WMGroomAK

On 8/24/2018 at 10:46 AM, rcmaehl said:

If successful, a lawsuit from the Media Industries could force ISPs to heavily monitor users and potentially ban them from Services

And here is where this ruling by the Ninth Circuit should be useful...

https://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-is-not-enough-to-identify-pirate-us-court-of-appeals-rules-180828/

Basically I think this would negate a big portion of this as it addresses that just an IP address is not enough to determine that someone has pirated material.

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In a ruling handed down yesterday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Margaret McKeown makes it crystal clear that Cobbler Nevada LLC, the owner of the copyright in question, has no case against Gonzales.

 

“In this copyright action, we consider whether a bare allegation that a defendant is the registered subscriber of an Internet Protocol (‘IP’) address associated with infringing activity is sufficient to state a claim for direct or contributory infringement,” the Judge writes.

“We conclude that it is not.”

 

Cobbler Nevada claimed that Gonzales had directly infringed their rights or, in the alternative, contributed to another person’s infringement by failing to secure his open WiFi. The district court, which previously heard the case, dismissed these claims. The Ninth Circuit agreed that was the correct decision.

 

“The direct infringement claim fails because Gonzales’s status as the registered subscriber of an infringing IP address, standing alone, does not create a reasonable inference that he is also the infringer,” the Judge notes.

 

“Because multiple devices and individuals may be able to connect via an IP address, simply identifying the IP subscriber solves only part of the puzzle. A plaintiff must allege something more to create a reasonable inference that a subscriber is also an infringer.”

1 hour ago, pas008 said:

didnt 780 and 280 release at 650?

and 1080 at 700?

An interesting series of reads over on HardOCP has the 780 release at 650, 980 at 550 and the 1080 at 700 for FE or 550 MSRP.  

The more interesting portion of the series is the comparison of the uplift in performance between generations from the 7XX series through the 10XX series.

Part 1: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/07/25/nvidia_gpu_generational_performance_part_1/

Part 2: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/08/07/nvidia_gpu_generational_performance_part_2/

Part 3: https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018/08/16/nvidia_gpu_generational_performance_part_3/

19 minutes ago, Rattenmann said:

Added more to the OP to make it clear what the chart represents and why we need to look a little further to understand what RTX is all about.

 

 

Another thing to add in consideration of all this is that from the best that I can figure nVidia basically added between 15 & 20% more CUDA cores across all of the cards (At least based on the specs I saw on Anandtech)...

1080Ti (3584 CUDA) -> 2080Ti (4352 CUDA) ~ 21% increase

1080 (2566 CUDA) -> 2080 (2944 CUDA) ~ 15% increase

1070 (1920 CUDA) -> 2070 (2304 CUDA) ~ 20% increase

We also don't know what clocks each of the Cards were running at (were they at stock configs, similar clocks, etc.) and/or how much performance gain is from switching to 12 nm from 16 nm process.  

1 minute ago, AluminiumTech said:

But instead of buying the games individually the idea is to pay for Xbox Games Pass which you can think of as the Netflix of Xbox One Games.

I'll admit that I haven't tried out the Games Pass from Microsoft, but my big issue with a Netflix model would be how long a game may remain as being available on Game Pass or it's rotation and having to wait for the next rotation to play a game I want to.  Of course, I still like having physical media as much as possible so I can go back and play some of my favorite older games whenever I want...

5 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

i thought it meant AI-controlled dynamic viruses ._. thankfully I'm wrong

At least for the moment...  If they can use DNN AI to specify targets, I wouldn't think it would be too difficult to use similar techniques to equip the malware with multiple payloads and use the network to specify at least one payload to deploy based on the local security settings.

Security researchers at IBM have developed a potentially 'new' class of malware that uses open source machine learning and Deep Neural Network AI models to target specific individuals.  Their proof of concept that was demonstrated at Black Hat 2018 is code-named DeepLocker and masks itself as a simple video-conferencing application until the target is captured by the camera, at which point it deploys it's malicious payload (WannaCry in this case).  

https://securityintelligence.com/deeplocker-how-ai-can-power-a-stealthy-new-breed-of-malware/

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DeepLocker has changed the game of malware evasion by taking a fundamentally different approach from any other current evasive and targeted malware. DeepLocker hides its malicious payload in benign carrier applications, such as a video conference software, to avoid detection by most antivirus and malware scanners.

