• Taiwan has reached an agreement with the US for a $500 billion investment project in return for a tariff reduction from 20% to 15% and tariff waivers during the construction of new factories.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That amount includes $250 billion of direct investment and $250 billion of credit guarantees by Taiwan's government, but it also includes $100 billion of already-planned investment by TSMC.
  
  If you're throwing literally hundreds of billions of dollars around for Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturers setting up in the US, maybe earmark a few billion for Nanya to expand consumer DRAM production.
  
  
  
• Because Samsung sure ain't doing it.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Samsung is expecting a 5% increase in DRAM production in 2026 - and that's in the face of unprecedented shortages and a projected additional 30% increase in demand over the course of this year.
  
  The Big Three are just begging for Taiwan or West Taiwan to eat their lunch.

• AMD's long-awaited dual-vcache CPU was a no-show at CES but increasingly looks real.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Dubbed the 9950X3D2, it keeps leaking in benchmark results.  It is exactly two 9850X3D CPU complexes in a single package - 16 cores and 192MB of cache running at up to 5.6GHz.
  
  
  
• If you're in the market for a four-port 400Gb Ethernet switch, Mikrotik has one.  (Serve the Home)
  
  $1295.  And considering it has the same bandwidth as a 640-port 2.5Gb switch - if such a thing existed - that's pretty darn cheap.
  
  
  
• ChatGPT Go is now available at $8 per month.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  With ads.  But of course with ads, as OpenAI is bleeding cash like a US federal agency under a Democratic president's second term.
  
  
  
• OpenAI says its new ads won't influence answers.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  It will lie to you exactly the same as the more expensive plans.
  
  
  
• TSMC says AI demand is endless, just like tulip bulbs.  (Ars Technica)
  
  But you can eat tulip bulbs.
  
  
  
• Naya Connect is a very keyboard.  (Liliputing)
  
  It has a fairly standard 85-key layout - a little cramped but it does include the Four Essential Keys - plus an optional 6-key macropad, plus an optional 24-key numeric keypad, plus an optional 24-key macropad with either blank keys or a assortment of 84 interchangeable icon keys to choose from, plus an optional trackball with four buttons and four macro keys, plus an optional trackpad with four macro keys, plus an optional haptic dial (that is, it gives programmable physical feedback) with an integrated trackpad and four macro keys, plus an optional 3D mouse with six degrees of freedom...  With four macro keys.
  
  With five choices of keyswitch, keycaps in either black or white, and the metal frame in either plain aluminium or black anodised aluminium.
  
  The basic keyboard costs $119 (with your choice of colours and keyswitches), while the full setup costs...  A lot.  Well over $1000.  They have an early-bird "All-in" bundle that isn't complete and that's already $917.
  
  
  
• Microplastics from washing clothes could be hurting your tomatoes.  (Washington Post)  (archive site)
  
  You heard them.  Stop putting tomatoes in with your laundry.
  
  So, how solid is this study?

  "Sometimes microplastics can have a positive impact on soil or plant properties, and sometimes it could be negative," Djuric said.

  So you're saying maybe I should put tomatoes in with my laundry?
  
  
  
• Fixing the HTTP rate limit header specification.  (Dotat.at)
  
  A 429 response means you're asking too many questions, go away.  The new spec tries to tell you how long you should go away for, but at the moment it assumes that everyone involved is equally stupid.  This is an attempt to fix that.
  
  
  
• Played some more Hytale today.  It runs at 30fps on low settings on my laptop, which means it should run faster on just about anything else, since my laptop has a 2880x1620 screen and five year old integrated Vega 8 graphics and I habitually run it in silent mode (with the fan speed turned all the way down).  It's a great system for doing work, lousy for playing games.
  
  Also, in Hytale low graphics settings look basically the same as "epic" graphics.  The main change there is the render distance, just as with Minecraft, so unless you spend all your time looking to the horizon it make little difference.  
  
  

Musical Interlude

• The best graphics cards for gaming in 2026.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  At #2 is Nvidia's 5070 Ti, and at #5 is the 5060 Ti, both of which have ceased to exist.
  
