Daily Tech News 27 March 2026

• Intel has been delivering interesting new products lately, with the Core 250K and Core 270K processors and the B70 Pro graphics card all providing solid performance at unmatched prices. The Core 290K processor, though - the planned new top of the line - has been unceremoniously - and now, officially - cancelled. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  The 290K was to replace the existing 285K. But since the new 270K has already been upgraded to match the core counts of the 285K, the 290K could only offer higher clock speeds... And Intel can't offer higher clock speeds, not with these particular chips.
  
  
  
• Also spoiling Intel's plans is AMD with its long-awaited Ryzen 9950X3D2. (Tom's Hardware)
  
  AMD's X3D chips have what they call "3D V-Cache", because it has triple the usual amount of cache memory, with a second memory die stacked on top of the CPU - or in the latest iteration, underneath it. Vertically. In 3D. Which is slightly redundant, yes.
  
  The new X3D2 variant applies that to both the CPU dies in a 16-core processor. The increased cache provides its biggest performance gains for computer games - often running 30% faster than anything else - which only really use eight cores since that's what the current generation of consoles have.
  
  The 9950X3D2 is aimed more at workstation users and for most tasks will be barely faster (and possibly slightly slower) than the existing 9950X3D.
  
  AMD plans a breakthrough with its upcoming Zen 6 family, which will offer 50% more of everything, cores and cache alike.

• Reddit has a bot problem and plans to tackle it by verifying the notbots. (Tech Crunch)
  
  The notbots are rioting at the thought of being verified.
  
  
  
• Wikpedia has banned AI-generated articles. (Engadget)
  
  Like Reddit, Wikipedia has as large a problem with its humans as its inhumans, but this is not intrinsically a bad idea.
  
  
  
• Tracy Kidder, a storyteller (as he described himself) and author of the classic tech story The Soul of a New Machine about the creation of the Data General Nova minicomputer, has passed away. (The Guardian)
  
  He was 80.
  
  
  
• Also late is Apple's Mac Pro. (9to5Mac)
  
  It was introduced in 2019.
  
  Apple has indicated that there will be no future Mac Pro models, or anything to fit that gap in the market.
  
  
  
• The Langflow visual framework for building AI workflows has of course been compromised. (Bleeping Computer)
  
  This is not a burn-your-house-down panic situation like some recent incidents, but if you're using it, update immediately.
  
  
  
• Don't cross the streams. (Tech Crunch)
  
  Speaking of recent incidents, LiteLLM, which as I reported yesterday is recovering from being very thoroughly hacked, previously received two security certifications marking it as safe to use.
  
  From Delve.

  Even so, as engineer Gergely Orosz pointed out on X when he saw people snickering about it online, "Oh damn, I thought this WAS a joke. ... but no, LiteLLM *really* was 'Secured by Delve.'"

  As for LiteLLM, CEO Krrish Dholakia had no comment on the use of Delve. He's still busy cleaning up the unfortunate mess from being a victim of attack.

  The attack on LiteLLM was indirect via Trivy and GitHub, so users of the software probably were safe... Right up until the entire project was compromised.
  
  

posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM

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