 

What is unique about DeepLocker is that the use of AI makes the “trigger conditions” to unlock the attack almost impossible to reverse engineer. The malicious payload will only be unlocked if the intended target is reached. It achieves this by using a deep neural network (DNN) AI model.

 

The AI model is trained to behave normally unless it is presented with a specific input: the trigger conditions identifying specific victims. The neural network produces the “key” needed to unlock the attack. DeepLocker can leverage several attributes to identify its target, including visual, audio, geolocation and system-level features. As it is virtually impossible to exhaustively enumerate all possible trigger conditions for the AI model, this method would make it extremely challenging for malware analysts to reverse engineer the neural network and recover the mission-critical secrets, including the attack payload and the specifics of the target. When attackers attempt to infiltrate a target with malware, a stealthy, targeted attack needs to conceal two main components: the trigger condition(s) and the attack payload.

 

DeepLocker is able to leverage the “black-box” nature of the DNN AI model to conceal the trigger condition. A simple “if this, then that” trigger condition is transformed into a deep convolutional network of the AI model that is very hard to decipher. In addition to that, it is able to convert the concealed trigger condition itself into a “password” or “key” that is required to unlock the attack payload.

 

Technically, this method allows three layers of attack concealment. That is, given a DeepLocker AI model alone, it is extremely difficult for malware analysts to figure out what class of target it is looking for. Is it after people’s faces or some other visual clues? What specific instance of the target class is the valid trigger condition? And what is the ultimate goal of the attack payload?

 

To demonstrate the implications of DeepLocker’s capabilities, we designed a proof of concept in which we camouflage a well-known ransomware (WannaCry) in a benign video conferencing application so that it remains undetected by malware analysis tools, including antivirus engines and malware sandboxes. As a triggering condition, we trained the AI model to recognize the face of a specific person to unlock the ransomware and execute on the system.

 

Imagine that this video conferencing application is distributed and downloaded by millions of people, which is a plausible scenario nowadays on many public platforms. When launched, the app would surreptitiously feed camera snapshots into the embedded AI model, but otherwise behave normally for all users except the intended target. When the victim sits in front of the computer and uses the application, the camera would feed their face to the app, and the malicious payload will be secretly executed, thanks to the victim’s face, which was the preprogrammed key to unlock it.

 

It’s important to understand that DeepLocker describes an entirely new class of malware — any number of AI models could be plugged in to find the intended victim, and different types of malware could be used as the “payload” that is hidden within the application.

https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/08/16/ai_driven_malware_deeplocker_at_defcon/

This seems to be a very basic implementation of a potentially new class of malicious software that I could see getting more complicated, especially if you have a very imaginative programmer that sets multiple conditional attack vectors...  The targeting ability I think that governments would be especially interested in this for multiple types of espionage (Or I'm being a bit paranoid).

Tesla may be having further issues with Model 3 production after an alleged sabotage of the code for the company's production systems and an export of a large amount of data by a disgruntled employee.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/06/tesla-model-3-production-has-been-sabotaged-according-to-cnc/

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused a Tesla employee of "quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations," according to an email obtained by CNBC. In the all-hands email to Tesla staff, Musk wrote that the employee had made "direct code changes" to the company's production systems, as well as exporting "large amounts" of Tesla's data to unknown third parties.

 

According to Musk's email, the unnamed employee claimed he had become disgruntled after failing to receive a promotion. However, the Tesla CEO also suggested the alleged saboteur could have been working with short sellers, oil and gas companies—whom he described as "sometimes not super nice"—or "the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors." Of this last group, Musk reminded his employees that, since the traditional OEMs have been known to cheat emissions tests, "maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways."

 

On Monday, Musk sent out another email to the company about yet another factory fire—the fifth by our count—alluding to the possibility of sabotage. And in 2016, one of Musk's other companies, SpaceX, asked to inspect the roof of a competitor's building following the explosion on the launchpad of one of SpaceX's rockets.

