March 23, 2018 - The WAN Show Document

[LinusTech]

 

Soundcloud:

Old news: Xbox One Gets FreeSync

Source 1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/03/10/pc-exclusive-no-more-freesync-finally-lands-on-xbox-one-consoles/#54a51fbf48f8

Source 2:

 

• On March 10th at Microsoft's Inside Xbox show, Microsoft's Larry Hyrb and AMD's Antal Tungler announced variable refresh rate would be coming to the Xbox One

  • Xbox One (FreeSync)

  • Xbox One S/X (FreeSync 2 with HDR)

• Xbox will no longer be frame-locked

• You need a freesync-capable display

  • There aren’t any freesync TV’s yet

 

Nvidia GPP claims its first victim

Source 1: kladzen https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/907752-updated-2-nvidia-gpp-shows-its-first-victim/

Source 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/85n378/nvidia_gpps_first_victim/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/85n378/nvidia_gpps_first_victim/

• The first visual manifestations of the GeForce Partner Program are beginning to appear: Products that feature different branding between NVidia and AMD.

  • Ensignia such as ROG STRIX and MSI Gaming, and AUROS are being omitted

• Some Amazon product names haven’t been updated yet and included the branding across all products

• Note the first comment on the reddit thread

Does their supply stranglehold also apply to media like us?

Congress passes SESTA/FOSTA

Source 1: Syntaxvgm https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/908815-craigslist-removes-personals-section-citing-hr-1865-fosta-new-allow-states-and-victims-to-fight-online-sex-trafficking-act-of-2017/?tab=comments#comment-11167899

Source 2: https://gizmodo.com/senate-passes-sesta-controversial-anti-sex-trafficking-1823916411

 

• On Wednesday, the Senate approved a bill that intended to curb online sex trafficking. However, critics say it will increase online censorship, stifle innovation, and make everyone less safe online.

  • Now, all that’s left is a signature from President Trump.

• Craigslist has already removed its personals sections for fear of a SESTA transgression that would affect the entire site.

• The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of 2017 (SESTA) has been adapted into the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) bill that passed in February.

• SESTA was prompted by a case involving Backpage.com, in which executives of the site who were arrested on charges of pimping a minor, pimping, and conspiracy to commit pimping.

  • Courts dismissed the case based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

  • That’s the section of the law that allows platforms to avoid most legal liability for content created by their users.

• SESTA weakens Section 230 in an effort to give sex trafficking victims greater ability to sue websites and state prosecutors the ability to hold companies criminally liable for user-generated content.

• Its critics say SESTA will lead some platforms to over-censor content with heavy-handed algorithms because it’s just too expensive to police it with humans and algorithms are bad at nuance.

  • On the flip-side, many companies might abandon moderation altogether in order to ensure that it can never be proven they “knowingly” facilitated the offending material.

• SESTA could stifle innovation because small companies may not have access to expert lawyers and monitoring algorithms that the large companies do.

• Critics have also argued that sex workers just trying to make a living could be further criminalized and forced out into the streets where violence, drugs, and health risks are more of a problem.

 

Proposed $20 porn-unblocking fee

Source 1: Trik’Stari https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/903194-rhode-island-to-block-porn-charge-for-unblock/

Source 2: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/20-porn-unblocking-fee-could-hit-internet-users-if-state-bill-becomes-law/

• State legislation pending in Rhode Island would force Internet service providers to block "sexual content" by default until the internet user does the following:

  • Requests in writing that the capability be disabled;

  • Presents identification to verify that the consumer is 18 years of age or older;

  • Acknowledges receiving a written warning regarding the potential danger of deactivating the digital blocking capability; and

  • Pays a one-time $20.00 digital access fee.

    • ISPs would have to hand the money over to the state so it can "help fund the operations of the council on human trafficking."

• Under that state statute, sexual content includes depictions and descriptions of any act of sexual intercourse, whether "normal or perverted, actual or simulated."

  • Depictions of masturbation are also considered sexual content under this statute.

• The proposed requirement to block "patently offensive material" would include any material that is "so offensive on its face as to affront current standards of decency."

• A similar bill was proposed in Virginia last month, but hasn't been passed.

 

What’s Coming Out on Floatplane? Go Over Current Week.

