In Memoriam

• Kentaro Miura, creator of the massively popular manga series Berserk, passed away earlier this month from an acute aortic dissection.  He was only 54.
  
  Berserk has sold over fifty million copies and is well known for its fantastically detailed artwork - at least in recent volumes - and its long delays between volumes.  It looks like the conclusion to the series has now gone to the great TBA in the sky.
  
  I haven't watched the Berserk anime - and the most recent series was roundly panned - but if you don't mind scenes of graphic graphicness and are willing to put in a couple of volumes while the illustrator's art evolves, I can highly recommend the manga.
  
  It sure as hell ain't for kids though.

• HP's Omen 16 and 17 have the Four Essential Keys.  (WCCFTech)
  
  In fact, they have the ten essential keys - the entire cursor area you'd find on a full desktop keyboard is present exactly as it should be.
  
  They also have eight-core CPUs from Intel or AMD, up to 64GB of RAM - user upgradeable - and 1TB of NVMe SSD - probably also user upgradeable, and a 2560x1440 165Hz display with 100% sRGB colour.
  
  The 16" model has AMD or Intel CPUs and Radeon 6000 family or Nvidia graphics up to the RTX 3070; the 17" model is Intel only with Nvidia graphics up to the RTX 3080.
  
  I/O includes one USB-C (Thunderbolt on Intel models), three USB-A, mini DisplayPort, HDMI, a full size SD card slot, a combo audio jack, and wired Ethernet.
  
  They don't specify dimensions or weight but this is a serious laptop for serious laps, not some disposable bit of thin-and-light frippery.
  
  All models ship next month with prices starting at $1050.

Tech News

• The ASRack B550D4-4L is a budget motherboard for entry-level servers.  (AnandTech)
  
  Where "entry level" is relative, and now means up to 16 cores at 4.9GHz, 128GB of ECC RAM, and five integrated Ethernet ports, albeit only gigabit speeds and one reserved for the management interface.
  
  It only comes with six SATA ports and one M.2 slot, so this wouldn't be the first choice for a storage server, but is very close to the specs of the motherboard in our main server (the one that caught fire) which is also an ASRack.  If you just want to add an M.2 drive and get a busy website up and running it will do just fine.
  
  
  
• New SSD firmware from Phison and Cigent (the names are dumb but Phison produces solid SSD controllers) makes your drive go hedgehog when it comes under attack.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  It can hide files from the operating system entirely, so even if an attacker has broken into your computer, they won't be able to see critical files - they can't encrypt them or exfiltrate them.
  
  Until, of course, that also gets hacked.
  
  
  
• Speaking of which, the Irish High Court has issued an injunction blocking criminals from committing crimes.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  That'll solve everything.
  
  
  
• Google is opening a retail store in New York City.  (Thurrott.com)

  We’ll clean all spaces multiple times a day.  The number of guests inside will be limited to ensure our customers feel safe during their shopping experience, and easy pickup options will also be available.  We will continue to closely follow the guidance of the local and national authorities to adapt our health and safety procedures as needed.

  What about products?

  Products?

  
  
  
• At least, as I said before, Apple consistently churns out shiny gadgets.  And sometimes the insides even match up to the outsides.  (ZDNet)
  
  The new iPad Pro is a pointless beast for most of us - a high end model of something that doesn't need a high-end model - but it fixes the long-standing problem that iOS devices simply didn't have enough memory.  Apple proudly proclaimed that they used less memory than Android, but the truth was they simply had less because they skimped on the hardware.
  
  The top of the line iPad Pro has 16GB, which is actually enough for a device like this, because iOS...  Can't actually do very much.
  
  
  
• A joint effort between TSMC, National Taiwan University, and MIT has made a breakthrough in the race to produce 1nm chips.  (Taiwan News)
  
  What this means is anyone's guess because it's been over a decade since the nominal nanometres of a semiconductor process node bore any relation to physical measurements.  If they did, we wouldn't be able to produce 1nm chips in the first place; that's barely the width of 5 silicon atoms, and quantum tunneling would ruin everything.
  
  That day will arrive soon enough, but not just yet.
  
  
  

Gratuitous Taylor Swift Anime Music Video of the Day

Gratuitous Bruno Mars Anime Music Video of the Day

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