WMGroomAK

4 minutes ago, Phentos said:

Since I'm planning an HEDT build I'll be following this with particular interest. Still undecided on Intel vs AMD for the build though.

If you want to think about it positively though, you can get an X399 now on either platform.  

39 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

You test 2 cpus with the latest version of the patches that you have yet to test with. You get results that are lower than before and you rerun the test multiple times and get the same result.

Based on some of the information that they compiled, it would appear that the Spectre and Meltdown patches do have an impact on any software that relies on the HPET for timing...

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HPET, by the way it is invoked, is programmed by a memory mapped IO window through the ACPI into the circuit found on the chipset. Accessing it is very much an IO command, and one of the types of commands that fall under the realm of those affected by the Spectre and Meltdown patches. This would imply that any software that required HPET access (or all timing software if HPET is forced) would have the performance reduced even further when these patches are applied, further compounding the issue.

General idea I think that Anandtech was trying to do on the original testing methodology was to ensure that all the benchmark suites were using as close to the same method of calculating time as possible across platforms.  

Now to wait for the rant on the confusion soon to come on Intel X399 vs AMD X399...  Personally, I think that this is something AMD was counting on, but should be interesting to see if there is any legal issues from that.

20 minutes ago, App4that said:

AMD, since AMD says I have to run the stock cooler on my 1700X or I lose my warranty. Frantic searching in my 1700X's box is yet to provide such a cooler LOL

From what I've read on this, that was on an old FAQ that had not been updated in 5+ years...

http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/your-ryzen-processor-warranty-states-you-may-only-use-the-stock-cooler.html

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We got word back from AMD, and much of the staff is as surprised to find out what is written there. AMD mentioned that the FAQ and info distributed is old (5 years) and is being updated soon to clarify things. 

They have since updated this to basically if the Heatsink/Fan is not designed to support the operation of AMD processors to be within their conformance.

https://www.pcper.com/news/Processors/AMD-Clarifies-Warranty-Terms-Ryzen-CPU-use-Third-Party-Coolers

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As it turns out, this was an older support page that does not accurately reflect the warranty of modern AMD processors. AMD has since updated the warranty page to provide clarification.

 

Now, the page reads that the warranty shall be null and void if the processor "is used with any heatsink/fan (HSF) that does not support operation of the AMD processor in conformance with AMD’s publicly available specifications."

https://support.amd.com/en-us/warranty/rma/terms/pib

Quote

This Limited Warranty shall be null and void if the AMD microprocessor which is the subject of this Limited Warranty is used with any heatsink/fan (HSF) that does not support operation of the AMD processor in conformance with AMD’s publicly available specifications.  Use of HSF solutions determined by AMD as incapable of such performance or which are determined to have contributed to the failure of the processor shall invalidate the warranty.

11 minutes ago, AncientNerd said:

You can look at it from the direction of AnanTech discovered something real that every other reviewer missed - because that difference is real with the HPET forced on, and there are real applications where you run with the HPET forced on. So the performance difference will be real.

If I remember from the article correctly, it is also mentioned that overclocking software (e.g.: Ryzen Master) can force the HPET to be used.  That means a reviewer using software unaware that it is enabling the HPET may actually be reporting lower than optimal values (or the benchmarking software is improperly calculating results)...  Would be nice to know what applications are forcing the use of HPET and what the performance impact is in scenarios as well as whether this is being exasperated via the Meltdown/Spectre patches or if it is specifically exasperated via the HPET timer for Coffee Lake being different from how other HPET timers are set. (Specifically looking at page 2 of the article where most of the HPET timers listed show at 14.32 Mhz, while the 8700k timer shows 24.00 Mhz.)

Honestly think that there could be a lot of testing done on this as a specific issue and while the way it was brought up is not ideal, it appears to be an important consideration...

35 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

wait so why was HPET set to forced in their tests in the first place?

shouldn't it have been "default"?

Quoting the article:

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Based on my extreme overclocking roots back in the day, my automated benchmark scripts for the past year or so have forced HPET through the OS. Given that AMD’s guidance is now that it doesn’t matter for performance, and Intel hasn’t even mentioned the issue relating to a CPU review, having HPET enabled was the immediate way to ensure that every benchmark result was consistent, and would not be interfered with by clock drift on special motherboard manufacturer in-OS tweaks. This was a fundamental part of my overclocking roots – if I want to test a CPU, I want to make certainly sure that the motherboard is not causing any issues. It really gets up my nose when after a series of CPU testing, it turns out that the motherboard had an issue – keeping HPET on was designed to stop any timing issues should they arise.

