TechNews - Windows 7 Gets DirectX 12 - tech
(hx) 04:21 PM CET - Mar,23 2019
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- Passively Cooling the Intel i9-9900K - Der8auer on
YouTube has experimented with passively
cooling an Intel i9-9900K with the ARCTIC Alpine 12; a passive CPU
cooler. The ARCTIC Alpine 12 is only rated to handle 47 watts so
Der8auer wasn't expecting much out of the unit. Although the passive
cooler showed that it was more capable than its rating, it couldn't
keep the Intel i9-9900K properly cooled at stock settings. The Intel
chip was throttling, so Der8auer ended up with a stable 3.6 GHz clock
speed across all cores which was more than capable of playing games on
the system.
- PCIe SSDs Will Overtake SATA in 2019 - A recent report from Digitimes claims that PCIe SSDs could finally
overtake SATA SSD shipments in 2019. Unit prices for 512GB PCIe SSDs
have supposedly fallen 11% sequentially, down to a price of $55 in Q1
2019, while SATA SSD prices only dropped 9%. The price gap between the
different SSDs was around 30% in 2018, and according to the
publication's market sources, that gap is only going to shrink as time
goes on.
- Sound BlasterX G6 Review - Audio
Science Review has tested the Sound BlasterX G6 and found it to be surprisingly
good for a budget device in a feature-filled package. During DAC
testing it was discovered that the device's SINAD would rocket up to
112 dB if the level was dialed down by 2 dBFS (digitally.) Linearity
was spot on but intermodulation distortion was a concern. Amirm
discovered that dialing down the device by 2dBFS fixed the issue. He
speculated that "The G6 is USB powered and likely doesn't have enough
capacitance in its DC input to ride out the lasting peaks at low
frequencies." The headphone amplifier measured great, and the output
was decent but
"there is no sensation of infinite power and you would be operating
near or at max volume" when using the amp with a pair of Sennheiser
HD-650 headphones. The last issue that irritated him was the lack of a
properly working ASIO driver on Creative's website. He really liked the
Sound BlasterX G6 and the review is full of charts and measurements
conducted with a $28,300 Audio Precision APx555.
- How PC Case Fans Are Made - PC case fan manufacturing is
growing more advanced with automated production lines, but manual
assembly is still involved. Learn more in our Deepcool fan factory tour
in China... Deepcool has factories located in both Shenzhen, China and
Dongguan, China. For this tour, we're focusing on the company's Shenzhen
factory for its PC case fan manufacturing, where we show how fans
are manufactured in China. This facility uses "robots" and automation
for its assembly, with human oversight to ensure proper installation of
bearings, blades, and more.
- What Happens When You Water Cool an Air Cooler? - What
happens when
you try to water cool and air cooling tower?
- Windows 7 Gets DirectX 12 Support - Now here is a
pleasant surprise. Microsoft has announced that it is
bringing its latest API, DirectX 12, to Windows 7. Yeap, you read that
right. Windows 7 now supports DX12 and the first game that can take
advantage of it is World of Warcraft. Now while World of Warcraft can
run via DX12 on Windows 7, Microsoft claims that the best DirectX 12
performance will always be on Windows 10, and that's because Windows 10
contains a number of OS optimizations designed to make DirectX 12 run
even faster.
AnandTech notes this all seems odd since under a year remains
before Windows 7 hits its end-of-support
date. Also odd is that though gamers have been clamoring for this
for years, Microsoft says this move comes at this time because they
"make every effort to respond to customer feedback."
- Firefox Send Is a Free File Transfer Service Featuring
Encryption - Mozilla has announced Firefox Send is
now available for use as a free file transfer service with built-in
end-to-end encryption. Send allows users to safely and simply share
files from any browser without having to worry about their private
information existing in the cloud. Send will be available as an Android
app in beta later this week. Users can set when their file link
expires, the number of downloads, and whether to add an optional
password for an extra layer of security. Send allows for fast file
transfers of up to 1GB with an option to transfer 2.5GB if users sign
up for a free Firefox account. Recipients only have to click a link to
download the file.
- Opera Browser Adds Free VPN - The Opera
web browser for Android now includes a free VPN service, for securing
data over untrusted networks such as public Wi-Fi. Opera for Android
version 51 includes the feature, which is activated with a simple
toggle, requiring no sign-in nor account. Opera lets users choose from
one of several VPN server locations around the world, and does not log
user activity. Opera for Android also includes an ad blocker. The new
Opera app is available now from the Play Store.
- Microsoft Announces Microsoft Defender ATP for Mac - Microsoft Defender ATP for Mac brings the same
robust protection from Windows Defender to the Mac platform. Microsoft
has created a "cross-platform next-generation protection and endpoint
detection and response coverage" heterogeneous solution that will help
Microsoft reach its goal of securing users and data wherever they are.
Core components of Microsoft's unified endpoint security platform, including the
new Threat & Vulnerability Management will now be available for Mac
devices. The cloud-delivered, real-time protection antivirus solution
is currently in preview.
- Apple Launches iMac With Coffee Lake and Vega -
Apple updated its iMac lineup with 9th generation Intel processors
and AMD Vega graphics. The 21.5 inch iMac now sports up to 6 cores,
while the 27 inch iMac gets what's presumably a fully enabled 8-core
Coffee Lake die. Apple also says they're they're offering "Radeon Pro
Vega graphics" in both the 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMacs. The subtext
reveals that the smaller iMac has an optional "Vega 20" graphics card,
while the larger one features the long-rumored Radeon Pro Vega 48. It's
not clear if we'll ever see desktop gaming versions of these Vega GPUs,
but some people have already pointed out that smaller Vega GPUs could
cut into sales for the recently-launched RX 590.