Rapid Fire

Elon Musk gets involved with #DeleteFacebook

Source 1: SC2Mitch https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/908850-elon-musk-deletes-tesla-and-spacexs-facebook-account-in-response-to-deletefacebook-tweet/?tab=comments#comment-11168277

Source 2: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/cambridge-analytica-facebook-influence-us-election

 

• Since being in hot water for the unauthorized access of the personal data of 50 million facebook users to electioneering firm Cambridge Analytica, Facebook has faced a stock price slide and the creation of a new hashtag: #deleteFacebook

  • The hashtag was popularized by WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton

• What’s the scandal?

  • Facebook said it gave permission to a University of Cambridge psychology professorto harvest information from users who downloaded his app — "thisisyourdigitallife."

  • The app offered a personality test. But Facebook users who downloaded the app also gave the professor permission to collect data on their location, their friends and content they had "liked."

  • That was allowed under Facebook's rules at the time.

  • Kogan then provided that data — which included information from over 50 million profiles — to Cambridge Analytica, breaching Facebook's rules.

• Now, Elon Musk has been called-out on Twitter to also delete facebook. Shortly thereafter, the Facebook pages for Tesla and SpaceX were taken down.

 

First pedestrian death by self-driving car

Source 1: Delicieuxz https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/908392-footage-of-driverless-uber-car-pedestrian-hit-released/?tab=comments#comment-11163486

Source 2: https://www.rt.com/usa/421978-uber-driverless-death-video-released/

 

• 49 year old Elaine Herzberg, was struck by a self-driving Uber test vehicle as she walked her bike across the street in Tempe, Arizona late on Sunday night. She died in hospital.

• The vehicle, a Volvo XC90 SUV travelling at 40mph (65km/h), had an emergency backup driver at the wheel.

• Both the vehicle and the driver failed to react to Ms. Herzberg’s presence.

• It’s unknown what failure caused the car to not see the pedestrian.

• Velodyne Lidar has said it would not be advising its customers to halt tests in the wake of the Arizona death because "we do not believe the accident was due to Lidar".

  • Lidar often works even better at night due to less interference.

• An Uber self-driving car and another vehicle collided in Tempe in March 2017,  but city police and Governor Ducey said that extra safety regulations weren’t necessary;

  • the other driver was at fault, not the self-driving vehicle.

• Uber has halted tests in San Francisco, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Toronto.

 

AMD announces open source ray tracing at GDC

Source 1: Notional https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/908527-amd-announces-open-source-ray-tracing-at-gdc-interview-update/

Source 2: https://www.techpowerup.com/242615/amd-announces-radeon-rays-and-radeon-gpu-profiler-1-2-at-gdc-2018

 

• At GDC, AMD announced widened support for Radeon Rays with Unity Lightmapper.

• The open-source, high efficiency, high performance GPU-accelerated ray tracing software helps game developers to achieve higher visual quality and stunningly photorealistic 3D images in real-time.

• AMD also released Radeon GPU Profiler, the first PC graphics tool which allows for low level, built-in hardware thread tracing and provides detailed timing and occupancy information on Radeon GPUs.

  • The release of Radeon GPU Profiler 1.2 brings exciting new features including: RenderDoc interop, detailed barrier codes and improved frame overview.

 

Direct X 12 Ray Tracing Extension + Nvidia RTX with GameWorks 2.0

Source 1: AluminiumTech https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/907677-most-graphics-cards-have-just-become-kind-of-obsolete-thanks-to-direct-x-12-ray-tracing-extension-and-nvidia-rtx-with-gameworks-20/

Source 2: https://www.techpowerup.com/242504/microsoft-releases-directx-raytracing-nvidia-volta-based-rtx-adds-real-time-capability

 

• Microsoft has announced an extension to the DirectX 12 API called DirectX Raytracing (DXR), which provides components designed to make real-time ray-tracing easier to implement, and uses Compute Shaders under the hood, for wide graphics card compatibility.

• NVIDIA has hence collaborated with Microsoft to develop the NVIDIA RTX technology, as an interoperable part of the DXR API, along with a few turnkey effects, which will be made available through the company's next-generation

  • NVIDIA's RTX requires "Volta" (or later) GPUs

  • NVIDIA has left it to Microsoft to support real-time ray tracing acceleration on older GPU architectures, presumably any architecture with DirectX 12 support.

