Age of Empires games have always taken place against a historical backdrop, but Microsoft and Relic Entertainment want to take things even further with Age of Empires IV. The game will feature narrated documentaries throughout the campaigns, time period-accurate language and music, as well as art and game design that looks to take inspiration from both world history and the history of the Age of Empires franchise. On release, Age IV will focus on the Middle Ages, having players start with small agrarian villages and build up to castles and kings.
While players can experience hundreds of years of history in a single match, the game will also feature campaigns that let players go through real-life stories that span generations. So far, the only one announced has been the Norman conquest starting with the Battle of Hastings.
The campaigns in Age of Empires have always added some historical context to the battles and missions you’ll be doing, but in Age of Empires IV, each will be accompanied by documentary footage shot on location. The team behind the game says this is in celebration of history but also works to give players context around what they’re doing. It’s easy to see how this could add to gameplay: skirmishes are fun, but knowing why you want to win a battle can really add to the drama of it all.
We got to see some of the documentary footage in the Fan Preview event, and it looked like the type of thing that would fit in on Netflix or The History Channel, complete with narration, props, and actors in costume. During an interview, Emma Bridle, the director of customer voice for Age of Empires, told The Verge that she had grown up in England but learned things about British history from the campaign documentaries. (That is great to hear because, as an American, it’ll be even more of a learning experience because I know almost absolutely nothing about British history.)
Part of the re-enactments.Gif: Microsoft
The team is also hoping to bring history to life through the audio: starting out, civilizations will be speaking in the ancient versions of their tongues. For example, if you’re playing as the English, you probably won’t be able to understand your units at the beginning of the game, as they’ll be speaking a version of English that’s unrecognizable to modern-day players. However, as you progress, you’ll start to understand more and more of what they say as the language evolves toward what we speak today. Similarly, the music starts as a stripped-down score with only a few instruments, evolving throughout the game to be a full orchestra as your civilization advances.
According to the game’s art director, the golden people were inspired by illuminated manuscripts.GIF: Microsoft
In between talking about real-life history, the team also talked about the history of Age of Empires as a franchise and how Age IV will continue and evolve its legacy. To anyone who’s played an AoE game, the art style will look instantly familiar but will have additional flourishes like the golden illuminated people that show the work being done on your buildings. The developers also talked about taking a look at the design of the old game to try to figure out what mechanics and behaviors were deliberate design decisions and which were due to technical limitations that could be tweaked and expanded upon.
As someone who is a fan of Age of Empires but is generally ignorant about history, I’m looking forward to being able to learn as I play. While previous games in the franchise did have historical dressing, I can’t say they taught me much. Perhaps that will change with Age IV. But it seems that the game wants to present plenty of historical context during every game mode, both about ancient civilizations and not-so-ancient games.
Some Pixel 5 owners are apparently experiencing a bug with Google’s Widevine DRM platform that’s causing their phones to only play back Netflix videos in standard definition, instead of the usual HD and HDR10 quality that they should be.
Google is aware of the issue and is working on a firmware fix, but it still has to test and verify it so it’s not clear when it will be released.
The issue, while not widespread, appears to be causing afflicted Pixel 5 devices to be downgraded to Widevine’s L3 status, instead of the usual Widevine L1 (which is what authenticates to allow for HD and HDR playback for Netflix, among other things). 9to5Google speculates that the issue appears to have been exacerbated by the recent April security update for the phone, although its not clear if the two are actually linked.
Widevine is Google’s DRM service, which is used by a variety of premium streaming companies, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and Google Play Movies. Content is secured using a three-level system.
L1 is the most secure and ensures that all content processing and cryptography is handled within a trusted execution environment on the device’s processor. L2 devices only execute cryptography operations within that secure environment, while L3 devices don’t do any content processing or cryptography operations in a secure area of the chipset.
Generally, in order to ensure that streamed content doesn’t get stolen, companies mandate that higher-quality HD, HDR, and 4K versions of movies and shows be limited to the more secure L1 devices. Google’s Pixel phones should be L1-rated devices, but the aforementioned issue seems to be causing them to register as L3 hardware instead.
An audit by researchers at the University of Southern California found that Facebook’s ad delivery system discriminates against women, showing them different ads than it shows to men and excluding women from seeing some ads.
“Facebook’s ad delivery can result in skew of job ad delivery by gender beyond what can be legally justified by possible differences in qualifications,” the researchers wrote in their report, “thus strengthening the previously raised arguments that Facebook’s ad delivery algorithms may be in violation of anti-discrimination laws.”
The team of researchers bought ads on Facebook for delivery driver job listings that had similar qualification requirements but for different companies. The ads did not specify a specific demographic. One was an ad for Domino’s pizza delivery drivers, the other for Instacart drivers. According to the researchers, Instacart has more female drivers but Domino’s has more male drivers. Sure enough, the study found that Facebook targeted the Instacart delivery job to more women and the Domino’s delivery job to more men.
The researchers conducted a similar experiment on LinkedIn, where they found the platform’s algorithm showed the Domino’s listing to as many women as it showed the Instacart ad.
Two other pairs of similar job listings the researchers tested on Facebook revealed similar findings: a listing for a software engineer at Nvidia and a job for a car salesperson were shown to more men, and a Netflix software engineer job and jewelry sales associate listing were shown to more women. Whether that means the algorithm had figured out each job’s current demographic when it targeted the ads is not clear since Facebook is tight-lipped about how its ad delivery works.
“Our system takes into account many signals to try and serve people ads they will be most interested in, but we understand the concerns raised in the report,” Facebook spokesperson Tom Channick said in an email to The Verge. “We’ve taken meaningful steps to address issues of discrimination in ads and have teams working on ads fairness today. We’re continuing to work closely with the civil rights community, regulators, and academics on these important matters.”
This isn’t the first time research has found Facebook’s ad targeting system to be discriminating against some users, however. A 2016 investigation by ProPublica found that Facebook’s “ethnic affinities” tool could be used to exclude Black or Hispanic users from seeing specific ads. If such ads were for housing or job opportunities, the targeting could have been considered in violation of federal law. Facebook said in response it would bolster its anti-discrimination efforts, but a second ProPublica report in 2017 found the same problems existed.
And in 2019, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development filed charges against Facebook for housing discrimination, after finding there was reasonable cause to believe Facebook had served ads in violation of the Fair Housing Act.
HUD said in a complaint that Facebook’s targeting tools were reminiscent of redlining practices, as it allowed ads to exclude men or women from seeing particular ads, as well as a map tool “to exclude people who live in a specified area from seeing an ad by drawing a red line around that area,” according to the complaint. Facebook settled the lawsuit and said in 2019 it had dropped ad targeting options for housing and job ads.
Updated April 9th 11:53AM ET: Adds comment from Facebook spokesperson
As a Freeview PVR, the Humax Aura is hard to beat , but its incomplete smart platform requires a pause for thought
For
Excellent recording and playback
Full-bodied, exciting sound
Useful Aura mobile app
Against
No Netflix app
HDR picture could be better
User interface a touch convoluted
Even without an Oxbridge education, the Humax Aura PVR has managed to achieve a double first. It’s the first Freeview set-top box from Humax to use the Android TV operating system and also the first to be 4K HDR-enabled. How could we not be intrigued?
The Humax Aura can be a number of things to different people and it feels as though it has been priced to interest everyone. The most obvious use is as a Freeview Play recorder, with enough internal storage options to capture hours of live Full HD and standard-definition television.
With its Android TV platform, you can also use it as a Chromecast with benefits – a way of adding over 5000 apps and streaming services to feed your television or projector with plenty of 4K fun. With its USB sockets, hi-res audio and 3D home cinema codec support, there’s an option to use it for local film file playback too – it’s quite the box of tricks.
Pricing
The Humax Aura costs £249 for the 1TB model, which can store up to 250 hours of HD (or 500 of SD) programming, and £279 for the 2TB model, which can store up to 500 hours of Full HD (1000 of SD) programming.
If you’re serious enough about live TV to want to record it on a regular basis, then the extra £30 for double the amount of space feels like a no-brainer.
Features
(Image credit: Humax)
Humax has had great success with its What Hi-Fi? Award-winning FVP-5000T set-top box and, four years down the line, a replacement has been long overdue. For both specs and looks, the Aura is the upgrade we’ve been waiting for.
Stand the two next to one another and the sculpted lines of the low slung Aura more easily fit into the category of contemporary industrial design.
The Aura is a tidy 26cm by 20cm box that takes up about the same space as your wi-fi router. Its gloss black body is accented by an LED strip on the underside, which changes from red to blue to violet to orange depending on whether it’s off, on, recording or recording in standby. It’s a useful indicator and reminiscent of K.I.T.T from Knight Rider in standby mode.
But if it’s a party at the front of the Aura, then around the back is the serious business. Here you’ll find the single HDMI 2.1-out along with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 (Type A) sockets for local media. There’s also an optical audio-out and a LAN connection if you’d rather leave the 2.4/5GHz wi-fi alone.
The Aura remote is fully featured, with dedicated buttons for just about everything you could need, including shortcuts to streaming services, recordings, the guide, the Freeview Play platform and the Android TV homepage too. You’ll need to pair the remote with the Aura box using Bluetooth for the Google Assistant voice system to work.
Humax Aura tech specs
(Image credit: Humax)
Tuners x3
Ports HDMI 2.1, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, optical-out
OS Android TV 9
Freeview Play Yes
Storage 1TB/2TB
Dimensions (hwd) 4.3 x 26 x 20cm
Weight 764g
The Humax Aura’s three Freeview Play tuners bring access to over 70 non-subscription live TV channels and over 20,000 hours of on-demand entertainment through the catch-up services, with BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, All 4 and My5 all present. Those tuners allow you to pause and rewind TV, as well as record up to four channels while watching a fifth one live.
Unlike the older FVP-5000T, there’s no built-in app for streaming live TV or your recordings from the box to other devices around your home, though Humax says the same DLNA support will be added to the Aura in a forthcoming firmware update. The Aura mobile app will detect any DLNA or Chromecast-enabled devices on the same network as your box and allow you to play recordings or live channels to those, sourcing it from the Aura as a server.
For the time being, the Aura mobile app is a handy tool in its own right. It brings a full view of the electronic programme guide (EPG) to your small screen and allows users to schedule recordings, watch recordings and even enjoy live TV on mobile – just the ticket for keeping track of Countdown while you put the kettle on.
The Aura’s big-screen offering is also bolstered by Android TV, and that means another 5000 or so apps from Google Play are at your disposal, with subscription services such as Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, alongside more UK-specific apps, such as BT Sport and UKTV Play.
(Image credit: Humax)
There are significant gaps, though, including Britbox, Now TV and the Netflix app. Somewhat ironically, Netflix is actually one of the few non-catch-up apps available on the older FVP-5000T. Fortunately, the Aura’s built-in Chromecast functionality allows users to cast these missing apps from mobile, tablet or browser instead, but that solution won’t suit everyone. It’s also worth noting that casting won’t work for either Apple TV or Apple Music, which are also missing from the Aura.
Away from the video side, the hi-res audio support is a welcome addition. It means those connecting the Aura to a decent external speaker system can get a strong performance from locally stored or streamed audio files, even if connecting through the HDMI, which can handle up to 24-bit/192 kHz levels.
You’ll need to download a third-party app such as VLC to play local media and Plex if you want to connect a NAS drive or similar from your home network. The Aura’s support for 4K HDR (HDR10 and HLG) and 3D audio codecs offers the potential to do justice to any high-quality movie files you own.