 

Tesla has faced plenty of criticism about its ongoing troubles in ramping up Model 3 production. But that may have been unwarranted if those problems were due to sabotage. We reached out to Tesla regarding CNBC's story, but the company declined to comment at this time

CNBC article:  https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-email-employee-conducted-extensive-and-damaging-sabotage.html

Not sure if any of this is true since Tesla has not confirmed or denied the email formally, however, if it is true, then that disgruntled employee is in for some serious legal troubles...  Of course, it could also be that they are just having separate internal problems and this is an excuse for further delays.  Not much information at present, but will try to update if more comes out...

15 minutes ago, Cookybiscuit said:

This is of course assuming this is all true, it is WCCF.

This is the whole crux of the problem is that the article is fairly much an opinion/clickbait piece by WCCF so any news should require truck loads of salt.

4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

For all we know, this AI came across Terminator discussion on Reddit and decided that it wanted to be cool like the big kids(Skynet) and this was how to do it

My understanding is that they targeted a notorious subreddit thread that is dedicated to document and observe death so it's not like they set it loose on Reddit at large...

http://norman-ai.mit.edu

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We trained Norman on image captions from an infamous subreddit (the name is redacted due to its graphic content) that is dedicated to document and observe the disturbing reality of death.

Not sure what this says about AI image recognition learning or just humans in general for the morbid nature of creating certain subreddit threads and discussion sites.  

19 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

hmm o_o so it's just a giant power-out board, rather than it being able to accept any 24-pin connection from any PSU?

From the video over at Kitguru (approx 3:50 into video), it's sounding like it is keyed to Seasonic PSUs but there is no mention on whether it has to be a specific model.

https://www.kitguru.net/components/power-supplies/matthew-wilson/computex-2018-seasonics-system-cable-management-device-and-new-psus/

2 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

It looks like everything's running off just a 24 pin and 8 pin. Could cause problems with multiple graphics cards or in an HEDT system.

Kind of what I was thinking looking at that...  Wish there were better photos/description of the product.  Also why I would like to see it actually tested. 

3 minutes ago, Rasbir Singh said:

- Will this part ONLY fit in Seasonic cases or what?

I don't think Seasonic focuses on cases, just power supplies, so I would assume based on the images that this fits most standard ATX cases...  You probably need a Seasonic PSU on the other hand.

4 minutes ago, Rasbir Singh said:

- Do you get those custom extension cables with the purchase of the SCMD or do you need to buy them separately?

The product page makes no mention of the custom extensions, so you would probably need to buy those separately, although at least the length of cables should be a lot shorter. 

Seasonic has presented a solution to all of that awful cable clutter, zip ties and cable management headache that goes on with building a PC by introducing their System Cable Management Device (SCMD).  This is basically a way to move all of your PSU cables to a simple bar system that hangs out behind the motherboard and you can then just select the right modular cable to go to whatever you are powering, also drastically shortening the custom cable runs.  And because this is 2018, it also has RGB lighting on it, so should you have one of those nice new cases with glass back paneling, you don't need to worry about crappy looking cable management.  

https://www.pcper.com/news/Cases-and-Cooling/Seasonic-shows-their-new-System-Cable-Management-Device

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...with a compatible PSU you are able to connect directly to the Seasonic Backplane, aka the SCMD, with all of your power plugs distributed on the side of the device.  Simply connect the cabling you require, and leave out any you do not need.  It is thin enough to fit behind your motherboard, thus hiding almost all of your wiring and also ensuring you do not have to stretch that additional motherboard power cable.

Seasonic claims that introducing the SCMD into your power loop will only drop efficiency by 1% overall, making it a perfect alternative to modular cabling.  As with all things Computex this year, it does indeed sport an RGB logo, if you prefer to install it where it can contribute to the rave party in your case. We do not yet have a price or a date on which it becomes available, but Seasonic suggests it will come in three sizes to ensure a proper fit in almost any system.

I might have to consider one of these for my next build to help kill the cable clutter and it honestly doesn't look too bad...  Would love to see someone review how much this impacts power delivery as opposed to direct cables from PSU.

Seasonic Page:  https://www.seasonic.com/scmd/

On 6/5/2018 at 2:42 AM, spbr said:

How do I bring the 4 line series closer together, so there is a huge gap between them

Two options that I can think of would be to either switch the Y-Axis to a Logarithmic Scaling or to plot Series 1&3 with the Y-Axis on the Left showing the values for 0 to 10% and Series 2&4 with the Y-Axis on the right showing the values for 10 to 20%.  Either way, when presenting the data, you should make a clear note of how you are modifying the graph.