 

From our results over that time, if HPET was having any effect, it was unnoticed: our results were broadly similar to others, and each of the products fell in line with where they were expected. Over the several review cycles we had, there were a couple of issues that cropped up that we couldn’t explain, such as our Skylake-X gaming numbers that were low, or the first batch of Ryzen gaming tests, where the data was thrown out for being obviously wrong however we never managed to narrow down the issue.

Basically goes back to Ian's overclocking roots and trying to ensure that individual motherboards are not creating an issue...  Definitely encourage reading the whole article as there are a lot of details discussed that may not be considered.  It would also be relevant to consider this issue when looking at other reviewers results, especially if a reviewer has an OC software that they've run on the system as that may have forced HPET on the system.

Updated the original post to reflect a potential report from the Chinese Government that is fairly critical of ZTE over the handling of this...  Does not sound like their government is happy with how ZTE has managed this whole situation and some people may be out of business fairly soon, even if the government keeps the company going.

https://qz.com/1259199/an-internal-chinese-government-report-slammed-telecom-giant-zte-for-lying-to-the-us/

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Why is Jayz2c not in the list? is there something wrong with his broken PC problem solving skills that makes it not worthy?

 

 

 

 

He posted a video on an issue he had that killed his AMD SSD when he was getting ready to test...  Troubleshooting the problem, it appeared to be a bad SATA power cable.

Can I say that I'm waiting for them to come up with this as a service and then use poorly secured AWS S3 buckets for servicing and storing the data they compile since I don't think I've gone more than two weeks this year without reading a story about one of those issues?

One clarification that I think should be made after reading the patent in a little bit of detail (will probably add an edit) is that the patent appears to be mainly for a way to combine multiple data sources and streams to create a more comprehensive data set for analytics and selling that as a service... Crypto is mentioned first in the following quote from the Patent Details:

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Streaming analytics technologies hold the promise of making vast volumes of data available in a low latency fashion. However, while prior technologies may be able to provide data in a low latency fashion, the raw data may have low value (or have less valuable than the data could have) until the raw data is enhanced by correlating the raw data with additional data, such as by matching records using common values. In some examples, the useful additional data to correlate with the data stream may not exist in one place but rather may be held by many entities or owners. As the data from each of these entities is correlated and combined with the raw data, the data stream may become more valuable. One example is a data stream that publishes or includes global bitcoin transactions (or any crypto currency transaction). These transactions are completely visible to each participant in the network. The raw transaction data may have little meaning to a customer unless the customer has a way to correlate various elements of the stream with other useful data. For example, a group of electronic or internet retailers who accept bitcoin transactions may have a shipping address that may correlate with the bitcoin address. The electronic retailers may combine the shipping address with the bitcoin transaction data to create correlated data and republish the combined data as a combined data stream. A group of telecommunications providers may subscribe downstream to the combined data stream and be able to correlate the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of the transactions to countries of origin. Government agencies may be able to subscribe downstream and correlate tax transaction data to help identify transaction participants.

34 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

I believe the patent specifically mentions Bitcoin as well.

It mentions bitcoin transaction data as an example of a type of information that the service could correlate data for... Currently still reading through the Patent description and one paragraph that is sticking out is:

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The multi-streaming data service may collect the high throughput volumes of data generated by applications, infrastructure operations, and mobile devices, and make the data available for fast identification of exceptions, slow queries, page views, click-through paths, or resource utilization. The multi-streaming data service may enable applications which can continuously analyze data at any volume and throughput with low latency. These applications can perform actions on data in windows of time, such as customer behavior over the last five minutes. The multi-streaming data service may enable the capture and processing of the wealth of information flowing through social media to identify changing trends, evaluate social graph dynamics, and to provide analytics on sentiment and sharing behavior. The multi-­streaming data service may enable the collection and analysis of financial information minute by minute, at any scale, instead of having to wait until the end of the business day or later, which can enable a quick response to anything from a new trade to changes in value at risk. The multi-streaming data service and streaming data marketplace may enable developers to understand how game players are interacting with games and with each other, and dynamically deliver a more engaging experience. By capturing data such as purchase orders, click-streams, and social media trends, applications can dynamically adjust machine learning-based recommendation and ranking algorithms. Any number of other potential use cases may also be available and are considered to be within the scope of this disclosure.