Thanks to the quad-core 1.8GHz CPU and 3GB RAM combo, the whole experience feels snappy and well put together. From the remote to the on-screen navigation, the user experience will bend to your bidding without complaint.
The twinning of Freeview Play and Android TV 9.0 doesn’t make for the easiest of combinations, though. Each offers its own home page experience, leaving the user unsure as to which one to use. You’ll find some apps on both, but others just on one, and both home pages have their own settings menus. Fortunately, the shortcuts on the remote mean that you can sometimes go straight to whatever it is that you’re looking for, but that doesn’t really excuse the poor integration of the two interfaces.
Each interface is good in its own right, at least. We particularly like Freeview Play’s Kids’ Zone – a brightly coloured area with TV programmes specially selected for younger viewers. Content can be searched according to duration and timeslot, and parents can use this to block certain apps and channels from appearing.
Picture
(Image credit: Humax)
The picture quality through the Freeview Play tuners in both SD and Full HD is every bit as good as that of the FVP-5000T. Watching Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is on BBC2, we get some inviting shots of a French antiques market on a cloudless summer’s day. The cobbled streets and stalls are bright and colourful, but with a realistic sense of tonality and texture.
The Aura trades a touch of detail for this better blending and, while some might prefer harder edges to stone walls, it feels like a well-judged decision from Humax. There’s a proper sense of complexity to the bright blue TV shelf as one of the bargain hunters haggles over a few Euros. It makes for a more natural aesthetic to the picture and feels believable when upscaled to 4K.
That arrangement is justified even further when switching to SD on the BBC News channel. Low-res content can seem particularly harsh and blocky when upscaled, but the Aura’s slightly softer approach smooths out a few more of those unwanted edges than its predecessor and adds some much-needed subtlety to clothing colours and skin tones.
However, the app platform is not quite as adept. Compared with a budget streaming stick, the Aura’s skill with a 4K HDR app is a little less assured than it might be. We watch The Boys on Prime Video and while the picture is punchy and dynamic, some of the finer detail is lost, particularly at the brightest and darkest extremes of the contrast spectrum. Viewing a scene set in the White House, the backlit silk curtains are missing folds in the material and the Aura doesn’t reveal the number of freckles on ex-CIA Deputy Director Grace Mallory’s skin that we might expect.
The other slight drawback is that not all users will find the dynamic range and refresh rate content matching system easy to use. There are a few options and, without the right ones selected, app TV shows and films are often displayed incorrectly; motion is juddery and streams are often jumpy. It can be fixed using the remote while viewing, but it isn’t easy to do. Quality standalone streamers have options to automatically match the dynamic range and refresh rate of the source material, and the Aura should really have the same.
Sound
(Image credit: Humax)
The Aura’s hi-res music support offers an excellent opportunity to get good quality sound from this box through both locally stored files and streamed music services. Plugging it into our reference system, we fire up the Tidal Masters version of Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival and, by the standards of PVRs and video streamers, we’re struck by how well it captures the recording.
There’s a spacious sound to the vocals and guitars that gives a fabulous feel to the acoustics of the room where the recording was made. Compared with other, similarly priced streaming products, there is an added dimension to the track. There’s a good dose of dynamics that brings excitement and character to all of the instruments. We can visualise the drums at the start of the track and every time the first snare of each bar is hit with an accent.
The back and forth between the guitar and the vocals is like listening to a conversation. It’s a cohesive sound from top to bottom and we feel confident that there’s little we’re missing in the music. Some streamers at this level might offer a touch more crispness to the rhythm, but not without some loss of the excitement we get with the Aura.
All of that translates to an enjoyably emotional feel for home cinema as we switch to AV with the Live Aid scene at the end of Bohemian Rhapsody on Prime Video. The thuds of the kick drum are wonderfully solid and offer a genuine sense of timbre and resonance as the pedal first hits the skin at the beginning of the set.
When Brian May plays his solo at the end of the piece, it’s like he’s making his guitar sing. Again, the sense of place is captured brilliantly in a credible rendition of the sound of the old Wembley Stadium full of 72,000 people clapping in time and singing along to Radio Ga Ga.
Sound such as this is a huge leg up for any home cinema device. Whether capturing the atmosphere of a rock concert or the special effects of an action scene, the Aura really delivers on this front.
Verdict
The Humax Aura does its main job well. It’s an excellent Freeview recorder for both Full HD and standard definition with an easy-to-use TV guide, plenty of space and handy remote recording features. The problem is that Humax has offered – and is charging – more this time around and this box doesn’t deliver these extras quite so well.
If you’re going to promise more apps, then the omission of the most popular one of all is an issue. You also need to make sure your handling of streamed TV and film content is up to the same high standards as the competition, and that isn’t quite the case with the Aura. Tacking on the Android TV platform also means that the overall user interface loses a little focus.
While the Aura is spot on for sound, opting for the cheaper but still brilliant Humax FVP-5000T and buying a Google Chromecast with Google TV as well is a better option in terms of overall performance. The experience won’t feel much more split than the Aura already does but, more importantly, the smart offering will be more complete and a little better for picture quality too.
That said, if you have your heart set on a single box solution for your TV recording and video streaming, the Aura is a solid choice.
Trevor DeHaas is auctioning his 2017 tweet of the “dinner” he received at Fyre Fest as an NFT. But unlike the Fest itself, the tweeted photo of the limp cheese slice on wheat bread with some greens and a sad tomato in a styrofoam container isn’t a grift; as first reported by Axios, DeHaas is hoping to raise $80,000 which he plans to put toward his medical bills.
“With how hot the NFT market is right now I figured I’d give it a shot and could hopefully raise enough money that I wouldn’t need to rely on a GoFundMe to pay for my medical expenses,” DeHaas said in an email to The Verge. “The last thing I want is to guilt trip someone into buying the NFT and copyright to pay for my medical expenses but I would like the auction winner to know that their money would be going to a good cause.”
The organizers of Fyre Fest billed it as an exclusive, luxury music festival in the Bahamas, which would include top-notch catering, big-name performers, and transportation via Jet Ski and yacht. Kendall Jenner was among the celebrities paid $250,000 to promote the event, which guests paid up to $12,000 to attend.
That is not what happened, however.
Social posts from attendees like DeHaas showed images of a poorly organized, subpar event that wasn’t close to what was advertised, and soon the lawsuits began. In 2018, Fyre Fest organizer Billy McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud charges.
DeHaas said he was inspired by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s auction of his first-ever tweet, which sold for $2.9 million on March 22nd. “Now, a few weeks before the 4 year anniversary of the festival (4/28) I’m selling the most iconic cheese sandwich on the blockchain along with the ownership of copyright,” he told Axios.
DeHaas clarified on Twitter that he was selling the tweet on flipkick.io, a New York-based company for artists and musicians to “monetize their work with Physical NFTs,” according to its website. Ironic twist: Fyre Fest co-organizer Ja Rule is a partner in Flipkick, but DeHaas says the musician is not directly involved in the auction of his cheese sandwich tweet. However, Ja Rule, who was cleared of wrongdoing in connection with Fyre Fest, recently sold an NFT of a painting of the Fyre Fest logo for $122,000.
DeHaas says he plans to transfer copyright and ownership rights for the NFT to the auction winner. His aim is to raise money for his medical expenses; according to his GoFundMe page, DeHaas is in end-stage renal disease and needs a kidney transplant. “I currently do dialysis for 7 hours every day and in the mean time trying to find a living kidney donor,” DeHaas told The Verge. “The expenses from a kidney transplant can be astronomical even with insurance. Plus there are expenses for my donor that I would like to cover.”
Which raises a troubling question: are NFT auctions going to become another tool — like GoFundMe pages — to raise money for costs not covered in America’s abysmal health care system? If something good comes out of the debacle that was Fyre Fest (other than the dueling documentaries on Hulu and Netflix), that’s certainly a win. But using NFTs to pay for surgery and treatment introduces an even bleaker scenario for people desperate to pay their medical bills who aren’t Walter White or independently wealthy.
Update April 8th, 1:02PM ET: Added comment from Trevor DeHaas
The 3rd Generation Fire TV Stick is a capable video streamer, but it drops at an awkward price point
For
Strong app offering
Improved UI
Excellent HDR performance
Against
SDR picture could be more subtle
4K model only costs a little more
What’s grey and sticky? The Amazon Fire TV Stick (3rd Generation), of course. Far from being simply another streaming stick, this third version is the first of Amazon’s media streaming devices to feature the company’s all-new Fire TV Experience user interface, which is intended as a game-changer for streaming service integration.
The Amazon Fire TV Stick (3rd Generation) replaces the 2nd generation of the device that was once called the Amazon Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote. Back in those simpler days, the first-gen model didn’t have voice control.
Since then, Amazon has added several more branches to the Fire TV Stick family tree. Higher up that tree is the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (launched in 2018), and below it, there’s now the Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, the only other Fire TV device to come pre-loaded with the new UI.
Pricing
The Amazon Fire TV Stick (3rd Generation) costs £40 ($40, AU$79) at the time of writing. That’s £10 ($10, AU$20) cheaper than the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K that launched in 2018 and, of course, has the added benefit of 4K content.
It’s also £10 ($10, AU$20) more expensive than the simultaneously released Amazon Fire TV Stick Lite, which lacks TV volume control and can only pass-through Dolby Atmos, rather than decode it.
Somewhat confusingly, you’ll find the Amazon Fire TV Stick (3rd Generation) listed as the ‘2020 release’ in the UK, but the ‘2021 release’ in the US and Australia.
Features
(Image credit: Amazon)
From a design perspective, the Fire TV Stick (3rd Gen) is hardly a departure for Amazon. It’s a gunmetal grey rectangular prism with an HDMI plug on the end and a micro-USB power socket halfway up one side. There’s a good chance that the power cable or simply the Stick’s girth will get in the way of your TV’s other HDMI sockets, so, as ever, Amazon has included an HDMI extender to take your stick clear of the rest of the ports.
The Stick itself is a little shorter than the 4K model but houses the same 1.7GHz quad-core chip. Bluetooth 5.0 and BLE are onboard for pairing with Bluetooth speakers, headphones or video game controllers, and there’s the standard 8GB of internal storage for your app collection.
The included remote is as handy and compact as ever. It’s the same second-generation Fire TV remote that comes with the 4K Stick. There are volume buttons that will work for your TV, playback controls and general navigation, plus a button at the top that turns the remote into an Alexa microphone for voice search.
Amazon Fire TV Stick (3rd Gen) tech specs
(Image credit: Amazon)
Bluetooth version 5.0
HDR support HDR10, HDR10+, HLG
Max resolution 1080p
Dolby Atmos Yes
Storage 8GB
Finishes x1
Dimensions (hwd) 13 x 30 x 86mm
Weight 32g
Those looking for 4K and Dolby Vision support will have to look elsewhere. The Amazon Fire TV Stick (3rd Generation) maxes out at 1080p HD, but can still process HDR metadata in the shape of HDR10, HLG and even Samsung’s HDR10+. Dolby Vision isn’t supported, though Dolby Atmos is.
The headline addition, though, is the all-new Amazon Fire TV Experience. The reimagined UI design pares everything down to four main screens, Home, Find, Library and Live, for a more holistic approach to your entertainment. The platform pulls in content from other streaming services, including Netflix, Disney+ and iPlayer, and sits those suggestions alongside TV and films available on Prime Video. The end result is less of a shop window for Amazon and a more useful quick hit of recommendations from across the board instead.
