• OpenAI's new social app
  
  Wait, let me stop you right there.
  
  Noah, we'll need you to build another boat.  No, same size as last time would be fine.
  
  
  
• OpenAI's new social app, Sora, is filled with horrifying Sam Altman deepfakes.  (Tech Crunch)

  In a video on OpenAI's new TikTok-like social media app Sora, a never-ending factory farm of pink pigs are grunting and snorting in their pens - each is equipped with a feeding trough and a smartphone screen, which plays a feed of vertical videos.  A terrifyingly realistic Sam Altman stares directly at the camera, as though he’s making direct eye contact with the viewer.  The AI-generated Altman asks, "Are my piggies enjoying their slop?"

  I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.

  In the next video on Sora’s For You feed, Altman appears again.  This time, he’s standing in a field of Pokémon, where creatures like Pikachu, Bulbasaur, and a sort of half-baked Growlithe are frolicking through the grass. The OpenAI CEO looks at the camera and says, "I hope Nintendo doesn’t sue us."  Then there are many more fantastical yet realistic scenes, which often feature Altman himself.

  Build a global network that everyone can share, they said.  Make access cheap and easy, they said.  What could go wrong, they said.

  People on Sora who generate videos of Altman are especially getting a kick out of how blatantly OpenAI appears to be violating copyright laws.  (Sora will reportedly require copyright holders to opt out of their content’s use - reversing the typical approach where creators must explicitly agree to such use - the legality of which is debatable.)

  Guys?
  
  OpenAI isn't violating copyright anymore than a typewriter.
  
  You - the people posting this drivel - are doing that.

• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate got a 50% price hike.  You won't believe what happened next.  (WCCFTech)
  
  The site where you cancel your subscription crashed.
  
  Oh.  You do believe that.  Okay.
  
  
  
• TypePad - MovableType's answer to Blogger - est mort.  (TypePad)
  
  It has type its last pad.  It has joined the bleeding choir unreadable.
  
  The shutdown was announced a month ago, but TypePad stopped accepting new customers five years ago so this came as a surprise to absolutely nobody.
  
  
  
• F3 is the open virus solution for the future.  (ACM)
  
  It's supposed to be a replacement for overly-simple formats like CSV and overly-complicated formats like Apache Parquet.  What it is, is weaponised idiocy:

  Each self-describing F3 file includes both the data and meta-data, as well as WebAssembly (Wasm) binaries to decode the data.

  Oh no you don't.
  
  
  
• Intel and AMD on-chip secure enclaves aren't secure if the attacker has complete physical control over your server and a fortune to spend on sophisticated analog switches to selectively manipulate in-flight data in cruel and unusual ways.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Intel and AMD never claimed that the on-chip secure enclaves were secure under these conditions, and indeed said the opposite.
  
  
  
• The UK is still demanding the password to all of Apple's encrypted data belonging to its customers.  (Ars Technica)
  
  The UK agreed to drop this bullshit but apparently they don't know how.
  
  
  
• Apple's latest AirPods got reviewed by iFixit.  (MacRumours)
  
  They earned a repairability score of zero.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, October 03 2025 12:09 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Mauser at Friday, October 03 2025 11:59 AM (XWgGM)

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• Amazon has announced its new Kindle Scribe and Kindle Scribe Colorsoft models.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  The Kindle Scribe costs $500, or $430 for a model without a light so you can't read it.
  
  The Kindle Scribe Colorsoft costs $630 and adds colour, though it doesn't say whether you can read that one or not.
  
  
  
• Amazon also announced its new operating system, Vega OS.  (9to5Google)
  
  It's Android with the serial numbers filed off and the ability to sideload apps disabled.
  
  Roll the antitrust lawsuits.

• Bioware developers are worried after EA's $55 billion leveraged buyout.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Worried that they might lose their jobs if they keep producing garbage like Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
  
  Well, you can stop worrying.  You're all losing your jobs.
  
  
  
• CISA has published an alert over a bug in the Linux sudo command which...  Holy crap.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Yeah, don't let anyone on your systems, ever.
  
  
  
• We are UK of Borg.  Your ass will be laminated.  Resistance is futile.  (Daily Express)
  
  The UK threatened image hosting site Imgur over its (the UK's) latest insane "data protection" law.
  
  Imgur immediately ceased to be available in the UK.
  
  The UK continues to threaten Imgur and its parent company Medialab, even though neither is a UK company.
  
  Because of course they do.

Posted by: normal at Thursday, October 02 2025 06:47 AM (e0fX0)

Posted by: J Greely at Thursday, October 02 2025 09:02 AM (oJgNG)

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• Qualcomm's next-generation Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme looks like a strong performer.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  Given that it offers faster cores and 50% more of them when compared with the previous generation, that was expected.
  
