Daily Tech News 12 October 2024

• One of the two quartz mines in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, is in the process of reopening after the area was devastated by Hurricane Helene ten days ago. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Faster than I had expected.
  
  Chip fabrication depends on ultra-pure silicon. To make the ingots of ultra-pure silicon, you need crucibles to melt the silicon in, that are of even higher purity. That's where these two quartz mines come in.
  
  Chipmakers have a supply of pre-made silicon because they're not idiots, and the silicon makers likely have a supply of crucibles, but a closure lasting more than a couple of months could have started causing problems.
  
  

• Vietnam is planning to build six chip fabs, with the first one online by 2030. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  Vietnam is nominally communist, but then so are the current governments of the US, the UK, Canada, France, and Australia.
  
  
  
• Leaked benchmarks indicate that AMD's Ryzen 9800X3D is up to 13% faster than the current Ryzen 7800X3D. (WCCFTech)
  
  Which is kind of meh, but it's a meh year for computer hardware.
  
  
  
• If you're thinking you'll just buy a 7800X3D instead, well, good luck with that. (WCCFTech)
  
  It's in short supply and prices on Newegg have jumped from around $399 to $699. Though that's because Newegg themselves are out of stock and the best marketplace offer - from China - is wildly expensive.
  
  My local store actually has the 7800X3D on sale right now, so your mileage may vary.
  
  
  
• TikTok executives knew about the site's effect on teenagers. (NPR)
  
  It turned them into giggling idiots drawn ineluctably to every new trend, no matter how absurd it might be.
  
  ...
  
  Yes.
  
  
  
• Ecovacs robot vacuum cleaners have been hacked to shout slurs at their owners. (Vice)
  
  This is the same company under fire in Australia for collecting audio and video recordings and keeping them even after the customers deleted the files.
  
  
  
• We're not mad at you, Goldmusk, just disappointed. (The Verge)
  
  The Verge having another totally normal day.
  
  
  
• We are mad at you, Goldmusk. (Ars Technica)
  
  Ars Technica is having a just spectacularly normal day.
  
  
  
• Got a shipping notice and a UPS tracking number for my Calliope Mori Limited Edition Hyte Y40 PC case.
  
  Soon. Soon I will have them all!
  
  
  
• But it might take a while to build systems in all the cases I now have.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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