It’s pretty well done too. The top row on the Home page is itself a mixture of content from your subscriptions, followed by lines of film and TV suggestions dedicated to what’s on specific services such as Netflix and iPlayer. It’s certainly an improvement on the previous iteration of the Fire TV OS, but still isn’t a match for what Google has done with the Google TV UI on Chromecast.
That first row of content on the new Fire TV experience never seems to be as much of a mix as it could be. It tends to start with too big a burst from a single source, whether that’s a few screens of animated Disney content or a slew of Amazon Originals. It’s also still too Prime Video-heavy as we scroll down the page with the rows dedicated to other services swamped by too much of what’s on Amazon.
The ‘Find’ section of the experience is far better, as it seems to give a more balanced approach, as well as plenty of handy suggestions of genres and sub-genres to drill down into. Fancy comedy horrors, action dramas or trending documentaries? This is the place to look.
If you have the right to watch a piece of content for free, the Fire TV OS will let you know. It also directs you to free versions on apps you might not already own, including those available through free trials. The only thing to watch out for is that the UI still encourages you to buy and rent 4K content, even if the Stick won’t allow you to play it back at UHD resolution.
Like all current Fire TV devices, Alexa is along for the ride and makes an easy way to navigate around the OS. The addition of six user profiles per household – each with its own preferences, apps, permissions, watchlists and settings – is also welcome.
All the major apps are present here, apart from Google Play Movies & TV and Rakuten. There’s HDR available on Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video and Apple TV, but there’s no Dolby Atmos material on Apple and no way of buying new content on Apple TV through the Fire Stick itself. You have to purchase or rent content via your computer or phone, at which point it will be available in the Apple TV library on the Stick.
Picture
(Image credit: Amazon)
Heading straight to the HDR sections of the popular streaming services, we’re delighted to see that this Stick’s performance is excellent. Watching I Care A Lot on Prime Video in HDR, it’s easy to spot how well this device puts that tonal metadata to good use.
The bright scene outside the courthouse in the first episode is full of potential pitfalls. There are textures to render and different blacks to produce all while under the glare of the midday sun that bounces off the pale stone steps and floods the picture with a harsh white light. Despite all this, the Fire TV Stick copes admirably.
Even at the maximum-supported 1080p resolution, we get a decent sense of the stone-washed jeans of a bystander and the layers of clothing material on the black-clad Eiza Gonzalez. The sky is a searing blue and Rosamund Pike’s dress an expensive red, while the nearby trees remain a natural green. It’s an enjoyable picture with an easy-to-watch balance between dynamism and subtlety.
Dropping to SDR content is certainly a different experience, but the picture still pleases. It’s a punchy effort with a lot of brightness and big contrast, which helps to keep that sense of zeal to the on-screen action. Watching the sitcom Flowers on Netflix in Full HD, there’s plenty of impact as Mrs Flowers walks down her ramshackle garden to flirt badly with the tradesmen. What could be quite a flat, overcast sky has a bold, foreboding look and works as a fantastic foil to the dark brown, gnarled trees and the thick, overgrown grass. You can’t fail to get a sense of the way the story is going to play out.
That dynamic approach isn’t without its drawbacks, though. The focus on punch can leave detail fairly scant without the benefits of HDR. The faces of the characters sometimes come off a little too uniform, missing the same wealth of tone that is available from the Fire TV Stick 4K, given the same source material. The push for high contrast can overpower black depth and white detail too, unless you keep a careful eye on your TV settings. Again, that’s something the more expensive Stick has a better handle on.
Sound
(Image credit: Amazon)
The differences in audio between the Fire TV Stick (3rd Generation) and the 4K model are far less marked than the picture performance. Their overall character is undeniably similar.
Listening to This is Me from The Greatest Showman soundtrack on Tidal, there’s a respectable sense of rhythm to the music in the build towards the first full chorus. The drum rolls are tight enough to pick out the individual beats of the sticks, the reverb on the guitar is clear and controlled, and all of the excellent diction on vocals is nicely clipped.
Switching to the cinema, we head to the freeway crash shoot-out at the beginning of Deadpool on Netflix with its wealth of surround sound action. The audio is just as spacious as we’d expect from a budget streaming stick. Ajax’s motorbike zips neatly from one side to another as he weaves his way through the traffic, and both the movement and detail of sound as the pin flies out from the hand grenade shows what an enjoyable experience this stick can deliver.
At the same time, the 4K model is just a touch better all over for sound. Dynamically, the more expensive model has a noticeable edge that is easy enough to pick up both with music and while watching video content. It’s also a little crisper, which gives it a shade more energy.
Playing This is Me via the third-gen Stick, there isn’t quite the same thrill as the chorus reaches its crescendo. The equivalent for Deadpool is a slight loss of dimension to the sound effects. The bullets are a little less impactful than through the 4K Stick, and it’s noticeable in more incidental noises, such as the opening of the electric car door window before the eponymous hero pops his head out to address the bad guys. There isn’t quite that same satisfaction to its clunk as the glass reaches its limits.
Verdict
The third generation of the original Amazon Fire TV Stick offers the kind of solid performance we’ve come to expect from the Stick family. It also features all of the most important apps and comes with an all-new interface that offers owners a genuine solution to the problem of what to watch next at short notice. HDR viewing is excellent and it’s hard to ask for much more sonically.
The trouble is that more is actually available and for only a little extra. For just a few extra pounds or dollars, you can buy the 4K version of the Fire Stick, which is slightly better performing with the same content and offers all of that 4K future-proofing too. And that leaves our third-generation model, although good, in a slightly sticky spot.
Facebook has added Zoom and GoToMeeting support to its Portal TV product, so you can fully embrace the work-from-home lifestyle and take meetings from your living room couch.
Zoom and GoToMeeting, as well as BlueJeans and Webex, are already available on Facebook’s more portable Portal devices, including the standard Portal, the Portal Mini, and the Portal Plus. The new additions to the Portal TV should make it much more useful as a work webcam, but also in the event any of your COVID-era digital hangouts happen on Zoom.
“Now, your favorite Zoom functionality extends to the largest screen in your home, so you can work from your couch as well as your desk,” reads a blog post published Tuesday. “That includes joining breakout rooms for brainstorming in smaller groups, calendar integration to help you stay on top of your schedule, screen sharing to improve remote collaboration, and virtual backgrounds to improve your overall experience.”
Facebook has been slowly building out the feature set of its Portal family of video chat devices. In October of last year, it added Netflix to the Portal TV, and the second-generation Portal and the first Portal Mini released back in 2019 added WhatsApp calling support alongside more reasonable price tags.
Last week, Apple Arcade received its biggest update since launching back in 2019. More than 30 titles were added to the subscription service, including much-anticipated games like Hironobu Sakaguchi’s roleplaying epic Fantasian. But while the quantity and quality of titles added were impressive, the most important part of the announcement was a change in direction. Among those big-name exclusives were a number of classics, ranging from Monument Valley to chess to Threes, that help round out the service. Apple Arcade has finally matured into something close to a Netflix for mobile games.
Since the beginning, the pitch for Apple Arcade has been entirely centered on quality. While the App Store continues to devolve into a space dominated by free-to-play games, Arcade provided an alternative where some of the most talented developers in the world could create great mobile games without having to worry about monetization. It launched alongside new games from the likes of Zach Gage and Ustwo, and it has continued to add titles on a near-weekly basis. Subscribers get all of those games for a flat monthly fee. It’s been a solid service — but it’s always felt like something was missing.
When you sign up for something like Netflix, it might be because of one of the service’s big exclusive titles like The Witcher or Bridgerton. But that won’t necessarily keep you hooked. Part of what makes Netflix so compelling is everything else, from reality shows to classic sitcoms, that give you something to watch after you’re done with the big tent poles. Frequently, these aren’t traditional exclusives: think of how important Friends and The Office have become in the age of streaming TV.
Those kinds of experiences are something Apple Arcade didn’t really have before this shift. Now, though, when you’re done playing a short narrative game like, say, Creaks or Assemble With Care, there’s a lot more to keep you invested with recent additions like Good Sudoku or Threes.
Wonderbox.
Even better, while many of these games are available on other platforms or through the App Store, the Arcade versions are generally improved because they feature no form of in-app purchases or monetization. You won’t find puzzle or card games saddled with ads or have to open loot boxes in NBA 2K21. There’s even Star Trek: Legends — essentially a character-collecting gacha game — which almost feels strange to play without being prodded to spend money. (This lack of microtransactions makes Arcade a very family-friendly service.)
It’s also important to note that this change in strategy is additive. Apple has introduced two new categories to Arcade — one for older App Store hits, another for classic games like chess or solitaire — but it’s still releasing those big exclusive titles. In addition to Fantasian, last week’s update included Wonderbox (think Minecraft meets Zelda for younger players), World of Demons (the latest action game from PlatinumGames, the team behind Nier: Automata and Bayonetta), and Taiko no Tatsujin: Pop Tap Beat (a new entry in an excellent long-running rhythm game series). It’s a great and diverse lineup of experiences; sometimes scrolling through games on Arcade can feel like heading into an alternate reality version of what mobile gaming could have been if the race to free-to-play never happened.
Obviously, none of this is a guarantee of success. And if previous reports are to be believed, the shift appears to be a result of Arcade’s inability to keep subscribers hooked. While the subscription model is now dominant for the music, film, and television industries, it’s still relatively nascent for games. Outside of Xbox Game Pass, there hasn’t been a major success to date. Apple Arcade arguably faces a greater challenge being on mobile, where users have long been conditioned to expect games for free. The Netflix of games still feels inevitable, even if we’re not there yet — but Arcade feels closer than ever.
Intel’s long-delayed 10nm+ third-gen Xeon Scalable Ice Lake processors mark an important step forward for the company as it attempts to fend off intense competition from AMD’s 7nm EPYC Milan processors that top out at 64 cores, a key advantage over Intel’s existing 14nm Cascade Lake Refresh that tops out at 28 cores. The 40-core Xeon Platinum 8380 serves as the flagship model of Intel’s revamped lineup, which the company says features up to a 20% IPC uplift on the strength of the new Sunny Cove core architecture paired with the 10nm+ process.
Intel has already shipped over 200,000 units to its largest customers since the beginning of the year, but today marks the official public debut of its newest lineup of data center processors, so we get to share benchmarks. The Ice Lake chips drop into dual-socket Whitley server platforms, while the previously-announced Cooper Lake slots in for quad- and octo-socket servers. Intel has slashed Xeon pricing up to 60% to remain competitive with EPYC Rome, and with EPYC Milan now shipping, the company has reduced per-core pricing again with Ice Lake to remain competitive as it targets high-growth markets, like the cloud, enterprise, HPC, 5G, and the edge.
The new Xeon Scalable lineup comes with plenty of improvements, like increased support for up to eight memory channels that run at a peak of DDR4-3200 with two DIMMs per channel, a notable improvement over Cascade Lake’s support for six channels at DDR4-2933 and matching EPYC’s eight channels of memory. Ice Lake also supports 6TB of DRAM/Optane per socket (4TB of DRAM) and 4TB of Optane Persistent Memory DIMMs per socket (8 TB in dual-socket). Unlike Intel’s past practices, Ice Lake also supports the full memory and Optane capacity on all models with no additional upcharge.