  It leads the chart in Geekbench, but then it's a future CPU being compared against currently available products, and Geekbench results are sometimes a bit quirky.
  
  But it also leads the pack in BrowserBench, and in Cinebench 2024 single threaded, while losing by around 10% to Intel's 24 core 285HX and AMD's 16 core 9950HX3D.
  
  Integrated graphics also look good - about half the speed of AMD's Ryzen 395, making them faster than any other integrated graphics solution...  As long as your game actually runs which is by no means guaranteed.

• OpenAI has announced an Instant Checkout feature for ChatGPT.  (CNBC)
  
  Etsy's share price surged 16% on the news.

  "Our vision for ChatGPT - and a lot of the technology we create, but especially ChatGPT - is that it's not just providing you information, it is also helping you get things done in the real world," Michelle Fradin, OpenAI's product lead for ChatGPT commerce, told CNBC in an interview.

  Nuke it from orbit.
  
  Now.
  
  
  
• A particularly crazy person has built a working 5,087,280-parameter ChatGPT-generated AI model - in Minecraft.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The so-called Small Language Model, based on the TinyChat dataset, uses 439 million Minecraft blocks, and takes two hours to respond to a question even using a customised Minecraft server that runs redstone blocks and 40,000x normal speed.
  
  

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, October 01 2025 05:34 AM (e0fX0)

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• Intel plans production of its next-gen Panther Lake laptop chips starting in Q1 of next year on its brand new 18A (1.8nm) process node.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Chips take a good six months to make it from production start to consumer devices on store shelves, so expect these to appear in laptops in late Q3 next year.
  
  Panther Lake will offer up to 4 performance cores, which is...  Not a lot.  They will pair these with up to 8 efficiency cores and 4 low-power cores, but at the moment all the models except the fastest are looking pretty anemic.
  
  

Tech News

• AMD's Strix Halo CPU has a 40 core graphics chip paired with two much smaller 8 core CPU chiplets.  But those 8 core chiplets are different from the 8 core chiplets used in all socket AM4 and AM5 CPUs.  (WCCFTech)
  
  All multi-die AMD CPUs use Infinity Fabric over a high-speed serial link to wire things together.  This limits the memory bandwidth for a single consumer CPU chiplet to a fair bit less than fast DDR5 RAM can offer.
  
  Except for Strix Halo, where the 16 CPU cores have twice the write bandwidth of a 16 core 9950X.
  
  That's because it doesn't a serial bus of any kind to connect the chiplets; the CPU dies are placed directly adjacent to the GPU die and the gap is bridged by a direct parallel connection over an advanced multilayer substrate from TSMC.
  
  Well have to wait and see what happens with Zen 6 next year, but it's interesting that AMD was willing to spend the money on a different CPU chiplet just for Strix Halo.
  
  
  
• Looking for a new switch?  Want two 400Gb ports, two 200Gb, eight 50Gb, and a 10GB management port?  Think that would be wildly expensive?  $1295 from Mikrotik.  (Serve the Home)
  
  Which is still a lot for a home network switch - gigabit switches are so cheap these days you find them as toys in the better brands of breakfast cereal - but networking is one of the few places where you can get 20x the speed for not even 20x the cost, rather than prices shooting straight into the ionosphere.
  
  
  
• Asus will be releasing a fix for its stuttering gaming laptops. (Hot Hardware)
  
  Real soon now.

Mathematical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, September 30 2025 08:25 AM (1zWbY)

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• TSMC's 3nm and 5nm production is projected to be 100% booked next year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  If you didn't do your Christmas shopping early, you might run into issues.
  
  
  
• Though Samsung has cut prices on its 2nm node by 33%.  (Yahoo)
  
  Now only $20,000 per wafer!
  
  Samsung also scored a $16 billion deal to manufacture chips for Tesla.

• What's going on in the Ruby world?  (Arko)
  
  Some attempt at localised but noisy anarcho-tyranny, is would seem.
  
  Someone is always trying to take over something that belongs to somebody else.
  
  
  
• A court has ruled that the Pentagon can call Chinese military company DJI a "Chinese military company", overruling the objections of Chinese military company DJI.  (The Verge)
  
  How about that?
  
  
  
• Scientists have adapted a glue gun to 3d print bone grafts directly into fractures.  (Live Science)
  
  Cool.
  
  Now hold my beer while I do this...
  
  
  
• The XPPen Artist Ultra 16 is a 4k OLED graphics tablet that costs $810.  (Notebook Check)
  
  And if you don't need 4k or OLED there are much cheaper graphics tablets with good displays these days; it's no longer the sole domain of the Wacom Cintiq.
  
  
  
• Can Google be trusted without a breakup?  (The Verge)
  
  Can Google be trusted with a breakup?

