Daily Tech News 11 January 2025

• Chinese spy network TikTok is probably dead. (Tech Crunch)
  
  The Supreme Court heard arguments from both TikTok and the Department of Justice, but seemed disinclined to intervene in the January 19th deadline for the company to divest or be shut down.
  
  TikTok argued that divestment was impossible because the Chinese government would never permit foreign control of network's recommendation algorithm - and also that the US subsidiary has the final say over such matters. The company also claimed that it does not operate in China, which is true insofar as it goes, because TikTok, a Chinese social network, is banned in China.

• Asus has announced the ExpertCenter PN54, a new mini-PC based on AMD's new Krackan Point chips. (WCCFTech)
  
  These chips have four Zen 5 cores running at 5GHz, and four Zen 5c cores running at 3.5GHz. Zen 5c is functionally identical to Zen 5 but built using a more compact design, so it executes exactly the same instructions in exactly the same number of clock cycles, but runs more slowly.
  
  And eight RDNA 3.5 graphics cores.
  
  So overall it's not an improvement over the previous generation (like the 8845HS) but might possibly be cheaper maybe.
  
  Also, this model includes user-upgradeable SO-DIMM memory (along with two M.2 slots, two 2.5Gb Ethernet ports, two DisplayPort ports, HDMI, and USB4).
  
  Which makes me wonder: Does the memory controller on the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 also support socketed memory? Four channels of it? 384GB of it?
  
  That all of AMD's other mobile chips support socketed memory suggests that it might.
  
  
  
• The problem with running AMD's faster laptop chips with socketed RAM is that they have fast integrated graphics and need lots of memory bandwidth, and socketed DDR5 RAM is slower than soldered LPDDR5X.
  
  Or at least that used to be the case. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  G.Skill has announced 8133MHz DDR5 CSODIMMS - the "C" stands for clock, since these modules have a clock generator chip added to them to improve stability at such a high speed.
  
  We don't know if these modules might be compatible with AMD's latest laptop chips, but it's an interesting thing to consider.
  
  
  
• JPMorgan Chase has said to its more than 300,000 staff, get back into the office you worthless slugs. (The Guardian)
  
  All employees are required to be in the office a minimum of five days a week.
  
  
  
• Automattic, the domain of Mad King Matt Mullenweg and corporate parent of former blogging platform WordPress, has cut its commitment to developing that software by 99%, the equivalent of firing a hundred staff. (Automattic)
  
  Whether they actually had a hundred staff left to fire is an open question.
  
  King Matt said - paraphrasing - that just because Automattic owns WordPress and makes all its money off it, doesn't mean that it should be expected to do any work to update or maintain the software. Also that he only beats us because he loves us.
  
  If Automattic goes through with this, WordPress is dead and will be forked by the community.
  
  
  
• Education technology company PowerSchool was hacked and had its database of teacher and student information stolen. (The Register)
  
  That's sixty million people, mostly children. Not good.
  
  Or former children, because the attack may have been going on since 2011.
  
  And may extend to every application the company runs.
  
  So there's that.
  
  
  
• Apple is uploading every photo on every Mac and iDevice to be scanned by AI without asking anyone. (The Register)
  
  But don't worry, says Apple, it's homomorphic.
  
  
  
• Triplegangers, a company that digitally scans real people and then sells them, got knocked off the net by OpenAI's web spider searching for fresh meat. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Welcome to the party, pal.
  
  
  
• How to delete Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Helpful information, but as usual journalists are outraged by the lack of censorship.

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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