- Apple announces new iPad Air and iPad mini with A12 Bionic,
Pencil - Apple has
announced a new iPad mini and a new iPad Air, both of which include
the A12 Bionic chipset. The new iPad Air upgrades the display from 9.7
inches to 10.5 inches, and it sits beside the current iPad in the
lineup, rather than replacing it. There are now four different lines of
iPads, with the iPad at the entry level, the iPad Air and mini in the
mid-range, and the iPad Pro for premium. Visually, the new iPad mini is
identical to the iPad mini 4, which is three and a half years old. That
device had an A8 processor, the same that could be found in the iPhone
6. The new iPad mini's A12 Bionic has massive performance improvements,
and it also adds support for the Apple Pencil.
Presumably, the new iPad Air is a successor to the iPad Air 2, although
the branding here really doesn't make a lot of sense. If that's the
case though, it's also replacing an A8 processor. While the entry level
iPad already supports the Apple Pencil, the new iPad Air has Pencil and
Smart Keyboard support, so this is really a valid replacement for the
10.5-inch iPad Pro that came out in mid-2017.
The iPad mini sports a 7.9-inch display with a 2048x1536 resolution for
a 326ppi pixel density. It sports an eight-megapixel camera for 1080p
video recording, along with a seven-megapixel front camera, with 1080p
video recording at 30fps. Of course, it still has Touch ID, rather than
the newer Face ID. The new iPad Air is very much the same, except the
display is 10.5 inches and 2224x1668, for a 264ppi pixel density.
What's particularly interesting about this announcement is that Apple
is still holding an event in a week. With its hardware announcements
out of the way, it seems that the company is actually going to focus on
services, something that's new for Apple. Both devices come in Silver,
Space Gray, and Gold, in Wi-Fi only and cellular variants, and 64GB and
256GB configurations. The new iPad mini starts at $399 while the new
iPad Air starts at $499.
- FB Employees Had Access to Millions of User Passwords in Plain
Text - In a new blog post entitled "Keeping Passwords Secure" Facebook VP
Engineering, Security and Privacy Pedro Canahuati explains how the
social media giant accidentally stored Facebook user's passwords on
internal data storage systems in plain text. Pedro explains how "these
passwords were never visible to anyone outside of Facebook and we have
found no evidence to date that anyone internally abused or improperly
accessed them. We estimate that we will notify hundreds of millions of
Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens
of thousands of Instagram users." To keep your account safe, Facebook
suggests changing your Facebook and Instagram passwords, pick strong
passwords, use a password manager, and enable a security key or
two-factor authentication.
- Apple Updates AirPods and Adds Wireless Charging Case Option -
The new Apple
AirPods have 50% battery life (talk time) and support "Hey Siri" voice
commands to let users quickly change songs, make a call, adjust the
volume or get directions. Apple also introduced an optional charging
case that can be charged on any Qi-compatible wireless charging pad.
The new AirPods are available today with the new wireless charging case
for $199, or with the older standard case for $159. The wireless
charging case is available separately for $79, for customers with
existing AirPods. Apple is also now offering free personalized
engraving on AirPods. The new AirPods and case are available online
today, and in Apple Stores next week.
- VRoamer Generates On-The-Fly VR Experiences While Walking
Through Buildings - VRoamer is a new Microsoft Research project that
generates VR worlds on-the-fly while users walk through unknown
building environments. Players can wear their HMD and no longer have to
rely on artificial locomotion techniques such as teleportation. They
simply walk through their environment and the game is built around
them. This is possible through the use of a wearable tech camera that
scans the environment in front of the user and visualizes a playable
virtual world. The system paints its virtual environment over real
world objects such as doors. The system keeps the user safe from
objects in the real world, even though those objects are hidden to the
user
- Changing Sketches into Photorealistic Masterpieces - A deep learning model developed by NVIDIA Research
turns rough doodles into highly realistic scenes using generative
adversarial networks (GANs). The tool is like a smart paintbrush,
converting segmentation maps into lifelike images
- DroneClash Recap 2019 - Highlights from DroneClash battles and event in
Katwijk, Netherlands on March 16th 2019.
- The Chemical Brothers - We've Got To Try - New album
track We've Got To Try taken from The Chemical Brothers'
forthcoming new album No Geography - Out April 12th!
- Tetris on the Guitendo (99999 MAX OUT score + level 39 WR) - While
the song starts soft and sweet, things take
a face-melting turn around 1:10.
- Pouring Lava Over Dry Ice - The dry ice chunks left a cool pattern on the lava.
- Bird Gets Swallowed by Glory Hole in Northern California - LOL The
filmer claims that the bird made it through alive and "shot out of
there like a bullet" from the other end of the Lake Berryessa spillway.
- TRY NOT TO LAUGH - EPIC FAILS Vines - Selection includes kids getting owned, trick shots
gone wrong, home video bloopers, crashes caught on tape, stunts and
more outtakes, viral videos and funniest moments caught on camera.
- Kara Del Toro Is Amazing - She has
potential to do great things!
- Rachel Cook Could Be The Next Queen Of Instagram - I truly
believe Rachel Cook could be the next Queen of Instagram!
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Updated:12:03 AM CEST Sep,22
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