First

The math isn’t adding up on forests and CO2 reductions

More evidence surfaced this week that shows that forests are struggling to do humans’ dirty work when it comes to climate change. Although companies and countries are increasingly relying on forests to draw down their planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions, the math isn’t adding up to show big benefits. California might have oversold the success of… Read more

Apple says old Magic Keyboard is ‘functionally compatible’ with new 12.9-inch iPad Pro, but warns of imperfect fit

Apple’s upcoming 2021 refresh of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — which will feature an M1 processor and a new Mini LED display — will work with the 2020 model of the 12.9-inch Magic Keyboard case after all. But it’s not going to be a perfect fit. According to a newly added note to an Apple… Read more

‘Disaster Girl’ has sold her popular meme as an NFT for $500,000

Another internet meme has sold for big bucks online: Zoë Roth, best known as “Disaster Girl” for the popular image macro taken by her father in 2005 of her smirking at the camera while a house burns down in the background, has sold the original copy of the meme as an NFT for 180 Ether,… Read more

HPE to Build Supercomputer with 100K AMD Zen 3 Cores

Home News (Image credit: NSCC) Hewlett Packard Enterprise this week said it had landed an order to build a new supercomputer for the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore. The new system is powered by AMD’s Epyc ‘Milan’ processors as well as Nvidia’s A100 compute GPUs; it is eight times more powerful than its predecessor. NSCC’s supercomputer uses… Read more

Snap diversity report shows it’s still mostly white and male

Snap’s diversity report reveals that the company has made very little progress in its diversity goals since last year, with 47 percent of its employees being white and 65 percent male. There was a tiny increase in women’s representation across the company (32.9 to 33.1 percent) and a similarly small increase in underrepresented racial groups… Read more

Dear wireless carriers: the 5G hype needs to stop

Just stop. Stop telling us why your 5G network is the very best and fastest and most reliable. Stop running commercials about how life-changing your 5G network is. Definitely stop telling us why your 5G network is better than the other guy’s 5G network because can you even imagine building a 5G network the way… Read more

Volkswagen is being investigated for its ‘Voltswagen’ stunt

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Volkswagen’s “Voltswagen” debacle to see how the stunt affected the automaker’s stock price, and whether it broke any securities laws, according to Der Spiegel. The faux rebranding took place on March 29th, when Volkswagen’s American subsidiary “accidentally” published a draft press release about changing its… Read more

Nvidia has reinstated its RTX 3060 Ethereum cryptocurrency mining limit

Nvidia is trying again to limit the use of its RTX 3060 graphics cards for mining Ethereum, with a new update once again adding a hash limiter to the GPU, via VideoCardz.com. If that sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s not the first time that Nvidia has tried to nerf mining performance on the… Read more

How the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. inspired a wave of real-world Chernobyl tourists

A virtual world leads to IRL excursions By Darmon Richter Apr 29, 2021, 12:32pm EDT Illustration by Alex Castro At the entrance to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, 35 years on from the worst nuclear disaster in history, a yellow souvenir van sells T-shirts, key rings, and glow-in-the-dark “Chernobyl condoms,” all branded with gas… Read more

Microsoft to Focus on Bringing More Gaming Features to PC

Home News (Image credit: Microsoft) Earlier today, Microsoft released a blog post sharing the company’s thoughts on the gaming industry and its focus for gaming in 2021 and beyond. Microsoft’s goal has changed for the Xbox team and its gaming initiatives from focusing more on a specific platform (i.e the Xbox consoles) to being focused… Read more

X86 Exodus? Apple’s M1 Chip Lures PC Users to Arm-Powered Macs

Home News (Image credit: Shutterstock) Apple executives said Wednesday that roughly 50% of the Mac and iPad sales in the second quarter of 2021 were to people who’d never owned those devices before. Much of that growth has been attributed to the M1 system-on-a-chip, the release of which led the Mac to enjoy the best… Read more

Apple’s iMac 24-inch M1 and iPad Pro M1 Launch Dates Revealed

Home News (Image credit: Apple) When Apple introduced its all-new iMac 24-inch all-in-one desktop and iPad Pro tablet based on its M1 system-on-chip earlier this month, it said that the new products would be available in the second half of May, but never revealed when exactly they were set to hit the shelves. On Thursday Apple finally unwrapped details about… Read more

Spotify now lets you subscribe to podcasts

Home News (Image credit: Spotify) Spotify has launched its paid podcast subscription service. This lets podcasters who host their shows on Spotify’s Anchor platform to charge listeners for their podcasts. As rumoured, podcasters can choose to offer subscriber-only extras such as bonus content and no adverts. Spotify has opened a waiting list that podcasters can… Read more

The first trailer for Netflix’s Sweet Tooth introduces a post-apocalyptic fairytale

Sweet Tooth, a new Netflix series based on the DC comic, will debut on the streaming service on June 4th, according to a new teaser trailer that premiered Thursday. Here’s a brief description of the show, from Netflix: “On a perilous adventure across a post-apocalyptic world, a lovable boy who’s half-human and half-deer searches for… Read more

‘It’s time’: Blue Origin teases ticket sales for its New Shepard rocket

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is finally getting ready to sell tickets for seats on its suborbital New Shepard rocket. No details on price or timelines yet, but the company tweeted a video on Thursday featuring a cowboy-hat-wearing Jeff Bezos driving an electric Rivian truck through the Texas desert right after Blue Origin’s 15th New Shepard… Read more