  
  
• The best options for building a new PC with DDR4 RAM you already have.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Both systems include the 5060 Ti, which as we have just noticed, has gone to the great parts bin in the sky.
  
  
  
• Nvidia has rebutted claims that the 5070 Ti and 5060 Ti are "end-of-life", insisting that all cards are still shipping and are just shagged out after a long render.  (PC Magazine)
  
  The fact that you can't actually buy them is clearly a skill issue.  Git gud, scrub.
  
  Hardware Unboxed - an Aussie hardware review channel - was planning a market roundup of currently available 5070 Ti models, and reached out to their industry contacts for review cards.  There were no review cards to be had anywhere.  (YouTube)
  
  Their contacts in the Australian retail market confirmed that there was no stock of the 5070 Ti at distributors at all, echoing recent reports from Germany and Japan.  And Asus told them, and subsequently confirmed, that the 5070 Ti was "end-of-life", had ceased production, and would not be restocked.
  
  Then Nvidia... Clarified...  That all RTX 5000 series cards are still in production, and Asus walked back earlier comments and agreed that the 5070 Ti is still in production.
  
  Hardware Unboxed requested - again - a review sample.  There has been no response as yet.
  
  
  
• AMD meanwhile is working with its board partners to prevent GPU price hikes.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Good luck with that.  The 8GB 9060 XT seems to have bounced back up from its recent low price - it was briefly selling below MSRP - but it and the three 16GB cards (9060 XT, 9070, and 9070 XT) are all in stock.  As is the 32GB 9700, though that model is quite expensive.

• TSMC plans to spend $56 billion on new production facilities and equipment this year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  That's equal to three Nanyas.
  
  
  
• Reprompt is - or was, it's just been patched - a Copilot exploit that, once you clicked on the link, kept stealing your data even after you closed Copilot.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  It worked like most so-called "Prompt Injection" vulnerabilities: It asked the AI for your data, and the AI helpfully handed it over because it has less self-interest than the average mycoplasma.
  
  This particular instance has been patched, but it was active in the wild for four months before Microsoft took action.  This is why even people who use AI tools are up in arms about Microsoft integrating it directly into their operating system. 
  
  If you use AI through your browser, it stops the moment you close the tab.  Copilot never stops until you kill it with fire.  Hot Hardware has a detailed article on removing it that involves running unsigned code directly out of GitHub because that may actually be safer than leaving Windows untouched.
  
  
  
• US senators are demanding answers from X (Twitter), Meta (Facebook), and Alphabet (Google) on sexualised deepfakes.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Answers to questions like "How do I do it?", "Does it have pictures of Sydney Sweeney?", and "You're not recording this are you?  Stop recording right now!"
  
  
  
• Italy's privacy watchdog is under investigation for corruption and embezzlement.  (Reuters)
  
  I am shocked, shocked, to see corruption and embezzlement going on in here!
  
  
  
• The Minisforum N5 Air is a $499 5-bay NAS.  (Liliputing)
  
  It's a cheaper version of the N5 with a plastic rather than metal case, but otherwise almost identical.  Apart from five 3.5" drive bays, it has room for three M.2 SSDs (with two running only at PCIe 4.0 x1 speed and one at x2), and includes a Ryzen 255 CPU, room for two DDR5 SODIMM modules (none as standard, so beware of that), and a whole lot of ports: OCuLink, two USB4 ports, 10Gb and 5Gb Ethernet, three USB3 10Gb ports, and HDMI.  One of those USB3 ports is inside the system to host a boot device so that you can dedicate all the drives to data.
  
  
  
• The best office mini-PCs review by Notebookcheck.  (Notebookcheck)
  
  Top spot goes to the Apple Mac Mini M4 Pro.  With 64GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD, though, it costs more than three times as much as the same configuration for the Minisforum AI X1 at #5.  (They list the 32GB model, but I bought the 64GB model.)
  
  
  
• The FDA has announced a recall of chocolate bars from Spring & Mulberry.  (Southern Living)
  
  Then we have number four: Crunchy Frog.
  
