« Saturday Overnight Open Thread – 06/19/2021 | Main | EMT 6/20/21 »

Daily Tech News 20 June 2021

Top Story

• DDR5 RAM is here. (WCCFTech)
  
  These are the first modules that actually have a price - $400 for 32GB - and a shipping date - end of this month.
  
  They're 4800MHz modules, and that price matches existing overclocked DDR4-4800 modules. (That listing is for 16GB; I couldn't find any 32GB kits.) It's about double the price of mainstream DDR4-3200 though.
  
  Also, these modules have a 40 cycle latency which is definitely not fast. I'm not sure exactly how that relates to DDR4 latencies though.
  
  Also also, if you follow that link, don't read the comments. WCCFTech is great for leaks and the very latest hardware news, but the comments are full of bored 14-year-olds.
  
  
  

Anime of the day is Time Travel Shoujo: Mari Waka to 8-nin no Kagakusha-tachi from 2016, a.k.a Time Travel Girl: Mari, Waka, and the Eight Scientists, a.k.a Time Travel Girl, a.ka. MariWaka.

It's the story of a girl looking for her scientist father who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and of the history of scientific research into electricity and magnetism from William Gilbert in the 16th century through to Thomas Edison.

It's the first time I've seen a simple explanation of the Curie point of ferromagnetic materials - never mind in anime, in any medium - and also the first time I've seen characters of a story construct a stable time loop using nothing more than whipped cream, sponge cake, and a magnetised needle stuck through a cork.

Time travel aside, the historical and scientific elements of the story are accurate to the best of my knowledge. Not so sure about the cake parts, which get about as much screen time as the other elements.

There's also a scene where a defibrillator is used properly and under appropriate circumstances.



Tech News

• Qnap has a dual-port 100GbE network adaptor for their high-end NAS offerings. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Their high end NAS offerings are very high end, with AMD Epyc server CPUs, up to 256GB of RAM, and 24 NVMe SSDs. That's enough I/O to flood even dual-port 100GbE. But dual-port 100GbE uses most of the bandwidth of a PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, so right now it's the fastest practical server interface.
  
  There are faster versions of Ethernet - 200 and 400 gigabit, with 800 gigabit announced but not shipping yet - but those are reserved to high end switches with six digit price tags. A 100GbE card can be found for a few hundred dollars.
  
  
  
• Some bright sparks have got the idea of pretending to be Russian hackers in order to shake down companies. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  I think mob hits should not only be legal under these circumstances, but required by law.
  
  
  
• North Korea hacked South Korea's nuclear research agency. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Not Russia for once.
  
  The same North Korean hacking organisation - which would be under government control because internet access in North Korea is under government control - also hacked several other South Korean government agencies and senior officials.
  
  
  
• Google is reportedly force-installing a Bat Plague tracking app on the devices of Massachusetts residents. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  Without notification, let alone consent.
  
  The lawyers are going to make out like bandits on the class action suit for this one.
  
  
  
• %p%s%s%s%s%n (Bleeping Computer)
  
  If you join a WiFi hotspot with that SSID from an iPhone, your WiFi will stop working entirely. Turning your WiFi off and on again won't help, and nor will rebooting your device.
  
  Only option is to go into Settings and reset all the network settings, and then have the fun of entering all your details again.
  
  
  
• Journalists - even tech journalists sometimes - are turning mental illness into performance art. (ZDNet)
  
  Don't bother with the article; it blames Windows 11 on Donald Trump.
  
  
  
• Speaking of Windows 11, if you wanted to get the leaked preview it's being taken down. (TorrentFreak)
  
  Unsurprising, and you probably didn't wat it anyway.
  
  Microsoft has left reviews alone as long as they didn't link directly to download sites. In the US they wouldn't have a legal basis for a takedown anyway. Not that this tends to stop the DMCA notices.

Ryzen APU Review Video of the Day



Today it's the 5700G which also isn't out as a retail component but is available in prebuilt systems. This model has 8 cores and 8 graphics units, up from 6 cores and 7 graphics units on yesterday's 5600G.

It's not a lot faster for gaming than the 5600G - less than 10% on the integrated graphics - so you'd only want this if you want a high-end CPU and passable graphics.   I'd be interested in seeing it tested with faster RAM; you can get DDR4-4000 memory for not much more than standard DDR4-3200, and that should give quite a boost to integrated graphics.


Disclaimer: Break glass in case of stable time loop caused by broken glass.