• Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are on track to spend a total of $200 billion on AI this year.  (BNN Bloomberg)
  
  There are worse things they could be doing with their money, I suppose.  De-orbiting the Moon, or promoting polonium as a pizza topping.  Reintroducing rinderpest and smallpox.
  
  Okay, those aren't much worse, but they are worse.

• Intel's Lunar Lake, with its integrated memory, is a one-off.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Future laptop chips will return to having memory on the motherboard, or on modules that connect to the motherboard.
  
  Not because soldering the memory directly to the CPU is an anti-consumer nightmare, but because it eats into Intel's margins.
  
  Apple can get away with 1000% markups on memory, because its customer base likes shiny things.
  
  Intel, since it sells its chips to other manufacturers who then sell computers to you, cannot.
  
  
  
• Speaking of laptop memory, CAMM2 is on its way.  For realsies.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  CAMM2 modules lie flat on a laptop's motherboard rather than slotting into a socket, so the take up less room and can have more pins.  And that lets them support a 128-bit bus with one module rather than the usual 64 bits.
  
  And they also support faster LPDDR5X memory, which usually has to be soldered directly onto the motherboard itself.
  
  Only problem is they are taking a long time to arrive.  There's basically one desktop motherboard from MSI and one laptop from Lenovo using these modules right now.
  
  
  
• Australia's Lord Howe Island shifts by 30 minutes when daylight saving time beings and ends.  (SSO Ready)
  
  Just to annoy everyone.
  
  
  
• Indonesia has banned sales of Google Pixel phones after the company failed to meet a requirement of 40% local content.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  What about Apple, you ask?
  
  They are at least playing fair.  The iPhone 16 was banned there last week.
  
  
  
• GPD's new Pocket 4 is an absurdly tiny and extremely powerful laptop.  (Liliputing)
  
  The existing model of the Pocket 3 has a dual core Intel CPU and 16GB of RAM.
  
  The Pocket 4 replaces the CPU with a twelve core AMD Ryzen 370, and offers options of 32 or 64GB of RAM.
  
  The 8.8" touchscreen is bumped from 1920x1200 at 60Hz to 2560x1600 at 144Hz.
  
  It would be an amazing device for an engineer that needs to go on-site and plug things in, if those people still exist.
  
  
  

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, November 02 2024 11:09 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: cxt217 at Sunday, November 03 2024 01:28 PM (ZLF73)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, November 03 2024 04:44 PM (PiXy!)

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• Microsoft will be offering a one year $30 support plan for users who are reluctant to move from Windows 10.  (PC World)
  
  Microsoft has its own page on this, but it is almost entirely trying desperately to persuade users to just switch to Windows 11; it's hard to even spot the support plan.
  
  And unlike the business version of extended support, this will last for a single year, after which you will be cut off and left to install Linux.
  
  On the upside:

  Microsoft will also continue to provide Security Intelligence Updates for Microsoft Defender Antivirus through at least October 2028.

  Which is really all I want.  Just leave me alone, stop screwing things up, and keep blocking viruses.

• In other good news Windows Recall has been delayed yet again.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  This is the update that collects all your most important private data - including things like readable passwords - in one convenient place for anyone to steal.
  
  
  
• Amazon workers are still complaining about being told to come to work.  (Ars Technica)
  
  What part of "work" do you not understand?
  
  
  
• For the third quarter Intel has posted a loss of $16.6 billion on revenues of $13.3 billion.  (The Register)
  
  That's a net margin of -125%.
  
  That's not at operating loss, though, but an accounting loss, taking charges for severance packages for the 15,000 employees being laid off, and writing down deferred tax assets whatever that means.  (I understand accounting.  US corporate tax law is a foreign country.)
  