Intel has also moved forward from 48 lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity to 64 lanes of PCIe 4.0 (128 lanes in dual-socket), improving both I/O bandwidth and increasing connectivity to match AMD’s 128 available lanes in a dual-socket server.
Intel says that these additives, coupled with a range of new SoC-level optimizations, a focus on improved power management, along with support for new instructions, yield an average of 46% more performance in a wide range of data center workloads. Intel also claims a 50% uplift to latency-sensitive applications, like HammerDB, Java, MySQL, and WordPress, and up to 57% more performance in heavily-threaded workloads, like NAMD, signaling that the company could return to a competitive footing in what has become one of AMD’s strongholds — heavily threaded workloads. We’ll put that to the test shortly. First, let’s take a closer look at the lineup.
Intel Third-Gen Xeon Scalable Ice Lake Pricing and Specfications
We have quite the list of chips below, but we’ve actually filtered out the downstream Intel parts, focusing instead on the high-end ‘per-core scalable’ models. All told, the Ice Lake family spans 42 SKUs, with many of the lower-TDP (and thus performance) models falling into the ‘scalable performance’ category.
Intel also has specialized SKUs targeted at maximum SGX enclave capacity, cloud-optimized for VMs, liquid-cooled, networking/NFV, media, long-life and thermal-friendly, and single-socket optimized parts, all of which you can find in the slide a bit further below.
Cores / Threads
Base / Boost – All Core (GHz)
L3 Cache (MB)
TDP (W)
1K Unit Price / RCP
EPYC Milan 7763
64 / 128
2.45 / 3.5
256
280
$7,890
EPYC Rome 7742
64 / 128
2.25 / 3.4
256
225
$6,950
EPYC Milan 7663
56 / 112
2.0 / 3.5
256
240
$6,366
EPYC Milan 7643
48 / 96
2.3 / 3.6
256
225
$4.995
Xeon Platinum 8380
40 / 80
2.3 / 3.2 – 3.0
60
270
$8,099
Xeon Platinum 8368
38 / 76
2.4 / 3.4 – 3.2
57
270
$6,302
Xeon Platinum 8360Y
36 / 72
2.4 / 3.5 – 3.1
54
250
$4,702
Xeon Platinum 8362
32 / 64
2.8 / 3.6 – 3.5
48
265
$5,448
EPYC Milan 7F53
32 / 64
2.95 / 4.0
256
280
$4,860
EPYC Milan 7453
28 / 56
2.75 / 3.45
64
225
$1,570
Xeon Gold 6348
28 / 56
2.6 / 3.5 – 3.4
42
235
$3,072
Xeon Platinum 8280
28 / 56
2.7 / 4.0 – 3.3
38.5
205
$10,009
Xeon Gold 6258R
28 / 56
2.7 / 4.0 – 3.3
38.5
205
$3,651
EPYC Milan 74F3
24 / 48
3.2 / 4.0
256
240
$2,900
Intel Xeon Gold 6342
24 / 48
2.8 / 3.5 – 3.3
36
230
$2,529
Xeon Gold 6248R
24 / 48
3.0 / 4.0
35.75
205
$2,700
EPYC Milan 7443
24 / 48
2.85 / 4.0
128
200
$2,010
Xeon Gold 6354
18 / 36
3.0 / 3.6 – 3.6
39
205
$2,445
EPYC Milan 73F3
16 / 32
3.5 / 4.0
256
240
$3,521
Xeon Gold 6346
16 / 32
3.1 / 3.6 – 3.6
36
205
$2,300
Xeon Gold 6246R
16 / 32
3.4 / 4.1
35.75
205
$3,286
EPYC Milan 7343
16 / 32
3.2 / 3.9
128
190
$1,565
Xeon Gold 5317
12 / 24
3.0 / 3.6 – 3.4
18
150
$950
Xeon Gold 6334
8 / 16
3.6 / 3.7 – 3.6
18
165
$2,214
EPYC Milan 72F3
8 / 16
3.7 / 4.1
256
180
$2,468
Xeon Gold 6250
8 / 16
3.9 / 4.5
35.75
185
$3,400
At 40 cores, the Xeon Platinum 8380 reaches new heights over its predecessors that topped out at 28 cores, striking higher in AMD’s Milan stack. The 8380 comes at $202 per core, which is well above the $130-per-core price tag on the previous-gen flagship, the 28-core Xeon 6258R. However, it’s far less expensive than the $357-per-core pricing of the Xeon 8280, which had a $10,008 price tag before AMD’s EPYC upset Intel’s pricing model and forced drastic price reductions.
With peak clock speeds of 3.2 GHz, the 8380 has a much lower peak clock rate than the previous-gen 28-core 6258R’s 4.0 GHz. Even dipping down to the new 28-core Ice Lake 6348 only finds peak clock speeds of 3.5 GHz, which still trails the Cascade Lake-era models. Intel obviously hopes to offset those reduced clock speeds with other refinements, like increased IPC and better power and thermal management.
On that note, Ice Lake tops out at 3.7 GHz on a single core, and you’ll have to step down to the eight-core model to access these clock rates. In contrast, Intel’s previous-gen eight-core 6250 had the highest clock rate, 4.5 GHz, of the Cascade Lake stack.
Surprisingly, AMD’s EPYC Milan models actually have higher peak frequencies than the Ice Lake chips at any given core count, but remember, AMD’s frequencies are only guaranteed on one physical core. In contrast, Intel specs its chips to deliver peak clock rates on any core. Both approaches have their merits, but AMD’s more refined boost tech paired with the 7nm TSMC process could pay dividends for lightly-threaded work. Conversely, Intel does have solid all-core clock rates that peak at 3.6 GHz, whereas AMD has more of a sliding scale that varies based on the workload, making it hard to suss out the winners by just examining the spec sheet.
Ice Lake’s TDPs stretch from 85W up to 270W. Surprisingly, despite the lowered base and boost clocks, Ice Lake’s TDPs have increased gen-on-gen for the 18-, 24- and 28-core models. Intel is obviously pushing higher on the TDP envelope to extract the most performance out of the socket possible, but it does have lower-power chip options available (listed in the graphic below).
AMD has a notable hole in its Milan stack at both the 12- and 18-core mark, a gap that Intel has filled with its Gold 5317 and 6354, respectively. Milan still holds the top of the hierarchy with 48-, 56- and 64-core models.
Image 1 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 4 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 5 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 6 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 7 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 8 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 9 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 10 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 11 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 12 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
The Ice Lake Xeon chips drop into Whitley server platforms with Socket LGA4189-4/5. The FC-LGA14 package measures 77.5mm x 56.5mm and has an LGA interface with 4189 pins. The die itself is predicted to measure ~600mm2, though Intel no longer shares details about die sizes or transistor counts. In dual-socket servers, the chips communicate with each other via three UPI links that operate at 11.2 GT/s, an increase from 10.4 GT/s with Cascade Lake. . The processor interfaces with the C620A chipset via four DMI 3.0 links, meaning it communicates at roughly PCIe 3.0 speeds.
The C620A chipset also doesn’t support PCIe 4.0; instead, it supports up to 20 lanes of PCIe 3.0, ten USB 3.0, and fourteen USB 2.0 ports, along with 14 ports of SATA 6 Gbps connectivity. Naturally, that’s offset by the 64 PCIe 4.0 lanes that come directly from the processor. As before, Intel offers versions of the chipset with its QuickAssist Technology (QAT), which boosts performance in cryptography and compression/decompression workloads.
Image 1 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 4 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 5 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 6 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 7 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 8 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 9 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 10 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 11 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 12 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Intel’s focus on its platform adjacencies business is a key part of its messaging around the Ice Lake launch — the company wants to drive home its message that coupling its processors with its own differentiated platform additives can expose additional benefits for Whitley server platforms.
The company introduced new PCIe 4.0 solutions, including the new 200 GbE Ethernet 800 Series adaptors that sport a PCIe 4.0 x16 connection and support RDMA iWARP and RoCEv2, and the Intel Optane SSD P5800X, a PCIe 4.0 SSD that uses ultra-fast 3D XPoint media to deliver stunning performance results compared to typical NAND-based storage solutions.
Intel also touts its PCIe 4.0 SSD D5-P5316, which uses the company’s 144-Layer QLC NAND for read-intensive workloads. These SSDs offer up to 7GBps of throughput and come in capacities stretching up to 15.36 TB in the U.2 form factor, and 30.72 TB in the E1.L ‘Ruler’ form factor.
Intel’s Optane Persistent Memory 200-series offers memory-addressable persistent memory in a DIMM form factor. This tech can radically boost memory capacity up to 4TB per socket in exchange for higher latencies that can be offset through software optimizations, thus yielding more performance in workloads that are sensitive to memory capacity.
The “Barlow Pass” Optane Persistent Memory 200 series DIMMs promise 30% more memory bandwidth than the previous-gen Apache Pass models. Capacity remains at a maximum of 512GB per DIMM with 128GB and 256GB available, and memory speeds remain at a maximum of DDR4-2666.
Intel has also expanded its portfolio of Market Ready and Select Solutions offerings, which are pre-configured servers for various workloads that are available in over 500 designs from Intel’s partners. These simple-to-deploy servers are designed for edge, network, and enterprise environments, but Intel has also seen uptake with cloud service providers like AWS, which uses these solutions for its ParallelCluster HPC service.
Image 1 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 4 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 5 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 6 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 7 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 8 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 9 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 10 of 10
(Image credit: Intel)
Like the benchmarks you’ll see in this review, the majority of performance measurements focus on raw throughput. However, in real-world environments, a combination of throughput and responsiveness is key to deliver on latency-sensitive SLAs, particularly in multi-tenant cloud environments. Factors such as loaded latency (i.e., the amount of performance delivered to any number of applications when all cores have varying load levels) are key to ensuring performance consistency across multiple users. Ensuring consistency is especially challenging with diverse workloads running on separate cores in multi-tenant environments.
Intel says it focused on performance consistency in these types of environments through a host of compute, I/O, and memory optimizations. The cores, naturally, benefit from increased IPC, new ISA instructions, and scaling up to higher core counts via the density advantages of 10nm, but Intel also beefed up its I/O subsystem to 64 lanes of PCIe 4.0, which improves both connectivity (up from 48 lanes) and throughput (up from PCIe 3.0).
Intel says it designed the caches, memory, and I/O, not to mention power levels, to deliver consistent performance during high utilization. As seen in slide 30, the company claims these alterations result in improved application performance and latency consistency by reducing long tail latencies to improve worst-case performance metrics, particularly for memory-bound and multi-tenant workloads.
Image 1 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 2 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 3 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 4 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 5 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 6 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 7 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 8 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 9 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 10 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 11 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Image 12 of 12
(Image credit: Intel)
Ice Lake brings a big realignment of the company’s die that provides cache, memory, and throughput advances. The coherent mesh interconnect returns with a similar arrangement of horizontal and vertical rings present on the Cascade Lake-SP lineup, but with a realignment of the various elements, like cores, UPI connections, and the eight DDR4 memory channels that are now split into four dual-channel controllers. Here we can see that Intel shuffled around the cores on the 28-core die and now has two execution cores on the bottom of the die clustered with I/O controllers (some I/O is now also at the bottom of the die).
Intel redesigned the chip to support two new sideband fabrics, one controlling power management and the other used for general-purpose management traffic. These provide telemetry data and control to the various IP blocks, like execution cores, memory controllers, and PCIe/UPI controllers.
