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• AWS is experiencing a wee spot of bother with its billing system. (The Register)
  
  
  Speculation is that it's a unit conversion error in the cost estimation tool, but all we know for sure is that people who barely use the service are being alerted to cost estimates in the billions of dollars, and for businesses that have active applications the predicted bills run into the trillions.
  
  
  AWS say they are looking into it.
  
  

  Some users are nonetheless expressing mild consternation.

  
  
  I tried to embed the tweets two different ways but the end result was that the editor ate the entire post, so links are all you get.  Saved by my reflexive habit of Ctrl-C to capture the post content before I hit save, from back when the server glitched a lot more often than it does now.

Musical Interlude

• TSMC has committed another $100 billion for four new leading-edge 2nm fabs in Arizona.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  I'm not sure exactly why they chose Arizona apart from the fact that China is unlikely to successfully invade, but that seems like a good enough reason.

• India has fined Hewlett Packard 1.4 billion rupees for price fixing.  (Ars Technica)
  
  About tree fiddy in real money.
  
  
  
• AMD's Ryzen 7700X3D is the company's latest though not newest CPU with what they term "3D-Vcache" - an additional 64MB cache chip stacked on top of the CPU die.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The problem is that it's not much faster than the existing 7700X unless you're specifically using it to play games, and not much faster than the existing 7600X3D if you are playing games, and both of those chips are around $100 cheaper than the 7700X3D's $329.
  
  
  
• 1Password now lets Claude use your passwords - without giving it access to the passwords themselves.  (Nerds.xyz)
  
  Claude sends a request to 1Password, the user approves it, and Claude ends up with access to the desired service without ever seeing the password.  It's a pretty elegant solution to a situation set up mostly by crazy people.
  
  
  
• Why is OpenAI selling a ChatGPT basketball?  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Good question.  Next question.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: J Greely at Friday, July 17 2026 10:00 PM (oJgNG)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, July 17 2026 10:49 PM (6eVrQ)

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• The latest scandal of a fatal failure of Tesla's FSD (full self-driving) system turns out to have been another case of PTTMCDISEH-STTW.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Pedal-to-the-metal controlled driving into someone else's house - straight through the wall.
  
  Funny how often things turn out that way.

• Contrary to what I was saying yesterday, Asus reports that DDR5 memory from China's CXMT is slower and less reliable than that from, for example, South Korea's SK Hynix.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Underlining precisely what I said, this only matters at all if you are trying to overclock your memory, which I don't recommend in the current market.
  
  
  
• Just what the PC gaming ecosystem needs: Cartridges.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The "cartridges" are actually repurposed old 2.5" hard drives, and it specifically works for Steam games on Linux, but it works.
  
  
  
• There's likely to be a shortage of the new MacBook Neo.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Because - as predicted the moment it was announced - Apple has run out of its limited supply of defective A18 Pro iPhone CPUs, and is now running short of functional A18 Pro chips.
  
  
  
• Google's legal settlement with the Epic Games Store has been withdrawn.  Here's why that's a good thing.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Third-party app stores are now coming to Android, making the existing settlement moot.
  
  
  
• There is still no release date for Ananta.

Posted by: Robin Munn at Friday, July 17 2026 12:37 AM (HcJvv)

Posted by: Robin Munn at Friday, July 17 2026 12:46 AM (HcJvv)

Posted by: normal at Friday, July 17 2026 03:15 AM (LADmw)

Posted by: Robin Munn at Friday, July 17 2026 06:02 PM (quLd3)

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• Microsoft has updated Windows Search and...  Fixed it?  (WCCFTech)
  
  Well, they've at least stopped shoving it full of ads, which goes a big way toward fixing it.
  
  
  
• Micrsoft just release a set of patches that fix 570 security holes in Windows and their other software.  (Krebs on Security)
  
  That's...  Good, I guess?  If still terrifying.
  
  
  
• Microsoft also fixed Secure Boot.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Which as it happens has been insecure boot since 2013.