  
  
• What sank the Bayesian superyacht that sank in a storm in Italy?  (New York Times)  (archive site)
  
  A storm.  In Italy.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Friday, November 01 2024 08:57 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Mauser at Tuesday, November 05 2024 04:27 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, November 05 2024 11:18 PM (pnaK4)

Posted by: Mauser at Saturday, November 09 2024 09:03 PM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Rick C at Sunday, November 10 2024 04:27 PM (pnaK4)

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• Apple's new M4 based MacBook Air is not here, but Apple did offer a gift of sorts to MacBook Air buyers: 16GB of RAM.  (Ars Technica)
  
  While that is the same base memory as my Dell laptop from 2013, it is at least an upgrade over the previous base configuration of 8GB without the previous $200 price bump.
  
  There is an M4 MacBook Pro.  It is slightly faster than the M3 MacBook Pro.
  
  
  

Tech News

• How are sales of Intel's Arrow Lake chips going?  Based on public data from German computer retailer Mindfactory, they aren't.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  In a list of the 33 top selling CPU models for the past week, Arrow Lake doesn't show up at all, and AMD holds the first 20 places.
  
  It's not all roses for AMD either, as none of their new Zen 5 chips make it into the top ten.
  
  
  
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard is here, the fourth in the series founded with Dragon Age: Origins, one of the best fantasy role-playing games ever made.  (Tom's Guide)
  
  It's hot garbage.
  
  Tom's Guide tries to tiptoe around that, because technically it works quite well.  It's not a buggy mess; the graphics look pretty and perform well without requiring a $3000 graphics card.
  
  But the review summary tells the tale:
  
  - Uninspired story
  - Bland characters
  - Hard to role-play
  
  It's a role-playing game.  That's a death sentence.  It's like reviewing a book and saying the quality of the paper is quite good.
  
  If you venture onto YouTube you will find far harsher reviews, while the mainstream gaming press - the same ones who praised Concord to the heavens before it died ten days after launch - are giving it triumphs and pageantry.
  
  Electronic Arts think it has "break out" potential, which is exactly what Sony was saying about Concord right up until they pulled the plug and wrote off $400 million.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Concord, the game's developer Firewalk Studios is gone.  (MSN)
  
  Not just the expected - and richly deserved - layoffs after they laid their $400 million egg; the entire studio has been shut down less than two years after Sony bought them.
  
  
  
• ZFS deduplication is good now and you shouldn't use it.  (Despair Labs)
  
  Whatever you say.
  
  Continues using ZFS deduplication.
  
  
  
• Mark Zuckerberg promises your feeds will soon be filled with even more AI-generated slop.  (Fortune)
  
  Lucky you.

Posted by: pookysgirl at Thursday, October 31 2024 06:57 PM (dtlDP)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, November 01 2024 01:50 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, November 01 2024 08:01 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: pookysgirl at Friday, November 01 2024 06:42 PM (dtlDP)

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• A Russian court has reportedly fined Google $20,541,679,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for blocking 17 Russian TV channels. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Which used to be a lot.

• Apple's new Mac Mini - which is actually mini - is here, including an M4 Pro model. (9to5Mac)
  
  As with everything Apple makes, it is locked down forever at the time of purchase, and selecting larger memory and storage options is ruinously expensive.
  
  But at least this one supports up to 64GB of RAM.
  
  The 2024 models measure 5" square, similar to other mini-PCs, and much smaller than the previous 8" square models.
  
  
  
• AMD's 9800X3D, due out next week, is 25% faster than its predecessor on productivity benchmarks. (WCCFTech)
  
  The X3D models are optimised for games and are generally slower than the regular models for serious work, but AMD seems to have managed to reverse that in this case: It's also 10% faster than the comparable current-generation 9700X.
  
  
  
• The Verge is having a normal day to end all normal days: A vote for Trump is a vote for school shootings and measles. (The Verge)
  
  It's particularly impressive how the article includes a chart showing school shootings soaring under the Biden-Harris administration, not Trump's.
  
  
  
• Oops. Oopsie. There's been a local privilege escalation bug in the X.Org window server (that manages desktops on Linux) for 18 years. (Phoronix)
  
  Another very good reason not to run it on servers.
  
  If you needed one.
  
  
  
• 25% of Google's new code is written by AI. (The Verge)
  
  Another very good reason to move away from Google as fast as you can.
  