The die includes a separate peer-to-peer (P2P) fabric to improve bandwidth between cores, and the I/O subsystem was also virtualized, which Intel says offers up to three times the fabric bandwidth compared to Cascade Lake. Intel also split one of the UPI blocks into two, creating a total of three UPI links, all with fine-grained power control of the UPI links. Now, courtesy of dedicated PLLs, all three UPIs can modulate clock frequencies independently based on load.
Densely packed AVX instructions augment performance in properly-tuned workloads at the expense of higher power consumption and thermal load. Intel’s Cascade Lake CPUs drop to lower frequencies (~600 to 900 MHz) during AVX-, AVX2-, and AVX-512-optimized workloads, which has hindered broader adoption of AVX code.
To reduce the impact, Intel has recharacterized its AVX power limits, thus yielding (unspecified) higher frequencies for AVX-512 and AVX-256 operations. This is done in an adaptive manner based on three different power levels for varying instruction types. This nearly eliminates the frequency delta between AVX and SSE for 256-heavy and 512-light operations, while 512-heavy operations have also seen significant uplift. All Ice Lake SKUs come with dual 512b FMAs, so this optimization will pay off across the entire stack.
Intel also added support for a host of new instructions to boost cryptography performance, like VPMADD52, GFNI, SHA-NI, Vector AES, and Vector Carry-Less multiply instructions, and a few new instructions to boost compression/decompression performance. All rely heavily upon AVX acceleration. The chips also support Intel’s Total Memory Encryption (TME) that offers DRAM encryption through AES-XTS 128-bit hardware-generated keys.
Intel also made plenty of impressive steps forward on the microarchitecture, with improvements to every level of the pipeline allowing Ice Lake’s 10nm Sunny Cove cores to deliver far higher IPC than 14nm Cascade Lake’s Skylake-derivative architecture. Key improvements to the front end include larger reorder, load, and store buffers, along with larger reservation stations. Intel increased the L1 data cache from 32 KiB, the capacity it has used in its chips for a decade, to 42 KiB, and moved from 8-way to 12-way associativity. The L2 cache moves from 4-way to 8-way and is also larger, but the capacity is dependent upon each specific type of product — for Ice Lake server chips, it weighs in at 1.25 MB per core.
Intel expanded the micro-op cache (UOP) from 1.5K to 2.25K micro-ops, the second-level translation lookaside buffer (TLB) from 1536 entries to 2048, and moved from a four-wide allocation to five-wide to allow the in-order portion of the pipeline (front end) to feed the out-of-order (back end) portion faster. Additionally, Intel expanded the Out of Order (OoO) Window from 224 to 352. Intel also increased the number of execution units to handle ten operations per cycle (up from eight with Skylake) and focused on improving branch prediction accuracy and reducing latency under load conditions.
The store unit can now process two store data operations for every cycle (up from one), and the address generation units (AGU) also handle two loads and two stores each cycle. These improvements are necessary to match the increased bandwidth from the larger L1 data cache, which does two reads and two writes every cycle. Intel also tweaked the design of the sub-blocks in the execution units to enable data shuffles within the registers.
Intel also added support for its Software Guard Extensions (SGX) feature that debuted with the Xeon E lineup, and increased capacity to 1TB (maximum capacity varies by model). SGX creates secure enclaves in an encrypted portion of the memory that is exclusive to the code running in the enclave – no other process can access this area of memory.
Test Setup
We have a glaring hole in our test pool: Unfortunately, we do not have AMD’s recently-launched EPYC Milan processors available for this round of benchmarking, though we are working on securing samples and will add competitive benchmarks when available.
We do have test results for the AMD’s frequency-optimized Rome 7Fx2 processors, which represent AMD’s performance with its previous-gen chips. As such, we should view this round of tests largely through the prism of Intel’s gen-on-gen Xeon performance improvement, and not as a measure of the current state of play in the server chip market.
We use the Xeon Platinum Gold 8280 as a stand-in for the less expensive Xeon Gold 6258R. These two chips are identical and provide the same level of performance, with the difference boiling down to the more expensive 8280 coming with support for quad-socket servers, while the Xeon Gold 6258R tops out at dual-socket support.
Image 1 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 5 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 6 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 7 of 7
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Intel provided us with a 2U Server System S2W3SIL4Q Software Development Platform with the Coyote Pass server board for our testing. This system is designed primarily for validation purposes, so it doesn’t have too many noteworthy features. The system is heavily optimized for airflow, with the eight 2.5″ storage bays flanked by large empty bays that allow for plenty of air intake.
The system comes armed with dual redundant 2100W power supplies, a 7.68TB Intel SSD P5510, an 800GB Optane SSD P5800X, and an E810-CQDA2 200GbE NIC. We used the Intel SSD P5510 for our benchmarks and cranked up the fans for maximum performance in our benchmarks.
We tested with the pre-installed 16x 32GB DDR4-3200 DIMMs, but Intel also provided sixteen 128GB Optane Persistent Memory DIMMs for further testing. Due to time constraints, we haven’t yet had time to test the Optane DIMMs, but stay tuned for a few demo workloads in a future article. As we’re not entirely done with our testing, we don’t want to risk prying the 8380 out of the socket yet for pictures — the large sockets from both vendors are becoming more finicky after multiple chip reinstalls.
Memory
Tested Processors
Intel S2W3SIL4Q
16x 32GB SK hynix ECC DDR4-3200
Intel Xeon Platinum 8380
Supermicro AS-1023US-TR4
16x 32GB Samsung ECC DDR4-3200
EPYC 7742, 7F72, 7F52
Dell/EMC PowerEdge R460
12x 32GB SK hynix DDR4-2933
Intel Xeon 8280, 6258R, 5220R, 6226R
To assess performance with a range of different potential configurations, we used a Supermicro 1024US-TR4 server with three different EPYC Rome configurations. We outfitted this server with 16x 32GB Samsung ECC DDR4-3200 memory modules, ensuring the chips had all eight memory channels populated.
We used a Dell/EMC PowerEdge R460 server to test the Xeon processors in our test group. We equipped this server with 12x 32GB Sk hynix DDR4-2933 modules, again ensuring that each Xeon chip’s six memory channels were populated.
We used the Phoronix Test Suite for benchmarking. This automated test suite simplifies running complex benchmarks in the Linux environment. The test suite is maintained by Phoronix, and it installs all needed dependencies and the test library includes 450 benchmarks and 100 test suites (and counting). Phoronix also maintains openbenchmarking.org, which is an online repository for uploading test results into a centralized database.
We used Ubuntu 20.04 LTS to maintain compatibility with our existing test results, and leverage the default Phoronix test configurations with the GCC compiler for all tests below. We also tested all platforms with all available security mitigations.
Naturally, newer Linux kernels, software, and targeted optimizations can yield improvements for any of the tested processors, so take these results as generally indicative of performance in compute-intensive workloads, but not as representative of highly-tuned deployments.
Linux Kernel, GCC and LLVM Compilation Benchmarks
Image 1 of 2
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 2
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
AMD’s EPYC Rome processors took the lead over the Cascade Lake Xeon chips at any given core count in these benchmarks, but here we can see that the 40-core Ice Lake Xeon 8380 has tremendous potential for these type of workloads. The dual 8380 processors complete the Linux compile benchmark, which builds the Linux kernel at default settings, in 20 seconds, edging out the 64-core EPYC Rome 7742 by one second. Naturally, we expect AMD’s Milan flagship, the 7763, to take the lead in this benchmark. Still, the implication is clear — Ice Lake-SP has significantly-improved performance, thus reducing the delta between Xeon and competing chips.
We can also see a marked improvement in the LLVM compile, with the 8380 reducing the time to completion by ~20% over the prior-gen 8280.
Molecular Dynamics and Parallel Compute Benchmarks
Image 1 of 6
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 6
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 6
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 6
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 5 of 6
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 6 of 6
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
NAMD is a parallel molecular dynamics code designed to scale well with additional compute resources; it scales up to 500,000 cores and is one of the premier benchmarks used to quantify performance with simulation code. The Xeon 8380’s notch a 32% improvement in this benchmark, slightly beating the Rome chips.
Stockfish is a chess engine designed for the utmost in scalability across increased core counts — it can scale up to 512 threads. Here we can see that this massively parallel code scales well with EPYC’s leading core counts. The EPYC Rome 7742 retains its leading position at the top of the chart, but the 8380 offers more than twice the performance of the previous-gen Cascade Lake flagship.
We see similarly impressive performance uplifts in other molecular dynamics workloads, like the Gromacs water benchmark that simulates Newtonian equations of motion with hundreds of millions of particles. Here Intel’s dual 8380’s take the lead over the EPYC Rome 7742 while pushing out nearly twice the performance of the 28-core 8280.
We see a similarly impressive generational improvement in the LAAMPS molecular dynamics workload, too. Again, AMD’s Milan will likely be faster than the 7742 in this workload, so it isn’t a given that the 8380 has taken the definitive lead over AMD’s current-gen chips, though it has tremendously improved Intel’s competitive positioning.
The NAS Parallel Benchmarks (NPB) suite characterizes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications, and NASA designed it to measure performance from smaller CFD applications up to “embarrassingly parallel” operations. The BT.C test measures Block Tri-Diagonal solver performance, while the LU.C test measures performance with a lower-upper Gauss-Seidel solver. The EPYC Milan 7742 still dominates in this workload, showing that Ice Lake’s broad spate of generational improvements still doesn’t allow Intel to take the lead in all workloads.
Rendering Benchmarks
Image 1 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 4
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Turning to more standard fare, provided you can keep the cores fed with data, most modern rendering applications also take full advantage of the compute resources. Given the well-known strengths of EPYC’s core-heavy approach, it isn’t surprising to see the 64-core EPYC 7742 processors retain the lead in the C-Ray benchmark, and that applies to most of the Blender benchmarks, too.
Encoding Benchmarks
Image 1 of 3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 3
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Encoders tend to present a different type of challenge: As we can see with the VP9 libvpx benchmark, they often don’t scale well with increased core counts. Instead, they often benefit from per-core performance and other factors, like cache capacity. AMD’s frequency-optimized 7F52 retains its leading position in this benchmark, but Ice Lake again reduces the performance delta.
Newer software encoders, like the Intel-Netflix designed SVT-AV1, are designed to leverage multi-threading more fully to extract faster performance for live encoding/transcoding video applications. EPYC Rome’s increased core counts paired with its strong per-core performance beat Cascade Lake in this benchmark handily, but the step up to forty 10nm+ cores propels Ice Lake to the top of the charts.
Compression, Security and Python Benchmarks
Image 1 of 5
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 2 of 5
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 3 of 5
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 4 of 5
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Image 5 of 5
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The Pybench and Numpy benchmarks are used as a general litmus test of Python performance, and as we can see, these tests typically don’t scale linearly with increased core counts, instead prizing per-core performance. Despite its somewhat surprisingly low clock rates, the 8380 takes the win in the Pybench benchmark and improves Xeon’s standing in Numpy as it takes a close second to the 7F52.
Compression workloads also come in many flavors. The 7-Zip (p7zip) benchmark exposes the heights of theoretical compression performance because it runs directly from main memory, allowing both memory throughput and core counts to heavily impact performance. As we can see, this benefits the core-heavy chips as they easily dispatch with the chips with lesser core counts. The Xeon 8380 takes the lead in this test, but other independent benchmarks show that AMD’s EPYC Milan would lead this chart.
