AMD Socket AM5 motherboards allegedly launching next year 

AMD Socket AM5 motherboards allegedly launching next year

Americans have one of the highest levels of fear in the world when it comes to technology related to robotic systems and self-driving cars. Addressing these concerns is paramount if the technology hopes to move forward.

A researcher from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science has developed new technology for autonomous systems that is responsive to human emotions based on machine-learned human moods. His solution, "Adaptive Mood Control in Semi or Fully Autonomous Vehicles," has earned a very competitive utility patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office for FAU.

Adaptive Mood Control provides a convenient, pleasant, and more importantly, trustworthy experience for humans who interact with autonomous vehicles. The technology can be used in a wide range of autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, autonomous military vehicles, autonomous airplanes or helicopters, and even social robots.

"The uniqueness of this invention is that the operational modes and parameters related to perceived emotion are exchanged with adjacent vehicles for achieving objectives of the adaptive mood control module in the semi or fully autonomous vehicle in a cooperative driving context," said Mehrdad Nojoumian, Ph.D., inventor, and an associate professor in the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Privacy, Security and Trust in Autonomy Lab. "Human-AI/autonomy interaction is at the center of attention by academia and industries. More specifically, trust between humans and AI/autonomous technologies plays a critical role in this domain, because it will directly affect the social acceptability of these modern technologies."

The patent, titled "Adaptive Mood Control in Semi or Fully Autonomous Vehicles," uses non-intrusive sensory solutions in semi or fully autonomous vehicles to perceive the mood of the drivers and passengers. Information is collected based on facial expressions, sensors within the handles/seats and thermal cameras among other monitoring devices. Additionally, the adaptive mood control system contains real-time machine-learning mechanisms that can continue to learn the driver's and passengers' moods over time. The results are then sent to the autonomous vehicle's software system allowing the vehicle to respond to perceived emotions by choosing an appropriate mode of operations such as normal, cautious or alert driving mode.

"One of the major issues with the technology of fully or semi-autonomous vehicles is that they may not be able to accurately predict the behavior of other self-driving and human-driving vehicles. This predication is essential to properly navigate autonomous vehicles on roads," said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean, College of Engineering and Computer Science. "Professor Nojoumian's innovative and cutting-edge technology circumvents this problem by using machine learning algorithms to learn patterns of behaviors of people riding in these vehicles."

Source

Noctua is known for making mighty quiet PC fans, and now it has a CPU cooler that doesn’t need a fan at all. Two years after announcing a passive heatsink potent enough to keep a Core i9-9900K CPU in check, the dead-silent Noctua NH-P1 (via VideoCardz) has finally gone on sale today for $110. It’s an absolute unit at 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds).

 

According to the company’s delightfully ASMR build video below (via PC Gamer), the final product’s six soldered heatpipes and thick fins are good enough to run a Core i9-11900K near its TDP of 125W, and even give you a slight overclock to 3.6GHz, though it’ll heavily depend on your case and other components that might also generate heat. The company has a whole set of setup guidelines, a CPU compatibility list, and even a list of recommended cases so you know what you’re getting into and start off on the right foot.

 

 

Assuming you’ve got those things in check, you shouldn’t have too much trouble fitting it to your motherboard: it appears to be compatible with all modern desktop CPU sockets and has “100% RAM clearance on LGA1200 and AM4,” with a note that you might want to avoid tall RAM modules if you’re using an LGA2066 motherboard.

The company also has a quiet (12.1dB) new 120mm fan, the NF-A12x25 LS-PWM, if you really want an extra burst of cooling on occasion. It’s set to come to a dead stop at 0 percent PWM, so your fan controller can only turn it on when you need it.

Noctua’s long-awaited passive CPU cooler is here

Doom now runs on an Ikea smart light bulb

AMD's Zen 4 could be a behemoth with up to 128 cores in a single socket 

 

AMD's Zen 4 is the next big revision of the company's Zen CPU micro-architecture and lately, information related to the upcoming platform has been spilling out fast. According to the latest rumor today, each next-gen EPYC server processor based on Zen 4 (codenamed 'Genoa') will pack up to 128 cores, which is double that of what AMD offers in its current EPYC 7003 lineup.

 

The image below shows the 64-core layout of an EPYC 7703 (Milan) processor:

 

The rumor isn't completely new as earlier there were reports of Zen 4 allegedly having more than 64 cores with new instructions like AVX-512, BFloat16, and more. These new instructions are helpful for high-performance computing (HPC) and server workloads so the alleged addition of them definitely makes sense.