• Real-time ray-tracing has for long been regarded as a silver-bullet to get lifelike lighting, reflections, and shadows right.

  • It’s been used in the real estate industry for photorealistic interactive property renderings.

  • Movies with big production budgets use pre-rendered ray-tracing farms to render each frame.

• Ray Tracing works by tracing a path from an imaginary eye through each pixel in a virtual screen, and calculating the color of the object visible through it.

  • RTX uses a feature called "denoising", which uses fewer rays per pixel and fills in the remaining gaps using AI, Tensor cores can quickly train neural networks to reconstruct images, so real-time ray-tracing can be made possible.

• DXR and Nvidia RTX will be coming to:

  • EA Frostbite,

  • Unity,

  • Unreal,

  • and more.

• Should consumers feel slighted? Are current cards obsolete?

 

AMD responds to CTS Labs Security Report

Source 1: https://community.amd.com/community/amd-corporate/blog/2018/03/21/initial-amd-technical-assessment-of-cts-labs-research

Source 2:

 

• AMD says:

  • The security issues identified by the third-party researchers are not related to the AMD “Zen” CPU architecture or the Google Project Zero exploits made public Jan. 3, 2018

  • Instead, these issues are associated with the firmware managing the embedded security control processor in some of our products (AMD Secure Processor) and the chipset used in some socket AM4 and socket TR4 desktop platforms supporting AMD processors.

• AMD was quick to note that the vulnerabilities require ROOT access, and that once a user has ROOT access they can have many other attack vectors at their disposal.

• AMD says it will release fixes in the coming weeks- not months or years.

• Had CTS Labs given the typical 90 day notice, the public may never have known of these flaws.

Nvidia G-Sync 4k 144hz displays are expected to Launch in April!

Source 1: Java https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/908727-nvidia-g-sync-4k-144hz-displays-are-expected-to-launch-in-april/

Source 2: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3265037/displays/nvidia-4k-g-sync-hdr-display-april-launch.html

 

• Nvidia is “confident” that the first 4K G-Sync, 144Hz, HDR displays will launch in April

  • These were first seen at CES 2017

• Two 4K G-Sync HDR displays have been announced, bearing almost identical specifications:

  • The Acer Predator X27

  • Asus ROG Swift PG27UQ.

• No word as to whether ultrawide variants will be coming at the same time.

• You’ll need a GTX1080Ti just to hit around 60 FPS in most games so GL hitting 144

 

Tesla Model 3 comes to Canada

Source 1: https://electrek.co/2018/03/22/tesla-model-3-canadian-configurator-price-structure-availability/

Source 2:

 

• The base model will cost $45,600 but won’t be available until 2019

  • The ‘dual motor’ (all wheel drive) option is listed for ‘mid 2018’. (around $5K CAD)

• The first available model will have some upgrades:

  • Long Range Battery (499Km) - $11,900

  • Premium Upgrades - $6,600

  • Total: $63,100

• The Premium Upgrade comes with:

  • Premium heated seating and cabin materials throughout, including open pore wood décor and two rear USBs

  • 12-way, power adjustable front seats, steering column and side mirrors, with custom driver profiles

  • Premium audio system with more power, tweeters, surround speakers and subwoofer

  • Tinted glass roof with ultraviolet and infrared protection

  • Auto dimming, power folding, heated side mirrors

  • LED fog lamps

  • Center console with covered storage and docking for two smartphones

• The Canadian pricing structur is tracking very close to the US prices after the exchange rate

  • this wasn’t always the case with the Model S and Model X though it has been closer over the last year.

 

Chrome 66 will try to block unwanted noisy autoplaying video

Source 1: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/chrome-66-will-try-to-block-unwanted-noisy-autoplaying-video/

Source 2:

 

• Chrome 66, due for release in mid-April, will include a new system that will attempt to block noisy autoplaying video when it's unwanted while still permitting it on sites like YouTube and Netflix where the video is the entire purpose of the site.

• Google is defining four classes of video that will be allowed to autoplay.

  • Silent videos with no audio content at all will always be allowed to autoplay.

  • If a user interacts with a site (an action that includes tapping or clicking on a site, not merely scrolling on it), the site will be able to autoplay video during that browser session.

  • Sites that are pinned to the Android home screen are also allowed to autoplay.

