• Axie Infinity, the blockchain game that was eventually hacked and looted of $600 million in Monopoly money, sucked long before that happened.  (Time)
  
  Pretty much everyone lost money except for the people running the company.
  
  
  
• You might ask why people running scams like this aren't charged under laws governing Ponzi and pyramid schemes.  Well, eleven executives of another crypto company, Forsage, just have been.  (CBS)
  
  Good.  And many more to come, I hope.
  
  
  
• An advanced new cryptography scheme designed to be save even against quantum computes just got hacked using a single-core conventional PC - in an hour.  (Ars Technica)
  
  Oops.

• Just on that "best small laptop" from yesterday: It's a great deal in the US ($1029) but crazy expensive in Australia ($2699).
  
  By comparison the Dell Inspiron 16 Plus - the top of the line model - is...  Oh.  Well, I guess they've fixed that then.  I'll wait for that to go on sale as well.  At US$1949 vs. A$3399 it's pretty close to what I'd expect (the Australian price includes sales tax) but it was A$2499 last week.
  
  
  
• Congress has said the CHIPS Act is not a $50 billion cash grab for semiconductor companies.  (The Register)
  
  "Yeah, sure" say the semiconductor companies standing in line with their hands out.

• If you want a Radeon 6900XT now might be the time.  I'm seeing them cheaper than the 6800XT, 6800, 6750XT, and some models of 6700XT.  Of course there will be new cards coming along soon but pricing and availability of those is a big unknown right now.
  
  It's one of the cheapest cards around relative to recent prices.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Not cheap in absolute terms though.
  
  
  
• Intel's Sapphire Rapids server CPUs are reportedly on their 12th revision ("respin") already and aren't even shipping yet.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It's completely normal for a new chip to require a couple of hardware revisions before launch - expensive, but normal.  Twelve is unusual.
  
  
  
• Is Winamp back to whip the llama's ass?  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Maybe.  The project has been migrated from Visual Studio 2008 to VS 2019 so that they can actually compile it for modern operating systems, and there's a new release available to download.  Not a lot of new features yet though.
  
  
  
• China's new 7nm chips aren't.  (The Register)
  
  All those numbers are marketing bullshit anyway, but this is a double helping.  China doesn't have access to the EUV (extreme ultraviolet) lithography equipment, or the components for that equipment, or the machines to make those components, so what they've done is applied older DUV processes and used multi-patterning to produce chips that they then slap a 7nm label on.
  
  Basically, what they have is Intel's 14nm+n, for some value of n that doesn't matter because increasing n doesn't change anything.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Tuesday, August 02 2022 09:40 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: David Eastman at Wednesday, August 03 2022 03:06 AM (D6Mju)

Posted by: normal at Wednesday, August 03 2022 08:10 AM (obo9H)

Posted by: StargazerA5 at Wednesday, August 03 2022 12:00 PM (NkDYt)

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• The HP Pavilion Plus 14 could be the new best small laptop, taking over from the HP Pavilion Aero.  (PC Magazine)
  
  Fully kitted out it has 16GB of RAM (enough for most users, though I'd like a 32GB option), 1TB of SSD, a 2880x1800 90Hz OLED display, and an Intel i7-12700H with 6 Performance cores and 8 Efficiency cores.
  
  I/O consists of two USB-C ports (not Thunderbolt, but they support DisplayPort video and charging), two USB-A ports, HDMI, microSD, and a headphone jack.  For some reason they're all on the opposite side to my current Dell Inspiron 14 - well, except USB-A where it conveniently has one on each side.
  
  And it has the Four Essential Keys.
  
  That configuration will set you back $1029 in the US (on sale right now, normally $1229), or $2699 in Australia.
  
  Which...  Wow.  Shipping sure is expensive, huh?
  
  The reason I'd still consider it is that it's 30% faster than my current laptop single-threaded, and two and a half times as fast multi-threaded.  It's faster than my full-size Inspiron 16, and a lot lighter.
  
  
  

Tech News

• Intel is planning to obsoleterate 12th generation laptops like the Pavilion Plus before the end of the year.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  13th generation laptop chips were originally scheduled for early 2023, but have now reportedly been brought forward to this year.  That probably means we'll see laptops with the new chips announced by Christmas but good luck getting your hands on one before March.
  
  
  
• Meanwhile Intel's Sapphire Rapids server chips, originally expected in Q3 2022, are now due in Q1 2023.  (WCCFTech)
  
  These are targeted at AMD's third generation Epyc server parts, but will ship months after AMD's fourth generation.
  
  
  
• Nvidia's upcoming RTX 4070 will be 80% faster than the 3070 for the same price unless it won't.  (WCCFTech)
  
  There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and computer industry leaks.
  
  
  
• Linus Torvalds is dogfooding Linux on an Arm-based Mac.  (Kernel.org)
  
  From the adage "eat your own dogfood", meaning use your own product to catch problems before your customers do.
  
  Linux has been ported to Apple's Arm-based systems with precisely zero help from Apple, who would rather it didn't exist.
  
  
  
• They had to count them all: 200 holes in Luna's lithosphere.  (Live Science)
  
  The existence of the holes isn't the exciting part, though.  The exciting part is they're sheltered and maintain a fairly steady 17C (63F) meaning that we don't need to dig our own holes to construct a comfy Moonbase.
  
  Huge stockpiles of nuclear waste also entirely optional.
  
  
  
• Did Anonymous follow through on their Twitter boast and actually hack Russian websites?  Apparently, yes.  (CNBC)
  
  An independent researcher worked with CNBC and found that 92% of Russian sites in a random survey had been compromised, and the data leaked by Anonymous seems to be legit.  
  
  In fact the complaint is that there is so much leaked data from Russian sites floating around that no-one has the time to even begin to analyse it all.
  
  Except probably China.
  
  
  
• Hololive's Houshou Marine has crossed the two million subscriber mark - the first from the main Japanese branch and only the third worldwide to do so, and Omaru Polka has crossed the one million mark, becoming I think the 32nd Hololive talent with more than a million subscribers.
  
  Holostars EN seems to be settling in, with all passing the 100k mark in the first week.  (EN Gen 2 all achieved that as well, except thanks to YouTube they had to do it four times.)
  
  They don't seem to invest as much in rigging the Holostars models though.  If you compare how animated Bae's face is, for example, the Holostars generally look like bad marionettes.
  
  
  
  

Posted by: Frank at Monday, August 01 2022 08:32 PM (rglbH)

Posted by: normal at Monday, August 01 2022 09:14 PM (obo9H)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, August 01 2022 11:42 PM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Rick C at Monday, August 01 2022 11:48 PM (BMUHC)

Posted by: cxt217 at Tuesday, August 02 2022 03:01 AM (2tHvf)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, August 02 2022 09:41 AM (PiXy!)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, August 02 2022 09:48 AM (PiXy!)

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Posted by: Rick C at Tuesday, August 02 2022 10:11 AM (BMUHC)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tuesday, August 02 2022 03:31 PM (PiXy!)

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