Victoria Fox's Blog, page 154

Specs for non-K-Raptor Lake Refresh CPUs online, including boost clocks

@momomo_us has posted specifications of the as yet unannounced non-K processors from Intel’s Raptor Lake Refresh series online. This concerns 12 SKUs, including five economical T models (35 W) and two ‘Intel 300’ CPUs.

The boost clock speeds are particularly interesting here; These were not yet included in previously published specifications. As expected, they appear to average about 200 MHz higher than their predecessors.

Fashion model Cores Cache Clock speed TDP Intel Core i9-14900 24 36MB up to 5.8 GHz 65 W Intel Core i9-14900T 24 36MB up to 5.5 GHz 35 W Intel Core i7-14700 20 33MB up to 5.4 GHz 65 W Intel Core i7-14700T 20 33MB up to 5.2 GHz 35 W Intel Core i5-14500 14 24MB up to 5.0 GHz 65 W Intel Core i5-14500T 14 24MB up to 4.8 GHz 35 W Intel Core i5-14400 10 20MB up to 4.7 GHz 65 W Intel Core i5-14400T 10 20MB up to 4.5 GHz 35 W Intel Core i3-14100 4 12MB up to 4.7 GHz 60W Intel Core i3-14100T 4 12MB up to 4.4 GHz 35 W Intel 300 2 6MB 3.9GHz 46 W Intel 300T 2 4MB 3.4GHz 35 W

The Intel Core i5-14600 and -14600T seem noticeably missing from the list. The i5-14600 was already stress tested by another Twitter user earlier this month. This installment of the Raptor Lake Refresh series is expected to be released sometime early next year.

Source: Twitter

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TorrentFreak investigates film industry claim that 90% of pirated films are shot in cinemas

At a time when streaming services are ubiquitous and many films are never seen on the big screen, a striking claim has been made by the United Kingdom’s Film Content Protection Agency, or FCPA. Namely that as many as 90% of pirated films are removed from cinemas or included in them. The statement was made at an award ceremony for vigilant cinema employees who would combat film piracy.

Within the entertainment industry, online piracy is seen as a major threat to the industry’s revenues. Films in particular are often placed online illegally. Various lobby groups and organizations are trying to do everything they can to take down websites that host this type of content, as well as lobby for stricter laws and enforcement. According to the FCPA, 90% of films that are illegally posted online have their origins in cinemas. However, none of the films could be traced back to cinemas in the UK or Ireland.

Alarm bells immediately started ringing at TorrentFreak following this statement. It seems very unlikely that so many of the pirated films that can be found online come from the cinema since the majority were never found there in the first place. Even by simply looking at the offerings on pirate websites, it is immediately clear that only a very small proportion of the films are shot by a camera. TorrenFreak even states that FCPA may have been off by an order of magnitude, and the real figure may be 9%.

The possibly original article from The Guardian in which this 90% was mentioned.

TorrentFreak therefore inquired with the ‘Film Distributors Association’ or FDA, under which the FCPA falls. There was no response and other anti-piracy groups in the UK were also unable to comment on this figure. The figure therefore appears to simply be a repetition of an old figure that has been mentioned for decades by rights-holding organizations. For example, it was named FACT by anti-piracy group in 2016, also without any evidence. By looking further back in time, TorrentFreak discovered that the 90% may date from an article by the Guardian in 2004. Something that is clearly no longer relevant at the moment, even if it were about online content. The original 90% appears to concern illegal DVDs that were circulated and confiscated before the release of films. This is no more than a logical number given that the legal supply for those films at that time only concerned the cinema.

Source: TorrentFreak

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First look: Corsair iCue Link. The solution for cable spaghetti in your cupboard?

From BAT to ATX

Many of the things you encounter when building a PC took shape years ago. The ATX standard dates from 1995 and was devised by Intel to cope with the heat development of the Pentium II. Before that, the Baby AT format (BAT) was popular, which indeed had its origins in IBM’s AT computer. Looking back, these standards have had a lot of impact in recent years. Developments naturally continued after 1995. As a result, basic motherboards still resemble the original design, but plenty of changes have been made as well. Many connections have been added, such as PCI Express, SATA and USB.

A motherboard such as the Abit BP6 from the early days of Hardware Info does not look much like a modern motherboard for an Intel or AMD processor.

The Abit BP6 was an ATX motherboard from the early days of Hardware Info.

You see a lot of development in some areas, especially with regard to cooling. Air cooling was the standard for years, and lighting consisted of little more than an LED that indicated whether the system was switched on or not.