In contrast, the gzip benchmark, which compresses two copies of the Linux 4.13 kernel source tree, responds well to speedy clock rates, giving the 16-core 7F52 the lead. Here we see that 8380 is slightly slower than the previous-gen 8280, which is likely at least partially attributable to the 8380’s much lower clock rate.
The open-source OpenSSL toolkit uses SSL and TLS protocols to measure RSA 4096-bit performance. As we can see, this test favors the EPYC processors due to its parallelized nature, but the 8380 has again made big strides on the strength of its higher core count. Offloading this type of workload to dedicated accelerators is becoming more common, and Intel also offers its QAT acceleration built into chipsets for environments with heavy requirements.
Conclusion
Admittedly, due to our lack of EPYC Milan samples, our testing today of the Xeon Platinum 8380 is more of a demonstration of Intel’s gen-on-gen performance improvements rather than a holistic view of the current competitive landscape. We’re working to secure a dual-socket Milan server and will update when one lands in our lab.
Overall, Intel’s third-gen Xeon Scalable is a solid step forward for the Xeon franchise. AMD has steadily chewed away data center market share from Intel on the strength of its EPYC processors that have traditionally beaten Intel’s flagships by massive margins in heavily-threaded workloads. As our testing, and testing from other outlets shows, Ice Lake drastically reduces the massive performance deltas between the Xeon and EPYC families, particularly in heavily threaded workloads, placing Intel on a more competitive footing as it faces an unprecedented challenge from AMD.
AMD will still hold the absolute performance crown in some workloads with Milan, but despite EPYC Rome’s commanding lead in the past, progress hasn’t been as swift as some projected. Much of that boils down to the staunchly risk-averse customers in the enterprise and data center; these customers prize a mix of factors beyond the standard measuring stick of performance and price-to-performance ratios, instead focusing on areas like compatibility, security, supply predictability, reliability, serviceability, engineering support, and deeply-integrated OEM-validated platforms.
AMD has improved drastically in these areas and now has a full roster of systems available from OEMs, along with broadening uptake with CSPs and hyperscalers. However, Intel benefits from its incumbency and all the advantages that entails, like wide software optimization capabilities and platform adjacencies like networking, FPGAs, and Optane memory.
Although Ice Lake doesn’t lead in all metrics, it does improve the company’s positioning as it moves forward toward the launch of its Sapphire Rapids processors that are slated to arrive later this year to challenge AMD’s core-heavy models. Intel still holds the advantage in several criteria that appeal to the broader enterprise market, like pre-configured Select Solutions and engineering support. That, coupled with drastic price reductions, has allowed Intel to reduce the impact of a fiercely-competitive adversary. We can expect the company to redouble those efforts as Ice Lake rolls out to the more general server market.
Sony has officially launched Bravia CORE, its 4K lossless video streaming service. The bad news? It’s currently exclusive to those with a Bravia XR TV and a very fast internet connection.
As we reported in January, Bravia CORE uses Pure Stream technology to serve up the latest box office films at bitrates of between 30 Mbps – 80 Mbps, along with immersive DTS sound. In other words, similar or higher quality than that of most 4K Blu-ray discs.
Now, Sony has revealed that the Bravia CORE app will come pre-loaded on all new Bravia XR models including the A90J, Z9J, A80J, X95J and X90J. Lucky owners will get access to over 300 4K lossless titles such as Venom, Ghostbusters, Blade Runner 2049 and Jumanji: The Next Level.
Just how much ‘access’ depends on how much you splurge. Buy a range-topping A90J or Z9J and you’ll get free access to the service for 24 months and 10 credits to spend on lossless CORE titles that are otherwise available on pay-per-view basis. Buy any other Bravia XR model and you’ll get five credits and 12 months free access.
You’ll need a nippy broadband connection, too. While Netflix recommends a 25 Mbps connection for streaming 4K movies, Sony says Bravia CORE “requires a minimum internet speed of 43 Mbps.” In fact, streaming the highest quality lossless movies requires a minimum internet speed of – drumroll, please – 115Mbps. Holy smokes.
The service also claims “the largest IMAX Enhanced movie collection” – over 50 films remastered by IMAX and Sony Pictures to boost the image and sound on Bravia XR TVs. The selection appears to be pretty decent, and includes the likes of Baby Driver, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Little Women. Sony has also revealed that CORE will provide users access to a “separate library of movies to stream any time and as many times as they like, in up to 4K HDR quality.”
At this point, you might be wondering what happens when the free 24/12 month subscription expires? Will Bravia CORE continue to be free? That’s yet to be confirmed but according to Sony, “you may watch the movies you have redeemed via Bravia CORE until February 23, 2026”.
MORE:
Take a look at the best streaming services for TV and movies 2020
Our guide to the best TVs you can buy
Here are the best Apple TV+ shows and movies to watch right now
(Pocket-lint) – The Asus TUF Dash F15 is another of the company’s ultra-thin gaming laptops, which sports some serious specs in a compact, lightweight and portable frame.
Available in two colours with a small mix of specs options and some nifty design accents, the TUF Dash F15 is interesting enough on paper, but is it worth a buy? We’ve been gaming and working with it for a couple of weeks to find out.
A compact frame that packs power
Up to Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 GPU, 8GB GDDR6 RAM
Up to Intel Core i7-11370H processor
Up to 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz RAM
Up to 1TB M.2 NVMe
In classic Asus fashion, the TUF Dash F15 features some nifty tech packed into a compact frame. That chassis has been put through the usual military standard durability tests, which in reality results in a solid frame that feels robust and well built. It doesn’t bend or flex easily during use and yet is light enough to carry around with you, or position on your lap when gaming.
Outwardly the TUF Dash F15 is also easy on the eyes. It’s available in two different colours – Moonlight White or Eclipse Gray – with understated accents on the shell and an equally subtle backlit keyboard.
Super-narrow bezels also ensure maximum screen real-estate and “minimal distraction” – though this does come at the expense of a webcam (ugh!).
Hidden within that frame is some powerful tech with options that include some of the best from Nvidia and Intel. This means the TUF Dash F15 is a capable gaming machine that can take advantage of ray tracing and DLSS, while also maximising performance with Dynamic Boost and keeping things running quietly with Whisper Mode.
Pocket-lint
Naturally, the specs of this gaming laptop mean you can push the visuals up to maximum, but still get frame rates high enough to make the most of the 240hz screen. The Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 is more than capable of driving this 15.6-inch display at Full HD resolution and delivering smooth gameplay experiences with satisfying visuals.
With this spec, you can also manage streaming to Twitch and the like if you want, while the addition of a RJ45 connection means you’ll have a solid connection when doing so.
How to start streaming your gaming: All the gear you need
The keyboard on this laptop is fairly basic compared to other Asus laptops we’ve tested though. At least in terms of RGB lighting anyway. There are very basic settings here, with just a few effects and no per-key illumination. It does, however, have some nicely accented WASD keys which help those stand out.
Pro grade gaming screen options
15.6-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) anti-glare IPS display
Adaptive-sync panel – up to 240Hz refresh rate
Colour gamut: 100% sRGB, 75.35% Adobe
Benchmarks: Timespy, Timespy Extreme, Port Royal, Firestrike Ultra, Firestrike Extreme, PC Mark
Despite only being 15.6-inches, the panel on this gaming laptop gives the impression of something larger. The thin bezels mean the screen stands out nicely and didn’t lead us to feel like we were straining to see our targets in Rainbow Six Siege or struggling fighting skeletons in Valheim.
The viewing angles on this screen are also satisfying, as are the colours. The Adaptive-Sync tech means the panel is also synchronised nicely with the GPU which results in ultra-smooth gaming visuals.
As with other Asus gaming laptops, the TUF Dash F15 lets you use Armoury Crate to tweak the visuals. There are various settings that adjust the colours of the screen to suit your mood or need. This includes settings for Vivid, Cinema, RTS, FPS, and Eye Care. You can tweak what you’re seeing to maximise the look and feel of a game or eliminate eye-taxing blue light if you’re simply using the laptop for work.
Armoury Crate also lets you do things like monitor system performance, frequencies and temperatures, and switch between the various performance modes to increase power or reduce fan noise.
Performance-wise, the TUF Dash F15 does a good job. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the ROG Strix G15 we tested recently but still manages some decent frame-rates.
Where that laptop managed 64fps on Assassin’s Creed Odyessy, this TUF Dash F15 averaged 50fps. Similarly, the G15 pushed 200fps in Rainbow Six Siege while the TUF Dash F15 got around the 150fps mark. Still, those aren’t performance levels to be sniffed at on the maximum settings – but shows that the slender frame has an impact overall.
Convenient connectivity?
1x Thunderbolt 4 (USB 4, supports DisplayPort)
3x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.0b
1x 3.5mm jack, noise-cancelling mic
1x RJ45 LAN port
Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax)
Bluetooth 5.1
Continuing a trend of usefulness, the TUF Dash F15 sports a decent number of ports and connectivity options. For those serious gamers looking to stream or game with a solid connection, there’s an Ethernet port, but the machine is also Wi-Fi 6 capable – which means a solid and satisfying connection whatever you’re doing.
There’s also no shortage of USB ports. Though we will note Asus has chosen to place two of them on the right-hand side, which is a pain when you’re trying to use a dedicated gaming mouse rather than the lacklustre trackpad for your gaming sessions.
Yes, we didn’t get on with the trackpad on this laptop. It’s finicky and frustrating and the fact that two out of the three USB Type-A ports are on the right means you need a decent amount of desk space to comfortably game and not have wires get in the way – unless you have a wireless mouse.
That’s not the only connection niggle either. Once again, if you want to use DisplayPort to output to an external monitor you’ll need to buy an adapter as it’s only available via USB-C. There’s no standard DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort connection – which is a pain if you’re planning on gaming in VR.
As with other recent thin and light gaming laptops from Asus, there’s also the distinct lack of a webcam. This is an odd choice in our mind considering how many Teams, Skype and Zoom video calls we’ve all been having in the last year. If you’re purely using it for gaming though, then it’s not a bother – as you’ll want a better accessory separate anyway.
Best webcam: Top cameras for video calling
The TUF Dash F15 has speakers that are capable enough to overpower its cooling fans and a two-way noise cancellation mic setup which means you can be heard if you’re using the built-in mic to chat to friends. It’s still worth investing in a decent gaming headset if you really want to get lost in the games – as on max settings the fans are far from quiet and you will eventually get fed up with the white noise whirr from them.
Battery life
76WHr li-ion battery
200W AC charger
One area the TUF Dash F15 impresses is battery life. We could get through most of the day working and browsing and we also managed hours and hours of Netflix watching before the machine ran out of juice. In a gaming specific laptop away from the plug that’s an unusual accomplishment.
The best Chromebook 2021: Our pick of the top Chrome OS laptops for school, college and more
By Dan Grabham
·
Pocket-lint
We did note a performance hit when playing on battery alone – and that was a more significant one than we encountered with the Strix G15. But then if you want to make the most of the display you’ll be using it plugged in for gaming anyway.
But for general day-to-day use, this laptop won’t disappoint and you certainly won’t find yourself running for the plug every five minutes.
Verdict
All told, the Asus TUF Dash F15 manages to live up to expectations. It’s a decent performer with some nice specification options – at a price tag that isn’t going to make you cry.
