, at Nvidia, says AI tools will most likely help less experienced designers develop better chips. This could prove important as a wider range of chips, including many specialized for certain AI tasks, come to market.

But Ren also warns that engineers will still need significant expertise, because reinforcement algorithms can sometimes behave in unpredictable ways, which could lead to costly errors in design or even manufacturing if an engineer fails to spot them. For example, research has shown how game-playing reinforcement learning algorithms can fixate on a strategy that leads to short-term gain but ultimately fails.

Such algorithmic misbehavior “is a common problem for all machine-learning work,” Ren says. “And for chip design it's even more important.”

Need to Fit Billions of Transistors on a Chip? Let AI Do It

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The Witcher 3 next-gen edition will include free DLC inspired by Netflix series

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

The Witcher 3 next-gen edition will include free DLC inspired by Netflix series

Last year, CD Projekt RED revealed it was working on a next-generation version of its hit RPG The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, though a release window was absent. Today during the first-ever WitcherCon event, the studio revealed that the upgrade will land later this year, and it will include some bonuses inspired by The Witcher Netflix series. The studio also showed off the updated cover art, seen above.

The DLC seems to be additional items that are being brought over from the show and not expansion-sized features. They may be similar to some of the free DLC the RPG received in the months after its launch back in 2015 such as alternate looks for side characters and new Gwent cards, as well as hairstyles and armor sets for Geralt.

More information regarding these mysterious new items, and hopefully about the upgrade itself, will be coming soon according to the studio.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt next-gen version is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 sometime later this year containing the base game, the Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone expansions, and DLCs, plus a range of visual improvements that include ray tracing support. Owners of the game's previous-generation version will receive the new edition for free.

Meanwhile, for those who are looking forward to the TV series' return, Netflix announced today at WitcherCon that The Witcher second season will begin airing on December 17.

The Witcher 3 next-gen edition will include free DLC inspired by Netflix series

Colorful's first laptop is an RTX 3060-powered machine inspired by Chinese mythology

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 11:53:17 +0000

Colorful's first laptop is an RTX 3060-powered machine inspired by Chinese mythology

What just happened? Chinese manufacturer Colorful has been making headlines recently with some interesting projects and products. Joining the latter list is the Colorful X15-AT, an RTX 3060-powered gaming laptop with a design inspired by ancient Chinese mythology.

Known chiefly for its graphics cards, motherboards, and storage solutions, Colorful is adding gaming laptops to its repertoire with the X15-AT, a 15.6-inch gaming laptop. It comes with some impressive specs for the price, including a 144Hz display with 100% sRGB coverage, 300 nits peak brightness, and an 86% screen-to-body ratio. No mention of the resolution, but it’s presumably Full HD.

Internally, the laptop features an 11th-gen Intel Core i7-11800H with 8 cores/16 threads and a 4.6GHz boost clock. It also has 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz memory that can be upgraded to 64GB and a 512GB NVMe SSD rated with up to 2,400MB/s speeds.

Elsewhere, there’s a Thunderbolt 4 port with up to 40Gbps transfer speeds, a card reader, an anti-skid RGB backlit keyboard with 1.8mm travel and a full Numpad, and a trackpad that Colorful says is 30% larger than what most rivals offer. It also uses the company’s new Storm Blade 3.0 cooling setup that comes with dual turbo fans, 10nm Superfins, and a high-performance heatsink with five heat pipes.

The CNC-milled aluminum chassis, which is 23.9mm (0.94 inches) thick and weighs 1.93kg (4.2 pounds), features a design inspired by Leizhenzi—a powerful thunder god from ancient Chinese mythology.

The Colorful X15-AT gaming laptop has an MSRP of $1,199 and is coming to partner resellers in APAC in July 2021. Other regions will follow. That’s quite competitively priced for a thin and light RTX 3060 laptop with all those features, assuming you can find one for the MSRP.

Last month saw Colorful launch a limited edition—only 1,000 are being made—iGame GeForce RTX 3090 Kudan for $4,999. It also unveiled the world’s first GPU museum alongside Nvidia.

Source

Intel discontinues Lakefield processors which featured 3D packaging technology

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 22:08:18 +0000

Intel discontinues Lakefield processors which featured 3D packaging technology

Back in 2019, Intel first revealed Lakefield mobile processor which combines a hybrid CPU with Intel’s Foveros 3D packaging technology allowing OEMs like Microsoft to design new thin-and-light form factors. In fact, Microsoft announced Surface Neo based on this processor.

This new processor is built on latest 10nm process and Foveros advanced packaging technology, so it achieves a significant reduction in standby power, core area (12x12x1 mm) and package height when compared to previous generations of technology.