Arm has brought out the details on their upcoming Cortex A76 & Mali G76 & V76 processors at their annual TechDay.  The new Cortex A76 is supposed to be a new Arm microarchitecture that they are touting as providing 'Laptop-class performance with mobile efficiency'.  This new processor will supposedly be based on TSMCs 7nm fabrication and be able to provide 35% more performance with 40% increase in power efficiency and 4-times the machine learning capabilities while clocking at 3 GHz as compared to the previous A75 at 2.8 GHz using 10nm production.  

Cortex A76:  https://www.anandtech.com/show/12785/arm-announces-cortexa76

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The Cortex A76 is important for Arm for a design perspective as it represents a new start from a clean sheet. It’s rare for IP claim to be able to do this as it represents a great resource and time investment and if it weren’t for the Sophia design team taking over the steering wheel for the last two generations of products it wouldn’t have been reasonable to execute. The execution of the CPU design teams should be emphasised in particular as Arm claims this is the 5th generation “annual beat” product where the company delivers a new microarchitecture every new year. Think of it as an analogue to Intel’s past Tick-Tock strategy, but rather Tock-Tock-Tock for Arm with steady CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 20-25% every generation coming from µarch improvements.

 

So what is the Cortex A76? In Arm’s words, it’s a “laptop-class” performance processor with mobile efficiency. The vision of the A76 as a laptop-class processor had been emphasised throughout the TechDay presentation so it seems Arm is really taking advantage of the large performance boost of the IP to cater to new market segments such as the emerging “Always connected PCs” which Qualcomm is spearheading with their SoC platforms.

 

The Cortex A76 microarchitecture has been designed with high performance while maintaining power efficiency in mind. Starting from a clean sheet allowed the designers to remove bottlenecks throughout the design and to break previous microarchitectural limitations. The focus here was again maximum performance while remaining within energy efficiency that is fit for smartphones.

 

In broad metrics, what we’re promised in actual products using the A76 is the follows: a 35% performance increase alongside 40% improved power efficiency. We’ll also see a 4x improvements in machine learning workloads thanks to new optimisations in the ASIMD pipelines and how dot products are handled. These figures are baselined on A75 configurations running at 2.8GHz on 10nm processes while the A76 is projected by Arm to come in at 3GHz on 7nm TSMC based products.

The Mali G76 GPU will supposedly be a significant improvement over the current G72 by providing 30% more performance density and energy efficiency on the same process node or 50% increase in performance over the current G72 when the G76 is placed on the TSMC 7nm process.

Mali G76:  https://www.anandtech.com/show/12834/arm-announces-the-mali-g76-scaling-up-bifrost

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Today’s Arm announces the follow-up to the G72 and the latest offspring in the Bifrost family: The Mali G76. The targets of the GPU IP should be pretty clear: Improve performance, efficiency and area and try to catch up with the competition as much as possible.

 

Overall what Arm promises for the next generation of SoCs using the G76 on a new TSMC 7nm process is a 50% increase in performance versus current generation devices.

 

In terms of apples-to-apples comparisons, we see three key metrics that are improved: A 30% improvement in performance density is the first one. What this means is that either for the same area, the new GPU will perform 30% better, or for the same performance, the vendor can shrink the GPU space on the SoC.

 

The new GPU promises a 30% microarchitectural efficiency improvement thanks to a consolidation of the functional blocks of the unit. Efficiency is particularly something Arm needs to focus on in regards to Mali as we’ve seen a few missteps over the last year or two and the competition from Qualcomm in the GPU and 3D gaming space is particularly fierce.

 

Finally, there’s a quoted 2.7x improvement for machine learning inferencing applications thanks to the inclusion of new dedicated 8-bit dot product instructions

The last bit of the '76' processors that Arm announced today was the Mali V76 Video encode/decode processor which as an 8 core design is intended to be able to decode up to 8Kp60 and encode up to 8Kp30 videos, providing approximately twice the throughput per a core as the previous V61.  This processor will also be able to handle most of the standard Video Codecs, with AV1 being the only exception.