  • Sites that are frequently used for media playback on your browser will be allowed to autoplay video, provided that the video meets certain criteria.

    • To qualify for auto-playing, a user must have

      • made at least five visits to a site

      • elected to play "significant" video on the site on at least 70 percent of those visits.

      • If over time the number of video playbacks drops to below 50 percent, autoplay will be disabled on the site.

      • Video is only deemed to be "significant" if it's larger than 200×140, has an audio track, isn't muted, and is on a visible tab.

• The categorization of a site should roam as part of your user profile

 

Chinese space station will fall to Earth within two weeks

Source 1: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/chinese-space-station-will-fall-to-earth-within-two-weeks/

Source 2:

 

• China's first space station, the Tiangong-1, may fall to the ground as soon as one week from now, and certainly within two weeks.

  • March 30 to April 3

• However, Scientists,still cannot predict with any confidence where pieces of the 10.4-meter long station, which is traveling at 17,000 km/h, will land.

  • it weighed 8.5 tons when fully fueled but has since used much of that.

• The station will reach a final impact point somewhere between 42.8 degrees north and 42.8 degrees south in latitude, and probably near the northern or southern extremity of those boundaries due its orbital inclination

  • Scientists estimate the "personal probability of being hit by a piece of debris from the Tiangong-1" is about 10 million times smaller than the annual chance of being hit by lightning.

• The debris could very well contain traces of hydrazine or other nasty propellants best not touched.

[piemadd]

F I R S T

 

also me with that xbox one s(would be with the PC master race, but i cant afford a pc)

[BlueCrazii]

Title of the week: The audio sucks!

[knightslugger]

it doesn't suck, it's just super quiet.

[The_Tempo_Golem]

why nothing about the bitcoin containing child porn thing

 

[vanished]

28 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

it doesn't suck, it's just super quiet.

a 40 dB compressor fixes it right up

[DrMacintosh]

Would help if you could hear what they are saying! 

 

Have to but my speakers at 100% to get levels normally achieved from like 18%

[LinusTech]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Would help if you could hear what they are saying! 

 

Have to but my speakers at 100% to get levels normally achieved from like 18%

Will look into it. As usual we changed nothing since last week and yet.. Here we are... 

[AssassinsKeeper]

Fixed the audio, I couldn't get rid of the scratchy patches but the levels are way better.

 

[twix41]

6 hours ago, LinusTech said:

Will look into it. As usual we changed nothing since last week and yet.. Here we are... 

But it was the same last week, and the week before that, and the week before that etc etc, but this week there was also random distortion to the audio on youtube, so bad that i gave up watching halfway though, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease check it yourselves and try and fix it, 

[Egg-Roll]

@LinusTech Can I point out one thing, if your kid was dumb enough to do what she did at her age or even half of her age (video shows she wasn't event rushing nor looking at the car, so one can assume she never looked), you would have failed at being a parent. That incident is no different than any night time driving with a fool not looking or failing to properly judge traffic. This isn't the drivers fault nor the autonomous cars fault, it is the person who died fault. The video clearly showed the driver was looking before seeing her.

 

Simply put if she even bothered to look, she'd still be alive. Blaming this on a driver or autonomous vehicle is dumb, I actually don't care about people who can't be bothered to care about their own safety.

[knightslugger]

59 minutes ago, Egg-Roll said:

@LinusTech Can I point out one thing, if your kid was dumb enough to do what she did at her age or even half of her age (video shows she wasn't event rushing nor looking at the car, so one can assume she never looked), you would have failed at being a parent. That incident is no different than any night time driving with a fool not looking or failing to properly judge traffic. This isn't the drivers fault nor the autonomous cars fault, it is the person who died fault. The video clearly showed the driver was looking before seeing her.

 

Simply put if she even bothered to look, she'd still be alive. Blaming this on a driver or autonomous vehicle is dumb, I actually don't care about people who can't be bothered to care about their own safety.

pedestrians have the right of way, sure enough, but lemme tell ya... you're no match for a 5000# vehicle traveling 30 MPH.

[suits]

You guys really need someone who knows about audio recording working for you guys. 