 

 

Intel added AVX-512 instructions to its CPUs with the Rocket Lake architecture and the gains in compatible workloads are truly impressive. According to AnandTech, even an 8-core Rocket Lake-S part was able to win against a 64-core Zen 2 EPYC processor in 3D Particle Movement AVX-enabled benchmark.

 

While Zen 4 and Genoa are still a while away, it is already known that fourth-gen EPYC processors will be deployed inside an upcoming exascale supercomputer dubbed "El Capitan". El Capitan is expected to release in 2023 and it will be used for overlooking U.S. nuclear research and operations.

 

Source: Vegeta (Twitter) | Image via zhangzhonghao (Chiphell forum)

AMD's Zen 4 could be a behemoth with up to 128 cores in a single socket

Starfield is science-fiction grounded in reality, and takes inspiration from SpaceX

Starfield is science-fiction grounded in reality, and takes inspiration from SpaceX

We called the DJI Mini 2 the best drone you can buy under $500, but what if you don’t have $449 to spend? Walmart has leaked a new entry in DJI’s Mavic Mini line that might start at just $299, which should make it the company’s most affordable drone ever.

 

Not only did we just find that price at Walmart’s website, it’s apparently migrated to at least one set of Walmart store shelves already:

 

Here’s the thing, though: as far as we can tell, this isn’t actually a less-expensive DJI Mini 2 — it appears to be a less-expensive first-gen DJI Mavic Mini, a drone from 2019. As DroneDJ points out, all the specs seem to line up with the original Mavic Mini, including its lower-res 2.7K-resolution camera (compare to 4K) and its inferior 2.5-mile wireless range, which strongly suggests the Mini SE doesn’t have Ocusync.

 

As Vjeran discusses in our Mini 2 review, the Ocusync wireless link is perhaps the biggest reason to pick it over the Mavic Mini. It’s not just range: Ocusync is far more reliable and responsive, too. And though Walmart’s online images seem to suggest the DJI Mini SE might come with the Mini 2’s new-and-improved controller, the back of Walmart’s in-store reservation card makes it look like you’re still getting the original folding pad:

u/Mr_DMoody

As internet sleuths are pointing out, it looks like the primary differences here are simply a $100 lower price and a slightly improved plastic chassis, which may or may not make it compatible with the Mini 2’s batteries.

 

Bargain hunters will know that $299 isn’t completely unheard of for a DJI drone — I’ve seen refurbished and closeout Phantom 3 Standard kits for $299, and I believe there was a one-time $299 deal on the Mavic Mini. But if the DJI Mini SE actually retails for $299, that’d be a deal right out of the gate and extremely tempting to would-be drone buyers looking for something they can easily stuff in a bag and (at sub-249g) one they won’t need to register with the FAA.

 

It’s not clear when the Mini SE might go on sale. DJI declined to comment.

At $299, DJI’s leaked Mini SE might be its most affordable drone yet

Asus launches $499.99 Chromebook Flip CM5 with AMD Ryzen 5 processors

If you’ve been waiting for a 13-inch laptop with the best display technology out there, Dell now has an option for you. Dell has finally released an OLED version of its XPS 13, and I’m typing this review on it right now.

 

The test unit I was sent has a Core i7-1185G7, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. The OLED configuration costs exactly the same as an identically specced non-OLED 4K model ($1,699.99), and $300 more than an identically specced FHD touchscreen model. Nothing else about this XPS is new: it has the same thin and light build, the same tiny bezels and webcam, the same glass-fiber palm rests, and the same 16:10 aspect ratio as the past couple Dell XPS 13s I’ve reviewed. So the considerations here really come down to how much you need an OLED screen and what you’re willing to sacrifice for it.

The display itself is great. It’s a 3.5K (3456 x 2160) panel with a claimed 100,000:1 contrast ratio. It maxed out our colorimeter, covering 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut. It’s not as bright as the FHD model but is still plenty bright, maxing out at 369 nits. I had no problem using the device outside and was usually using it below 30 percent brightness while indoors. Numbers aside, it delivers a really gorgeous picture with bright and vibrant colors and sharp details.

 

The downside, of course, is that there is some battery life impact. I haven’t reviewed the 4K Dell XPS 13, so I can’t speak to that unit’s longevity. But compared to the FHD model I reviewed, the OLED model struggles on the battery life front.

Battery life, for context, has been a huge selling point of other XPS 13 models. I averaged nine hours and 15 minutes using the FHD model as my primary work driver around 200 nits of brightness. With the OLED model, I was getting about five hours from the same workload at the same brightness.