It would seem reading into this a bit more that it may be for a use case beyond just tracking crypto transactions and tying it to buyers and sellers...

Amazon appears to be enjoying a news week this week between the deals with Best Buy and having over 100 Million Prime subscribers and now they have received approval on a patent filed back in 2014 that is designed to correlate cryptocurrency transactions data with shipping addresses and IP addresses in order to develop a system to identify users.  The purpose of this correlation/tracking would be to create a subscription service for users like the IRS or law enforcement to use in order to identify the cryptocurrency owner.  With the increasing amount of activity in the cryptocurrency field, I don't see Amazon sitting on a patent like this, especially if they can see a profit from either developing the system to use as  a part of their payment methods or licensing it to a third party...  Now though with the big public outcry on privacy, this could be a bit of a sticking point for some people, especially with the data tracking and collection.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d35eax/amazon-bitcoin-patent-data-stream-identify-cryptocurrency-for-law-enforcement-government

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Amazon, the online retail and technology giant owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, won a patent in the US for a subscription feed that the company claims could “identify [Bitcoin] transaction participants” for governments and law enforcement.

 

The patent, which was filed in 2014 but approved on Tuesday, comes at a time when regulators’ desire to track and police cryptocurrency is running up against the technology’s core promises of pseudonymity for users. Bitcoin users, for example, are represented in the virtual currencies ledger by strings of text and numbers generated by a cryptographic algorithm. Taxation for Bitcoin thus relies on self-reporting. Amazon’s system, if it comes into being, could allow government subscribers to “correlate tax transaction data” with Bitcoin data in order to identify people, the patent filing says.

 

The patented system is described as a “streaming data marketplace” where various entities provide information into the stream to increase its identifying power, and customers subscribe to the feed for insights.

 

For example, the filing imagines a stream of transactions involving Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency—not very valuable on its own in terms of identifying people. But retailers in the stream can “combine the shipping address with the bitcoin transaction data” and publish the combined data to the stream; next, telecommunications companies “downstream” from the retailers may “correlate the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of the transactions to countries of origin;” and further downstream, a government subscriber would “correlate tax transaction data.” With all of this data combined, stream subscribers may be able to identify Bitcoin users.

...

“For example, a law enforcement agency may be a customer and may desire to receive global bitcoin transactions, correlated by country, with ISP data to determine source IP addresses and shipping addresses that correlate to bitcoin addresses,” the Amazon patent filing states. “The streaming data marketplace may price this desired data out per GB (gigabyte), for example, and the agency can start running analytics on the desired data using the analysis module.”

US Patent Office filing: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=9,947,033.PN.&OS=pn/9,947,033&RS=PN/9,947,033

EDIT: One clarification that I think should be made after reading the patent in a little bit of detail is that the patent appears to be mainly for a way to combine multiple data sources and streams to create a more comprehensive data set for analytics and selling that as a service... Crypto is mentioned first in the following quote from the Patent Details:

Quote

Streaming analytics technologies hold the promise of making vast volumes of data available in a low latency fashion. However, while prior technologies may be able to provide data in a low latency fashion, the raw data may have low value (or have less valuable than the data could have) until the raw data is enhanced by correlating the raw data with additional data, such as by matching records using common values. In some examples, the useful additional data to correlate with the data stream may not exist in one place but rather may be held by many entities or owners. As the data from each of these entities is correlated and combined with the raw data, the data stream may become more valuable. One example is a data stream that publishes or includes global bitcoin transactions (or any crypto currency transaction). These transactions are completely visible to each participant in the network. The raw transaction data may have little meaning to a customer unless the customer has a way to correlate various elements of the stream with other useful data. For example, a group of electronic or internet retailers who accept bitcoin transactions may have a shipping address that may correlate with the bitcoin address. The electronic retailers may combine the shipping address with the bitcoin transaction data to create correlated data and republish the combined data as a combined data stream. A group of telecommunications providers may subscribe downstream to the combined data stream and be able to correlate the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of the transactions to countries of origin. Government agencies may be able to subscribe downstream and correlate tax transaction data to help identify transaction participants.

4 minutes ago, Razor01 said:

If you want to keep using wrong words or using words incorrectly, please don't when talking about the law.

 

The law doesn't have room for negotiations of how they are executed.  You should not use those words arbitrarily.