Nowadays that is different. Processors run much warmer than the Pentium II of the time, and many people see RGB lighting as an addition to the design of their computer. This leads to enormous cable clutter in modern systems.

Various manufacturers try to make it easier for you by offering the option to connect fans together, so-called ‘daisy chaining’. That solution is not new; Lian Li and Phanteks even have a lawsuit going on about it. Corsair also supplies such products. In this article we look at iCue Link, the new system from this brand.

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DigitalPakt Age: Rosi uses her phone

“To listen to the voice message, you have to press the triangle,” says Dirk.

Rosi brings her smartphone and her eyes so close together, as if she wanted to pull a wafer-thin thread through a narrow tab.

“There’s no triangle,” she says.

“It’s the same symbol as a CD player, you have that at home,” says Dirk.

Rosi presses randomly on the screen of her smartphone – until she hits the triangle and the device plays a test voice message. Ah, that’s how it works.

Rosi Nehring is 81 years old and retired. She’s here in the seminar room with the LED grid lights to learn what apps are available, how to uninstall one – and how to listen to a voice message. For Rosi, this isn’t just a gimmick, it’s central to her being able to continue to participate in life. Because she is almost blind, her eyesight is getting worse and worse, she has a blind ID card. And life, these days, often takes place digitally.

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Review: Shokz Opencomm 2. Free ears and chat

Bone conduction for professionals

In addition to earphones and headphones, there is a third category in the portable audio market: open-ear models that use bone conduction. Shokz is one of the best-known brands that supplies them. It not only offers models aimed at (outdoor) sports, but also a professional variant designed for office use. The Shokz OpenComm 2 costs about 250 euros.

Earphones and headphones have a disadvantage: your ears are always covered in some way. If you wear them longer, they will start to bother you over time. Furthermore, it can be inconvenient that you do not get everything from your surroundings when using headphones. This can be a solution if you need to focus, but is not useful in every environment.

If you need to be able to hear clearly what is happening around you, or if you find the feeling of headphones annoying, bone conduction may be a solution. Bone conduction sounds a bit strange, but it works surprisingly well in practice. The sound quality is certainly not at the same level as that of luxury hi-fi headphones. The quality is functional; In our opinion, certainly good enough to listen to some music while you work or to follow a podcast, but not for an in-depth music analysis.

The OpenComm 2 differs from Shokz’s other models in that it has a microphone that you can place in front of your mouth. The brand mentions that noise cancellation is built-in. It works reasonably well, but is of a lower standard than headsets from specialist brands such as Poly, Epos and Logitech. The quality is better than without a microphone; Chatting colleagues are less audible in a call.

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Microsoft is pulling the plug on its Windows Mixed Reality platform for XR headsets

Microsoft is pulling the plug on one of its Windows services for the umpteenth time this year. This time it is the turn of the Mixed Reality platform. It is possible to operate various games, apps and Windows programs with compatible mixed reality headsets. Word, Edge, Netflix and Skype, among others, could be used in an augmented reality environment. In addition to Microsoft’s own HoloLens glasses, headsets from Dell, Asus, HP and Lenovo, among others, were also supported.

Microsoft has now put the Mixed Reality Portal app and Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR on its deprecated features list after six years, meaning the platform will be removed in a future version of Windows. The company does not say why it is discontinuing this service, but it did appear earlier this year that Microsoft is scaling down its VR department. This would include the team working on the HoloLens.

In 2022, a report came out claiming that Microsoft has stopped developing the third version of this headset. However, updates are still being released for the HoloLens 2; it is even planned that a modified version of that headset will be used by the American army.

Source: Microsoft

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Apple researchers develop method to run AI models locally on iPhones

Apple researchers have developed a method that allows the company’s devices, such as iPhones, to run their own large language models locally, without exceeding the available memory of those devices. In a research paper, the team writes that they have developed a new technique for this, with which the data from the AI model can be temporarily stored in the flash memory of the device, so that the dram capacity is not exceeded (PDF).

This uses two methods that minimize data transfer and maximize throughput. The first, ‘ windowing ‘, ensures that some data that has already been processed can be reused, thus requiring less memory to be retrieved. With ‘ row-column bundling ‘ it is then possible to group data so that it can be read from the flash memory more quickly.

By combining these methods, AI models that take up to twice the amount of available dram memory of iPhones could still run locally on them. This technology is also said to work four to five times faster than when loaded directly into CPUs, and even twenty to twenty-five faster than into GPUs. The researchers speak of a technological ‘breakthrough’ that will be crucial in ‘the use of advanced LLMs in environments with limited resources’. It is not stated whether this means that a future iPhone will actually contain on-device AI.