With the right games you’ll get some seriously impressive frame rates to make the most of the fast-refresh screen. When maxing out those games this laptop doesn’t get too hot or loud either, all while lasting for a decent innings on battery alone.
What more could you want? Well, there are other options that can squeeze out yet more performance – but it’ll depend on just how much more you’re willing or able to spend for that performance bump.
Also consider
Pocket-lint
Asus ROG Strix G15
squirrel_widget_4304199
A more premium device with a heftier price tag to match, but it’s really a magnificent gaming laptop. There’s more RGB for a start, better performance overall, and a lot more style.
Read our review
Pocket-lint
Razer Blade 15 Advanced
squirrel_widget_2693967
If understated externals are your thing, then this Razer might be another alternative. Again, it’s another powerhouse, but this laptop is a pleaser in multiple areas – apart from the massive price, but of course.
Hi, it’s Jay, and I’m holding down the fort for Kim today, which means I get to do a trailer roundup. I apparently picked a good week to take this responsibility, as there were a lot of good trailers to pick from — it seems like media companies are gearing up for a big year in movies and TV shows.
Let’s get right into it.
Black Widow
My wife and I spent the first part of this year watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as we got further along, we couldn’t believe that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow didn’t have her own movie yet. So as you might expect, we’re very excited to see Black Widow, especially after the new trailer that came out on Saturday.
Black Widow will debut on July 9th in theaters and on Disney Plus as a $30 Premiere Access title.
The Suicide Squad
Speaking of superhero films (or in this case, I guess antiheroes), Warner Bros. released a second trailer for The Suicide Squad less than a week after debuting the first one. The film, helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn, is packed with an all-star cast, including Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Idris Elba as Bloodsport, and even Sylvester Stallone as a giant CGI shark-man named King Shark.
The Suicide Squad premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on August 6th.
Rick and Morty season 5
I’m just going to be totally honest here: despite Rick and Morty being a constant thing on the internet and also being something that looks totally up my alley, I have never seen a single episode and know basically nothing about it. But if you’ve been looking forward to season five, an official trailer hit this week. The new season premieres on Adult Swim on June 20th.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch
Star Wars: The Bad Batch is a new animated series heading to Disney Plus. “Members of Bad Batch—a unique squad of clones who vary genetically from their brothers in the Clone Army—each possess a singular exceptional skill that makes them extraordinarily effective soldiers and a formidable crew,” according to Disney. It’s executive produced by Dave Filoni, who also executive produced The Clone Wars, Rebels, and the The Mandalorian.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch debuts May 4th (aka Star Wars Day).
Shadow and Bone
Shadow and Bone is a new Netflix series based on the hit young adult novel trilogy. “Dark forces conspire against orphan mapmaker Alina Starkov when she unleashes an extraordinary power that could change the fate of her war-torn world,” according to a description by Netflix. I actually just got the first book in the series from the library, and I’m looking forward to reading it ahead of Shadow and Bone’s premiere on April 23rd.
Yasuke
Yasuke is a new Neflix anime that’s based on a true story of a Black samurai from the 16th century. The main character is voiced by LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Judas and the Black Messiah) and the show has a soundtrack from Flying Lotus. It debuts on Netflix on April 29th.
Space Jam: A New Legacy
Warner Bros. debuted the first trailer to Space Jam’s long-awaited sequel on Saturday. Space Jam: A New Legacy stars LeBron James and the classic Looney Tunes characters, but will also include appearances from iconic Warner Bros. characters like the Iron Giant, King Kong, and even Fred Flintstone. (Warner Bros. multiverse incoming, I guess.)
Space Jam: A New Legacy premieres in theaters and on HBO Max on July 16th. (And if you were wondering: the old-school 1996 Space Jam website lives on.)
Clubhouse had an incredible year in one most of us would rather forget. The live audio app launched during a pandemic; gained more than 10 million downloads for an invite-only, iOS-only app; and succeeded to the point that most every social platform wants to copy it. Congrats to Clubhouse.
The company now faces its biggest challenges yet, however. For one, the pandemic is waning, and people might be more interested in real-life socializing instead of conversations facilitated through their phone. Anyone advertising their backyard as the next great Clubhouse competitor has a point. But for the people who do end up wanting to talk to each other online, they’ll soon have a lot more places to do so. In case you haven’t kept up: Twitter, Facebook (reportedly), LinkedIn, Discord, Spotify, Mark Cuban, and Slack have all launched or are working on their own attempts at social audio — the space is about to get busy.
The great concern for Clubhouse is that, as I postulated in February, social audio could follow the same trajectory as Snapchat’s Stories function: a brilliant social media-altering idea that goes on to live in every app to the detriment of the upstart that pioneered the format. And social audio is shaping up to go that way. With the threat growing, it’s worth looking at where Clubhouse is most likely to run into problems.
But first: what does Clubhouse have going for it? It was the first to social audio, and that’s something. Already, it counts millions of users who come to Clubhouse solely for social audio content, and that includes headline-grabbing names like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and other celebrities. Tech CEOs are even making announcements in Clubhouse, including Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield, who announced his company’s own copycat product in the app. The app generates news and discussions — that’s something much trickier for other companies to clone.
People have also built habits around Clubhouse, which is a positive sign for user retention. The team also plans to launch a creators program in the near future that’ll reward its most dedicated users with revenue and resources to beef up their shows.
And critically, the app has staffed up in just the past month. The company recently poached Fadia Kader from Instagram to lead its media partnerships and creators. At Instagram, she worked with musicians to help them optimize their work on the platform. Presumably, she’ll be doing something similar at Clubhouse. Already, I’ve seen her in a room with Justin Bieber talking about his most recent album. Clubhouse also hired Maya Watson from Netflix to become its head of global marketing, meaning it’ll soon dedicate resources to promoting Clubhouse rather than relying primarily on word of mouth. These are all important steps to keeping Clubhouse interesting and thriving.
But the app now faces competition from some of the world’s biggest platforms, which already have years of moderation experience, are available on iOS and Android, and have massive, loyal user bases to whom they can push social audio. Some companies, like Twitter and Discord, already pushed social audio features live to their millions of users with effectively the same interface as Clubhouse. Anyone who didn’t have an invite to Clubhouse, or an iPhone, now can access the magic of social audio with no association to Clubhouse whatsoever.
Maybe the most dangerous possibility for Clubhouse, however, is how easily it could lose the big names on its platform to challengers. Spotify, which announced this week that it acquired Betty Labs, the maker of the sports-centric social audio app Locker Room, plans to bring the app to Android, change its name, and broaden its coverage to music, culture, and sports. It could directly compete with Clubhouse for talent. Joe Rogan, for example, recently joined a Clubhouse chat, and although Spotify’s head of R&D tells me the company won’t restrict its podcasters from using other social audio apps, it’s easy to imagine the company encouraging the use of its own. Musicians, like Bieber, who maybe came to Clubhouse to debut music, might turn to Spotify’s app instead to maintain relationships with the streaming giant. As a point of reference, when Kylie Jenner tweeted that she barely opened Snapchat anymore, the company’s stock lost $1.3 billion. If stars like Tiffany Haddish decide to spend their time elsewhere, Clubhouse will falter, too.
At the same time, a few of these competitors are specifically interested in building native recording into their app, possibly to fuel the podcasting ecosystem and on-demand listening. Clubhouse has yet to do this. Fireside, which was co-founded by Mark Cuban, allows people to input sound effects, like music, and record their shows for distribution across podcasting platforms, as well as later playback on the app itself. Spotify will likely do the same with its app and rely on its Anchor software to handle hosting and distribution. Twitter’s head of consumer product told The Verge that it, too, would let people natively record their Spaces. Clubhouse hasn’t built that functionality, limiting its users to only live conversations, which can be hard to follow if they join them midway through. Context collapse will challenge every platform that focuses on live, but some of Clubhouse’s competitors are already working to solve that.
Stories made Snapchat a success. It pioneered the idea of ephemeral content and brought some semblance of authenticity back to social media. But it didn’t take long for the functionality to come to the same competitors Clubhouse now faces. To make its business work, Snapchat doubled down on its Android app, made the app more approachable to new users through a redesign, and aggressively pursued content partnerships with media and entertainment companies. It now pays users to make content for its TikTok competitor Spotlight and supports a growing ad business, but Instagram ultimately came away with the crown for Stories. Clubhouse hasn’t yet pursued ads or subscriptions, but that’ll be the next step to make it a self-supported platform. (Notably, though, its competitors, like Facebook, already rule ad targeting, possibly making Clubhouse’s job of selling ads or access to the platform itself tougher.)
None of this is to say Clubhouse won’t survive or build a strong business in the coming months and years. It just needs to stay in the conversation.
Netflix just released the first good look at Yasuke, its upcoming anime based on the true story of a Black samurai who lived in Japan during the 16th century. Despite the real-life source material, the show takes a few liberties with the story, as you can see in the fantastical first trailer.
Here’s the basic synopsis from Netflix:
In a war-torn feudal Japan filled with mechs and magic, the greatest ronin never known, Yasuke, struggles to maintain a peaceful existence after a past life of violence. But when a local village becomes the center of social upheaval between warring daimyo, Yasuke must take up his sword and transport a mysterious child who is the target of dark forces and bloodthirsty warlords. The story of Yasuke, the first African samurai who actually served the legendary Oda Nobunaga, will be released to the world.
The six-episode series also has some serious talent behind it. The show was created by LeSean Thomas (best known for creating Cannon Busters), the lead character is voiced by LaKeith Stanfield, the soundtrack comes from Flying Lotus, and the animation is being handled by beloved studio MAPPA.
Novelty of working from home wearing a little thin? Children climbing the walls? Missing those carefree double-kisses and bear hugs from relatives and acquaintances?
Or are you feeling something else? Whisper it lest she disappear, but might that something actually be the muse descending?
“An artist is always alone – if he’s an artist,” said author Henry Miller. “No, what the artist needs is loneliness.” As if in agreement, the very second lockdown measures kicked in, social media feeds filled up with news that Shakespeare managed to pen King Lear, Macbeth, and most of Antony and Cleopatra in quarantine during a plague outbreak. (No all-new Netflix Originals or Amazon Prime Video documentaries to distract him, eh?)
In 1665, Isaac Newton found himself working from home following the closure of Cambridge University during the Bubonic plague. After sticking blunt needles into his eye (seriously) and watching apples fall from trees for a bit, he managed not only to explain gravity, but also to develop theories on optics and calculus that irrevocably changed our understanding of the universe. Not bad considering all we’ve managed to do today is upload an Instagram story and watch three episodes of Unforgotten on ITV Hub.
So, what of the socially distant musician during this and other periods of solitude? Turns out they too have been busy. What follows is our curated list of bands and solo artists who, owing to a series of unfortunate events, managed to write, record and release superb albums in complete isolation.
And ultimately it means we have no excuse. Do not pass go, do not collect £200 and do not visit Twitter. Read these examples for inspiration, then pick up your instrument. Get to work.
10 of the best podcasts for music lovers
Cross Road Blues by Robert Johnson (1936)
(Image credit: Robert Johnson)
Robert Johnson died in 1938, aged 27, having recorded only 29 songs of which we know. Of these, 16 were taped alone in room 414 at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, on a single-reel Grundig recorder, less than two years before his death.