 

That’s... well, that’s a big gap. And it should be a serious consideration if you’re thinking of purchasing this device. After all, the FHD display is still pretty darn good. The blacks on my review unit weren’t as deep as they were on this OLED panel, but the picture it delivered was still fantastic and not something my un-artistic eyes had any problems with. (On the other hand, the non-OLED 4K display also doesn’t seem to have great battery life, per other reviews. So the OLED is more competitive with that model, especially since it’s the same price.)

For that reason, I would still recommend that most people go for the FHD XPS 13 over the OLED model. Five hours is not great battery life, but it’s especially not great for an ultraportable laptop this close to the $2,000 mark. It’s certainly a dealbreaker for me, even if everything else about a laptop is perfect. It means I’d have to have this thing plugged in multiple times a day, even though one of its primary benefits is supposed to be that it’s light enough to carry around wherever. I want.

 

Meanwhile, as nice as the OLED screen is, I can’t imagine it’ll make a huge quality-of-life difference to all but the most discerning of viewers. It certainly shouldn’t be a big enough difference to outweigh a $300 premium and a four-hour hit to battery life. If you’re someone for whom the OLED is worth the price, you probably know who you are.

Dell XPS 13 OLED

• $1,650
• $1,900
• 14% off

 

In the Dell XPS 13 OLED, a great laptop meets a great screen.

 

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

Dell XPS 13 OLED review: more pixels, more money

Every trailer and announcement from Microsoft and Bethesda’s E3 showcase

Halo! Forza! Psychonauts! Age of Empires! And dozens of other games, too!

 

Curvy reflections on spaceship interiors in Starfield

First image of article image gallery. Please visit the source link to see all images.

 

 

Microsoft packed 30 different games into its hour-and-a-half-long presentation at this year's completely virtual E3 show. Most of those games will be available on Game Pass and many will be Xbox console exclusives.

If you didn't have a chance to sit through the lengthy, bombastic presentation live, here's a quick recap of every trailer and announcement that graced the streaming "stage."

Upcoming games

• Starfield got its first extensive teaser trailer, which we covered in more detail in a separate post. It's an Xbox Series X/S and PC exclusive coming Nov. 11, 2022.

• The trailer for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl focuses on a group of men who seem increasingly obsessed with "The Zone" and the mutated and paranormal creatures that can be found within it. Lightning effects feature prominently. It's "coming first" to Xbox and PC on April 28, 2022.

• Back 4 Blood is sold as being "from the creators of Left 4 Dead," and it certainly looks the part in its latest trailer. Coming October 12 to Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4/5, and Windows, complete with a new swarm mode and human vs. zombie PvP. Also check out our impressions based on the game's 2020 alpha test.

• The teaser trailer for Contraband had a lot of atmosphere but not a lot of concrete information, aside from the fact that it's a co-op open world title from Avalanche Studios (Rage 2, Just Cause 4). The YouTube description describes it as "a co-op smuggler’s paradise set in the fictional world of 1970s Bayan." No target date mentioned for this Xbox and Windows exclusive.

• We saw some footage of Battlefield 2042 that looked rather similar to the footage we saw last week. You can now airlift tanks anywhere on the battlefield, which seems like a plus. Look for it Oct. 22, 2021 on Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4/5, and Windows.

• The time-looping "interactive thriller" 12 Minutes is still looking good, though very similar to the glimpse we saw at E3 two years ago. James McAvoy, Daisey Ridley, and Willem Dafoe star as voices. It'll be an Xbox "console launch exclusive" on Aug. 19, 2021.

• Psychonauts 2 is finally approaching release after its 2016 crowdfunding campaign. Expect "headploration," "thoughtcrobatics" and a whole lot of Ras riding around on balls of various types. Also a surprising amount of tooth-strewn environments. It hits Xbox One, Series X/S, PS4, and PC platforms on Aug. 25.

• Party Animals is a cute, chaotic rag-doll physics multiplayer brawler that immediately brings to mind comparisons to Gang Beasts. It's coming to Game Pass in 2022 as well as Steam.

• Somerville gives off some Inside and Kentucky Route Zero vibes as it showcases a family trying to wandering through atmospheric 2D environments amid an apparent alien invasion. That checks out, as its developing studio Jumpship was formed by former members of Playdead (Inside, Limbo).

• Halo Infinite is finally coming in Holiday 2021, and a new story trailer showed Master Chief floating through the wreckage of a ship and having a confused conversation with Cortana's apparent AI replacement. The free-to-play multiplayer mode will launch alongside the paid campaign and run at up to 120 fps on Xbox Series X.