I've been trying to stay out of this conversation as I don't see it being productive or anyone being able to successfully convince you of any errors, however, I will point out that laws do have lots of room for interpretation and usually are written with that in mind...  Statutes that are written by lawmakers and regulations that are adopted by executive branches of government to enact statutes usually have areas that are not specifically defined because you cannot account for every eventuality.  The courts serve as the balance on this by interpreting the laws when specific cases are brought before it in order to set precedence or require that new statutes or regulations be adopted to define legal grey areas.

17 minutes ago, dtaflorida said:

Yep, the Axon 7 has served me well for a $350 and free headphones in 2016. The battery isn't holding much of a charge anymore, so it's time to replace it. Looking for some cheap options, strangely ZTE show up on android central as having some models to come in 2018 with the SD845. 

Fairly sure that they started work on those products prior to the denial order being enacted so they may have devices and SD845s already allocated and in the production cycle, however, they probably won't be able to get any more Qualcomm parts going forward until 2025.

Anandtech also wrote up a bit on the finer details of what this involves...

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12657/doc-zte-denial

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The activation of the Denial Order has broad consequences for ZTE as it blocks the company in participating in any transaction of “technology” that is subject to the EAR.

 

What the EAR covers is extremely precise and fine-grained as it tries to characterise military-grade equipment technology. The categories that would most impact ZTE are items falling under categories 3, 4 and 5; Electronics Design Development and Production, Computers, and Telecommunications & Information Security. The telecommunications document is particularly interesting as it covers ubiquitous technologies in use in today’s networking and mobile devices. The EAR makes clear exceptions to radio technologies covered by ITU standards, however then goes on to more specific items which possibly apply to cellular modems and base stations.

 

ZTE’s main business is networking equipment where they are a major player alongside other mentionable companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei and Cisco. Category 3 covering Electronics Design Development has a lot more broad implications for this business as it covers semiconductor components that not only can be present in US exported products but may be IP that ZTE licenses to use in-house in their custom networking chipsets. If this is the case, there are wider implications at play as it would severely block the company from developing equipment.

 

On the consumer devices side ZTE makes heavy reliance on Qualcomm SoCs to power their smartphone products. We briefly talked with ZTE during last MWC about their partnership with Qualcomm and were told that the relationship is very strong and ZTE had continued plans to use Qualcomm chipsets in the future. We have reached out to Qualcomm for comment but haven’t had a response yet, however we see on Qualcomm’s Export Control Assurance (ECA) form the following confirmation of company's products being subject to the regulation:

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Qualcomm Incorporated, its subsidiaries and affiliates’ ("Qualcomm") hardware, software, source code and technology (collectively, “Products”) are governed by the export laws of the US and other countries where we do business.  Products obtained from Qualcomm, are subject to the US Government (“USG”) export control and economic sanctions regulations, including the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”, 15 CFR 730 et seq.)

...

While I’m not too clear on the exact legal ramifications here and this is just my interpretation, it seems that if Qualcomm would be outright blocked from issuing ZTE an ECA, which is essentially an EAR waiver, and thus not able to sell any of its products to ZTE anymore.

 

The ramifications could go even further because seemingly the EAR applies to re-exports as well, so any other company using US IP would in theory be blocked from selling to ZTE. Semiconductor companies such as SoC vendors make wide use of common foundation IP which often can come from US vendors, say from Cadence or Synopsys. If such products fall under the EAR, then the regulations could have a domino effect on the product chain and also involve non-US silicon vendors such as MediaTek or Samsung.

4 minutes ago, Catsrules said:

I wonder if ZTE could get around most of this by starting up a new company under a different name.

 

From reading the penalties part in the denial order, I think that they would have to completely change up their corporate structuring in order to do that and honestly don't see that as financially feasible...  

Quote

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED:
First, from the date of this Order until March 13, 2025, ZTE Corporation, with a last known address of ZTE Plaza, Keji Road South, Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, China, and ZTE Kangxun, with a last known address of 2/3 Floor, Suite A, Zte Communication Mansion, Keji (S) Road, Hi-New Shenzhen, 518057 China, and when acting for or on their behalf, their successors, assigns, directors, officers, employees, representatives, or agents (hereinafter each a "Denied Person"), may not, directly or indirectly, participate in any way in any transaction involving any commodity, software or technology (hereinafter collectively referred to as "item") exported or to be exported from the United States that is subject to the Regulations, or in any other activity subject to the Regulations, including, but not limited to: 

• Applying for, obtaining, or using any license, license exception, or export control document; 
• Carrying on negotiations concerning, or ordering, buying, receiving, using, selling, delivering, storing, disposing of, forwarding, transporting, financing, or otherwise servicing in any way, any transaction involving any item exported or to be exported from the United States that is subject to the Regulations, or engaging in any other activity subject to the Regulations; or 
• Benefiting in any way from any transaction involving any item exported or to be exported from the United States that is subject to the Regulations, or from any other activity subject to the Regulations. 

