Daily Tech News 24 October 2023

• Qualcomm has shown off its new Snapdragon X Elite - an Arm CPU for laptops that might not suck. (AnandTech)
  
  To be specific, an Arm CPU for laptops that might not suck and doesn't come from Apple.
  
  The benchmarks on offer aren't very detailed, but they do show it beating Apple's M2 in single and multi-threaded workloads - the single-threaded win being significant because previously Apple had the fastest Arm core around.
  
  It also beats Intel's 13800H on multi-threaded tests while using much less power, and beats AMD's integrated graphics by 80% - and AMD's integrated graphics are pretty good.
  
  Products are expected "mid-2024".
  
  
  
• Apple is announcing its M3 chips next week, which is a bit of a spoiler. But they'll need to increase single-threaded performance by around 12% to match Qualcomm.

• A look at the Beelink SER7, a smaller, cheaper version of Beelink's GTR7. (Serve the Home)
  
  That is, a mini-PC with a Ryzen 7840HS. All the bits are where they should be, though the custom power connector is a definite minus. (It can also be powered via USB-C, so it's not fatal.)
  
  
  
• Okta's little security incident has wiped $2 billion of its market cap since Friday. (CNBC)
  
  Okta has not been having a good year. If you put all your eggs in one basket, that had better be a pretty robust basket.
  
  
  
• Oregon State University warned students and staff to avoid all robots. (NBC)
  
  Good advice generally, though this was related to a bomb threat - that turned out to be a "prank".
  
  The sort of prank that is likely to get you bed and breakfast at a federal facility for an extended duration.
  
  
  
• Microsoft truly seems to believe that the reason people don't love them is because they're just not annoying enough. (Neowin)
  
  They now try to force you to take a quiz before you can install Chrome on a new Windows system. Not sure if that applies to other browsers like Brave or Vivaldi.
  
  Curiously, the response Just fuck off already is not among the listed options.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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