• Diablo II Resurrected is yet another opportunity to buy this 21-year-old game, this time with remastered 60 fps visuals, cross-progression, and eight-player co-op. Look for it on Xbox Series X/S on Sept. 23 as well as Xbox One, PS4/5, Switch, and Windows.

• A Plague Tale: Requiem presented a very atmospheric pre-rendered trailer evoking a lot of the same feelings as its hit predecessor, yet showing no gameplay. It's coming to Xbox consoles and Windows in 2022.

• Far Cry 6 looked familiar after its presentation at Ubisoft's press conference yesterday. It's still coming on Oct. 7 to Xbox and PlayStation consoles and Windows.

• Slime Rancher 2 looks to have more of the same super-cute gameplay of the 2017 original, letting player solve puzzles by sucking up blobby monsters and spitting them back out using a specialized gun. Look for it in 2022 on Xbox Series X/S and Windows.

• Shredders is a snowboarding game that seems centered on video capture. It's not SSX which is always a shame. Coming "first on Xbox Series X/S" in Dec. 2021.

• Mundfish's Atomic Heart is a Bioshock-esque shooter, mixing gunplay and telekentic powers amid robots, mutants, and a vaguely J-pop soundtrack. No release window provided for the game, which is planned for PlayStation and Xbox consoles and Windows.

• Replaced features some amazingly detailed and fluid anime-inspired pixel-art animation in what looks like a very impactful brawler. Look for it in 2022 on Xbox One, Series X/S, and Windows.

• Eiyuden Chronicle mixes hand-drawn 2D art with amazing 3D environments and camera angle for what looks like a spiritual successor to the much loved Suikoden PlayStation RPGs. "Hundred Heroes" is coming in 2022, while "Rising" is coming in 2023 for PlayStation and Xbox consoles and Windows.

• The Ascent features character shooting through some generic cyberpunk-ish environments from an isometric perspective. It's coming to Game Pass on day one, July 29, on Xbox One, Series X/S, and Windows.

• Age of Empires IV once again asks players "if history was in your hands, what would you build? How would you fight? Where would you go?" It's coming Oct. 28 on Windows and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

• The Outer Worlds 2 is in the works, but there's nothing ready to show just yet, so instead we got a very meta trailer commenting on other video game trailers.

• Forza Horizon 5 takes place in Mexico, where you will drive through amazing-looking deserts and waterfalls alike. "Forza Link" uses AI to link players up with multiplayer partners based on the types of gameplay they like, while the Events Lab lets players create their own challenges with their own rulesets, like car bowling. It's coming Nov. 9 to Xbox One, Series X/S and Windows

• Arkane Studios' Redfall is a vampire-themed supernatural shooter with a diverse cast and an irreverent attitude, based on its first pre-rendered trailer. It's coming in Summer 2022 on Xbox Series X/S and Windows.

New stuff for existing games

• Captain Jack Sparrow will make an appearance in some Sea of Thieves DLC starting on June 22.

• Yakuza: Like a Dragon is available on Game Pass starting today.

• Fallout 76 is getting a "Steel Reign" update and a series of new "Expeditions" to new locales, including "The Pitt" from the Fallout 3 DLC.

• Hades, the Ars Technica Game of the Year for 2020, will be free on Game Pass on Aug. 13.

• Grounded's "Shroom and Doom" update features a terrifying Giant Spider called the Brood Mother and a bunch of other stuff I missed because I was scared of the Brood Mother.

• Among Us is getting 15 player lobbies, which is somehow legitmately big news about one of the biggest games out there.

• Microsoft Flight Simulator is coming to Xbox Series X/S on July 27, and getting a Top Gun-branded jet-fighter expansion in the Fall.

Every trailer and announcement from Microsoft and Bethesda’s E3 showcase

(To view the article's image gallery, please visit the above link)

Here are more details on AMD's big.LITTLE CPU architecture leak

Pretty much like Intel is doing, AMD too has been working on its own hybrid processor architecture consisting of big and little cores. We came to know about this from a leaked patent last year (via @Underfox3). Today we have new information on the development as Twitter user @Kepler_L2 has spotted one of AMD's new patents related to big.LITTLE published a few days back.

 

The patent outlines how task processing between the two types of cores would be handled in this hybrid approach.

According to this patent, the little cores will have a time threshold built-in and sensors will monitor the length of time it runs at its full clock speed. Once the threshold is crossed, the task will be handed over to the big core. A similar process would be carried out for memory-intense workloads if it runs at its highest frequency state for higher than the threshold time.