  We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in the finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and sealed in a succulent, Swiss, quintuple-smooth, treble-milk chocolate envelope, and lovingly frosted with glucose.
  
  And what is this one: Spring Surprise?
  
  Ah, that’s one of our specialities.  Covered in dark, velvety chocolate, when you pop it into your mouth, stainless steel bolts spring out and plunge straight through both cheeks.
  
  
  
• Everything I ordered during my definitely not drunken New Years Eve shopping spree has now shipped.
  
  The SSDs doubled in price and the memory tripled the next day.  I do need to pick up an AM4 CPU to use it all - the motherboard is on its way - but those are cheap and readily available.
  
  
  

Bananya Interlude

Musical Interlude

1 Sigh.  My son's got a 6800 that he's happy with and I am using a 4070 which, again, works fine...but if the market's going to be stagnant for a couple of years I wonder if we ought to upgrade to a 9070 and a 5000-series.  But the 5070 isn't a worthwhile upgrade based on benchmarks and the 5070 Ti is both a lot more than I want to spend, and also higher wattage than I want to use.
Speaking of graphics, I updated all the drivers and stuff on my X1, and then installed the Radeon drivers, and now if I watch YT videos and try to do something in another window, the whole display flickers.  I solved that problem by installing Arch Linux.

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 17 2026 02:00 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Saturday, January 17 2026 05:00 AM (KOtXO)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Saturday, January 17 2026 06:02 AM (rcPLc)

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• A sad story with a happy ending.
  
  Riot games just acquired Hytale developer Hypixel Studios.  (April 2020)  (WCCFTech)
  
  Hytale is officially dead and its studio disbanded.  (June 2025)
  
  Hytale, the long-awaited Minecraft-like MMO, is resurrected and will launch in early access soon.  (November 2025)
  
  Hytale is saved says Hypixel founder as the studio's dev costs for the next two years have already been covered by pre-orders.  (January 2026)
  
  If you're interested in that kind of game - similar to Minecraft but with RPG elements and modding support built in - it's available in early access right now on the company's website.
  
  For $20.  (Engadget)
  
  Because, to quote the founder of Hypixel Sudios, "The game is unfinished and runs on a build from over four years ago. Charging more didn't feel right. I don't think the game is good yet."
  
  Honestly it seems to run pretty well, though I haven't spent much time in it.  And I was running on a laptop with integrated graphics, so far from high-end hardware.

• Cerebras has scored a $10 billion deal with OpenAI.  (CNBC)  (archive site)
  
  Cerebras is the company that makes the wafer-scale AI CPUs, the ones with 900,000 cores on a single chip the size of a dinner plate.
  
  
  
• SK Hynix is investing $13 billion on a new factory...  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  ... To assemble HBM chips for AI servers.  Not for you.
  
  
  
• Now that the memory drought has dried up supply of DDR5 and the older DDR4 modules alike, DDR3 is next to go.  (WCCFTech)
  
  I have 96GB of DDR3 - at least - sitting in older computers.  Much older.  Built between 2011 and 2015.
  
  
  
• AI is a 400-year confidence trick.  (Tom Renner)
  
  I don't think you could generate music videos on a 17th century mechanical calculator, though.
  
  
  
• The Minisforum MS-S1 Max is the best Ryzen AI Max mini PC yet.  (Serve the Home)
  
  It certainly has the best complement of I/O: Dual 40GBps USB4 ports, dual 80GBps USB4 ports, dual 10Gb Ethernet, one HDMI, five regular USB ports, and three M.2 slots, and a PCIe slot (though just half height, single slot).
  
  And it's 15% faster than the Framework Desktop apparently thanks to better cooling, because the two systems use the exact same CPU.
  
  
  
• Digg is back.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Reddit ate Digg's lunch years ago after a the latter pushed out an extremely unpopular UI update.  Now the founder has bought back the company and is trying again,  It's a clean design and runs quickly, at least.  And Reddit is a toxic swamp these days.

