Daily Tech News 28 May 2022

• Headlines from the 21st century: Omnipotent BMCs from Quanta remain vulnerable to critical Pantsdown threat. (Ars Technica)
  
  I'm trying to think what science fiction novel that reminds me of. Heinlein had futuristic headlines in at least one novel, and I think the Illuminati Trilogy did too.
  
  Anyway, it's always a bad sign when your quantum BMCs drop their pants, so best to avoid that.

• Ryzen 7000 will be faster than Ryzen 5000. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The numbers are complicated. AMD say the new chips will be at least 15% faster on single-threaded benchmarks than the Ryzen 5800X3D, a special variant with three times as much cache as the 5800X, but also that the high-end Ryzen 7000 parts will be at least 40% faster on multi-threaded tasks than the current generation's high end. Multi-threaded scaling is normally less than single-threaded, because you have to get two things right - improve each thread, and make sure that lots of threads can run together without slowing each other down.
  
  The new chips will also support Intel's AVX512 instructions - performing 512 bits of calculations per cycle instead of the current 256. AVX512 is notably power-hungry on Intel chips, and has been disabled on 12th generation consumer parts. It's present in the hardware; it just doesn't work.
  
  40% better multi-threaded performance would put the 16-core 7950X at parity with Intel's $9000 40-core Xeon Platinum 8380.
  
  
  
• AMD also confirmed a Threadripper 7000 is on the way. (WCCFTech)
  
  No details though, so we don't know when, or whether this is a 12-channel socket SP5 part or using the smaller 6-channel socket SP6. Or both.
  
  They also said that Ryzen 7000 will max out at 16 cores at launch. Not sure whether that's referring to Threadripper parts to come or higher core count Ryzen parts.
  
  
  
• Are we on the verge of an 8K gaming revolution? (Ars Technica)
  
  <shake shake>
  
  Signs point to maybe.
  
  I considered getting a single large 8K TV instead of multiple 4K monitors, but it's not practical just yet. Maybe once I've finished paying all the expenses for this move. The loan itself works out to $5 less per week than I've been paying in rent, but there's a ton of other stuff to pay for.
  
  
  
• A top Federal Reserve official warned that the US could be falling behind in the race to set up digital currencies. (Axios)

  We have the opportunity to wipe out trillions of dollars in savings in days rather than years. We can't allow Europe and China to take the lead in this obviously self-destructive move.

  
  
  
• Why won't PC laptop makers let Apple's awful Touch Bar die? (Macworld)
  
  There's more than one PC laptop maker, and each company makes more than one model of laptop. If you don't want a touch bar, don't buy the touch bar model. You still have literally hundreds of laptops to choose from.
  
  
  
• ChromeOS will now tell you when your USB-C cable doesn't do all the USB-C things and Apple should copy it. (9to5Mac)
  
  They have a point. USB-C is the one cable that does everything - up to 40Gbps data bidirectionally in a variety of different protocols - or double that in one direction for video, plus up to 240W of power in either direction.
  
  But not all USB-C cables are created equal. In fact, most of them are less equal than others. So having your operating system detect this and tell you, rather than leaving you wondering why you can't get a stable picture on your monitor, is such an obvious win that anyone who doesn't implement it should be strapped to the outside of the next Starship test launch.
  
  
  
• How to cancel your Amazon Prime membership. (ZDNet)
  
  1. Log in.
  2. Click cancel.
  
  
  
• Three failed or failing drives on my (old, second-hand) Synology NAS cluster. No two on the same device, and the last RAID rebuild is at 86% already and is on a RAID-6 volume. For once I got to things before a disaster.
  
  Going to back up all my stuff onto them tomorrow, then put them in a box packed with pillows.
  
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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