 

That's because the idea behind the use of the little cores is to save power and running them at full speeds for long durations defeats that purpose.

 

For the big cores, the implementation is exactly the opposite. In essence, if a workload running on the bigger core does not cross the threshold, the task is sent to the little cores since clearly so much processing power does not seem to be necessary for the workload.

 

Going back to the patent from last year, the architectural block diagram of the big.LITTLE design approach was described in it.

Both the cores will have their own dedicated L1 cache but they will share the pool of L2 between them.

 

Source: @Kepler_L2 (Twitter) | Images via FreePatentsOnline (1), (2)

Here are more details on AMD's big.LITTLE CPU architecture leak

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 performance jump rumored to be absolutely insane 

AMD's next-gen RDNA 3 performance jump rumored to be absolutely insane

Forza Horizon 5 looks incredible in first trailer

Diablo II: Resurrected is launching in September

Microsoft Weekly: Game streaming devices, vertical tabs, and Patch Tuesday 

Microsoft Weekly: Game streaming devices, vertical tabs, and Patch Tuesday

The Outer Worlds 2 revealed

The Outer Worlds 2 revealed

Assassin's Creed Valhalla's new expansion tackles major Viking history battle

Assassin's Creed Valhalla's new expansion tackles major Viking history battle

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora revealed at E3 2021

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora revealed at E3 2021

It was sleek, cone-shaped, a little confusing — like something Hollywood would give a sci-fi villain for a quick getaway.

It wasn’t a helicopter. And it wasn’t an airplane. It was a cross between the two, with a curved hull, two small wings, and eight spinning rotors lined up across its nose and tail.

At the touch of button on a computer screen under a nearby tent, it stirred to life, rising up from a grassy slope on a ranch in central California and speeding toward some cattle grazing under a tree — who did not react in the slightest.

“It may look like a strange beast, but it will change the way transportation happens,” said Marcus Leng, the Canadian inventor who designed this aircraft, which he named BlackFly.

BlackFly is what is often called a flying car. Engineers and entrepreneurs like Mr. Leng have spent more than a decade nurturing this new breed of aircraft, electric vehicles that can take off and land without a runway.

They believe these vehicles will be cheaper and safer than helicopters, providing practically anyone with the means of speeding above crowded streets.

“Our dream is to free the world from traffic,” said Sebastian Thrun, another engineer at the heart of this movement.

That dream, most experts agree, is a long way from reality. But the idea is gathering steam. Dozens of companies are now building these aircraft, and three recently agreed to go public in deals that value them as high as $6 billion. For years, people like Mr. Leng and Mr. Thrun have kept their prototypes hidden from the rest of the world — few people have seen them, much less flown in them — but they are now beginning to lift the curtain.

Mr. Leng’s company, Opener, is building a single-person aircraft for use in rural areas — essentially a private flying car for the rich — that could start selling this year. Others are building larger vehicles they hope to deploy as city air taxis as soon as 2024 — an Uber for the skies. Some are designing vehicles that can fly without a pilot.

One of the air taxi companies, Kitty Hawk, is run by Mr. Thrun, the Stanford University computer science professor who founded Google’s self-driving car project. He now says that autonomy will be far more powerful in the air than on the ground, and that it will enter our daily lives much sooner. “You can fly in a straight line and you don’t have the massive weight or the stop-and-go of a car” on the ground, he said.

The rise of the flying car mirrors that of self-driving vehicles in ways both good and bad, from the enormous ambition to the multi-billion-dollar investments to the cutthroat corporate competition, including a high-profile lawsuit alleging intellectual property theft. It also recreates the enormous hype.

It is a risky comparison. Google and other self-driving companies did not deliver on the grand promise that robo-taxis would be zipping around our cities by now, dramatically reshaping the economy.

But that has not stopped investors and transportation companies from dumping billions more into flying cars. It has not stopped cities from striking deals they believe will create vast networks of air taxis. And it has not stopped technologists from forging full steam ahead with their plans to turn sci-fi into reality.

‘The Wild West of aviation’

The spreadsheet was filled with numbers detailing the rapid progress of electric motors and rechargeable batteries, and Larry Page, the Google co-founder, brought it to dinner.

It was 2009. Many start-ups and weekend hobbyists were building small flying drones with those motors and batteries, but as he sat down for a meal with Sebastian Thrun, Mr. Page believed they could go much further.

Mr. Thrun had only just launched Google’s self-driving car project that year, but his boss had an even wilder idea: cars that could fly.

“When you squinted your eyes and looked at those numbers, you could see it,” Mr. Thrun remembered.