Samsung Galaxy Book S was the first device that came to market with this new hybrid processor from Intel. Later, Lenovo released ThinkPad X1 Fold, the world’s first foldable PC, based on this processor.

Intel has now announced that it is discontinuing Intel Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology (official name of Lakefield processors). Here’s why Intel is discontinuing Lakefield processors:

Market demand for the products have shifted to other Intel products.

If Microsoft decides to bring back Surface Neo in the future, it must look for an equivalent processor in the ARM ecosystem.

Source: Intel

Intel discontinues Lakefield processors which featured 3D packaging technology

Ubisoft confirms that Assassin’s Creed Infinity is real

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 22:05:46 +0000

Ubisoft confirms that Assassin’s Creed Infinity is real

After leaks circulated online, Ubisoft has quickly announced that Assassin’s Creed Infinity is real, with multiple Ubisoft studios’ collaborating on the game.

Rather than letting rumours run amok while pretending that said rumours leaking the game before they’re ready definitely don’t exist, Ubisoft has gotten on top of leaks about Assassin’s Creed Infinity and confirmed that the game is real and is in early development.

The lengthy blog post from Ubisoft details the direction of the game from a creative and development standpoint, rather than giving away any details about the game. Rather than passing the development baton from one studio to the next for each game, this new project, headed up by Jonathan Dumont and Clint Hocking, will have studio’s mingling and working together in harmony to be “less centered on studios and more focused on talent and leadership.”

Before Ubisoft let everyone know it was real, Bloomberg was the first to break the news with a report about Assassin’s Creed Infinity’s new unique design as a live service platform, which will tie future games together.

This “massive online platform” is also set to evolve over time, according to Bloomberg’s people familiar with the development of the game. We’ve seen similar rumours from GTA 6, with both games likely being inspired by Fortnite’s immense popularity that’s sustained by its ever-changing map.

We’ve slowly been seeing Assassin’s Creed games ramp up towards full live service over time. Recently it was confirmed that Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will be the first game in the franchise to receive a second year of post-launch content, following on from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey which only received monthly story episodes.

However Assassin’s Creed Infinity turns out, we won’t be seeing it for a while yet as details are still “in flux” according to Bloomberg, and the game is “still years away from release,” which is as to be expected from Ubisoft revealing it’s in early development.

Ubisoft confirms that Assassin’s Creed Infinity is real

Nintendo says not to upgrade to the new Switch OLED model if you don't care about the screen

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 12:31:07 +0000

Nintendo says not to upgrade to the new Switch OLED model if you don't care about the screen

A hot potato: Nintendo finally unveiled the long-rumored next version of the Nintendo Switch on Monday, and quite a few fans were disappointed. While it does use OLED technology and comes with more storage, the expected 4K support and inclusion of DLSS is missing—even a Nintendo marketer thinks people shouldn’t upgrade if they don’t care about the new display.

The new hybrid device, imaginatively named the Nintendo Switch OLED model, does offer a few upgrades over the current version: the 6.2-inch LCD is now a 7-inch OLED; the 32GB of storage has increased to 64GB; there’s an adjustable stand; improved audio; and a new dock with a wired Ethernet jack.

Where the latest Switch doesn’t differ from its predecessor is the internals. We’d seen reports of support for 4K resolutions, the addition of Nvidia’s DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), a new custom-designed SoC with improved CPU, and more RAM, but all are missing from the Switch OLED model.

Replying to a tweet asking if the new Switch offers improved performance, Nintendo of America Manager of product marketing JC Rodrigo wrote: “Nope. Not what’s for. Stick with the current one if you’re not digging the screen.”

Given the number of reports of an upgraded 4K Switch Pro, there’s always the chance Nintendo could release the more powerful model next year when the global chip shortage has alleviated, though such a move would doubtlessly anger those who buy a Switch OLED model when it releases on October 8 for $349.99.

Source

Pentagon kills Microsoft’s $10B JEDI cloud contract, says tech is now outdated

Tue, 06 Jul 2021 23:31:04 +0000

Pentagon kills Microsoft’s $10B JEDI cloud contract, says tech is now outdated

Amazon's legal stall tactics seem to have paid off.

Following years of controversy and intrigue, the Pentagon canceled its JEDI cloud computing contract with Microsoft today.

Microsoft was awarded the contract in October 2019, but work stalled as Amazon, the other finalist, mounted a legal challenge. Now, the Department of Defense has scrapped the entire project, saying that it’s out of date.

“The Department has determined that, due to evolving requirements, increased cloud conversancy, and industry advances, the JEDI Cloud contract no longer meets its needs,” a Pentagon spokesperson said in a statement.

