Apple's $3,500 Pain in the Neck - TechLinked Oct 9, 2023

[JakobRush]

THE WEIGHT ON TIM’S SHOULDERS

Apple has weight concerns about the Vision Pro

https://9to5mac.com/2023/10/09/vision-pro-weight-concerns/

Has caused neck strain https://lmg.gg/P0kqi (Bloomberg)

Brilliant idea for first model: over-the-head strap https://lmg.gg/P0ybL (Bloomberg)

Want to make the next one lighter https://lmg.gg/Bar3F (Bloomberg)

Making headset purchases easier for the bespectacled https://www.macrumors.com/2023/10/09/vision-pro-2-focusing-on-size-weight-lenses/

 

EVERYBODY GETS FRAMES!

AMD announces Fluid Motion Frames support on RX 6000 GPUs

https://wccftech.com/amd-drivers-expand-fluid-motion-frames-support-to-rdna-2-radeon-rx-6000-gpus/

Twitter announcement https://twitter.com/amdradeon/status/1710345629845582118

Comes in newest driver update https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/release-notes/rn-rad-win-23-30-afmf-tech-preview

AMD recommends minimum of RX 5700 XT for FSR 3 https://lmg.gg/O6K7W (hot Hardware)

Meanwhile Nvidia: https://lmg.gg/lHyVe (PCWorld)

Nvidia says DLSS 3 needs Ada Lovelace’s new Optical Flow Accelerator https://lmg.gg/wgnbT (Nvidia)

Though 30-series cards ALSO have OFA https://lmg.gg/7ZV5G (Nvidia)

No logical reason for AMD not to do this https://lmg.gg/H812z (PC Gamer)

 

NVIDIA “I’VE CHANGED THIS TIME BABY, I SWEAR”

Leaker alleges 4080 Ti coming early next year

https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-reportedly-working-on-geforce-rtx-4080-ti-with-ad102-gpu-for-early-2024-release

Leaker https://twitter.com/Zed__Wang/status/1710514101217268185

will be in “same price range as 4080” https://www.tomshardware.com/news/rtx-4080-super-or-rtx-4080-ti-may-arrive-in-2024-within-rtx-4080-price-range

4080 infamously unpopular https://www.pcgamesn.com/nvidia/rtx-4080-stock-suggests-its-an-unpopular-gpu

Will use AD102, same chip as 4090 https://www.techradar.com/computing/gpu/nvidia-rtx-4080-ti-rumor-suggests-its-the-high-end-gpu-youve-been-waiting-for

No word on memory bandwidth/bus https://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidia-GeForce-RTX-4080-Ti-tipped-to-launch-early-next-year-with-an-AD102-GPU.758089.0.html

 

 

QUICK BITS

 

NAND DEMAND

Memory prices rebounding

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/memory-prices-rebound-due-to-reduced-production-increasing-demand

https://money.udn.com/money/story/11162/7490282

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-10-08/business/industry/DRAM-price-rises-could-signal-turnaround-for-local-chipmakers/1885590

 

GOOGLE DOES GOOD THING

Google’s new bulk email rules to fight spam

https://www.xda-developers.com/google-fights-gmail-spam/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-yahoo-to-battle-spam-with-new-rules-for-bulk-emails/

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-365-admins-warned-of-new-google-anti-spam-rules/

 

NVIDIA HAS NO FRIENDS

OpenAI considering manufacturing their own AI chips

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/10/openai-may-jump-into-ai-hardware-amid-high-costs-supply-constraints/

Reuters reports https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-owner-openai-is-exploring-making-its-own-ai-chips-sources-2023-10-06/

https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/06/openai-said-to-be-considering-developing-its-own-ai-chips/

 

POT ATTACKS KETTLE

Satya Nadella’s testimony in Google antitrust suit

https://www.thestreet.com/technology/microsofts-ceo-nadella-shares-fear-about-artificial-intelligence-ai

Pot, meet kettle https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/09/google_amazon_kettle/

AI fears https://www.geekwire.com/2023/geekwire-podcast-microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-vs-google-ai-channels-the-ghost-of-lesser-seattle/

 

ELON = BIGFOOT CONFIRMED

Elon hopes next starship launch won’t explode

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-starship-explosion-odds

https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-first-space-launch

Starlink V3 launch next year https://spacenews.com/starship-satellite-launches-a-year-away/

Time to fix carbon footprint https://www.newscientist.com/article/2394949-starlink-carbon-footprint-up-to-30-times-size-of-land-based-internet/

Research https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2309/2309.02338.pdf

[AnonymousGuy]

Quote

Apple is considering shipping custom-built Vision Pro headsets with preinstalled prescription lenses directly from the factory.

Nothing about that sentence implies the lenses are permanently installed or can't be removed for resale.  Kinda jumping to conclusions eh?

 

I'm also doubtful that Zeiss is pre-making and "stocking" every prescription combination.  It's literally tens of thousands of possibilities when you factor in astigmatism and the axis angles.   They would do what every other eyeglass / lens lab does which is made-to-order.  It's probably the Bloomberg guy misunderstanding the supply chain and *really* Apple just doesn't want to deal with separate lens orders and packaging and shit when they can deliver a prescription package in one shot.

[Thaldor]

1 hour ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Nothing about that sentence implies the lenses are permanently installed or can't be removed for resale.  Kinda jumping to conclusions eh?

 

I'm also doubtful that Zeiss is pre-making and "stocking" every prescription combination.  It's literally tens of thousands of possibilities when you factor in astigmatism and the axis angles.   They would do what every other eyeglass / lens lab does which is made-to-order.  It's probably the Bloomberg guy misunderstanding the supply chain and *really* Apple just doesn't want to deal with separate lens orders and packaging and shit when they can deliver a prescription package in one shot.

You most likely can remove the lenses by yourself but in reality it is so far in the area of "just don't" that it is better not to market such a feature, actually even deny such a feature.

 

One of the mods to do with original Vive and Vive Pro is to change in the lenses from Samsung Gear VR, with small 3D printable adapters it's a 5 minute job and you just pop the old lenses out and new lenses in. The "DO NOT DO" part is that you really need a dust free environment with hopefully possibility to do it in overpressured clean space because one spec of dust between the screen and the lens will be a huge problem. Not only will the dust spec float there and annoy the living hell out of you but the screen is FRAGILE (if you take the Vive screen out and drop it from half centimeter height to hard surface, it will crack), I would believe it's some kind of resin screen instead of glass since you can also scratch it with basicly anything (even with q-tips).

 

And kind of knowing Apple customer base, giving them separate lenses to attach into a device that is probably even more vulnerable to a dust spec between the screen and the lens (less space -> more distorted and magnified lens -> even more annoying spec of dust), they probably rather do the change themselves than get the wave of very angry people demanding repairs because they fucked up something.