The pair started meeting regularly with aerospace engineers inside an office building just down the road from Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Mr. Page’s personal chef made meals for his guests, including a NASA engineer named Mark Moore and several aircraft designers from Stanford.

Those meetings were a free flow of ideas that eventually led to a sprawling, multi-billion-dollar effort to reinvent daily transportation with flying cars. Over the past decade, the same small group of engineers and entrepreneurs fed a growing list of projects. Mr. Moore helped launch an effort at Uber, before starting his own company. Mr. Page funneled money into multiple start-ups, including Mr. Leng’s company, Opener, and Mr. Thrun’s, Kitty Hawk. New companies poached countless designers from Mr. Page’s many start-ups.

“It is the Wild West of aviation,” Mr. Moore said. “It is a time of rapid change, big moves and big money.

The next few years will be crucial to the industry as it transitions from what Silicon Valley is known for — building cutting edge technology — to something much harder: the messy details of actually getting it into the world.

BlackFly is classified by the government as an experimental “ultralight” vehicle, so it does not need regulatory approval before being sold. But an ultralight also cannot be flown over cities or other bustling areas.

As it works to ensure the vehicle is safe, Opener does most of its testing without anyone riding in the aircraft. But the idea is that a person will sit in the cockpit and pilot the aircraft solo over rural areas. Buyers can learn to fly via virtual reality simulations, and the aircraft will include autopilot services like a “return to home” button that lands the plane on command.

It has enough room for a six foot, six-inch person, and it can fly for about 25 miles without recharging. The few Opener employees who have flown it describe an exhilarating rush, like driving a Tesla through the sky — an analogy that will not be lost on the company’s target customer.

Mr. Leng sees all this as a step toward the starry future envisioned by “The Jetsons,” the classic cartoon in which flying cars are commonplace. “I have always had a dream that we could have unfettered three-dimensional freedom like a bird does — that we can take off and just fly around,” he said.

BlackFly will initially be far more expensive than your average car (perhaps costing $150,000 or more). And its combination of battery life and mileage is not yet as powerful as most anyone’s daily commute requires.

But Mr. Leng believes this technology will improve, prices will drop to “the cost of an S.U.V.” and the world will ultimately embrace the idea of electric urban flight. By putting his vehicle into the hands of a relative few people, he argues, he can open the eyes of many more.

He compares BlackFly to one of his other inventions: a new kind of foam padding that molded itself to your body when you sat on it. He did not initially know what it would be good for, but this “memory foam” wound up in office chairs, car seats and mattresses. In much the same way, he is unsure how BlackFly will work its way into everyday life, but he is confident of the possibilities.

Others in the field are skeptical. They estimate it will be years — or even decades — before regulators will allow just anyone to fly such a vehicle over cities. And they say the technology is too important and transformative to remain a plaything for millionaires. So they are betting on something very different.

‘It is going to take longer than people think’

When Sebastian Thrun watches his flying vehicle — Heaviside — rise up from its own grassy landing pad, he sees more than just the trees, hills and crags of the California test site. He envisions an American suburbia where his aircraft ferries people to their front doors sometime in the future.

Yes, there are regulatory hurdles and other practical matters. These planes will need landing pads, and they could have trouble navigating dense urban areas, thanks to power lines and other low-flying aircraft.

There is also the noise factor, a crucial selling point over loud combustion engine helicopters. Sitting a few hundred feet from the vehicle, Mr. Thrun boasted about how quiet the aircraft was, but when it took off, he had no choice but to stop talking. He could not be heard over the whir of the rotors.

Even so, Mr. Thrun says Kitty Hawk will build an Uber-like ride-hailing service, in part, because of simple economics. Heaviside is even more expensive than BlackFly; Mr. Thrun said it costs around $300,000 to manufacture. But with a ride-hailing service, companies can spread the cost across many riders.

Like BlackFly, Heaviside offers only one seat — and that seat is a tight fit, even for the average-sized person. But a future version will offer a second seat and fly on its own, allowing it to carry two passengers. By mass-producing a two-seat aircraft and sharing the vehicle among many riders, Mr. Thrun said, the company can eventually get the cost per mile down to a level that is on par with today’s automobiles.

Wisk Aero, a company that spun out of Kitty Hawk in 2019 with backing from Mr. Page and Boeing, sees the future in much the same way. It is already testing a two-seat vehicle, and it is building a larger autonomous air taxi that may have more seats.

Many believe this is how flying cars will ultimately operate: as a taxi, without a pilot. In the long run, they argue, finding and paying pilots would be far too expensive.