Nobody knows for sure how Johnson died – theories include poisoning, a gunshot wound, pneumonia, syphilis and stabbing – but his rumoured Faustian pact with the devil at a crossroads (his soul in return for otherworldly guitar powers) is the stuff of music legend.
Johnson’s work was not widely played until at least 25 years after his death. Indeed, Johnson never received any royalties for his songs and was paid in cash by his record label. Yet, according to Eric Clapton and almost any other iconic guitar player you can think of, Robert Johnson is “the most important blues musician who ever lived”.
Clapton released not one but two collections of songs by Johnson: Me and Mr. Johnson and the EP Sessions for Robert J, alongside a TV documentary of the same name aired in 2004 by the BBC.
Johnson simultaneously used elements of Delta blues – fingerpicking, sliding, strumming – while layering his own unique techniques and forms found in flamenco guitar. And then he sang on top. Only Robert Johnson (and the devil himself, if you believe the legend) will ever know exactly how he performed some of the tracks recorded in that hotel room.
Only two photos of Johnson are known to exist, despite musicologists and historians scouring the globe for more. What we do have is his music – and most of it was recorded in glorious solitude, in a hotel now owned by Sheraton.
“Who is the other guy playing with him?” Keith Richards asked fellow Rolling Stone Brian Jones on first hearing a Robert Johnson song, “I was hearing two guitars – it took a long time to actually realise he was doing it all by himself.”
Richards later said, “His playing was like Bach.”
Listen to Robert Johnson’s Complete Recordings on Tidal
Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen (1982)
(Image credit: Bruce Springsteen)
What does Bruce Springsteen do after his fifth studio album – a double LP featuring stone cold bangers Hungry Heart and Cadillac Ranch alongside the full force of the raucous E-Street Band?
He buys a Teac four-track cassette recorder and lays down 15 songs alone, in his house, through the night on 3rd January 1982. He sings, plays guitar, and uses the other two tracks to add a harmony vocal or an alternative guitar.
He thinks he’s going to teach the songs to the rest of the band when they get into the recording studio. He carries that demo cassette around in his pocket, without a case, for “a couple of weeks”. Then, after a bit more thought, The Boss decides to release the demo as is, without the band – the songs are a little too personal to be altered.
Owing to the recording process, it was apparently hard to release the thing as a record (the needle wouldn’t track in the wax properly because of the distortion it picked up) to the point that the label nearly released it as a cassette-only affair.
Springsteen named the album after one of the songs, Nebraska (the birthplace of Kool-Aid, but hardly America’s most exciting State) and never toured to promote it.
And still, Nebraska is one of the most highly-regarded albums in Springsteen’s substantial back catalogue.
Even one of the tracks that Springsteen recorded for the album, then shelved, (eventually giving it the E-Street Band treatment and releasing it in 1984) isn’t bad – it’s called Born in the USA.
Listen to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska on Tidal
Exile on Main Street by The Rolling Stones (1972)
(Image credit: The Rolling Stones)
Rolling stones gather no moss, but they do rack up ridiculously high tax bills. And so it was that, after becoming quite successful in the late 1960s, The Rolling Stones found themselves at a villa called Nellcôte in the south of France in 1972.
Keith Richards rented the house, where the band lived as tax exiles and sheltered their earnings in a Netherlands holding company.
Exile on Main Street was the band’s tenth album. The Stones were already well versed on recording nowhere near a proper studio – much of the recording of their prior album, Sticky Fingers, had been done at Mick Jagger’s country-pile Hampshire home using a mobile recording studio. The same mobile studio was simply transferred to Nellcôte and set up in the basement of the villa.
Keith Richards lived upstairs and the band had frequent house guests – so not self-isolation as we’ve become accustomed to, recently, but still.
Often, other musician friends would amble down to the studio to jam with Keith, or stay to record tracks with the whole band. Such daily recording sessions went on through the night. Without formal studio rules, there’s a delightfully bohemian, laissez-faire feel to the whole album.
Listen to The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street on Tidal
Original Pirate Material by The Streets (2001)
(Image credit: The Streets)
Recorded mostly within the confines of his Brixton home over the course of about a year, Skinner’s debut album as The Streets is an inventive collage of beats and lazily delivered lines about life among Britain’s working class that proves there is worth in music recording now being at every person’s fingertips.
In his autobiography, The Story Of The Streets, Skinner discusses how he cleared out a wardrobe to create a vocal booth, deadening its sound with duvets, pillows and mattresses.
The album got to number 12 in the UK Album Charts in 2002, but got another lease of life and peaked at number 10 in 2004 – after the release of The Streets’ chart-topping second album A Grand Don’t Come For Free.
The sobering cover artwork (main photo) is a night-time shot of the south face of the Kestrel House tower block on City Road, London, taken in 1995 by German photographer Rut Blees Luxemburg.
Listen to Original Pirate Material on Tidal
Greystone Chapel by Glen Sherley/Johnny Cash (1968)
(Image credit: Johnny Cash)
Although Greystone Chapel was the song that made Glen Sherley the most famous prison inmate and country-music singer/songwriter alive, Sherley wrote many songs in lock-up and even recorded an entire album in his cell.
Sherley was in and out of several prisons throughout the 1950s and ’60s. When Johnny Cash discovered him in 1968, Sherley was doing a bit for armed robbery in Folsom.
In a 1994 interview with Life Magazine, Johnny Cash said: “The night before I was going to record at Folsom Prison, I got to the motel and a preacher friend of mine brought me a tape of a song called Greystone Chapel. He said a convict had written it about the chapel at Folsom.
“I listened to it one time and I said: ‘I’ve got to do this in the show tomorrow.’ So I stayed up and learned it, and the next day the preacher had him in the front row. I announced: ‘This song was written by Glen Sherley.’ It was a terrible, terrible thing to point him out among all those cons, but I didn’t think about that then. Everybody just had a fit, screaming and carrying on.”
Greystone Chapel was recorded live, along with the rest of Cash’s At Folsom Prison album, on 13th January 1968 and released in May of that year.
After Greystone Chapel, country singer Eddy Arnold sniffed out Sherley’s music and recorded another Sherley song in 1971, Portrait Of My Woman. It became the title track of Arnold’s next album.
Sherley was given the permission by prison officials to record a live album, Glen Sherley, while still in jail. The album was released by Mega Records and was a big success.
When Sherley was released from Prison in 1971, Cash met him at the gates. Sadly though, the story doesn’t end well. In May 1978, two days after shooting someone, Sherley put a gun to his own head. He was 42. The funeral was paid for by Cash.
Listen to Glen Sherley on Tidal or Spotify
how i’m feeling now by Charli XCX (2020)
(Image credit: Charli XCX)
Charli XCX’s fourth album really is a product of the pandemic: conceived during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, made in collaboration with her fans over the following 39 days and released on 15th May 2020, thus elegantly encapsulating the confusion, loneliness and boredom of our first long stint at home.
On 6th April 2020, Charli XCX announced in a public Zoom call with fans that she would be working on a new album in self-isolation, stating, “The nature of this album is going to be very indicative of the times just because I’m only going to be able to use the tools I have at my fingertips to create all music, artwork, videos everything.”
Although the result will undoubtedly (and rightly) be used as a kind of sonic photograph in the years to come – owing both to its subject matter and how Charlotte Aitchison used social media to workshop the tracks – how i’m feeling now is a timeless triumph.
The Cambridge-born songwriter’s knack of finding an absorbing melody or phrase can’t be ignored. The first track, Pink Diamond, came to Aitchison during an At Home With Apple Music interview between herself, Dua Lipa and and Jennifer Lopez, after J. Lo recounted talking to Barbara Streisand about Ben Affleck’s gift of that iconic rock. The compelling DIY electronics should also be celebrated, whether or not we’re able to dance, mingle and talk freely again soon.
Listen to Charlie XCX’s how i’m feeling now on Tidal
20 of the best albums of 2020
OK Computer by Radiohead (1997)
(Image credit: Radiohead)
Radiohead recorded and self-produced OK Computer in a 16th-century, Grade I listed Tudor Mansion called St. Catherine’s Court in Bath, owned by actress Jane Seymour. She rented the house to the band on the condition that they feed her cat in her absence.
Almost every song on this third Radiohead album (the studio-recorded 1995 Lucky is the exception)was laid down in that house.
If ever a song perfectly captured dystopian, apocalyptic self-isolation, it’s Climbing Up the Walls. There’s nothing quite like that guttural scream at the end for the cabin feverish.
As if to emphasise its socially distanced rhetoric, Thom Yorke has compared the acoustic guitar-heavy opening of the song Exit Music (For a Film), to Johnny Cash’s At Folsom Prison (listed, above).
Listen to Radiohead’s OK Computer on Tidal
For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver (2008)
(Image credit: Bon Iver)
Justin Vernon wrote, recorded and self-released his debut breakthrough Bon Iver
album, For Emma, Forever Ago, in his dad’s hunting cabin in the woods of Wisconsin.
Vernon, frustrated with trying to write songs and somehow pay the bills while working in a sandwich shop, left his place in Raleigh, North Carolina, and drove for 18 hours to the remote hunting cabin – set in 80 acres of land an hour northwest of his hometown, Eau Claire in Wisonsin – hoping for some time alone.
He recorded the entire album in the cabin, on an old Mac with ProTools, throughout the winter of 2006 into early 2007 – when he wasn’t hunting for food. He apparently killed two deer during his three month residence in the cabin and had one scary encounter with a bear, which was enticed by the smell of his cooking.
The album is focused on a break-up he’d struggled to get over.
“I had nothing but the sound of my own thoughts, and they were really loud when that’s all that was going on,” Vernon later said on his near-complete isolation. We’ve all been there.
Though he hadn’t intended to make an album, encouragement from friends did the trick and he self-released For Emma, Forever Ago – after a little help with mastering – in July 2007. He was signed to the independent label Jagjaguwar later that year and the rest, as they say, is history.
Listen to Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago on Tidal
461 Ocean Boulevard by Eric Clapton (1974)
(Image credit: Eric Clapton)
This was the album that gave Eric Clapton his first US number one LP and single – his cover of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ I Shot the Sheriff. It also marked Clapton’s return to recording after recovering from a three-year addiction to heroin. The album topped various international charts and sold more than two million copies.
The title of the record refers to a house in the small town of Golden Beach, Miami – the house that Clapton’s manager at the time, Robert Stigwood, paid for him to live in so that he might, perhaps, write and record new music. After overcoming his substance addiction, Clapton confessed that he’d wasted three years of his life, barely managing to do anything except watch TV and get out of shape.
Clapton worked on a farm for a little while, listening to music from artists such as Robert Johnson (featured above), and even lending his guitar skills to the rock opera Tommy – which you can read about in our 10 best musical theatre soundtracks to test your speakers feature.
He was given a demo tape by former Derek and the Dominos bassist, Carl Radle, which contained collaborations between Radle, keyboardist Dick Sims and drummer Jamie Oldaker. Clapton felt inspired and ready to write new material.
The whole album was recorded from April to May 1974. Although Clapton did venture into the Criteria studios in Miami to record, he wrote, practiced, recuperated and sang alone with Blackie, his Fender, in the Floridian rented house pictured on the album sleeve.
Listen to Eric Clapton’s 461 Ocean Boulevard on Tidal
65 great British albums to test your hi-fi system
11 of the best musical soundtracks to test your speakers
8 albums recorded in strange places
10 of the best movie scores to test your system
10 best tracks to test your system’s treble
We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