The deal, which was to be worth up to $10 billion over 10 years, was a significant though contested win for Microsoft that would have given its cloud division a healthy boost in revenue and market share. Late last year, Microsoft Azure held 20 percent of the market, trailing Amazon’s AWS’ 31 percent.

In JEDI’s place, the Pentagon said it will be soliciting proposals for a new contract, the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, from both Microsoft and Amazon. Oracle, IBM, and Google submitted JEDI bids as well, though Google withdrew its bid under pressure from employees. The Pentagon says it will continue its research to see whether other companies can compete, but it insists that only Microsoft and Amazon are sophisticated enough to meet its requirements.

The new contract represents a victory for Amazon, which launched its legal challenge a month after the Pentagon awarded the contract for JEDI, which stands for Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure. The company filed suit in the US Court of Federal Claims, alleging that former President Donald Trump tipped the scales in favor of Microsoft because of his animus toward Amazon’s then-CEO Jeff Bezos.

Trump fanned the flames with repeated criticism of Amazon’s bid. “I’m getting tremendous complaints about the contract with the Pentagon and with Amazon; they’re saying it wasn’t competitively bid,” he told reporters in July 2019. “I will be asking them to take a look at it very closely to see what’s going on because I have had very few things where there's been such complaining.”

Trump’s criticism aside, JEDI was mired in controversy almost from the outset. The Pentagon launched the solicitation by insisting on using a single vendor, which drew criticism from Oracle and IBM even before bids were due. Republicans in Congress joined them, arguing that multiple winners should be selected.

Then, in August 2019, just weeks before the contract was to be awarded, Defense Secretary Mark Esper ordered an independent review before ultimately announcing Microsoft as a winner several weeks later. Amazon cried foul, claiming the delay was further evidence that Trump had unfairly influenced the outcome of the bid process.

In February 2020, Amazon won an injunction, halting work on JEDI, and the company continued to pursue its case. The stall tactic seems to have worked. While Amazon won’t get a chance to take the entire pie, as it would have if it had been awarded the JEDI deal, it will likely get a sizable slice of the new JWCC contract.

Update 5:40 pm EDT: Microsoft and Amazon have both commented on the nixed contract.

"We understand the DoD’s rationale, and we support them and every military member who needs the mission-critical 21st century technology JEDI would have provided," Toni Townes-Whitley, Microsoft's President of US Regulated Industries, wrote in a blog post. "The DoD faced a difficult choice: Continue with what could be a years-long litigation battle or find another path forward. The security of the United States is more important than any single contract, and we know that Microsoft will do well when the nation does well. Because the security of the United States through the provision of critical technology upgrades is more important that any single contract, we respect and accept DoD’s decision to move forward on a different path to secure mission-critical technology."

Amazon had a different take on the matter, of course. “We understand and agree with the DoD’s decision," an AWS spokesperson said to Ars. "Unfortunately, the contract award was not based on the merits of the proposals and instead was the result of outside influence that has no place in government procurement. Our commitment to supporting our nation’s military and ensuring that our warfighters and defense partners have access to the best technology at the best price is stronger than ever. We look forward to continuing to support the DoD’s modernization efforts and building solutions that help accomplish their critical missions.”

Pentagon kills Microsoft’s $10B JEDI cloud contract, says tech is now outdated

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 for insiders, cloud gaming, and print nightmares

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 20:07:09 +0000

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 for insiders, cloud gaming, and print nightmares

Following on from last week’s special edition of Microsoft Weekly, where we covered most of what was known - at the time - about the Redmond giant’s upcoming OS, we take a peek at some additional info that has surfaced since. We’ll also cover an interesting development in regards to Project xCloud, and the rather serious Print Spooler vulnerability. All that and more can be found below, in your Microsoft digest for the week of June 27 – July 3.

Windows 11 for insiders

Following its unveiling of Windows 11 on the 24th of June, Microsoft stated that it would give insiders the chance to play with a test build soon. Rather unexpectedly, it was not ‘Microsoft soon’ as usual, but rather soon in the actual sense of the word.

To start off the week properly, build 22000.51 made its way to the Dev channel, showcasing a new File Explorer, as well as a number of the new UI and UX changes shown in the presentation on Thursday.

Although a number of new things made their way into the build – you can check out our hands-on video here -, like a new Store and some more consistent UI across Office apps, notably absent was support for Android apps, as well as the demoed Teams integration. The company says that these will come through at a later date, since the OS is still in testing (most likely targeted for an October release).