SECOND, no person may, directly or indirectly, do any of the following: 

• Export or reexport to or on behalf of a Denied Person any item subject to the Regulations; 
• Take any action that facilitates the acquisition or attempted acquisition by a Denied Person of the ownership, possession, or control of any item subject to the Regulations that has been or will be exported from the
  United States, including financing or other support activities related to a transaction whereby a Denied Person acquires or attempts to acquire such ownership, possession or control: 
• Take any action to acquire from or to facilitate the acquisition or attempted acquisition from a Denied Person of any item subject to the Regulations that has been exported from the United States: 
• Obtain from a Denied Person in the United States any item subject to the Regulations with knowledge or reason to know that the item will be, or is intended to be, exported from the United States; or 
• Engage in any transaction to service any item subject to the Regulations that has been or will be exported from the United States and which is owned, possessed or controlled by a Denied Person, or service any item, of whatever origin, that is owned, possessed or controlled by a Denied Person if such service involves the use of any item subject to the Regulations that has been or will be exported from the United States. For purposes of this paragraph, servicing means installation, maintenance, repair, modification or testing

THIRD, after notice and opportunity for comment as provided in Section 766.23 of the Regulations, any person, firm, corporation, or business organization related to a Denied Person by affiliation, ownership, control, or position of responsibility in the conduct of trade or related services may also be made subject to the provisions of this Order. 

 

In what can be viewed as a potential follow-up from a previous story (linked below), the US Dept. of Commerce has enacted a Denial Order related to a plea agreement last year concerning ZTE's providing telecomm equipment to North Korea and Iran.  This denial order will prohibit American companies, like Qualcomm & Intel, from selling and exporting components to ZTE for up to 7 years. 

Hot Hardware Article: https://hothardware.com/news/us-bans-zte-from-buying-components-from-american-suppliers-including-qualcomm

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Chinese hardware OEM ZTE has just been hit hard by the U.S. Department of Commerce after the company pled guilty to illegally providing telecommunications equipment to Iran and North Korea and lying about its actions. ZTE agreed to pay nearly $1.2 billion in civic and criminal penalties for shipping the goods, making false statements, and obstructing justice.

While the financial penalties were no doubt significant, the Department of Commerce has an even stiffer penalty for the company that was announced today (terms of which ZTE agreed to comply with as part of the original plea agreement). American companies like Qualcomm will now be unable to export components to ZTE for a period of up to seven years.

The Department of Commerce alleges that the ZTE didn't comply with the terms of its probationary period, and failed to take disciplinary action against senior leadership that was involved in the original transgressions. ZTE also lied about its failure to censure its employees. To make matters worse, the company actually gave bonuses to these executives instead of firing or censuring them.

 

“ZTE misled the Department of Commerce.  Instead of reprimanding ZTE staff and senior management, ZTE rewarded them.  This egregious behavior cannot be ignored,” said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross.

 

Given that ZTE did not fully comply with its plea deal, the original seven-year ban is now in full effect. 

 

ZTE provides budget smartphone to all four major wireless carriers: Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. The ZTE Axon M, for example, is an outlandish Android smartphone with dual, folding 5.2-inch 1080p displays. The device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor and is available on AT&T's network. In fact, most of ZTE's smartphones sold in the U.S. use Qualcomm processors and baseband chips in order to support our wireless bands.

 

The penalties handed down by the Department of Commerce could be devastating to ZTE's U.S. operations, and could sting suppliers like Qualcomm and Intel to a lesser extent. ZTE's misfortunes happen at a time when Chinese rival Huawei has also been effectively pushed out the U.S. market by the government.

This would appear to me that it will effectively stop any new ZTE devices from being sold into the American Market at least, however, it will also probably really limit what ZTE can build hardware wise as it would appear they can no longer get any Qualcomm chips for their devices (at least through direct sales).  While I'm sure the US market was probably only a small portion of their overall business, the potential loss of American company sales and exports of hardware would seem like a fairly significant issue...