This arrangement is technically possible today. Kitty Hawk and Wisk are already testing autonomous flight. But once again, convincing regulators to sign off on this idea is far from simple. The Federal Aviation Administration has never approved electric aircraft, much less taxis that fly themselves. Companies say they are discussing new methods of certification with regulators, but it is unclear how quickly this will progress.

“It is going to take longer than people think,” said Ilan Kroo, a Stanford professor who has also worked closely with Mr. Page and previously served as chief executive of Kitty Hawk. “There is a lot to be done before regulators accept these vehicles as safe — and before people accept them as safe.”

‘Like Uber meets Tesla in the air’

No one is flying in an electric taxi this year, or even next. But some cities are making early preparations. And one company has 2024 in its sights.

In another central California field not far from where Kitty Hawk and Opener are testing their prototypes, Joby Aviation recently tested its own. Called the Joby Aircraft, this polished, pointy prototype is much bigger than Heaviside, with more space in the cabin and larger rotors along the wings.

From several hundred yards away, with a traditional helicopter flying above, observers had trouble determining how loud it was during take off and landing. And it flew without passengers, remotely guided from a command center trailer stuffed with screens and engineers on the ground. But Joby says that by 2024, this vehicle will be a taxi flying over a city like Los Angeles or Miami. It too is planning an Uber for the skies, though its aircraft will have a licensed pilot.

Joby believes that regulators are unlikely to approve autonomous flight anytime soon. “Our approach is more like Tesla than Waymo,” said the executive chairman, Paul Sciarra, using this burgeoning industry’s favorite analogy. “We want to get something out there on the way to full autonomy.”

To aid in these plans, it has partnered with Toyota to manufacture aircraft and acquired Uber Elevate, the air taxi project Mr. Moore helped create inside the ride-hailing giant. In the coming months, Joby plans to merge with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, that will take it public at a $6.6 billion valuation. Two other companies, California-based Archer and Germany-based Lilium, have struck similar deals.

The SPAC deals allow the companies to advertise ambitious business projections, something the Securities and Exchange Commission otherwise prohibits in initial public offerings. In an investor presentation, Joby touted a trillion-dollar market opportunity.

After launching in one city, the company says, it will quickly expand to others, bringing in $2 billion in revenue and more than $1 billion in gross profit within two years, according to its investor presentation. Until then, it will lose more than $150 million each year.

Reid Hoffman, the venture capitalist and LinkedIn co-founder, is an investor behind the SPAC that is merging with Joby. He admires the vehicle’s cool factor. “It’s like Uber meets Tesla in the air,” he said, taking v.c. speak to the skies. But he was most attracted to the company’s potential to redefine cities, commutes and gridlock for a broad group of people.

Of the three going public, Joby is the only one whose prototype is now flying. And both its rivals are facing questions over their technology. One has been sued by Wisk, accused of intellectual property theft after poaching several engineers, and the other recently abandoned a prototype because of a battery fire.

Some believe that even with pilots in the cockpit, these companies will be hard pressed to launch services by 2024. “There is a big gap between flying an aircraft and being ready for revenue,” said Dan Patt, who worked on similar technology at the Department of Defense.

Flying cars may reach the market over the next several years. But they will not look or operate like the flying cars in the Jetsons. More likely, they will operate like helicopters, with pilots flying people from landing pad to landing pad for a fee.

They will be greener than helicopters and require less maintenance. They will be quieter, at least a little. And they may eventually be cheaper. One day, they could even fly on their own.

“Can we do this tomorrow morning? Probably not,” Mr. Thrun said. But if you squint your eyes and look at one of these prototypes, he added, you can see it happen.

The post What Is a Flying Car? appeared first on New York Times.

Source

Next-gen HBM3 details inadvertently leaked by SK hynix

Memory chipmaker SK hynix recently updated one of its specs pages for HBM2E and has perhaps inadvertently given away the initial specifications of the next-gen HBM3 standard. Despite its name, HBM3 is actually the fourth generation of the High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) design and according to SK hynix, the new standard will offer 665GB/s or more in terms of bandwidth with an I/O speed of 5.2Gbps.

This means that there is an uplift of close to 50% in the bandwidth as well in I/O speed. However, we still don't know some of the other key specs of HBM3's arrangement. For example, details on the 3D stack height and die density of the next-gen design are unavailable at this moment which means we can't determine the maximum capacity of memory each stack of HBM3 will be able to accommodate.

 

Below is a graphic comparing the gen-on-gen improvement for HBM:

 

 

In terms of availability, HBM3 is likely quite a distance away from the finish line since HBM2E already provides sufficient throughput for most of the GPUs we have today.