• Two new Xbox models have just gone up on pre-order, sort of: The portable Ally X for $999 and the cheaper Ally Nothing for $599.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Can these portable devices from Asus really be described as Xboxes?  They have AMD Ryzen CPUs - but then, so do the current Microsoft Xboxes.  But they have AMD Radeon graphics - which the current Microsoft Xboxes also have.
  
  So I guess the answer is yes.
  
  The Ally X has a Ryzen Z2 AI Extreme, with 8 Zen 5 CPU cores and 16 RDNA3.5 graphics cores, and 24GB and a 1TB SSD.
  
  The Ally Nothing has a Ryzen Z2 A, which doesn't sound like a huge downgrade but definitely is: Just 4 Zen 2 CPU cores and 8 RDNA2 graphics cores, plus 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
  
  It has the same screen and controllers as the more expensive model, but offers less than half the CPU performance.  Comparing the desktop equivalents, a four-core Zen 2 would be one third the speed, but in a mobile device the faster chip is likely the be thermally constrained anyway.
  
  
  
• And it's sold out, for rather dubious values of "sold out".  (WCCFTech)
  
  It's a pre-order, so this restriction is limited to the units from the first production batch that were allocated to the Microsoft Store.  There are plenty more out there.
  
  

• Meta, parent company of Facebook, has announced its new app: Vibes, an infinitely scrolling stream of AI slop.  (Facebook)
  
  Thanks, Mark.
  
  
  
• Is the HP Z2 Mini G1a the small form-factor Strix Halo workstation you were waiting for?  $5021 as tested.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  I'm siding with no.
  
  
  
• Well, how about the Minisforum MS-S1 MAX?  (YouTube)
  
  Maybe.  Currently selling at $2399 for the sole available model, so it's by no means cheap.  But it has two USB4 ports offering 40Gbps, two USB4V2 ports offering 80Gbps, two 10Gb Ethernet ports, two M.2 slots, and a PCIe expansion slot.
  
  Plus of course a Ryzen 395 with 16 Zen 5 CPU cores and 40 RDNA3.5 graphics cores, and 128GB of LPDDR5-8000 memory.
  
  You can configure a Mac Studio with equivalent specs (the 16 core M4 Max also has 40 graphics cores and supports 128GB of RAM) but it's slower and significantly more expensive.
  
  
  
• Electronic Arts is seeking to go private under a $50 billion leverage buyout.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Is it suddenly the 80s again?
  
  

Artistic Interlude

Musical Interlude

Posted by: furball321 at Saturday, September 27 2025 08:46 PM (As8gg)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, September 27 2025 10:31 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: normal at Sunday, September 28 2025 05:34 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Mauser at Sunday, September 28 2025 10:10 AM (XWgGM)

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• Raspberry Pi has announced the Raspberry Pi 500+, which is what everyone had hoped the Raspberry Pi 500 would be, but.  (Raspberry Pi)
  
  Specifically, it includes an M.2 slot - and comes with a 256GB M.2 SSD - so storage is many times faster than using microSD cards.
  
  It also includes 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB on the Pi 500, and 4GB on the Pi 400.
  
  It also has a mechanical keyboard.  Including the Four Essential Keys, which the 400 and 500 are both missing.
  
  Unfortunately, all this comes at a price: Compared with the $66 Pi 400 and $90 Pi 500, it costs $200.  Not unreasonable given the capabilities and quality, but something that is not quite as easy an impulse buy.

• Meanwhile over at Beelink's online store, the Me Mini is selling at one third off MSRP - cut from $329 to just $209.  (Beelink)
  
  Since I was already considering one when supply reached Australia, and that comes with free shipping and a choice of power cords, I bought one.  The blue model, in memory of the classic Cobalt Qube.
  
  $209 for a six-drive M.2 NAS is a steal, and this seems to have fewer issues than some of the four-drive models.  It's not a high-end solution with its Intel N150 CPU and 12GB of soldered RAM, but it's $200.
  
  
  
• TikTok is being sold, with 45% of the US company going to a consortium headed by Oracle, Silverlake, and MBX.  (The Verge)
  
  35% will be held by investors in parent company ByteDance, and the remaining 20% will simply evaporate or something.
  
  
  
• Zen 6 and apparently also Zen 7 are headed to current AMD motherboards.  (YouTube)
  
  According to latest leaks, not only next year's Zen 6, with up to 24 cores, but 2028's Zen 7 with up to 32 cores will be continuing on with current AM5 motherboards and chipsets, and DDR5 RAM.
  
  Lots of discussion also on next-generation RDNA5 graphics - including low-end models that will use LPDDR5X or LPDDR6 memory instead of GDDR6/7, and interchangeable GPU chiplets.

• Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme and Elite Not Quite So Extreme As All That, successors to the Snapdragon X Elite family.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 12 core X Elite performed pretty well among laptop chips, just slightly behind AMD's own 12 core chip, the Ryzen 370.  So long as the software you were running was compatible, which wasn't always the case.
  
  It was doomed to irrelevance by a combination of high prices and being promoted with Microsoft's even more doomed Recall software which absolutely nobody wants or trusts.
  
  The X2 Elite Extreme updates the cores in unspecified ways, bumps the clock speed from 4.3GHz to 5GHz, increases the core count from 12 (8 fast plus 4 efficiency) to 18 (12 fast plus 6 efficiency), and also increases the memory width from 128 bits to 192 bits.
  
  Qualcomm claims this will increase multi-threaded performance by 75%, and given that it has 50% more cores that seems plausible.
  
  Laptops with the new chips will ship in the first half of next year.

• Also announced was the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which delivers just 8 cores (2 fast plus 6 efficiency) but cuts power and clock speed for pocket-sized devices.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Look for it in phones and tablets and overpriced washing machines.
  
  
  
• Australia's "eSafety Commissioner" is asking if GitHub is a social network that puts children at risk.  (The Register)
  
  Python leads to Java.  Java leads to COBOL.  Cobol leads to job security.
  
  
  
• Experimental gene therapy appears to significantly slow the progress of Huntington's disease.  (BBC)
  
  A particularly nasty hereditary degenerative disease, Huntington's typically first shows up in early middle age, when people likely already have children, and slowly eats away at the nervous system over twenty years or so.
  
  The new treatment doesn't cure it, but seems to slow progress by a factor of four.  If treatment is started early, patients are likely to die of something else before the disease can progress that far.
  

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, September 25 2025 10:27 PM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Frank at Friday, September 26 2025 04:19 AM (+i6Xr)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, September 26 2025 08:42 AM (rcPLc)

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• The pace of AI companies' spending on new datacenters is expected to require annual revenues of $2 trillion by 2030.  Even the most optimistic (read: horseshit) estimates put the industry 40% short of that number.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Is it still a bubble when even the people in the bubble know it's a bubble?

• Do DRAMless QLC SSDs no longer suck for the average user?  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Apparently, yes.  Tested today is the Sandisk WD Blue SN5100, and it works pretty well.
  
  
  
• There's apparently a Legend of Zelda Lego set coming next year, but that's not the interesting bit.  (NotebookCheck)
  
  No, the interesting thing is that just days ago Lego released a Willy Wonka themed set.
  
  And it's the good version with Gene Wilder.
  
  
  
• Disney Plus is getting another price increase.  (The Verge)
  
  Cancel now and put the savings toward a Willy Wonka Lego set.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: normal at Thursday, September 25 2025 12:27 AM (LADmw)

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• Nvidia is planning to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  So that OpenAI can spend the money on 10 gigawatts worth of Nvidia hardware.
  
  It's not a bubble.
  
  It's a Ponzi scheme with extra steps.*

• A Twitch streamer (I know) who was raising money for his cancer treatments with blockchain donations (I know) lost everything he had raised in minutes after installing a Steam game called BlockBlasters recommended to him in a chat message (I know).  (Decrypt.co)
  
  Most of this is legitimate.  Streamer "RastalandTV" does have stage 4 cancer, has been raising funds through blockchain donations, and BlockBlasters was compromised at the end of August and has stolen at least $150,000 in crypto funds from victims.  It has since been pulled from Steam.
  
  Happy ending time: Crypto bro Alex Becker - I hope he'll forgive me for calling him that - not only stepped in to cover the loss, but stepped in twice because the first donation he made was also lost.
  
  Not so happy ending time: Blockchains.
  
  
  
• Mathematicians who have spent 150 years working on a simple way to categorise the complexity of knots have come to a stunning conclusion: We have no idea.  (Quanta)
  
  None whatsoever:

  But from another perspective, that only makes the unknotting number more intriguing. "There's just much more complexity and unknowns about knot theory than we knew there were a few months ago," Livingston said.

  You might even say it's a knotty problem.
  
  What's more, we don't know why we don't know what we don't know.  We just know we don't know it:

  "I'm still stymied by this most basic question" about the unknotting number, Moore said.  "That just lights the fire under you."

  Have you checked the answers at the end of the book?
  
  
  
• Have you already scratched your hugely expensive iPhone 17 Pro Max.  Yes.  Yes you have.  (The Verge)
  
  Meanwhile my $120 Moto G14 is in pristine condition.

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, September 24 2025 03:52 AM (XWgGM)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, September 24 2025 05:44 AM (e0fX0)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, September 24 2025 09:45 AM (rcPLc)

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