  If you needed one.
  
  
  

Gotta Catch 'Em All

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, October 30 2024 10:44 PM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, October 31 2024 12:20 AM (O7lu9)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, October 31 2024 10:29 AM (bg2DR)

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• AI is 90% marketing and 10% reality says Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  And Git, in much the same way Donald Knuth created TeX and Metafont to typeset his own books.
  
  Ever the optimist, is Linus.

• The (useless paperweight) 8GB iMac is no more.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 2024 edition based on the latest M4 chip starts with 16GB.
  
  And a minuscule 256GB of SSD worth less than $10 because Apple is determined to make cheapskates suffer.
  
  Everything is soldered in place - everything is always soldered in place - so you can't upgrade it later.  And the top configuration, with all of 32GB, costs as much as a high-end gaming or workstation PC with twice as much of everything and ten times the graphics performance.
  
  
  
• Samsung's 990 EVO Plus SSD fixes most of the issues with the 990 EVO.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The new model scores pretty close the 990 Pro across a range of benchmarks.
  
  It's also priced pretty close to the 990 Pro.
  
  
  
• JPMorgan Chase has started suing customers who took advantage of an "infinite money glitch".  (CNBC)
  
  Also known as cheque fraud.

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 30 2024 12:28 AM (zx18t)

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• Nature abhors a vacuum, and OpenAI's Whisper abhors a momentary silence.  (The Verge)
  
  If it encounters such a thing, it will happily fill the void with something it just made up, often creating strange or offensive sentences out of nothing at all.
  
  Which wouldn't be a huge problem since we've come to expect that of chatbots.
  
  Except that Whisper is used for medical transcriptions.
  
  Lawyers everywhere are salivating like dogs hearing the dinner bell.

• Speaking of salivating dogs countries are struggling with what to do about software liability.  (The Record)
  
  Software licenses tend to disclaim everything disclaimable and many things that aren't, and companies only get into real trouble when they screw up in very specific and public ways and yes I am looking at you, CrowdStrike.
  
  And while the US grapples with how to draft new legislation that would protect users and hold companies liable without crippling the entire industry the EU has decided to drop a guilty-until-proven-innocent liability bomb on individual developers.  (Lawfare)
  
  Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that communists.
  
  
  
• Hugging Face - a hub for AI models - has announced HUGS, conveniently downloadable AI models that can run on the cloud or on your own hardware.  (The Register)
  
  This competes directly with Nvidia's NIMS (seriously, who names these things) but also supports AMD and Google hardware.
  
  
  
• A new Windows exploit makes fully-patched Windows systems vulnerable by rolling them back to a version before a key vulnerability was patched, and then exploiting that vulnerability.  (HackRead)
  
  Seems logical, though the pre-exploit code still needs to infect your system somehow.

• Are Boeing's problems beyond fixable?  (Financial Times / Ars Technica)
  
  Probably not.
  
  They do need to ditch their space division, though.  Find a buyer or just shut it down.  Unless the government starts handing out cost plus contracts like candy again, it's a money pit for them.

• Intel's new Arrow Lake CPUs on motherboards with Intel's new Z890 chipset running Microsoft's new 24H2 update to Windows 11 with their integrated graphics don't.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  If you want to do that, you need to update your BIOS.  Or disable the integrated graphics and plug in a video card.  Or stick with a previous edition of Windows that works.
  
  The last option is likely safest, because this is not the first major problem to have arisen with 24H2 on specific hardware.  There are known SSD models that work perfectly well on previous Windows versions that cause Blue Screens of Death on the latest update.
  
  
  
• UnitedHealth has confirmed that medical and billing records for several customers were exposed during a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare back in May.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Where several turns out the be one hundred million.  Roughly.
  
  What's more, when Change paid the ransom - believed to be $22 million - the intermediary stole the money and stiffed the hackers, leading to the data being leaked anyway until Change paid the ransom again.
  
  The attack caused an estimated $2.45 billion in losses for Change.
  
  
  
• Bounty hunters.  Just saying.
  
