• Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are on track to spend a total of $200 billion on AI this year.  (BNN Bloomberg)
  
  There are worse things they could be doing with their money, I suppose.  De-orbiting the Moon, or promoting polonium as a pizza topping.  Reintroducing rinderpest and smallpox.
  
  Okay, those aren't much worse, but they are worse.

• Intel's Lunar Lake, with its integrated memory, is a one-off.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Future laptop chips will return to having memory on the motherboard, or on modules that connect to the motherboard.
  
  Not because soldering the memory directly to the CPU is an anti-consumer nightmare, but because it eats into Intel's margins.
  
  Apple can get away with 1000% markups on memory, because its customer base likes shiny things.
  
  Intel, since it sells its chips to other manufacturers who then sell computers to you, cannot.
  
  
  
• Speaking of laptop memory, CAMM2 is on its way.  For realsies.  (Tom's Hardware)
  
  CAMM2 modules lie flat on a laptop's motherboard rather than slotting into a socket, so the take up less room and can have more pins.  And that lets them support a 128-bit bus with one module rather than the usual 64 bits.
  
  And they also support faster LPDDR5X memory, which usually has to be soldered directly onto the motherboard itself.
  
  Only problem is they are taking a long time to arrive.  There's basically one desktop motherboard from MSI and one laptop from Lenovo using these modules right now.
  
  
  
• Australia's Lord Howe Island shifts by 30 minutes when daylight saving time beings and ends.  (SSO Ready)
  
  Just to annoy everyone.
  
  
  
• Indonesia has banned sales of Google Pixel phones after the company failed to meet a requirement of 40% local content.  (Tech Crunch)
  
  What about Apple, you ask?
  
  They are at least playing fair.  The iPhone 16 was banned there last week.
  
  
  
• GPD's new Pocket 4 is an absurdly tiny and extremely powerful laptop.  (Liliputing)
  
  The existing model of the Pocket 3 has a dual core Intel CPU and 16GB of RAM.
  
  The Pocket 4 replaces the CPU with a twelve core AMD Ryzen 370, and offers options of 32 or 64GB of RAM.
  
  The 8.8" touchscreen is bumped from 1920x1200 at 60Hz to 2560x1600 at 144Hz.
  
  It would be an amazing device for an engineer that needs to go on-site and plug things in, if those people still exist.
  
  
  

• Microsoft will be offering a one year $30 support plan for users who are reluctant to move from Windows 10.  (PC World)
  
  Microsoft has its own page on this, but it is almost entirely trying desperately to persuade users to just switch to Windows 11; it's hard to even spot the support plan.
  
  And unlike the business version of extended support, this will last for a single year, after which you will be cut off and left to install Linux.
  
  On the upside:

  Microsoft will also continue to provide Security Intelligence Updates for Microsoft Defender Antivirus through at least October 2028.

  Which is really all I want.  Just leave me alone, stop screwing things up, and keep blocking viruses.

• In other good news Windows Recall has been delayed yet again.  (Bleeping Computer)
  
  This is the update that collects all your most important private data - including things like readable passwords - in one convenient place for anyone to steal.
  
  
  
• Amazon workers are still complaining about being told to come to work.  (Ars Technica)
  
  What part of "work" do you not understand?
  
  
  
• For the third quarter Intel has posted a loss of $16.6 billion on revenues of $13.3 billion.  (The Register)
  
  That's a net margin of -125%.
  
  That's not at operating loss, though, but an accounting loss, taking charges for severance packages for the 15,000 employees being laid off, and writing down deferred tax assets whatever that means.  (I understand accounting.  US corporate tax law is a foreign country.)
  
  
  
• What sank the Bayesian superyacht that sank in a storm in Italy?  (New York Times)  (archive site)
  
  A storm.  In Italy.
  
  
  

Posted by: normal at Friday, November 01 2024 08:57 PM (bg2DR)

Hide Comments | Add Comment