Clarifying its rather stringent mininum system requirements, Microsoft stated that at the heart of those was security, including virtualization-based security (or VBS), hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI) and Secure Boot, the combination of which the company says reduces malware by 60%. Though the 8th-gen Intel Core / 2nd gen AMD Ryzen remains the cutoff officially, the firm also says that 7th Core and 1st gen Ryzen may be supported depending on testing and customer feedback.

If you insist on installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware – save for those few “special” PCs that don’t need a TPM to run the OS - , we have a guide for that, though you’re probably better off installing it in a VM. If you decide to go that route, here’s how to enable 3D Acceleration in VirtualBox.

As for everybody else, if your PC qualifies, you’ll be getting the upgrade early next year. In case you’re not satisfied with Windows 11, you can always roll back to 10. If you’re an enterprise customer, Microsoft has also outlined a way to plan your transition to its upcoming OS.

Last but not least, the company says that accessibility is area of focus for Windows 11, though it’s not clear if the new Black Screen of Death (which conveniently also shortens to BSOD) is part of this focus.

Cloud gaming

Hopping over to the gaming side of things, Xbox Cloud Gaming (formerly Project xCloud) has now expanded in availability to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers in 22 countries. This method of play is available through the Chrome or Edge browsers on Windows 10, Safari on Apple devices, and the Xbox Game Pass app on Android.

In additional news, Conker: Live & Reloaded, Rock of Ages 3: Make & Break, Planet Alpha, and Midway Arcade Origins are this month’s Games with Gold. Folks who have either an Xbox Live Gold or Game Pass Ultimate subscription (which includes Gold) can now grab Conker: Live and Reloaded and Planet Alpha for free.

But if those don’t sound like quite your thing, there are always the Deals with Gold to look at, or the upcoming horde mode from Doom Eternal. Unfortunately for those looking forward to it, horde mode will be replacing Invasion Mode, which is now canceled.

Print nightmares

While security updates are something folks have gotten used to, the other side of the coin, security vulnerabilities, are perhaps a tad more pervasive - even if they don’t really get too much mainstream attention. This is not the case with the latest vulnerability, which in this case targets the Print Spooler service in Windows.

Known as PrintNightmare, the flaw allows for RCE (remote code execution) due to the Windows Print Spooler not restricting access to the RpcAddPrinterDriverEx() function. To put it simply, an attacker that is remotely authenticated can run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges.

This is being tracked by the CERT Coordination Center under VU#383432, and by Microsoft under the related issue CVE-2021-1675. June’s Patch Tuesday set of updates has only fixed part of the issue, unfortunately.

As a result of the above, Microsoft has pushed out further mitigations for the exploit, bumping its severity rating up to ‘high’.

Dev channel

The June firmware update for the Surface Pro 7 has brought in critical security fixes, among other things.
Microsoft has also announced a raft of security updates for the Power Platform.
Azure SQL on Azure Arc will reach General Availability on July 30.
The out of band KB5004760 update has been pushed out to Windows 10 systems to fix PDF problems.
Edge Dev build 93.0.933.1 is out, enabling Tab Groups by default and adding Collections integration.
Edge Dev and Canary builds now have a new Share menu with an ‘Email to myself’ option.
Teams’ activity feed is now integrated with Power BI.
Microsoft has detailed all the changes it’s making to the App Developer Agreement come July 28.

Logging off

To wrap things up, we’ll take a look at a couple of updates that have arrived for PowerToys.

For one, version 0.41.2 has brought in the ability to configure how you would like your PC to stay awake, either by keeping the current power plan, staying awake indefinitely, or for a set number of hours or minutes. Improvements have also been made to the ColorPicker, FancyZones, Image Resizer, and other features, with the list of changes and fixes being rather lengthy.

Not long after the update above, the company also pushed out version 0.41.4, which fixed a bug that caused high CPU usage when using the 'Awake PC' feature we mentioned above. This version also included some fixes for PowerToys Run and image resizing.

Missed any of the previous columns? Check them all out at this link.

Microsoft Weekly: Windows 11 for insiders, cloud gaming, and print nightmares

GitHub and OpenAI launch a new AI tool that generates its own code

Sun, 04 Jul 2021 10:17:22 +0000

GitHub and OpenAI launch a new AI tool that generates its own code

Microsoft gets a taste of OpenAI’s tech

Photo: GitHub

GitHub and OpenAI have launched a technical preview of a new AI tool called Copilot, which lives inside the Visual Studio Code editor and autocompletes code snippets.

Copilot does more than just parrot back code it’s seen before, according to GitHub. It instead analyzes the code you’ve already written and generates new matching code, including specific functions that were previously called. Examples on the project’s website include automatically writing the code to import tweets, draw a scatterplot, or grab a Goodreads rating.