  
  
• An energy company founded by the CEO of Atlassian plans to build a 6GW solar power plant in northern Australia - good place for it - and supply 2GW of that to Singapore.  (Reuters)
  
  The article doesn't mention the exact location, but assuming this is the north end of Western Australia (which is a desert) and not the north end of Queensland (rainforest) or the north end of the Northern Territory (swamp) it seems like a good plan.
  
  Plans are to also supply power to Indonesia in the future.  That's a lot closer than Singapore, but either is closer to that part of Western Australia than is Sydney.
  
  
  
• The US government bought a tool that can track phones at abortion clinics.  (404 Media)  (archive site)
  
  If that seems oddly specific, your suspicions are correct.  It can track mobile phones anywhere.  The writers of this piece don't care about wholesale unconstitutional violations of privacy, though.  They only care about abortion.
  
  
  
• Orion could be OpenAI's game changing model.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  No it couldn't.

Posted by: cxt217 at Monday, October 28 2024 09:23 AM (ZLF73)

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• The Librarian of Congress has granted a DMCA exemption to allow franchise owners to repair their own ice cream machines.  (ExtremeTech)
  
  The requested exemption was much broader, but the Librarian only granted the part covering "retail-level food preparation equipment".  Still a step forward for soft-serve lovers everywhere.

• Siri now has an integration with ChatGPT.  (The Verge)
  
  Asked a simple question, it can return answers for things you didn't ask, just vague enough to be completely useless when they are not entirely wrong in the first place.
  
  
  
• Delta Air Lines has filed its long-awaited suit against Crowdstrike.  (Reuters)  (archive site)
  
  Delta wants damages of $500 million to cover its direct costs over CrowdStrike's colossal screwup, plus additional unspecified amounts for lost profits, reputational damage, and lawyers' fees.
  
  CrowdStrike says this is Delta's own fault for being stupid enough to use CrowdStrike.
  
  
  
• This page does not exist.  (Wikipedia)  (archive site)
  
  The judge in a defamation case in India has ordered Wikipedia to take down the page about the case - globally.
  
  Be a shame if this got Streisanded into the stratosphere.
  
  
  
• Cheaper Zen 5 laptops are on their way.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The current Zen 5 laptop chips are Strix Point, with twelve cores (four Zen 5 and eight Zen 5c).  The new Krackan Point chips trim that down to eight cores (four of each) and likely also trims down the GPU side to eight cores.
  
  Still waiting in the wings is Strix Point Halo, with sixteen Zen 5 cores and forty graphics cores.
  
  
  

Voices from the Distant Past Video of the Today

Voices from the Distant Past Video of the Tomorrow

• Intel's Arrow Lake desktop CPUs - effectively the 15th generation Core chips though they don't call them that - are finally here.  Are they good?  Should you buy one?  No.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  They do post very good results in a couple of AI benchmarks, and generally solid results in multi-threaded productivity tasks, but on games they average 5% slower than the previous (and cheaper) generation, and are even further behind AMD's previous generation gaming-oriented chips like the 7800X3D.
  
  In fact, for games they are often behind the two-generation-old 5800X3D, sometimes behind the budget-oriented 5700X3D, running roughly even with Intel's three-generation-old 12600K.  But costing four times as much.
  
  And while these new chips do use significantly less power than the 14900K blast furnace, they still use significantly more power than AMD's offerings.
  
  Intel managed to one-up AMD's Zen 5, which has been nicknamed Zen 5% for its mediocre performance gains on consumer applications, but actually going backwards.
  
  To complicate matters further, new BIOS features to improve performance that should be on by default, aren't, and when they are turned on manually they sometimes make things worse.
  
  The same goes for Windows, with the latest 24H2 update causing some games to run noticeably slower on Arrow Lake, when the same release improves performance on AMD's Zen 4 and Zen 5 chips.
  
  It's a mess.
  
  
  
• And AMD's 9800X3D is due out in two weeks.  (WCCFTech)
  
  That looks like the way to go for people who play a lot of recent computer games...  Whoever they are, given how poorly received recent titles have been.
  