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, January 16 2026 12:52 AM (Gpwen)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, January 16 2026 01:29 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Friday, January 16 2026 07:47 AM (PiXy!)

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• Every part of human bodies from the brain to, um, other bits, is increasingly overrun with microscopic particles of plastic, unless somehow every study generated by the entire field is measuring contaminants or misinterpreting normal biological processes.  (The Guardian)
  
  But that couldn't possibly be true, could it?

  "I’m convinced we detected microplastics," she said.  "But I’ve always said that [the amount estimated] could be maybe twice lower, or 10 times higher."  In response to Kuhlman’s letter, Prof Lamoree and colleagues said he had "incorrectly interpreted" the data.

  Well, that doesn't sound convinced.  And Lamoree was the lead author on a 2022 paper that first detected microplastics in human blood.

  Prof Lamoree said: "I really think we should collaborate on a much nicer basis - with much more open communication - and don’t try to burn down other people's results.  We should all move forward instead of fighting each other."

  Don't ask questions.  Questions are mean!

  "We do have plastics in us - I think that is safe to assume," said Materić.

  Assume?

  "But real hard proof on how much is yet to come."

  And may never arrive.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Tech News

• There is no audience for Apple's Vision Pro because there is no content for Apple's Vision Pro because there is no audience for Apple's Vision Pro and this is all somehow your fault according to Apple.  (Stratechery)
  
  With the Apple II, and the Mac, and the iPhone, you had to fend off customers with pitchforks.
  
  With the Vision Pro that's a little less true.
  
  
  
• First they came for your DRAM.  Next they came for your air conditioning.  And lights.  (MSN)
  
  Power demand in the US is expected to rise 25% by 2030, largely due to AI datacenter buildouts, according PJM (Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection), the largest power grid operator in the US.
  
  Is there 25% more power to go around?  Uh, no.

  When Asthana took over as CEO of PJM in 2020, power plants within its service area were shutting down more quickly than they could be replaced.  Six years later, that trend has continued even though power demand has risen.

  In fact, worse than no.
  
  
  
• President Trump has said that regulatory changes are on the way to prevent AI datacenters from pushing the costs for expanding the power grid onto retail customers.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  No word yet on the other problem.
  
  
  
• Where would we be without analysts?  (The Register)

  "We had assumed this would be primarily a 2026 story.  More and more, particularly at CES, we had conversations with folks and they're saying 'You won't find price stability in memory up until maybe late 2027.'  It means that prices will stop rising.  Not that they’re going to drop.  That’s what we’re hearing," he told us on Tuesday.  "This could be much longer than we had previously anticipated. Not just we at IDC, but we as a collective market."

  There are still some options for buying memory that aren't insanely inflated, but they're getting fewer by the day.  Most people don't eat memory like I do, fortunately, or need multiple computers in every room of the house...  Like I do.
  
  
  
• The Framework Desktop has finally increased in price, for example.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Though the 32GB model has only increased from $1099 to $1139 - which still makes it competitive with leaked pricing for the Steam Cube.
  
  The 128GB model has jumped from $1999 to $2459, a much steeper climb but less than the price increase on 128GB of RAM bought at retail.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: HL King at Wednesday, January 14 2026 11:04 PM (zKMEf)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Thursday, January 15 2026 12:17 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Gopher at Thursday, January 15 2026 12:39 AM (h2BK4)

Posted by: DougO at Thursday, January 15 2026 02:58 AM (OwJfJ)

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• With support for Windows 10 ending last October, user numbers for Windows 11 climbed to an all time high.  Which was only to be expected.
  
  Less expected was that the numbers for Windows 11 have been dropping ever since.  (MSN)
  
  Over the last two months Windows 11 has fallen from 53.7% of the PC market to a very slim majority at 50.7%, with Windows 10 growing from 42.7% to 44.7%, and most of the remainder going to Windows 7, which came out all the way back in 2009.
  
  This is not particularly good news for Microsoft.

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is deeply hurt by all the negative opinions of AI.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  He has no mouth and he must whine.
  