It works best with Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, and Go, according to a blog post from GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.

GitHub sees this as an evolution of pair programming, where two coders will work on the same project to catch each others’ mistakes and speed up the development process. With Copilot, one of those coders is virtual.

This project is the first major result of Microsoft’s $1 billion investment into OpenAI, the research firm now led by Y Combinator president Sam Altman. Since Altman took the reins, OpenAI has pivoted from a nonprofit status to a “capped-profit” model, took on the Microsoft investment, and started licensing its GPT-3 text-generation algorithm.

Copilot is built on a new algorithm called OpenAI Codex, which OpenAI CTO Greg Brockman describes as a descendant of GPT-3.

GPT-3 is OpenAI’s flagship language-generating algorithm, which can generate text sometimes indistinguishable to human writing. It’s able to write so convincingly because of its sheer size of 175 billion parameters, or adjustable knobs that allow the algorithm to connect relationships between letters, words, phrases, and sentences.

While GPT-3 generates English, OpenAI Codex generates code. OpenAI plans to release a version of Codex through its API later this summer so developers can built their own apps with the tech, a representative for OpenAI told The Verge in an email.

Codex was trained on terabytes of openly available code pulled from GitHub, as well as English language examples.

While testimonials on the site rave about the productivity gains Copilot provides, GitHub implies that not all the code utilized was vetted for bugs, insecure practices, or personal data. The company writes they have put a few filters in place to prevent Copilot from generating offensive language, but it might not be perfect.

“Due to the pre-release nature of the underlying technology, GitHub Copilot may sometimes produce undesired outputs, including biased, discriminatory, abusive, or offensive outputs,” Copilot’s website says.

Given criticisms of GPT-3’s bias and abusive language patterns, it seems that OpenAI hasn’t found a way to prevent algorithms from inheriting its training data’s worst elements.

The company also warns that the model could suggest email addresses, API keys, or phone numbers, but that this is rare and the data has been found to be synthetic or pseudo-randomly generated by the algorithm. However, the code generated by Copilot is largely original. A test performed by GitHub found that only 0.1 percent of generated code could be found verbatim in the training set.

This isn’t the first project to try to automatically generate code to help toiling programmers. The startup Kite pitches a very similar functionality, with availability on more than 16 code editors.

Right now, Copilot is in a restricted technical preview, but you can sign up on the project’s website for a chance to access it.

Source: GitHub and OpenAI launch a new AI tool that generates its own code

The Truth about Github Copilot // AI Programming First Look

Qualcomm plans to design an M1 competitor for PCs—sans ARM

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 21:00:25 +0000

Qualcomm plans to design an M1 competitor for PCs—sans ARM

The first interview with Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon lays out the strategy.

Enlarge / Qualcomm's QTM525 5G mmWave antenna module and Snapdragon X55 5G modem.

Qualcomm

Qualcomm's new CEO, Cristiano Amon, says the company will have no problem producing laptop chips to compete directly with Apple's M1—mainly because Qualcomm now employs some of the key minds behind Apple's highly publicized breakthrough.

Amon told Reuters in a recent interview that Qualcomm will attempt to design its own system-on-a-chip (SoC) for laptops without working with ARM, its partner in smartphone chips.

This SoC would include a 5G modem as well as a CPU. Explaining this strategy, Amon said:

We needed to have the leading performance for a battery-powered device. If Arm, which we’ve had a relationship with for years, eventually develops a CPU that’s better than what we can build ourselves, then we always have the option to license from Arm.

This year, Qualcomm purchased startup Nuvia for $1.4 billion. Nuvia was founded by former Apple employees who had worked on the Apple Silicon transition in the lead up to the launch of the M1.

Amon said that Qualcomm intends to use that Nuvia acquisition to drive the development of new chips for consumer devices, including laptops, to offer computer-makers a counterpoint to Apple's highly efficient silicon.

However, Qualcomm won't be designing chips for the cloud computing and data center market. Amon noted that "we are more than willing to leverage the Nuvia CPU assets to partner with companies that are interested as they build their data center solutions."

The Nuvia founders' departure from Apple in 2019 was contentious. They said they left Apple to design new chips to compete with Intel and AMD in the desktop or laptop markets, but Apple sued them, claiming that the founders took proprietary Apple technology and poached engineers in order to turn around and make Apple acquire Nuvia to regain control of what it had built.

Whatever the original intention, the dispute remained unresolved when Qualcomm acquired Nuvia. Qualcomm expects to start producing the chips in question starting in 2022.

Qualcomm plans to design an M1 competitor for PCs—sans ARM