Source: Apple Research (PDF)

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AMD's RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT now also in DUAL version at ASUS

Asus has now also released AMD’s RX 7700 XT and 7800 XT video cards in Dual versions. Until now, the manufacturer only had them in TUF Gaming and, in the case of the 7800 XT, TUF Gaming White variant.

Asus’ Dual Radeon 7800 XT (16 GB).

The Duals are clocked slightly lower, with a boost and game clock of 2599 MHz and 2239 MHz respectively for the RX 7700 XT, and 2520 MHz and 2213 MHz for the RX 7800 XT, in OC mode. In addition, as the “Dual” name suggests, the cards are cooled by two fans, instead of three in the TUF versions.

Asus still has surprisingly few RX 7000 cards in its range: 14, compared to 72 Nvidia RTX 4000 SKUs. The new Duals are expected to be priced slightly lower than the already available TUFs, which now retail for around €520 (7700 XT) and €600 (7800 XT).

Sources: ASUS (1), (2)

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PIF: Saudi ambition to be the largest sovereign fund in 2030

The firm behind the buyer of 9.9% of Telefónica aims to reach 1.7 trillion assets under management by the end of this decade. 23% of investments are abroad.

Saudi Telecom Company’s (STC) investment of around 2.1 billion euros to take 9.9% of Telefónica, directly and through derivatives, represents just 0.3% of the 700 billion assets managed by the Public Investment Fund ( PIF). AND

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Telefónica and the unions will meet next Thursday to close the ERE

The unions will inform Telefónica next Thursday, December 28, if they accept its final proposal on the employment regulation file (ERE), with 3,421 affected, and the new collective agreement, which includes the 36-hour work day.

A day before, the advisory bodies of UGT and CCOO will meet to ratify or not the principle of agreement reached with the company in both areas last Thursday, December 21, after a day of intense negotiations, as reported to the Efe agency. union sources.

They did so in a context marked by the announcement that the State Society of Industrial Participations (Sepi) had received the order from the Government to buy up to 10% of its capital , which will mean the return of the State to the operator 26 years later. of his departure , with a participation that could position him as the first shareholder.

In its last meeting, Telefónica proposed a reduction by 138 in the number of people affected by the ERE, to 3,421 , in addition to improving economic conditions, both in terms of income and support.

However, the unions had linked this agreement from the beginning to the signing of the III Collective Agreement of Related Companies (CEV) in Spain , which they have been negotiating in parallel to the ERE and which they also put on track that day.

After a December of negotiations, if they finally announce an agreement on Thursday the 28th, Telefónica and the unions will sign the ERE and the new collective agreement at the beginning of 2024 , according to these sources.

Although at first Telefónica estimated the excess staff at 5,124 of the 16,0000 workers it had in Spain, its latest proposal reduced this figure to 3,421 workers , of which 2,958 are from Telefónica de España, 397 from Telefónica Móviles and 66 from Telefónica Solutions.

In the case of the economic offer, Telefónica proposed paying those born in 1968 68% of their salary until the age of 63 and 38% until the age of 65.

For those born between 1967 and 1964, the percentage is reduced to 62% of the regulatory salary until age 63 and 34% until age 65, while those born in 1963 or before will receive 52% until age 63 and 35%. up to 65 . In these last two age groups, the company will also pay a voluntary bonus of 10,0000 euros.

In addition, the listed company will offer reversibility of income, will pay the social security discount during unemployment or will pay group insurance up to age 63 , among other complementary conditions.

The period of affiliation to this ERE will be open between January 9 and February 8, 2024 , while the company will respond on February 14 and the majority of departures will occur on the 29th of that month, although they will not conclude until March 31, 2025.

If the established number is not reached, there will be forced departures , something that the unions had tried to avoid from the beginning.

Those who remain in the company will enjoy a new collective agreement that will be in force between January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2026 , with the possibility of extending it for a fourth year.

The new agreement reduces the working day from 37.5 hours per week to 36 over the next three years, at a rate of half an hour per year.

Regarding salary reviews, it establishes a salary increase of 1.5% per year, which will be reviewed with the CPI ; sets a productivity bonus for October of 300 euros with 150 euros consolidated; and preserves bienniums and seniority without limitation.

It also improves the flexible weekly working hours bonus, extends the dental policy to the three entities and establishes six days of leave without justification.

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