  
  
• A quantitative analysis of the cost of overreliance on AI advice.  (Science Direct)
  
  A very dry paper, but in short decision makers tend to over-rely on AI advice even when it directly contradicts available empirical data.  And this was in the context of an iterated prisoner's dilemma scenario, where optimal strategies are simple and well-known.
  
  
  
• With contract prices for DRAM rising 70% and NAND flash by 100%, memory now accounts for 20% of the cost of a mobile phone.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Which is not all that much.
  
  
  
• Amazon bought a Bee.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Bee makes a wearable AI thing, which is to say, useless overpriced junk.
  
  
  
• VMWare ESXi has a -365 day vulnerability.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  If a zero-day vulnerability is one that must be fixed immediately because it is open to instant exploitation, what do you call one that has been actively exploited for a year before the developers notice?
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, January 14 2026 02:11 AM (tCA/g)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, January 14 2026 06:28 AM (e0fX0)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, January 14 2026 08:14 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: Mauser at Wednesday, January 14 2026 02:54 PM (XWgGM)

Posted by: Frank at Wednesday, January 14 2026 03:55 PM (amxkj)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Thursday, January 15 2026 12:39 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, January 15 2026 04:27 AM (LADmw)

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• Two of the co-founders of Twitter and Pinterest are working on a new social network cult.   (MSN)
  
  A cult with venture capital.

  I have no idea whether they will succeed.  But as a columnist writing about how to keep our humanity in the 21st century, I believe it's important to focus on people who are at least trying.  Social media, after its promising early days, took a dark turn and is now a deeply alienating force, replacing healthy human interaction and leading us to spend much of our lives looking at our phones.

  That's only partly the fault of the social media companies.
  
  Mostly it's just people.

  Many fear that AI, still in its adolescence, will take us down the same path because of the financial incentives to maximize eyeballs and time online.  But it could go either way, and we as a society still have a choice about how we use these powerful tools.

  Fair.  Let's see how West Co - the new company in question, is tackling the problem.

  Their bid for redemption is West Co. - the Workshop for Emotional and Spiritual Technology Corporation

  It's the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation all over again.

  - and the platform they’re testing is called Tangle, a "purpose discovery tool" that uses AI to help users define their life purposes, then encourages them to set intentions toward achieving those purposes, reminds them periodically and builds a community of supporters to encourage steps toward meeting those intentions.

  Danger, Will Robinson.

  "A lot of people, myself included, have been on autopilot," Stone said.  "If all goes well, we’ll introduce a lot of people to the concept of turning off autopilot."

  But will all go well?

  Each morning, staffers light the candle at the "ancestor table," with photographs of family members dead and alive and other sources of inspiration: Harvey Milk, Jane Goodall, Saint Francis.  The founders participate in a fortnightly "covenant" meeting in which they renew their support for each other.  Moments of silence precede meetings.  Ceremonies mark the changing of seasons.  Employees give one another regular updates on their personal triumphs and struggles.  Founders rate their weeks on a zero to 100 "poopy to pleasure" index.

  I have never seen a tech company more likely to earn its own 10-part miniseries on HBO Max after the comet arrives.

• It's the year of Linux on the desktop...  For tech journalists.  (The Verge)  (archive site)
  
  The author installed Linux - specifically CachyOS, an open source distribution with similar goals as SteamOS, to support modern hardware and make it easy to run games.
  
  Everything worked...  Except Minecraft.  But that was because he wanted to play Minecraft Bedrock, because that's the version his kids play, and it's not easy to make it work on Linux.
  
  
  
• AMD's Ryzen AI Halo mini PC is a Ryzen 395+ AI mini PC for AMD.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  No specs, no price, no schedule.  It has a bunch of USB-C ports at the back, so we'll see if it delivers a lot of USB4 or it's something less interesting.
  
  
  
• Twitter is planning to make its algorithm open source, with releases every month.  (MSN)
  
  What use this is I'm not sure, but it's better than not having it.
  
  
  
• My home fibre network disintegrated.  (Alienchow)
  
  Not mine - I have fibre internet, but copper networking inside - but the author's, who carefully laid conduit in the concrete slab when building his new home and ran fibre throughout and is now finding that this was not a good idea at all.
  