Tech News

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, July 15 2026 11:58 PM (6eVrQ)

Posted by: normal at Thursday, July 16 2026 01:52 AM (LADmw)

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• Big Three SK Hynix memory maker may achieve just one sixth of its planned increases in capacity by 2028.  (WCCFTech)
  
  How surprising that a company massively benefiting from a shortage is slow to resolve that shortage.
  
  
  
• SK Hynix is also planning to invest its new round of US share sales into, uh, South Korean government bonds.  (WCCFTech)
  
  I don't think they're convinced the shortage is here to stay.
  
  
  
• Meta is expanding its planned Hyperion AI supercluster in Louisiana to 5GW of capacity at a cost of $50 billion.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Meta has had many major wins with customers signing up for its AI services, such as, uh, nobody.
  
  
  

• Astronomers have found sugar among the stars.  (AP News)
  
  I was wondering where I left that.
  
  
  
• Hundreds of economists say we must act now to avert disruption from AI.  (AP News)
  
  They provided thousands of different theories of what must be done, with only one factor in common: Providing more funding to economists.
  
  
  
• Linux 7.2 may be dropping support for the Intel 80486, but it's getting fresh driver updates for the Sega Dreamcast.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Good to hear for everyone who wants to keep their dreams alive.
  
  
  
• If you don't have a Dreamcast, don't worry, you can run Linux on a Sega 32X.  (GitHub)
  
  No surprise; the 32X runs a Hitachi SH2 CPU, very similar to but much slower than the SH4 chip used in the Dreamcast.
  
  
  
• Social media bans are coming for children right across Europe.  (The Verge)
  
  Because they're communists.
  
  
  
• China, Russia, and Iran are working to inflame tensions over AI datacenters in the US.  (New York Times)  (archive site)
  
  Because they're communists.
  
  
  
• 55% of Americans have stopped regular use of social media.  (PC Magazine)
  
  Because they're tired of dealing with communists.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Frank at Tuesday, July 14 2026 07:05 PM (HHHgi)

Posted by: PatBuckman at Wednesday, July 15 2026 03:39 AM (6eVrQ)

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• Apple's upcoming M7 processor, destined for a full rollout with Pro, Max, and Ultra models, is expected to support as much as 1.5TB of RAM for local AI and other massively intensive workloads.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Which will cost $37,500.  For the RAM.  The rest of the computer will be...  Actually relatively inexpensive.
  
  
  
• Apple is already working on the next-generation M8 chip, which will use a 1.4nm process.  (WCCFTech)
  
  TSMC plans initial production of 1.4nm chips in 2028, so this is likely three years away.

• AMD's latest graphics driver update brings ray regeneration (improved ray tracing), radiance caching, and multi-frame generation.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Frame generation is a sore spot for many games.  It uses AI to generate in-between frames to smooth out game graphics, much the same way upscaling generates in-between pixels to make each frame of graphics look better.
  
  The problem is that the overhead of frame generation makes the game run slower rather than faster, while it looks smoother.  The imbalance can be jarring.
  
  
  
• If Apple's Lisa - now available in an FPGA for for $350 - is too fancy for you, why not go seriously old school with an Apple I?  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Apart from the fact that it costs as much as a house.
  
  

• SK Hynix says that 2027 will be the "worst year" for memory, predicting that the crunch will last until 2030.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  I panicked and bought half a terabyte of RAM, everything I could find at old prices (and in one case, more than old prices but better than typical new prices).
  
  I just need to baby it along for a few years.
  
  
  
• Huawei says screw you guys, we'll build our own memory!  With blackjack, and hookers!  (WCCFTech)
  
  The company is planning to churn out 140,000 12-inch wafers a month of 28nm DRAM.  Given the nuances of DRAM scaling, I'm not sure exactly what that counts for...  Hang on.
  
  Looks like it's about 5% of current production by the Big Three, but every drop in the ocean counts.