  If you just need something that works for everyday tasks, something like the 8700G or even the previous generation's 5600GT should do the job nicely.

• Would you like to play a game?  The Biden Administration - whoever the hell is actually running it these days - has ordered the Pentagon and intelligence agencies the increase their use of AI.  (MSN)
  
  The risk has never been in the AI itself.  The risk has always been the morons in charge of the AI.
  
  
  
• The Humane AI Pin has received a $200 price cut down to $499.  (MSN)
  
  Plus a $24 monthly subscription plan.
  
  It's still completely useless.
  
  
  
• After a 15 year legal battle, the EU has dropped its anti-trust case against Intel.  (Notebook Check)
  
  So there's one positive thing.
  
  
  
• OpenAI plans to release its next generation chatbot, Orion, before the end of the year.  (The Verge)
  
  A preview version of Orion was proud to announce that its name is an anagram of "they are so great".
  
  No, really.
  
  
  
• The UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women - TFEVW, pronounced tfevw, has leaked a 228GB database of victims of violence against women.  (HackRead)
  
  You had one job.
  
  
  
  

You Had One Job Videos of the Day

Posted by: normal at Friday, October 25 2024 09:01 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: normal at Friday, October 25 2024 09:02 PM (bg2DR)

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, October 25 2024 10:01 PM (pnaK4)

Posted by: normal at Saturday, October 26 2024 04:07 AM (zx18t)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, October 26 2024 07:36 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: cxt217 at Saturday, October 26 2024 11:07 AM (ZLF73)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, October 26 2024 05:20 PM (PiXy!)

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• Arm has given notice to Qualcomm that it - Arm - plans to cancel it's - Qualcomm's - Arm architecture license.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  CPU startup Nuvia paid for an Arm architecture license, which allowed that company to design custom Arm processor cores.  Nuvia was then acquired by Qualcomm, which also had an Arm architecture license, and its - Nuvia's - designs became what is now the Qualcomm X series which has made its way into Windows laptops that for the first time ever provide adequate performance for Windows on Arm.
  
  Arm is upset about this because its - Arm's - own cores don't provide adequate performance in Windows laptops so nobody uses them, and cores produced on an architecture license provide Arm less revenue than its - Arm's - own designs.
  
  So Arm is suing Qualcomm for squillions of dollars and wants to prevent it - Qualcomm - from selling processors designed with its - Qualcomm's - own cores, despite it - Qualcomm and Nuvia both - having paid it - Arm - for a license to do so.
  
  It - the entire situation - is a mess and I don't know how things will turn out.

• The front fell off: Intelsat-33 experienced an anomaly.  (CBS)
  
  Which is to say that the US Space Force is now tracking around twenty individual fragments of what used to be the satellite.
  
  Intelsat-33 was made by Boeing.
  
  
  
• Huawei reportedly tried to manufacture its chips at TSMC using a cut-out company.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Alert employees at TSMC raised the alarm when they noticed that the new Ascend 910B they had been contracted to manufacture was very similar to Huawei's Ascend 910.
  
  Also it was marked Copyright Huawei all rights reserved.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which Huawei's HarmonyOS is finally here, divorcing the company's devices from Google's Android.  (The Register)
  
  HarmonyOS is Android.  (Ars Technica)
  
  
  
• Speaking of Ars Technica Tesla reported a quarterly profit of $2.2 billion and psychosis is running rampant among the commentariat.  (Ars Technica)
  
  I do not get a spell-check warning for commentariat.  Huh.
  
  

• Meanwhile the Tesla Cybertruck is the third best selling EV in America.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  After the Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y.
  
  The Ars commentariat could not be reached for comment.
  
  
  
• Eero's new Eero Outdoor 7 takes wifi beyond your walls by putting wifi beyond your walls.  (The Verge)
  
  Remarkable.
  
  
  

Not At All Tech News

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Posted by: Mauser at Friday, October 25 2024 07:16 AM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, October 25 2024 07:18 AM (nk1Z+)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, October 26 2024 05:16 AM (rcPLc)

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