 

As just a try you should reinstall the interface drivers and see if the firmware is up to date. I believe you have a Focusrite? Really not trying to sound like a know-it-all as that doesn’t helps but even the ol’ unplug and replug might help as it could be a usb issue. I had the weirdest noises the other day on my interface and a simple unplug fixed it. 

[Egg-Roll]

2 hours ago, knightslugger said:

pedestrians have the right of way, sure enough, but lemme tell ya... you're no match for a 5000# vehicle traveling 30 MPH.

Sure but as a pedestrian you still have the obligation for your own health and safety, and to not negatively affect those around you. Simply put you don't blindly walk in the dark across a road where vehicles are permitted to go high speeds, which seems to be the case. So to me this isn't so much tech news it's a stupid person doing something stupid news which so happens to have a tech unit involved. Next up the person who walked across a red light and got ran over, Samsung S9 kills pedestrian. It's the same thing to me.

 

Regardless how good autonomous cars get stupid people will die or at least get hit, errors in technology will happen, it's life. My biggest question about this topic is, would a Tesla do the exact same thing under exact conditions? This is because a Tesla is not Uber with limited vehicles, there are hundreds of thousands of them.

 

These videos shows a Tesla. My question is can technology work at that speed and still stop in time, the second video shows "maybe not"

 

 

2 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

hard to feel that way even if i knocked down a pedestrian who walked like her grandfather owned the road, to be honest ._.

Maybe it's all the stupid people around me continuously doing stupid stuff and blaming others for their mistakes...

 

I jaywalk all the time, because it's safer than crossing at many intersections where I live, but at some times of the day and areas due to the geography/traffic I don't dare because I can't see the whole picture. Instead I rather go out of my way or risk at a legal intersection because if some dumb schmuck hits me when I'm legally allowed to be where I was, the insurance payday should be nice  No I would never put myself in a situation where I could die either.

[Elliott Veares]

Where's Luke?

[Lathlaer]

5 hours ago, knightslugger said:

pedestrians have the right of way, sure enough, but lemme tell ya... you're no match for a 5000# vehicle traveling 30 MPH.

Hmm, from Arizona Jaywalking Statute:

 

Quote

28-793. Crossing at other than crosswalk
A. A pedestrian crossing a roadway at any point other than within a marked crosswalk or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles on the roadway.
B. A pedestrian crossing a roadway at a point where a pedestrian tunnel or overhead pedestrian crossing has been provided shall yield the right-of-way to all vehicles on the roadway.
C. Between adjacent intersections at which traffic control signals are in operation, pedestrians shall not cross at any place except in a marked crosswalk.

 

I don't know if I got the right one but assuming that a pedestrian has the right of way all the time isn't always correct. It depends on the country or probably even within the country - on the state.

[JoostinOnline]

26 minutes ago, Elliott Veares said:

Where's Luke?

#SaveLuke

 

Wondering how many people will get the reference.

[vanished]

5 hours ago, suits said:

You guys really need someone who knows about audio recording working for you guys. 

 

As just a try you should reinstall the interface drivers and see if the firmware is up to date. I believe you have a Focusrite? Really not trying to sound like a know-it-all as that doesn’t helps but even the ol’ unplug and replug might help as it could be a usb issue. I had the weirdest noises the other day on my interface and a simple unplug fixed it. 

Yeah, everything sounded great right after Focusrite or whoever it was came in do setup all your stuff but it's just gotten slowly worse since then.  I would assume someone you already have doing editing or filming would know how to fix it, but if not, someone should be brought in, and this time write everything down even better than you did before

[Pinfire]

Regarding the SESTA/FOSTA issue, like with many US laws, it will depend on how it's enforced. If it becomes a problem, there will be a backlash and congress will readdress the issue with another law. Regulations in the US swing back and forth between overly aggressive to not aggressive enough until one is found that is amenable to the US public. 

[vanished]

8 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

fixing the mess that was credit card payments (forgot timestamp in this show)

 

gonna have a look at their WAN show upgrade video for a bit

 

EDIT: oh my goodness this took all sunlight on a weekend. am I right in this guess?

that's a lot of faders and gainers to check if true o_o

idk if that's right or not but wow that must have been a lot of work

 

and yeah, I'm not surprised it's a lot of faders They do have a good setup, with a lot of things, so it's gonna take someone observant and knowledgeable to handle it.  idk who the right person for that role is but clearly they haven't had their hands on it in too long