Daily Tech News 18 December 2021

• First day of my holiday so naturally I got woken up by an emergency at 4AM because someone misconfigured a new website and overloaded the back-end servers with a flood of queries.
  
  And my main Windows desktop had just updated itself and my terminal emulator had decided that it could no longer run without being updated to the latest release, so that was fun.
  
  
  
• The BMJ - British Medical Journal - published an expose of dubious experimental controls at a company contracted by Pfizer to assist in testing their Bat Flu vaccine.
  
  Facebook, as is its wont, "fact checked" this.
  
  The BMJ - which has been published since 1840 and is one of the world's leading medical journals gave them both barrels, reloaded, and is standing at the ready with one eyebrow raised. (BMJ)
  
  
  
• Meanwhile researchers at Princeton are running an experiment in which they, uh, threaten legal action against randomly selected subjects. (Free Radical)
  
  These fake threats of legal action potentially open Princeton to real lawsuits. The research was passed by the university's review board which said, and I quote, yeah, whatever. (Princeton)
  
  Good work, idiots.
  
  
  

• Nvidia has announced the RTX 2050 which is not an RTX 2050. (AnandTech)
  
  It's an RTX 3050 with half the memory bandwidth.
  
  The company also announced the MX550, which is an MX450, and the MX570, which is an RTX 2050, which is as we noted an RTX 3050.
  
  Hope that clears that up.
  
  
  
• TSMC has announced their N4X process node - nominal 4nm - optimised for higher clock speeds. (AnandTech)
  
  At least 15% faster than 5nm, which is up to 15nm faster than 7nm.
  
  But it won't be available for two years, while N3 - their basic 3nm process - which is up to 15% faster than 5nm, will be shipping in volume next year. Leaving N4X as rather a niche proposition.
  
  
  
• Two 8-core Chinese Ryzens are faster than one 6-core American Ryzen. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Back before the launch of the Zen CPUs, bleeding cash and with their share price at the bottom of the ocean, AMD signed a joint venture deal with Chinese company Rygon, sharing Zen 1 technology but no further updates.
  
  That's what these chips are.
  
  
  
• Speaking of weird Chinese stuff, this 25" black-and-white monitor costs about $2500. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  And it can only display 16 shades of grey.
  
  Because it's an E Ink display, like a Kindle but much bigger.
  
  Resolution is 3200x1800 which isn't too bad.
  
  
  
• I see it as a win either way.
  
  

  Okay, so, this will either be hilarious or get my account disabled by NYU IT during finals week https://t.co/h9kz1gbjSs pic.twitter.com/9WOk7Pn3dT

  — Brendan Dolan-Gavitt (@moyix) December 17, 2021

  
  And it's working.
  

  I guess I should have expected this but I'm still a bit surprised: got a hit from a Google-owned IP https://t.co/wOW6Q1oY6S pic.twitter.com/pq0ZHq6Fh6

  — Brendan Dolan-Gavitt (@moyix) December 17, 2021

  
  
  
  
• The US government says it should probably patch that bug thingy soon. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  They'll get right on it.
  
  
  
• On the other hand, that's kind of your job.
  

  “I found a bug in your rendering code” yes sorry I was not completely successful at explaining colors to sand

  — Jules Glegg 🏳️‍⚧️ (@heyjulesfern) December 17, 2021

  
  
  
  
• It's only a tornado - or two - says Amazon (The Verge)
  
  Walk it off you big baby.
  
  
  
• It's only your own personal data. Why should you be permitted access, asks Google. (TechRadar)
  
  Content that Google in its infinite wisdom deems "misleading" may be locked without notice.
  
  Content on Google Drive.
  
  Not on their social network, because they don't have one. On their file storage.
  
  There is no cloud, there's just other people's computers. And they're probably communists.
  
  
  
• Adobe's share price plunged 10% after announcing sales growth of 20%. (CNBC)
  
  This is due to investor concerns over inflation and interest rates, which I am reliably informed are a transitory issue and everything is going great and we are definitely not "fucked beyond any possibility of redemption".
  
  
  
• US schools are cancelling classes over TikTok. (The Verge)
  
  At some point you might begin to suspect that teachers aren't actually interested in, you know, teaching.
  
  
  
• Verizon, caught spying on its customers, forcibly opted those customers into the spying program and sent them an email thanking them for their participation. (The Verge)
  
  Thank you for your generous contribution of $1000 to the Hobos United Benevolent Fund. This payment will be taken automatically from your account. You can opt out of this at any time by clicking on this link.
  
  
  
• Amazon partnered with China to boost the country's booming historical revisionism and genocide apologetics industry. (Reuters)
  
  Nice one, Jeff.
  
  
  
• US regulators are taking a look at the booming "buy now, pay later, definitely no interest or fees ha ha" industry. (CNN)
  
  In fairness this industry is only marginally less ethical than the one mentioned above.
  
  
  
• US regulators also flagged stablecoins as a systemic risk to the economy. (Reuters)
  
  This came in at #4, after inflation, interest rates, and US regulators.
  
  
  
• Scientists have discovered a millipede. (The Guardian)
  
  Specifically the Australian creepy-crawly has 1306 legs, the first species discovered that truly has over 1000.
  
  
  
• A thousand-dollar iPhone lost to a $400 Google Pixel in blind camera tests. (9 to 5 Mac)
  
  Aren't blind camera tests basically random?
  
  
  
• Dutch authorities have banned anti-5G "negative ion" pendants for being insufficiently fake. (The Register)
  
  They really do generate negative ions.
  
  Because they are radioactive.

posted by Pixy Misa at 02:17 AM

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