Ryzen 7000 chips are frying themselves

Reports of these incidents have appeared on the AMD subreddit. The one that received the most coverage, and the one I used for the image below, was from /u/Speedrookie. It is unclear if the CPU, motherboard, or both are to blame at this stage. This appeared just a few months after AMD announced their Ryzen 7000 versions of their V-cache enabled CPUs. Some blamed this on the ASUS motherboard that they used, so it is possible that the CPU received too much or too little voltage. While that might have been fine on a regular CPU, these CPUs are more susceptible to minute changes to voltage. The most interesting thing is that Speedrookie says that they did not overclock the CPU, just the memory. A few days after this was posted on Reddit, Igor’s Lab found that all of the burnt pins supplied the CPU with power. It could be that the motherboard was supplying too much power or the CPU was asking for more power than it can handle. For a further inspection, Steve from the YouTube channel Gamer’s Nexus has purchased the CPU and motherboard from Speedrookie for full retail price. But, as of the time of writing, Steve has not released his video.

Numerous high-profile accounts are appearing to be re-verified – including some dead celebrities. It’s likely that the re-appearance of their blue ticks is part of a wider (but unannounced) scheme by Twitter to restore verification to users with over one million followers. But, when you hover over the checkmark, it says that they are verified since they subscribed to Twitter Blue. Michael Jackson, Chadwick Boseman, Kobe Bryant, Barbara Walters, Anthony Bourdain, and Paul Walker are just a few of the many deceased stars to have regained their verification status. This may even be illegal since the Lanham Act forbids false endorsement of goods and services in the US.

Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy US video game company Activision Blizzard has been blocked in the UK by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). One of the main reasons behind this was the merger would bring less innovation and less choice in the cloud gaming market. The CMA also claims that even though Microsoft made a deal with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to the Switch, the Switch is not technically capable of running COD. Microsoft and Activision hit out at the decision and said they would appeal. If it goes through, we might be covering this until the Bing Chat takes over the world with COD guns.

While Nvidia’s GPUs have more power than AMD in the PC market, AMD is on top when it comes to integrated games systems, like consoles or handhelds. The most notable handheld right now is the Steam Deck, which combines a Zen 2-based CPU and RDNA 2-based GPU cores. While that chip was made exclusively for Valve, this new Z1 and Z1 Extreme chips are aimed at the growing number of Steam Deck-esque handheld PCs from other companies. The Ryzen Z1 and Z1 Extreme (respectively) combine 6 or 8 Zen 4-based CPU cores with 4 or 12 RDNA 3-based GPU cores, using AMD’s latest architectures and a 4 nm manufacturing process to outrun the Steam Deck’s APU. This high power APU is what will power the ROG Ally. AMD says that Asus will announce more about the ROG Ally on May 11. The Ally has been rumored to cost only $700. While this may seem like a lot, compared to the Steam Deck, which maxes out at $650, it has 50% more performance and it is better in almost every other department. Handhelds besides the Steam Deck are put to even more shame because the Ally would have more performance and would be cheaper.

Due to a ruling in the EU, Apple would be forced to add the ability to sideload apps onto their devices. Apple has claimed that sideloading will “undermine the privacy and security protections” that iPhone users rely on, leaving people vulnerable to malware, scams, data tracking, and other issues. However, Apple must comply with the DMA or it risks fines of as much as 20 percent of its global revenue if the EU laws are violated. The sad part is that Apple might only allow Europeans to sideload apps and no one else. Apple’s claim that sideloading would undermine the security of the iPhone is a complete lie. Having the ability to sideload apps does not get rid of the App Store from iOS. If you still want to use the security of the App Store and not take the risk of sideloading, then go ahead, it is your choice. But Apple needs to allow the people that are comfortable to sideload apps to have their choice. 

After years of political pushback and considerable parliamentary scrutiny, the federal Liberal government’s Online Streaming Act known as Bill C-11 passed the Senate and has become law. Bill C-11 is aimed at ensuring increasingly popular and profitable social media platforms and streaming services such as Netflix, Crave, Spotify, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and YouTube are subjected to Canadian content requirements and regulations comparable to traditional broadcasters. The policy change comes with a requirement for these platforms to spend millions investing in Canadian content and creators. Politicians say that this change would not affect the creators and influencers, but the law is broad enough that it could be possible. They even rejected putting this fact into the law to guarantee the protection of individuals.

Google Pixel fold leaks online

Chromebooks are failing on mass

Microsoft Edge browser feeding website visit data to Bing (“accidentally”)

Netflix loses 1 mil subscribers in Spain due to password sharing

Japanese company not sure what happened to their moon lander

First babies born from eggs “fertilized by robot”

Modded NES game with a wifi chip