  
  
• Why consumers have gotten the memory shortage narrative right.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Self-serving spin from Micron trying to paint themselves as anything other than villains.
  
  
  
• Save $130 on 32GB of DDR5 memory by making your own.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  All you need is 32GB of DDR5 memory and the ability to desolder and solder surface-mount components.
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Tuesday, January 13 2026 04:22 AM (KOtXO)

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• Meta has signed long-term contracts with three suppliers for a total of 6GW of nuclear power for its datacenters.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Two of the partners are startups developing small modular reactors; the third, Vistra, is a major operator of traditional large non-modular reactors.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile researchers in China have managed to break the Greenwald limit on the number of alt accounts a single journalist can have agreeing with his posts before he screws up.  (The Independent)
  
  Wait, I'm told in this context it's an empirical limit on sustained plasma densities in Tokamak-style fusion reactors.
  
  With this breakthrough, fusion power is now only nineteen years and twelve months away.

• It's a water heater!  It's a Bitcoin miner!  It's both!  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Given that the main cost of mining Bitcoin is the energy it takes - and disposing of the waste heat somehow - why not use it for, say, heating water?
  
  The Superheat H1 does exactly that.
  
  And if the price of Bitcoin collapses, it still heats your water.
  
  
  
• Can light move faster than the speed of light?  (Science Daily)
  
  Some theories of loop quantum gravity predict small fluctuations of the speed of light in a vacuum.  New experiments put an upper bound on how big those fluctuations could be, ruling out some of these theories.
  
  I call them theories rather than mere speculation because they actually made sufficiently robust predictions to be ruled out in the first place.  A theory can be wrong, but it's not a theory if you can't test it.
  
  
  
• Can AI do your job?  (MSN)
  
  If you're a computer programmer, or you otherwise work solely with words, possibly yes.
  
  If you do literally anything else, the best AI models currently succeed at 2.5% of human tasks.
  
  
  
• AMD will be launching socketed versions of the Ryzen 400 processor series later this year.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Too late, really.  Zen 6 will be out this year, and if you want integrated graphics it looks like Intel's Panther Lake is faster - though only if you are willing to go with a system with soldered memory.  If you need conventional DIMM or SODIMM memory, you get models cut down from 12 GPU cores to just 4, which isn't beating anything.
  
  So maybe not too late, but underwhelming.
  
  
  
• And if you want dedicated graphics, you might need to buy soon.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Nvidia GPUs are hardest hit so far, with reports of stock on all models running low in Germany and Japan.  Since that was the first direct warning we had of the memory crunch (though in retrospect the signs were there months earlier) I bought myself a 9060 XT while they were in stock and on sale.  Which as of time of writing, they still are.
  
  
  
• Asus and Gigabyte are putting 64MB of ROM on their new AM5 motherboards.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Earlier AM4 motherboards often had as little as 16MB of ROM for the BIOS, which became a problem as AMD kept releasing new chips for the platform - Socket AM4 first appeared in 2016, even before Zen 1, and the most recent new processor for that socket, the 5500X3D, was launched in June last year.  There were simply too many different models of compatible processors to fit all the necessary code into 16MB.
  
  With AM5 confirmed to support the upcoming Zen 6 chips later this year, and strongly hinted to support Zen 7 due in 2028, it will end up being an even longer-lived platform with more CPUs, so motherboard makers are fixing the problem before it arises.
  
  
  
• Amazon is using AI to sell your products on their store without you having to lift a finger.  (Modern Retail)
  
  Also, without Amazon ever asking permission to do so.
  
  Also also, without Amazon bothering to sync the data properly from your online store so that they don't, for example, still list long-discontinued products for sale.
  
  Store owners are not happy.
  
