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Senate approves billions for US semiconductor manufacturing

After months of political jockeying and procedural hurdles, the Senate approved a massive science and technology bill Tuesday to boost US competitiveness with China. The bill invests billions into emerging technology industries like artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and quantum computing in the US. The bill — titled the US Innovation and Competition Act or USICA —… Read more

Nvidia Increases Market Share as GPU Sales Explode: JPR

Home News (Image credit: AMD) According to IDC, PC sales in the first quarter were up 55% year-over-year, and since the demand for personal computers is growing, component sales in Q1 2021 were high, too. Jon Peddie Research reports that shipments of integrated and standalone graphics processing units (GPUs) for PCs increased 38.74% year-over-year in the… Read more

Sony WF-1000XM4 review: Class-leading noise-cancelling wireless earbuds, ’nuff said

(Pocket-lint) – There’s no beating around the bush, the Sony WF-1000XM4 true wireless in-ears are exceptional for their price. And, while there are one or two competitors that offer slightly better sound quality, they are usually more expensive and cannot match these for adaptive noise-cancelling (ANC) tech. Sony has taken an already excellent pair of… Read more

MSI MPG CORELIQUID K240 Review

Introduction MSI is a brand that needs no introduction. They produce so many products in the PC gaming space that you likely own or have owned something from them, be it a desktop, laptop, motherboard, graphics card, or something else. Suffice it to say, MSI is one of the major players in the PC enthusiast… Read more

Intel: 3.2TB Optane SSD P5800X Due This Year

Home News (Image credit: Intel) Intel’s Optane SSD P5800X introduction late last year included four models with different capacities. So far, the company has brought the 400GB, 800GB, and 1.6TB SKUs to market, but the flagship 3.2TB model still isn’t available and Intel recently removed the product listing from its website. That is a bit surprising because… Read more

Biden’s proposed budget keeps a block on recreational weed sales in Washington, DC

A rider that has effectively blocked recreational cannabis for years in Washington, DC appears in President Joe Biden’s proposed 2022 budget, which may keep weed on the back burner yet again. Even though residents of DC voted to legalize possession of recreational marijuana in 2014, the measure has been in limbo since then, derailed by… Read more

Some Apple Music Hi-Res Lossless content is already showing up on the service

Home News (Image credit: 0gniRincha, Twitter) With Apple Music CD-quality, Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless streaming announced at no extra charge to Apple Music users (and at an unspecified date in June) certain users have reported actual lossless and hi-res icons appearing on the streaming service ahead of its official the launch. With Apple’s annual (coronavirus permitting) Worldwide… Read more

Dell has discontinued the Alienware Graphics Amplifier, its external GPU

We recently noticed that Alienware’s just-announced X15 and X17 thin and vaguely light gaming laptops are conspicuously missing a port — and it’s not because they’re thin-and-light, it turns out. Alienware has just confirmed to The Verge that it has discontinued the Alienware Graphics Amplifier external GPU, and so these laptops won’t need that proprietary… Read more

ASRock’s AMD X300TM Thin Mini-ITX Motherboard Has USB-C & COM Ports

Home News (Image credit: ASRock) In a world where the vast majority of all-in-one and small form-factor PCs rely on proprietary motherboards, the Thin Mini-ITX form-factor is not particularly widespread, making it difficult for PC shops and DIY enthusiasts to build AIO and SFF computers. However, Thin-Mini-ITX motherboards are not going the way of the… Read more

Intel at Computex 2021: New Tiger Lake Processors, Beast Canyon NUC, 5G Chips

Home News (Image credit: Intel) Intel kicked off Computex 2021 by adding two new flagship 11th-Gen Tiger Lake U-series chips to its stable, including a new Core i7 model that’s the first laptop chip for the thin-and-light segment that boasts a 5.0 GHz boost speed. As you would expect, Intel also provided plenty of benchmarks… Read more

WhatsApp reverses course, now won’t limit functionality if you don’t accept its new privacy policy

Earlier this month, Facebook-owned WhatsApp said that users would lose functionality over time if they didn’t accept its new privacy policy by May 15th. In a reversal, Facebook now says that plan has changed, and users who don’t accept the updated policy actually won’t see limited functionality (via TNW). “Given recent discussions with various authorities… Read more

Twitch warns streamers another wave of copyright strikes is coming

Twitch has received a “batch” of new takedown notices from music publishers over copyrighted songs in recorded streams (known as VODs), the company said in an email to streamers today. The notice may be worrying for some streamers who were affected by the waves of takedowns that hit last year, because if a user gets… Read more

Big Oil and Gas had a no good, very bad day

Fossil fuel companies are having a big reckoning with climate change this week. Shareholders for Exxon and Chevron voted for measures that could force them to take more responsibility for their emissions, while a Dutch court is forcing Shell to slash its pollution. Taken altogether, the actions reflect a growing push for the energy sector… Read more

Taiwan SSD Makers to Sell Drives Directly to Chia Miners

Home News (Image credit: Micron) The ongoing Chia coin craze has already increased prices of high-capacity HDDs and SSDs in retail quite significantly. Since demand for storage devices is not going to get any lower, Taiwan-based makers of SSDs are developing special-purpose SSDs for Chia mining that they plan to sell directly to miners. Furthermore, drive makers… Read more

Japan Asks Sony and TSMC to Build Fabs in the Country

Home News (Image credit: TSMC) Japanese authorities have proposed that Sony Group and TSMC invest $9.2 billion in a fab that will produce chips using a 20nm process technology, reports Reuters citing a report by Nikkan Kogyo newspaper. Just 15 years ago, Japanese companies like Panasonic and Renesas had leading-edge process technologies that could challenge those from… Read more