• Vint Cerf, often called "the father of the internet", is retiring from his role at Google.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  I too hope to be able to retire by the time I am 83.
  
  
  
• Cuba has been hit with a nation-wide blackout.  (CNN)
  
  Unexpectedly.
  
  
  
• You can now pick up AMD's 9070 GRE graphics card for $499.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Still overpriced but not as laughably so as before.
  
  
  
• The FCC has annoyed astronomers by approving Earendil.  (PC Magazine)
  
  Earendil - named after the mariner from Tolkien's Silmarillion - is an experimental mirror sixty feet on a side, deployed into orbit to reflect sunlight down to anywhere that needs a little brightening up.
  
  The plan is to launch 50,000 of these.  Which used to be a lot.
  
  
  
• Communists are demanding the FCC grant them veto over space-based datacenters.  (The Register)
  
  The reasoning being that if environmental groups can't set them on fire, they're bad and must be illegal.
  
  
  
• Research today: The effects of local decompactification of additional spatial dimensions on the formation of exotic ices in the abyssal depths of a water world of around 5 Earth diameters, Irish ferry timetables and fares in Galway Bay in 1911, the arms and armour of the Galatian mercenaries in the service of Nicomedes I of Bithnyia in 278 BC, and the application of scaling laws to the possible size of terrestrial nudibranchs.
  
  No catgirls died in the research of these story elements.  Partly because they already went extinct.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

• Commies to the left of me, commies also to the left of me: Meta faces fines in the trillions of dollars from Europe and a cartel of US states unless they make their platform worse.  (Ars Technica)
  
  These people need meteor strikes.  Now:

  That figure is likely uncomfortably "close to Meta’s market capitalization of around $1.5 trillion," Reuters noted.  But California Attorney General Rob Bonta seems to agree it's appropriate, alleging in a statement to Reuters that "Meta has prioritized profits over the safety of kids and fueled the mental health crisis we see impacting a generation of American children."

  What generation of American children?  The ones you didn't manage to murder or mutilate?

  As Meta seemingly continues treading water - pointing to screen-time notifications that kids can easily dismiss or default settings that may be changed - the financial pressure to do more to protect kids could threaten its AI ambitions at a crucial time.

  Everything not forbidden is forbidden.  Everything not compulsory is compulsory.
  
  
  
• Don't you tilt your head at me!  (The Register)
  
  We see you!  Don't think we don't just because we're passed out in the gutter blitzed on fentanyl!
  
  

• Taiwanese Nanya, the fourth or fifth of the Big Three memory makers, is planning to hike capital investment to $6.2 billion next year.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  That's four times the amount allocated for this year, which was in turn four times the amount spent last year.
  
  Supporting this are modest increases in quarterly revenue and profits year-on-year...  A mere 684% and 1324% respectively.
  
  70% of Nanya's sales are still of older DDR4 RAM, but in this market every bit helps.
  
  
  
• New Japanese chipmaker Rapidus is looking to hit the ground running next year as well with the launch of its 2nm fabs.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Until a consortium of Japanese companies joined forces to create Rapidus in 2022, the country's leading chip factories were using a creaky 40nm process - great for high-volume low-cost automotive microcontrollers but paleolithic compared to modern laptop and phone chips.
  
  Rather than merely trying to pick up the pace, they have chosen to leapfrog the past two decades entirely.
  
  
  
• If you always wanted an Apple Lisa but weren't haunting the right landfill in 1989 when thousands of unsold units were dumped, now is your chance.  (The Register)
  
  A complete FPGA-emulated Lisa motherboard is now available for $350.
  
  And the operating system is free.  Apple released that as almost open source in 2023.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's off again-off again 5000 Super series is...  On?  (WCCFTech)
  
  Not soon and not cheap, but not not.

Not At All Tech News

• The game behind the anime series that launched a thousand nice boat memes, School Days, is receiving a new English language dub.
  
