somewhere in the Multiverse there is an alternate Dimension where I know nothing
of tech news and only report on recent developments in nearby clouds look that
one shaped like a graphics card Intel's
hot new meteor Lake CPUs might actually
perform worse on single core tasks with
lower instructions per clock or IPC than
their predecessors from the 14th and 13th gen lineups and
that's that's just not right these benchmarks come from hardware test David
hang who compared the core Ultra 7 155h
to Apple's M2 Pro and M3 Pro AMD's ryzen
77840 U and 7840 HS and Intel's own core
i7 13700 H by testing a single core
using the spec CPU Benchmark and after some quick maths he concluded that the
155h was at the bottom though it was at
least within Striking Distance of the two ryzen chips hang notes that the
comparison between the 155h and the 13700 H might be somewhat distorted
because the 155h uses LP ddr5 memory
instead of regular ddr5 memory but that increased margin of error wouldn't
account for the Gap in performance between the two chips it's a bit like if
I lost a race and blamed it on the fact that the winner was clean shaven and
thus more aerodynamic this brings the Memories Back boy with a mustache yet
not yet not clean shaven to be clear IPC
isn't the only metric to measure a Chip's performance and it doesn't mean
that these chips haven't improved at all especially given recent BIOS updates but
it might indicate that Intel made significant compromises when optimizing
its chips for AI acceleration and beefing up its integrated GPU turns out
there just wasn't enough beef to go around where's the beef a hacking group
believed to have ties to the Iranian government has targeted local American
Water Utilities in a series of brazen cyber attacks one target was the Alaqua
Water and Sewer Authority which is responsible for the needs of around
22,000 Pennsylvania residents hackers
shut off a remote monitoring device that regulates water pressure at one pumping
station luckily an alarm alerted the station's crew and they switched over to
manual operation also luckily the systems hackers accessed wouldn't have
allowed them to control the chemicals used in drinking water and you know
poison the water supply so that so that's good the problem is that small
public utility ities are typically underfunded and understandably
ill-prepared to deal with sophisticated International cyber criminals even worse
these attacks weren't actually all that sophisticated experts believe the
hackers probably broke into these systems through remote devices that were
still using the default password many of these utilities are also struggling to
deal with the far more pervasive problem of preventing leeching from decades old
lead service lines yeah remember that keep forgetting about that story what's
they they're putting something in the wall water so when you think about it who are the real terrorists
International cyber criminals or elderly
plumbers that's what I thought on Tuesday SpaceX launched the first
Starling Satellites with the ability to communicate directly with cell phones
these satellites will be used to provide text messaging and eventually voice and
data services to T-Mobile us customers SpaceX will also be working with
providers in Australia Canada Japan and New Zealand a primary goal is to reduce
dead zones and provide consistent service even in Rural and remote areas
which is yet another nail in the coffin for Cabin in the Woods horror movies
somebody please call the police my suspension of disbelief is evaporating
it's been a good year for SpaceX they seriously expanded their total number of
successful launches in 2023 with a record 96 missions compared to just 61
in 2022 the company likewise closed out the year with two back-to-back launches
in one night on December 28th get your tickets now it's in the past sadly they
also lost their oldest reusable rocket booster 1058 which tipped and fell
during transport through rough Seas after completing its 19th successful
Mission can finally vote and now this
happens it was just getting on the dating scene in a tweet mourning the
loss SpaceX VP of launch Kiko donev
noted that the design flaw that led to 108's demise was fixed in later models
with self-leveling legs but 1058 was
never retrofitted due to age it's an end we should all aspire to a long life of
service and Adventure only to trip and die by brutal belly flop this is how I'm
going to go now it's time for quick bits brought to you by who Samsung their
Galaxy unpacked event is coming up and who knows what they're going to unveil
it could be a hat or maybe a sandwich but most likely phones with a heavy
focus on AI their newest smartphones are sure to be their smartest ever and you
can can even reserve one now with no deposit required plus they'll give you a
$50 credit and you can use those savings by a hat and maybe a sandwich check out
Samsung's Galaxy unpacked event on January 17th and head to the link below
to reserve your new device today I could really use a sandwich I wish I could
survive on quick bits alone sadly quick bits are devoid of nutrition and mildly
poisonous please enjoy an entire legal industry has been spawned to help
independent Amazon sellers get their accounts reinstated on the platform
Amazon generally withholds any money when a seller's account is suspended and
according to many sellers the company will often also withhold the reason for
suspending the account we get your money you don't get to know why we're Banning
you why shut up get out of here and if
that weren't enough for sellers to deal with Amazon's new AI review summaries
will helpfully highlight complaints made by a very small number of buyers for
example according to the AI customers say this particular shelf is a great
addition to their bathroom and also a complete waste of money frankly that
sounds a bit too much like my parents discussing Renovations because they have
a rebranding problem Microsoft is rebranding Edge on the Google Play Store
and Apple App Store as Microsoft Edge AI
browser it needs a theme
song Let's browse that sounds like the title of a gritty action movie at least
grammatically The Edge mobile apps description now heavily focuses on its
GPT 4 and Dolly 3 powered features and
mentions AI a total of seven times notably if you look up Edge on the
Microsoft desktop store you won't find any of this new branding probably
because most people who use Edge on desktop do so because either it came
pre-installed on their computer or they're not on speaking terms with
chrome right now it's a little awkward the adult site with a black and orange
logo you know what I'm talking about has blocked another two states Montana and
North Carolina in in response to the passage of age verification laws that
the website's parent company ILO says
endanger privacy by requiring citizens to hand over their governmen issued IDs
to random internet smut Peddlers this is clearly going to affect a lot of people
in North Carolina but it's unclear as of yet how it will affect Montana which I
am given to understand is primarily populated by flags and cattle 2 million
cows they have 1 million people oh
Montana oh it's a state too a woman in
Delaware is crediting her Apple watch with saving her life and that of her cat
after a broken heater started leaking carbon monoxide in her apartment Natalie
nasatka had a sudden dizzy spell and found herself unable to stand so she
activated her watch's SOS feature summoning emergency services in the nick
of time while we're glad Natalie's okay and this is obviously great PR for Apple
if you don't have an extra few hundred just lying around toy buy a new watch
you could also just shell out for a carbon monoxide detector seriously
they're only like $30 and your cats will thank you at least they should thank you
but what can you expect from a carnivorous squirrel that poops in a box
they will eat you when you die and we've got new hyperd detailed photos of
Jupiter's volcanic moon IO after NASA's
Juno spacecraft passed within 930 Mi of
the moon during its 57th flyby of the
gas giant this is the closest any Mission has flown to io's surface in 23
years since NASA's Galileo craft passed within 112 Mi of io's Southern pole the
images have been called beautiful and magnificent by astronomers and like a
macro shot of a dramatically lit chocolate truffle by me just
now now not to be dramatic but it would
also be lit if you came back on Friday for more Tech news I promise I won't
make jokes like that