Mali V76:  https://www.anandtech.com/show/12835/arm-announces-maliv76-video-processor-planning-for-the-8k-video-future

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Overall the V76 brings a slew of changes to Arm’s video processor ecosystem. On the performance front the new video block offers twice the decode performance of the V61, and on the encode side Arm says that encoding quality has been improved by about 25%. Meanwhile on the features front, the latest block adds support for 10-bit H.264 encoding and decoding, the one major codec/format that wasn’t already present on the V61.

 

From a hardware perspective, Arm has retained their scalable core design, and the V76 is intended for designs ranging from 2 to 8 cores. Arm’s ambitions are very forward-looking given the longer timeframe between generation, and as a result at a nominal frequency of 600MHz, an 8 core design is slated to be able to decode up to decode videos up to 8Kp60, and encode up to 8Kp30. Or for a smaller 4 core design, that becomes 4Kp120 decoding and 4Kp60 encoding. As previously stated, this is twice the throughput per-core of the V61, meaning that at least at nominal frequencies, this is the first Arm video processor block suitable for 8K video (as well as high frame rate 4K).

...

Along with the greater resolution support, the other most notable addition to the new processor is support for 10-bit H.264 video. This format was oddly absent in the V61 – the processor supported 10-bit HEVC, but not H.264 – and at the time the company didn’t think it would be needed. The slow adoption of HEVC relative to the faster adoption of HDR has changed that however, so for the V76 both encode and decode support for the format is being included.

 

On that note, however, this processor will not include any support for the upcoming AV1 codec. While the bitstream specification for the eagerly anticipated codec was released a couple of months back, the timing was unfortunately after Arm had already completed the V76 RTL (never mind the fact that the specification isn’t closed yet). So it’s going to have to be the next video block after the V76 before Arm can include AV1 decode support.

...

Finally, while not a focus of their presentation, Arm also briefly commented on HDR support in our briefing. In concert with their display processor, the new video processor is currently able to handle HDR10 and HLG formatted HDR video. Meanwhile support for HDR10+ – which is HDR10 with support for dynamic metadata – is set to arrive in the future. This is an important distinction, as Arm’s display controller can’t support Dolby Vision, meaning that HDR10+ would be the only dynamic HDR format that Arm can support.

All said, this all looks really promising for some future Arm based systems.  I would love to see these coming out in the near future as home media center boxes or even as a decent mobile platform.

15 minutes ago, James said:

Really? because you don't sound like a reporter- whose JOB IT IS TO AGGREGATE RELEVANT INFORMATION

But looking up wikipedia information while writing a report on a deadline is soooo hard!!! 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_masonry_unit

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Concrete masonry can be used as a structural element in addition to being used as an architectural element. Walls may be ungrouted, partially grouted, and fully grouted. Reinforcement bars can be used both vertically and horizontally inside the CMU to strengthen the wall and results in better structural performance. The cells in which the rebar is placed must be grouted for the bars to bond to the wall. For this reason, high seismic zones typically only allow fully grouted walls in their building codes. The American design code that guides design engineers in using CMU as a structural system is the Masonry Standards Joint Committee's Building Code Requirements & Specification for Masonry Structures (TMS 402/ACI 530/ASCE 5). The compressive strength of concrete masonry units and masonry walls varies from approximately 1,000 psi (7 MPa) to 5,000 psi (34 MPa) based on the type of concrete used to manufacture the unit, stacking orientation, the type of mortar used to build the wall, and other factors.

Would seem based on this, that they are on the upper end of what a standard CMU (Cinder Blocks) compressive strength is... Still would not use for construction within an Earthquake prone area.

Going to try to keep this as apolitical as possible...  I personally feel that it is well within these employees rights to resign if they feel they cannot support the company that they are working for.  This does not mean that Google or any company should not conduct this work though.  As for Project Maven, can it be used in a bad way? I would say that it could, but it could also be used in a positive manner such that the military may be able to avoid civilian casualties or sending troops into areas where there is a higher risk of casualties.  One of the biggest problems that the military is facing with technical advances is data overload and not being able to quickly sort and prioritize data that needs to be analyzed and disseminated to the field.  