  Among the voice talents are Mint Fantome and Phoebe Chan of idol group Densetsu.EXE, formerly known as Nijisanji's Pomu Rainpuff and Prism Project's little blue forg Ami Amami respectively.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile there's yet another new Tenchi Muyo outing, Tenchi Galaxy, on the way, with the dub cast adding the talents of Hololive English Advent's devilish diva, Nerissa Ravencroft.
  
  
  
• Today's victims: Catgirls spared further embarrassment, but the Galatians were all but wiped out by disease before they could rendevous with Nicomedes.
  
  The story background is...  Complicated.

Posted by: John Donigan at Sunday, July 12 2026 01:52 AM (VAiJm)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sunday, July 12 2026 09:19 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: cxt217 at Monday, July 13 2026 12:28 PM (atHEN)

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• Nvidia's share price is down by 15% - from a recent peak of $117 squintillion - as it succumbs to the memory price hikes it caused for everybody else.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Good work, Jensen.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile new ULL - ultra-low latency - memory for AMD systems offers up to a 4% speed boost.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  For only double the price.
  
  
  
• Turns out you can upgrade the RAM in your PlayStation - and it's not even expensive.  (Notebook Check)
  
  That only gets from from 2MB to 16MB.
  
  Yes, of course we're talking about the PlayStation One.

• AMD has confirmed it will be launching its new Zen 6 processor family this month, at an event on July 22 and 23.  (WCCFTech)
  
  Launching, not selling.  And the event will be exclusively for server chips, with a likely six month delay before we see them for the desktop.  But performance of the server versions will give us a very good idea of what to expect in consumer models, because the core designs - and even the chiplets - are identical.  The server versions just wire up more chiplets.
  
  
  
• While we wait for Zen 6, AMD has raised the shuddering zombie of Zen 2 to keep us entertained.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 4700LE is a 4700G without the G - the integrated graphics.
  
  I don't know why; it just is.
  
  
  
• OpenAI's Atlas browser on the other hand is not.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  Launched in October, the candle that burned half as bright was promptly cancelled.
  
  
  
• AMD has also announced eleven new Zen 4 laptop parts.  (WCCFTech)
  
  New as in that precise marketable configuration; there is nothing new about the technology.  But I'm writing this on a Zen 3 chip and Zen 4 is markedly better.

Posted by: Joe Redfield at Saturday, July 11 2026 02:18 AM (KOtXO)

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• John Deere tractor owners and third party repair centers have been granted the same ability to repair the devices as the company's own service technicians under a 10 year agreement with the FTC.  (AP News)
  
  Doesn't mean they're repairable, just means the company can't forbid you to try.
  
  
  
• Speaking of settling Elon Musk has done so with the SEC over his purchase of Twitter back in the late Bronze Age.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  He was fined $1.5 million, which represents approximately thruppence in comparison to my own bank account.

• Microsoft's share of the global desktop operating system market has fallen to just 56.5%.  (Linuxiac)
  
  Coming in second at around 20% is...  Apparently something called "This survey is garbage".
  
  
  
• Grok 4.5 is here.  (x.ai)
  
  I noticed Grok having a stroke recently; no data lost but it had to reload all my documents and restart the conversation.  That may have been the model switch.
  
  Anyway, Grok is now smarter than Claude Opus but still not quite as smart as Claude Fable.
  
  
  
• AMD's upcoming Zen 6 10-core CPU squishes existing 10-core laptop models like the Ryzen 365.  (WCCFTech)
  
  But there's something a little odd here.  The results show two core clusters, with four cores in the main cluster and six in the second cluster.
  
  That would still be a laptop chip, because the 10-core desktop chips we're expecting will have a single core cluster.  Given that, the performance increase of 29% single-threaded and 22% multi-threaded is more than respectable.
  
  
  
• Astronomers have discovered a potentially habitable exoplanet orbiting a start about 25 light years away.  (Notebook Check)
  
  Bit of a commute but it's in a good neighbourhood.

Posted by: Rick C at Thursday, July 09 2026 10:11 PM (1zWbY)

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