US Dept. of Commerce Press Release: https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2018/04/secretary-ross-announces-activation-zte-denial-order-response-repeated

US Dept. of Commerce Denial Order:  https://www.commerce.gov/sites/commerce.gov/files/zte_denial_order.pdf

UPDATE:  In an update to the Denial Order story, Quartz is reporting on an internal report by the Chinese State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission  (SASAC) that appears to be fairly critical of ZTE and it's dealings with US Regulators.

https://qz.com/1259199/an-internal-chinese-government-report-slammed-telecom-giant-zte-for-lying-to-the-us/

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The report from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), the top regulator of Chinese state-owned enterprises under China’s cabinet, criticized ZTE’s dealings with the US regulators as “stupid and passive,” and embarrassing to China’s global image. “Many domestic enterprises are paying a terrible price for ZTE’s short-sightedness and dishonesty. Our country’s diplomatic layout and image will inevitably be affected,” said the report, dated April 20.

It also criticized the domestic environment for lacking “social integrity,” and said that in ZTE’s case this spread to its overseas operations.
“Relevant leaders at ZTE Corporation have no legal or confidentiality awareness. They’ve taken risks to engage in illegal operations numerous times. That’s not only related to the broader environment where social integrity in China is not high, but is also an export of the domestic lack of integrity to foreign countries,” the report wrote.
Quartz has asked ZTE about the regulator’s report and will update with any comment. ZTE’s largest shareholder is a state-backed company linked to China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC), a major contractor for China’s space program and missile weapons.
News portal Sina first wrote about the report on April 22, but the article was soon deleted (link in Chinese, cached version). When contacted by Quartz in a phone call, a staffer with SASAC’s research center confirmed that Wang Jiang—who is stated as the author of the report—is affiliated with the center. But the person said she wasn’t in a position to confirm the authenticity of the report. Wang couldn’t be reached directly.

...

But the report cited many lapses in ZTE’s operations. The company’s legal team “exists in name only,” the report wrote. When traveling to the US, according to the report, a secretary of ZTE’s chairman once carried a computer with corporate documents about equipment sales to Iran, which was seized by US Customs. “According to our country’s regulations, such confidential materials can never be taken abroad,” the report noted.

Citing ZTE’s connection to the state-run space and military contractor, the report called on the government to come up with a “temporary aid plan” to ensure the US ban won’t cause ripple effects on the country’s military-industrial corporations, along with telecoms, trade, and other firms relating to ZTE. The report also called for the regulator to exert stricter control over Chinese state-owned companies in relation to reporting potential risks relating to their foreign businesses to the agency in a timely manner.
The report did take up one popular refrain though: that the ZTE ban, and the trade war, should be seized as an opportunity for China to catch up with the US in the semiconductor industry—in a level-headed manner. “We must correctly understand our shortcomings, adhering to not only independence but also reforms and opening up. We should use the ZTE incident as a chance to make up the systematic shortcomings of state-owned enterprises, in order to lay a good foundation for future international competition and cooperation,” it wrote.
State media and tech titans like Alibaba’s Jack Ma have also seized on the US action as a chance to make the case that China must reduce its reliance on core foreign technologies—something that Beijing has long been looking to change. In 2015, the government set a goal for Chinese industry to rely on domestic sourcing for 70% of core components and materials by 2025.

So it would appear that ZTE's leadership might be in some serious hot water at home, but that the Chinese Government will work to keep the company in operation due to  potential economic and military security impacts.

2 minutes ago, Okjoek said:

Gaming? Like as in you can dock it somewhere and use it as a desktop/ laptop form?

Not that I've read.  Appears to be more geared towards mobile gaming, especially with more games adding in mobile ports.  Although the first 50,000 pre-orders get a free Gamepad accessory that docks onto the side.

In a bid to give Razor a bit of competition (or add more PUBG mobile players I guess)  Xiaomi has announced their plans for a Gaming Smartphone.  This phone will be running a Snapdragon 845 with an Adreno 630 GPU and 8 GB of RAM and using a 5.99-inch IPS display with 97% coverage of DCI-P3 color space a 550 nit brightness.  One of the features I thought sounded unique is that they supposedly have some sort of multi-stage direct contact liquid cooling system, which can supposedly drop CPU temps by 8-degrees C.