Say what you want about the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when it comes to banking and regulations, however they have probably made one of the best trolls out there to try and push back against all of the fake Crypto ICOs that have been springing up.  The SEC has decided to 'launch' a fake cryptocoin of their own known as the Howeycoin as an ICO.  Their launch website has all of the basic generic language that someone may be looking for, however should someone be brave enough to try and invest, the site will redirect them to an informational SEC page from the commission explaining fake websites and scams. 

https://www.techspot.com/news/74671-sec-launched-fake-cryptocurrency-educate-investors-dangers-ico.html

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It seems the Securities and Exchanges Commission has taken the age-old mantra of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" to heart.

As reported by The Verge, the Commission today launched a fake initial coin offering (ICO) website promoting what they call "HoweyCoins" - a clear reference to the Howey Test, which is a system the Commission uses to determine whether or not an investment falls under their legal jurisdiction.

The website in question is certainly elaborate. The SEC created an official HoweyCoins logo, a Meet the Team page, fake user testimonials, and even a large "15% bonus" countdown timer.

On the HoweyCoins website, the SEC claims the fake currency is "officially registered" with the US government and will trade on an "SEC-compliant exchange" where users can buy and sell the pseudo-cryptocurrency for profit.

 

The website also claims the coins can be redeemed for merchandise, exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or cash and spent at "participating" airlines and hotels.

Naturally, the SEC's goal with this website goes beyond simply pranking the public. In the wake of numerous cryptocurrency scams that have allowed creators of fraudulent cryptocurrencies to run off with millions of investor dollars, the SEC is clearly attempting to educate the public on avoiding these scams entirely.

Indeed, if you click any of the "Buy Coins Now!" buttons on the HoweyCoins website, you'll be taken to an official informational SEC page where the Commission explains the fake website and gives visitors tips to dodge real scams in the future.

I think this is a wonderful troll by the SEC as even though it may not stop people from creating fake ICOs, it at least should begin getting the public aware and given that it is getting press, that adds to the awareness level.  It also shows that the SEC is trying to take cryptocurrency seriously and may have future plans on how to better secure and shore up actual investments and monetary transfers.

Howeycoin site:  https://www.howeycoins.com/index.html

Not sure if nV's 11 series cards will be on 7 nm, but considering that both AMD and nV use TSMC for their fab-ing, I could see them both releasing 7 nm GPU dies next year.  Maybe nV will try to push out this year to be ahead in the game or they could refresh next year around the same time that AMD plans to launch their next GPU series.

4 minutes ago, AresKrieger said:

Yield issues merely limit the profit margin and max output, and given how the main benefit besides die shrink of a smaller process node is power efficiency  it would make sense to push that for mobile chips even if it may not get as good profit margins.

Hopefully it is seeing more power efficiency at 10nm considering that the Ideapads at least are using dGPU for graphics.  Would be nice to see one of these with the iGPU enabled and be able to compare power consumption on a mobile platform.

While Intel has admitted to having issues with producing volume of 10nm CPUs for consumers, it does appear that they are producing some small volumes, of which the first batch appear to be going to Lenovo for the update to the Ideapad 330.   This chip is not listed as a 9 series but as the i3-8121u with a dual core, hyperthreaded part operating at a base frequency of 2.2 and boost to 3.2 GHz and a 15W TDP.  Interestingly, it appears that the Ideapad listing may indicate that the iGPU is disabled as it is shipping with an RX540 GPU.  There are two articles from OC3D which points to this information.

First posted 5/14:  https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/intel_s_first_10nm_cannon_lake_laptop_spotted_-_lenovo_ideapad_330/1

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Intel has not had a great time manufacturing new CPUs on their new 10nm manufacturing process, so much so that Intel has been forced to release the same Skylake series processing cores for three hardware generations through Skylake, Kaby Lake and now Coffee Lake.   

10nm is said to be shipping in low quantities, pointing towards some major yield issues with the process, making it unsuitable for large core designs at this time, placing Intel in an awkward position. 

Now it looks like we have an answer to the question "where have Intel been shipping their low quantities of 10nm hardware?", with Chinese retailers listing a new Lenovo notebook with a 10nm Cannonlake i3-8121U series CPU. 

This new notebook is a variant of Lenovo's Ideapad 330, which pairs the new Intel CPU with a Radeon RX 540 graphics chip and lacks Intel integrated graphics. At this time it is unknown why the iGPU silicon is disabled in this dual-core processor. 

