Daily Tech News 15 August 2024

• So what is going on with that data breach of 2.9 billion people? (Troy Hunt)
  
  I'm glad you asked.
  
  Since the breach is supposed to affect only the US, UK, and Canada, and those countries do not have 2.9 billion people, obviously someone was being imprecise.
  
  Turns out that a lot of people where being imprecise. While the National Public Data breach does contain 2.9 billion records, that does not mean 2.9 billion people.
  
  Troy Hunt took a leaked sample of the data which contains 134 million unique email addresses. He found himself in the list 28 times, but none of the entries associated his email address with any other recognisable data.
  
  So... It's bad, but probably not the end of the world.
  
  That's next year.
  
  

• Putting AMD's Ryzen 9 9950X to the test. (AnandTech)
  
  We're getting a clearer picture of why some reviewers are praising the Ryzen 9000 series and others are panning it.
  
  If you are focused mainly on gaming performance, the 9000 series offers only modest gains over the 7000 series, but costs significantly more.
  
  And there's no Ryzen 9000 X3D model yet - these models triple the on-chip memory and provide significantly better performance on many games - so the net result is that the newer, more expensive chips are actually slower.
  
  But if you are focused on technical work, Ryzen 9000 rules the roost. And if you can use AVX-512 - 512-bit vector math - it crushes everything else like a bug, up to ten times as fast as Intel's offerings (which have AVX-512 but disabled).
  
  There are also some potential performance issues with the 12 and 16 core chips on Windows right now, issues that didn't happen with Ryzen 7000, and don't happen on Linux.
  
  So it's not a simple one to recommend, but it's also not bad.
  
  If you're interested in gaming though, either go with the 7800X3D now or wait for the 9800X3D.
  
  
  
• Middle age starts at 44, and old age at 60. Ish. (The Guardian)
  
  Scientists studying biochemical markers of aging have found that it's not a steady process, but shows two bursts of aging around 44 and 60 years.
  
  They suspect another burst at 78 based on other studies, but haven't actually looked.
  
  
  
• Google Gemini is replacing Google Assistant on Google Pixel Phones. There's just one small problem. (Fast Company)
  
  It doesn't work. Inasmuch as Google Assistant works, Gemini doesn't.
  
  
  
• The Harris campaign is lying. (The Verge)
  
  You know it's bad when the crazies at The Verge are saying that.
  
  
  
• Twitter has announced its new AI image generation tool and the left has gone even more insane than usual. (The Verge)
  
  The article isn't the worst of it here. It's kind of bad, but just the usual nonsense you expect from leftist hand-wetting bed-wringers. The comments are deranged.
  
  
  
• Police in New Zealand are racing to track down candy distributed by an Auckland charity. (BBC)
  
  Because they contain potentially lethal amounts of meth - with a street value of as much as $600 in each piece of candy - about 300 times the typical dose.
  
  No, I don't know either.
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

| Access Comments