Hot Hardware: https://hothardware.com/news/xiaomi-blackshark-android-gaming-phone-snapdragon-845-8gb-ram-128gb-storage

Quote

Xiaomi has taken the wraps off its new Blackshark handset that was teased earlier this week, thereby giving Razer some competition in the Android smartphone gaming space. It's a niche category for sure, though the specs on these devices rival (and in many cases surpass) flagship phones from other manufacturers that are not necessarily aimed at gamers, but boast high-end hardware nonetheless.

 

In this case, the Blackshark does not match the 120Hz refresh that is a standout feature of the Razer Phone's display. However, it does boast a 5.99-inch IPS Pixelworks panel will a Full HD+ resolution and 97 percent coverage of the DCI-P3 color space, and an impressive 550 nits brightness level. Xiaomi is pitching the display as a highlight of the Blackshark, noting that it offers a comprehensive tone-mapping pipeline to render HDR410 videos that are true to the creator's intent.

 

Powering it all is Qualcomm's top-end Snapdragon 845 processor with an Adreno 630 GPU, paired with a generous 8GB of RAM. That combination should give the Blackshark plenty of pep, just as we have seen on a spattering of other phones that run the same system-on-chip (but typically with less RAM). On the storage front, the phone offers up to 128GB of space (minus whatever is needed for the OS and other custom bits)

Techspot: https://www.techspot.com/news/74149-xiaomi-launches-black-shark-compete-razer-phone.html

Quote

A multi-stage direct contact liquid cooling system can keep the Black Shark running in high performance mode for an extended period of time. Upon engagement, the liquid cooling system can bring the CPU temperature down by 8°C.

Xiaomi's Black Shark is available for pre-order today and is expected to ship on April 20. Pricing is set at CNY2,999 and CNY3,499 for the 6GB/64GB and 8GB/128GB models respectively. Converting to US currency, that is $477 and $557. Black Shark Gamepads will be included free for the first 50,000 customers. After that, they will be sold separately for CNY179 or about $28.

Wonder if this would perform any better than the Liquid Metal mod that Linus did on the Razor Phone...  Also wonder how good the battery life is on this given that they are going with a 4000 mAH. Although the 20 MP front and back facing cameras make for some impressive specs.

Just going to point this out from my observations is that people enjoy being outraged on a topic, even if they don't understand it or truly care about fixing the issue...  They just want to have the satisfaction that they were outraged at Facebook's policy.  

As a side note IMO, there is no such thing as a 'free' service...  If the service is free, then they are probably supporting it by performing some sort of data collection, analysis and sale of information.  This is why a smart user either avoids entering data online or ensures that they are not putting sensitive data out where it can be harvested or viewed by the public at large.

It would appear that Apple's Homepod may not be living up to the sale numbers that Apple is hoping for as they are slashing orders of monthly devices by 60% from 500k units to 200k.  At the same time, they are also looking into making a second, smaller, cheaper smart speaker...  

https://gizmodo.com/looks-like-nobody-wants-to-buy-apple-s-homepod-1825207301

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... According to a Bloomberg report, the company has lowered the number of Homepods being manufactured by one of its partners, Inventec Corporation, and is reportedly looking to make a second smart speaker, one a bit less expensive than its current $350 offering.

 

Meanwhile, according to a report from The China Times, Apple is slashing the number of monthly HomePod orders from 500,000 to 200,00 due to some disappointing sales. Apple retail store workers cited in the Bloomberg story claim to be selling “fewer than 10 HomePods a day.” Apple’s no stranger to lackluster sales when it comes to new products, but the HomePod seems to be fighting a war on multiple fronts, and doing poorly in each one. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment on the HomePod situation.

 

t’s not like they’re just collecting dust, though. Loup Ventures co-founder Gene Munster expects Apple will sell around 7 million HomePods this year, and 11 million in 2019. 11 million is a lot, but is pretty small compared to the 39 million Echo devices he expects Amazon to sell in the same timeframe, or the 32 million Google Home devices also expected to end up in homes.

While I have no interest in the Homepod myself as I have no want to go back into Apple's ecosystem in general, it would seem that the biggest limiting factor on the Homepod is more related to limited software features with a high price compared to what others may be looking for in a smart speaker. Should be interesting to see if they do actually produce something like an Apple Homepod Dot or whatever they want to call it (Homedot?), especially if they focus on sound quality...  

12 minutes ago, Trixanity said:

AMD's marketing has generally been pretty terrible so I hope they get someone that can really achieve something but there's a good chance we'll get more of the same or worse.