Intel's release of this product as an 8th Generation dual-core hyperthreaded processor with disabled integrated graphics doesn't paint an attractive picture for 10nm. This laptop sits in the low-end of the market, so don't expect Intel to make a big deal of this new processor, given its low clock speeds, core count and lack of integrated graphics capabilities. 

Second posted 5/15:  https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/intel_confirms_the_existence_of_10nm_cannon_lake_i3-8121u_cpu/1

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When confronted with their 10nm manufacturing problems, Intel's defence has been that they are shipped 10nm silicon in low quantities, with the problem being that 10nm currently does not offer high enough manufacturing yields to create a full range of desktop processors cost-effectively with at desired qualities.    

Yesterday we talked about Lenovo's Ideapad 330, which now ships in China with a new processor called the i3 8121U, Intel's first Cannon Lake and 10nm product. 

You may be wondering why Intel has not made much of a fuss about this launch, as new product architectures and process node advancements often come surrounded by hype and fanfare. In this case, it is obvious why Intel wants to brush the i3 8121U under the carpet; it is a low-TDP dual-core product that lacks an iGPU component, offering users unimpressive clock speeds that start at a base of 2.2GHz and boost up to 3.2GHz.     

The full specifications of Intel's new i3 8121U processor are now available on Intel Ark, the company's product database, marked with no "Recommended Customer Price", which likely means that these processors are shipping at an incredibly low price. Remember that OEMs have to combine this product with a dedicated graphics chip, making the product unusable as a standalone CPU without the help of Radeon or Geforce graphics. 

Compare the i3 8121U to Intel's 8th Generation Kaby Lake Mobile i3-8130U and the shortcomings of this 10nm product are clear, with the i3-8130U offering base/boost clock speeds of 2.2GHz and 3.4GHz, the same TDP of 15W (configurable to 10W) and an integrated graphics component. Intel's Cannon Lake i3 8121U falls short of Intel's 14nm offering, assuming that Cannon Lake doesn't offer a transformative difference in performance per clock.

Intel ARK:  https://ark.intel.com/products/136863/Intel-Core-i3-8121U-Processor-4M-Cache-up-to-3_20-GHz?q=8121U

Based on the specs listed for this part, I have to agree with OC3D that the 10nm process chip as it stands does not really provide much of a benefit over their 14nm Kaby Lake chip, and with the low yields they are supposedly getting, it may not be economic to really use instead of the 14nm chips...  Hopefully Intel can get the wrinkles ironed out in the next year though and advance their 10nm process in a way that does show some gains over the 14nm that makes all of this time and effort at least partially worth it.

EDIT:  Here is an article from over at Anandtech on the new Lenovo Ideapad with some better information/images...

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12749/first-10nm-cannon-lake-laptop-spotted-online-lenovo-ideapad-330-for-449

Definitely looks like a low end just needs something that works for a year or two deal...

In the continuing saga of Kaspersky and the company trying to rebuild it's image after all of last year's fiasco, the company has announced that they will be opening a Transparency Center in Zurich, Switzerland.  This transparency center will supposedly house most of its customer data as well as it's software assembly line and build infrastructure.  Future plans include building more transparency centers in North America and Asia by 2020.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/kaspersky-to-move-data-of-most-users-from-russia-to-switzerland/

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Kaspersky announced earlier today plans to move the user data of most of its customers to a "Transparency Center" in Switzerland, along with its "software assembly line."

The Transparency Center will be located in Zurich and will house servers that store data on Kaspersky customers across Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore.

The transparency center will also host the company's "build infrastructure" that Kaspersky uses to assemble and manage its products. More precisely, the Zurich Transparency Center will host:

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◬  The source code of any publicly released product (including old versions),
◬  Threat detection rule databases,
◬  The source code of cloud services responsible for receiving and storing the data of customers based in Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, South Korea and Singapore,
◬  Software tools used for the creation of a product (the build scripts), databases, and cloud services,
◬  Secure software development documentation.

The move of the software assembly line is set to complete by the end of 2018, while moving servers tasked with storing user data will finish by the end of 2019.

Kaspersky said more transparency centers are set to open in North America and Asia by 2020, but the company is not yet ready to disclose more details.

...

For its part, the Russian antivirus vendor is doing all it can to keep its name clean. As part of this transparency center, Kaspersky said that a third-party organization will be allowed to independently review both processes —of how it stores user data and how it builds its software products.

