Daily Tech News 16 August 2023

• Instagram's Twitter competitor, Threads, broke all records in the speed at which it reached 100 million users. How is it doing now, a couple of weeks later? Usage has plummeted, and Threads now has less than half the active daily users of Twitter. (The Guardian)
  
  This is technically correct, since half a percent is indeed less than half.
  
  While Twitter averages around 100 million active users each day, Threads is around 576,000.
  
  
  

• You don't hate Jira, you hate your manager. (Hacker News)
  
  Everyone in the comments: No, we hate Jira.
  
  
  
• China's chip production technology is five generations behind the rest of the world. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  China's leading-edge production is 14nm, where Taiwan, Korea, and the US are all ramping up production at 3nm. But most of China's fab capacity is even further behind, at 28nm. And 28nm kind of sucks.
  
  AMD was stuck at 28nm for years because TSMC and Samsung fumbled the transition to FINFETs - only Intel got that right. That almost bankrupted the company.
  
  
  
• Need to pack 64TB of M.2 SSDs into a standard U.2 carrier with active cooling but without fans? Yes? What the hell are you doing? (AnandTech)
  
  Anyway, Mac aftermarket stuff maker OWC has teamed up with fanless fan maker Frore to build, well, what I just said.
  
  The interesting part here is the Frore AirJet, a piezoelectric device that uses tiny vibrating crystals to shoot air out one end at about a thousand miles an hour, keeping whatever it is attached to cool without making a lot of noise, or at least without a lot of noise that anyone other than a bat can hear.
  
  
  
• The Verge's coverage of Elon Musk keeps getting creepier. (The Verge)
  
  These people need an intervention. Or sedation. Or both.
  
  
  
• It's time to rethink our relationships with streaming services. (The Verge)
  
  I don't have a relationship with streaming services. What is wrong with you people?
  
  
  
• Google Chrome will now use AI to automatically summarise articles for you so you don't need to read them. (The Verge)
  
  <summary>The Verge is garbage.</summary>
  
  
  
• The tech jobs market is as strong as it ever was. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Now that hundreds of thousands of people have been laid off.
  
  
  
• ISPs are complaining that new FCC rules requiring they tell customers what they are being charged are excessively onerous. (Ars Technica)
  
  "How will we rip people off if we have to list all the applicable fees?" asked one executive. "That sounds ominously like work."
  
  Also, Ars Technica has banned me for a month for very politely telling their Creative Director that he's a credulous idiot. So while I'm sure there's every kind of nonsense going on in the comments over there, I can't tell you exactly what kind.
  
  
  
• Streaming site SportsBay has been ordered to pay more than half a billion dollars to DISH Network. (TorrentFreak)
  
  That's $2500 for a DMCA violation and, uh, over two million violations.
  
  They had to count them all.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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