 

In related HBM news, Samsung has come up with an innovative technology called HBM-PIM that uses AI to improve data flow efficiency. Once HBM3 is out, it will be interesting to see how the combination of the two will perform.

 

Source: SK hynix

Next-gen HBM3 details inadvertently leaked by SK hynix

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a fantasy Borderlands spin-off coming in 2022  

 

Gearbox Entertainment's Borderlands franchise is expanding with another spin-off with Tiny Tina's Wonderlands next year. Described as a high fantasy take on a looter shooter, the title was announced today at the Summer Game Fest Kickoff presentation. 2K is publishing the game. Check out the announcement trailer below.

 

 

The game is inspired by Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep, the expansion pack for Borderlands 2 that sent players on a D&D-themed adventure in search of dragons to defeat and treasure to collect. In a similar fashion to the expansion, Tina can alter the setting and world of Wonderlands as the campaign goes on.

 

The standalone experience will feature four-player co-op and fully customizable characters with multiple classes to opt into, which will fit together with the tried-and-true Borderlands gunplay plus magic. Alongside Ashly Burch as the voice of Tina, a new cast of voice actors are joining the project including Andy Samberg, Wanda Sykes, and Will Arnett.

 

"Wonderlands is a culmination of over a decade of on-and-off development at Gearbox Software towards a role-playing shooter set in a fantasy universe," Gearbox founder Randy Pitchford adds. "For me, bringing actual Borderlands guns to fight dragons, skeletons, goblins, and more in an original fantasy world imagined by the galaxy's deadliest 13-year-old, Tina Tina, as a new, full-featured AAA video game is a dream come true.

 

Gearbox will have more to share about Tiny Tina's Wonderlands later this summer, and the game is supposed to release in early 2022 across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands is a fantasy Borderlands spin-off coming in 2022

How good is Nvidia's GeForce RTX 3070 Ti video card?

FromSoftware's Elden Ring launches in January, gets its first gameplay trailer  

 

Souls-genre fans got a big treat today during the Summer Game Fest Kickoff presentation as FromSoftware's latest project received its big reveal as the grand finale. Elden Ring has only had a single trailer until now from two years ago, and even that was a cinematic one. Find the highly anticipated gameplay reveal trailer below.

 

 

The heavy and methodical combat from the Dark Souls series seems to be making a return here, letting you easily swing swords the size of park benches while also wielding magic. Multiple bosses that you will be encountering were also shown off in the trailer, pitting you against massive monstrosities with attack patterns to memorize and avoid as usual for a FromSoftware game.

 

Compared to Dark Souls, the world of Elden Ring is much larger and open ended, and even features mounts for long distance travel. We get a good look at various environments we will be traversing in too, from forests and ancient ruins to fantastical castles.

For an unreleased game, the title has a huge and enthusiastic community following behind it fueled by the involvement of novelist George R. R. Martin, creator of A Song of Ice and Fire, who is collaborating with famed game designer Hidetaka Miyazaki to build this dark fantasy world.

 

FromSoftware attached a release date to the game today. Elden Ring is launching on January 21, 2022, and it will be available across PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

FromSoftware's Elden Ring launches in January, gets its first gameplay trailer

Google says its AI is much faster and better chip designer than humans 

 

Even before Artificial Intelligence (AI) had started taking shape, we humans have feared that it will outsmart and outdo us to take over our jobs, and eventually everything. Well, we may be very close to the realization of those fears now.

 

Today, in its study published in Nature, Google Brain, - which is Google's deep learning and AI research team - has claimed that it has developed a new reinforcement-learning system that can do microprocessor floor-planning designs much faster and better than humans can. With the help of an edge-based graph convolutional neural network architecture, it is being said that AI will be able to design floorplans in only a fraction of the time that humans take. The image below shows two memory macro-block designs. The one on the left was done by humans. The other one has been made by AI in only a few hours, far less than humans, and it has a higher number of macro-blocks too.

The floorplan is basically the layout of the various functional blocks inside a processor to produce the most efficient design. Below are two example images of how a floorplan would look like. The one on the left is a simpler one while the other one is a bit more complex with more details.

 

 

Interestingly, Google will be utilizing this technology to build its own AI-accelerators called Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). These will also be used for all chipmaking in general as it has the potential to save a huge amount of time.

 

Source and image: Nature |CPU floorplan images via ResearchGate (1),(2)

Google says its AI is much faster and better chip designer than humans

Apple may have accidentally confirmed the existence of an M1X MacBook Pro