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First, our build systems — or “assembly line” — which work on the compilation and creation of Kaspersky Lab products and threat detection rule updates, will now be located in Zurich. That way, our software will be compiled and signed in Switzerland under the supervision of a third-party organization before being distributed to customers.
[...]
The same goes for the data processed by Kaspersky Security Network: Storing it in Switzerland under the supervision of an independent organization means that any access to this data is meticulously logged — and the logs can be reviewed at any moment should any concerns arise.

Kaspersky has not yet announced the third-party responsible for supervising this process, but said it would be open for the creation of a "nonprofit organization to take on this responsibility."

I think that this is a great step by the company, especially if they allow for the independent review of data access as is implied, however I think that most of the damage is probably done and it will be a long and steep road to regain the companies footing (if it is even possible).  

6 minutes ago, Sauron said:

On a side not, aren't NiN and Trent Reznor the same thing?

Fairly much so...  There is no NIN without Trent Reznor, although he does quite of bit of work outside of his NIN work as well.  Mainly work with Atticus Ross and/or with his wife in 'How to Destroy Angels' iirc.

Not sure how many on here are fans of NIN, but in an effort to fight the scourge of ticket bots and scalping online sales, Trent Reznor has announced that for the Fall 2018 'Cold and Black and Infinite' tour that there will be no online ticket sales.  Tickets are supposed to be sold on the day of the event at a 'first come, first served' basis starting at 8 AM with a sale limit of four tickets per a customer.  Given the popularity of NIN and Trent Reznor, I think that this has the potential to be successful for his case, but maybe not so much for other artists.  Should be interesting to see if limiting sales to an offline only prevents ticket scalping as badly as online ticket bots allow for...

https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/10/nine-inch-nails-fall-tour-no-online-sales/

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Nine Inch Nails will not sell tickets online for its just-announced "Cold and Black and Infinite" theater tour this fall. Instead, NIN mastermind Trent Reznor is going old-school in an effort to beat the ticket bots: You'll have to wait in line at the venue. Each person can buy up to four tickets. Why? Let Reznor explain it to you himself:

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"The promise of a world made better by computers and online connectivity has failed us in many, many ways, particularly when it comes to ticketing. Everything about the process sucks and everyone loses except the reseller. We've decided to try something different that will also likely suck, but in a different way. We're hoping many of you will be happy with the results, while some may do what they always do and bitch about it."

Before and on the day your tickets go on sale (check the source link for more details) the tickets won't be sold online. Everything will be first come, first served -- hopefully handled by a lottery system -- and you won't be allowed to line up before 8AM the day of in most cases.

 

"You may actually encounter other actual human beings with similar interests likely wearing black clothing during the process and potentially interact with them. The experience has the potential* to be enjoyable," Reznor writes. "Nine Inch Nails has always been about bringing people together, living life to the fullest and good times.**"

 

Remaining tickets will be sold at a later date, potentially online.

 

Reznor's idea is solid way to beat online bots and scalpers (cue the bitching), but it's little more than an inconvenience. As it stands, there's nothing stopping scalpers from standing in line to buy tickets and immediately listing them on StubHub for exorbitant prices. Chances are, you won't even recognize the slimeballs for what they are while you're outside the box office.

...

* Not guaranteed
** Not entirely true

My main problem with this is that I would love to travel to see one of his concerts, however, I'm not spending money on a plane ticket for a chance to get a ticket to a concert...  

Off Topic a bit, have to admit my favorite album from NIN is probably 'The Fragile'.

2 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

Take out ownership by money here, Pas008 and I are talking about who really owns the product from an IP point of view, that is why nV will always be targeted before the AIB's.  nV tell's it AIB's what they want for their products.

So what you're saying is that if the VRM fails on my GPU, I need to take up the issue with nVidia and not EVGA, right?  

https://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/EVGA-Overheating-VRM-Issue-GeForce-ACX-Coolers

As far as I can tell, the only time that the whole graphics card (PCB and all) are the GPU designers is when they are the reference design, otherwise the design specs & PCBs are modified by the AIBs to meet whatever want/need that they are aiming for.  AMD or nV may have minimum requirements that they want to see used on the final product, but outside of the reference designs, they don't specify how overbuilt a VRM, what all the outputs are on the card or even what style of cooling is used to keep all of the components at temp.