  
  
• NBC News is intensifying a collapse of trust online.  (NBC News)
  
  No, they didn't have a brief moment of self-awareness.  They're blaming three years of AI for thirty years of their own failings.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: PatBuckman at Monday, January 12 2026 02:29 AM (rcPLc)

Posted by: normal at Monday, January 12 2026 07:47 AM (Sbqr6)

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• Twitter has filed an antitrust complaint against, basically, the entire music industry alleging collusion and systematic abuse of DMCA takedowns in order to force platforms into licensing agreements.  (TorrentFreak)
  
  I say alleging, but according to the filing, the president of the National Music Publishers' Association put the entire plan in writing as an email threat sent to Twitter even before the campaign started.
  
  
  

Tech News

• SSDs have only increased in price by 100% compared to the 300-500% for DRAM so we're safe oh Sandisk plans to double the price of 3D NAND flash for enterprise SSDs in Q1 2026 which is now.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  They say enterprise but expect things to get worse in the consumer market as well.
  
  
  
• HP meanwhile is turning to CXMT in China to help provide the DRAM it needs for consumer products given that the Big Three have sold out to the AI companies.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Meanwhile the share price for Taiwanese memory manufacturer Nanya has increased tenfold over the past year.
  
  
  
• And the Big Three - Samsung, Micron, and SK Hynix - are all enjoying record profits.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Memory has turned abruptly from a money pit for Samsung to the shining star of the entire - what's the term - chaebol.
  
  (Samsung and SK are the two largest chaebols - corporate conglomerates - in South Korea.)
  
  
  
• AI read Harry Potter.  (The Register)
  
  And you can prod it into spitting out sentence fragments from Harry Potter by feeding it sentence fragments from Harry Potter, because it is just a very sophisticated autocorrect algorithm.
  
  The headline is more sensationalist, but this is what the story boils down to.
  
  
  
• You know what else are sophisticated autocorrect algorithms?  A lot of people.  (Twitter)
  
  But less correct, and less sophisticated.
  
  
  
• SpaceX has the green light from the FCC to launch another 7500 Starlink satellites.  (Ars Technica)

  The FCC said today's order allows SpaceX to "upgrade the Gen2 Starlink satellites with advanced form factors and cutting-edge technology," and "operate across Ku-, Ka-, V-, E-, and W-band frequencies, supporting both Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) and Mobile Satellite Service (MSS)." The FCC said it is waiving "obsolete requirements that prevented overlapping beam coverage and enhanced capacity," and is letting SpaceX "add new orbital shells at altitudes ranging from 340 km to 485 km, optimizing coverage and performance."

  Amazing what can be accomplished when the government isn't at war with its most productive citizens.
  
  
  
• Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin are leaving California ahead of the imposition of the confiscatory billionaire tax.  (Fox Business)  (archive site)
  
  Page has already bought a $173 million property in Miami.
  
  The tax strikes very close to home for Page and Brin, because they have special voting privileges that under an explicit provision of the legislation means they will be taxed not at 1% of their on-paper wealth per year, but at 5%.
  
  Amazing what can be accomplished by not interrupting your enemy in the middle of a mistake.
  
  
  
• NASA is returning four of the current seven ISS astronauts to Earth ahead of their February rotation after an unspecified medical issue.  (Ars Technica)
  
  They four can return at any time aboard the Crew Dragon capsule, and NASA is in talks with SpaceX to move forward the planned February 15 mission to send a fresh crew to the space station.

Posted by: PatBuckman at Sunday, January 11 2026 02:20 AM (rcPLc)

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• Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI for dropping the "Open" part will go to trial in March over the strident objections of major investor Microsoft and OpenAI itself.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  OpenAI was originally structured as a public benefit corporation - and indeed a public benefit corporation with that name still holds a 26% stake in the company - but it abandoned any pretense of doing anything to benefit the public with the rise of Sam Altman.
  
  Elon Musk was a major early investor and filed suit claiming that public statements by the leadership of the company were directly contrary to its actions, and the judge has ruled that there is sufficient merit to the claim for the matter to go to trial.

• MSI has announced a Ryzen 395+ AI PC.  (Notebook Check)
  
  No detailed specs but it will be just like all the others except not as ugly as the Acemagic one.
  