Sasa Marinkovic is supposed to be taking over.  Depending on the lea way he is given to talk and direct, it might prove to be interesting since he helped with overhauling the AMD graphic driver software.  He has also been with the company for 20+ years.

https://www.fudzilla.com/news/46035-amd-hands-product-marketing-reins-to-sasa-marinkovic

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Back in 2014, Sasa Marinkovic switched to become head of VR and Software Marketing which later, in 2015, became part of the Radeon Technologies Group, led by another now ex AMD chap, Raja Koduri.

 

Sasa was one of the key people, along with some other big names in the software part of AMD - like Terry Makedon - who pretty much overhauled the entire AMD graphics driver software. It all started back with the big Catalyst Omega update, over to Radeon Software Crimson, Crimson ReLive, to the latest, and we must say most impressive update, Radeon Software Adrenalin Edition.

 

Since last year, Sasa Marinkovic was Director of Software Marketing at AMD and he will now take over as Director of Product Marketing. We wish him all the best, and you can check out AMD's official statement below.

 

"Sasa Marinkovic Director, Radeon Software Marketing will be taking leadership of AMD Product and Content Marketing. Over his twenty years career at AMD, Sasa has successfully launched several generations of disruptive AMD products and will be responsible for the introduction of the next generation of AMD’s Ryzen and Radeon products. In addition, Chris Hook has left AMD to pursue other opportunities. We thank Chris for his many contributions and wish him well in the next stage of his career."

2 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Oh yeah, freight seems amazing.

 

Imagine buying something from China and getting it delivered to your door in just 2 hours.

I could definitely see shipping high density luxury items (GPUs & other electronics maybe?) as a potential starting market that will definitely help to improve the technology.  One primary issue would be ensuring that there is either a trade route or return cargo availability.  

35 minutes ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Well, comparing the mortality of airplane travel vs. the mortality of motor land travel, I would be more concerned about Tesla than about SpaceX...

I agree that auto accidents do have the higher yearly/overall mortality rate, it's just that air accidents usually have the higher instantaneous mortality rate...  I would really love to know what safety procedures/technology SpaceX would consider in case of a catastrophic rocket accident.  Best guess is that the passenger compartment/module would have emergency deployment rockets and a parachute.  

Probably not so much new news as more confirmation of the direction that SpaceX may be taking in their quest for sustainable rocketry, however SpaceX's COO, Gwynne Shotwell, has confirmed at TED 2018 that they are planning to be using the Big Falcon Rocket as an International Travel platform within the next decade and they feel that they could be competitive with a standard Business Class ticket for travel to the other side of the world.  

https://www.fastcompany.com/40557831/spacex-wants-to-replace-long-haul-flights-with-rocket-travel-in-the-next-10-years

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Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is obsessed with flying to Mars. We know this, because he’s said his company will start testing space travel as early as next year.

 

While Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s COO, is driving that mission, she’s also setting her sights a little closer to home. At TED 2018 in Vancouver, Shotwell announced that SpaceX will, in the next decade, launch rockets for international travel. A trip from London to Shanghai, for instance, would take as little as a half an hour, and cost somewhere around what a business-class trip the same distance would. “It’s space travel for earthlings,” she says.

 

SpaceX’s BFR, which Shotwell says stands for “Big … Falcon Rocket,” will be the vehicle to make these trips. The company began building the first prototypes of the rockets this March. And while they’re expensive to build, Shotwell argues that the sheer volume of trips the BFRs could make would generate enough revenue to balance the costs. “If we can run trips that last a half hour or an hour, we can run dozens of them a day,” she says. “A long-haul aircraft can only do one.”

 

The rockets will be able to hold around 100 people, and for doubters, Shotwell has these words: “It’s definitely going to happen.”EA

Now don't get me wrong, this is exciting and I'm hoping that they are successful at this endeavor, but I have some serious safety concerns myself given aviation history and how markets and safety tend to operate...  My general impression is that a demand for volume can lead to cutting corners in order to deliver and the last thing that I would want cutting corners is a rocket that I'm using for travel around the world.  Might have to up ticket prices a bit.

5 minutes ago, Canada EH said:

This has nothing to do with USA or Canada period

It has nothing to do with current US or Canadian issues, however it does impact the ability to share information on the internet, which would affect the ability to get information within the US or Canada.  I also worry that if it passes, it may inspire the US and Canadian politicians to give it a try themselves...