  
  
• Acer ditto.  (Liliputing)
  
  This one actually looks rather stylish, in a retro electric razor kind of way.
  
  
  
• Asus has announced a 13" Ryzen 395+ laptop.  (Tech Powerup)
  
  It lacks the four essential keys, because of course it does.
  
  
  
• You can buy an apartment in Shanghai for the price of a box of DRAM.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Well, they are talking about a box of 256GB server modules.  Property prices haven't gone down either.
  
  
  
• We might have been slower to abandon Stack Overflow if it wasn't a toxic hellhole.  (PC Load Letter)
  
  True.
  
  
  
• AI slop is not welcome in the Linux kernel.  (The Register)
  
  Good.
  
  
  
• Intel's Wildcat Lake is coming for low-power and embedded applications.  (Liliputing)
  
  This is similar to chips like the N150 which has four efficiency cores.  Wildcat Lake has six cores - but those are two efficiency cores and four even slower low power cores.
  
  How it will perform is anyone's right now.
  
  
  
• Nvidia will be release the RTX 5000 Super models sometime between not and never.  (Notebook Check)
  
  The first outright casualties of the DRAM Apocalypse.  They were planned to use 3GB GDDR7 chips to provide 50% more memory than existing models, but those 3GB chips were the first components to run out.
  
  
  
• Lenovo has announced a round mini-PC based on Intel's new Panther Lake CPU.  (Liliputing)
  
  It has the new B390 integrated graphics, which are up to 50% faster than the previous generation, and probably the fastest integrated graphics short of the Ryzen 395, which is not really a commodity item despite the fact that everyone seems to be selling it.
  
  Also, it's round.

Posted by: Frank at Friday, January 09 2026 07:43 PM (amxkj)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 10 2026 01:02 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 10 2026 01:06 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Robin Munn at Saturday, January 10 2026 01:15 AM (rm3dr)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 10 2026 01:16 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Robin Munn at Saturday, January 10 2026 01:18 AM (rm3dr)

Posted by: Rick C at Saturday, January 10 2026 01:24 AM (1zWbY)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, January 10 2026 06:01 PM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Saturday, January 10 2026 06:03 PM (PiXy!)

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• Bose SoundTouch smart speakers, which  cost up to $1500 each, will reach the end of support next month and be dropped from the Bose app, becoming very expensive dumb speakers.  In a surprising turn of events, Bose has just announced that they won't be all that dumb either.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Cloud support well end as scheduled, but they will instead work with your own local wifi without need for a cloud app.  And Bose has released technical documentation for the SoundTouch APIs, allowing hackers to create open source solutions.

• Production of MLC flash will decline by 40% this quarter, with Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron all moving away from the market.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  You don't need to worry about this, though.  All current consumer SSDs are built with TLC or QLC flash; the last MLC model was Samsung's 970 Pro introduced in 2018.
  
  
  
• Stop optimising for the wrong things.  (Ties Petersen)
  
  The main example is sweeping a supermarket floor, but the target of the essay is social media and recommendation algorithms - and AI generally.
  
  
  
• Minisforums AI X1 Pro is getting updated with the newly announced Ryzen 470 CPU.  (Liliputing)
  
  Making it nearly 2% faster than the previous model.
  
  
  
• The GMK Evo T2 is a mini PC with the also newly announced Intel Core Ultra X9 388H and up to 128GB of RAM.  (Liliputing)
  
  The memory is soldered in, whatever configuration you choose, because that is the only option with the 388H.  It used LPDDR5X-9600 RAM, so the bandwidth is 50% higher than you can get from conventional SODIMMs - and the graphics performance is 50% higher than previous Intel models.
  
  Expect this one to be expensive though.
  
  
  
• Nvidia has announced DLSS 4.5 with 6x MFG.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Meaning that it sticks five fake frames between each two rendered frames, rather than just three.  Making graphics buttery smooth, and game responsiveness a tar pit full of dead dinosaurs.
  
  Looks like a fish, moves like a fish, steers like a cow.
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Friday, January 09 2026 06:52 AM (US/xE)

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