SiliconANGLE reports on why investors poured another $250 million into Cerebras Systems Inc: Enterprises typically use graphics processing units in their AI projects. The fastest GPU on the market today features about 54 billion transistors. Cerebras Systems' chip, the WSE-2, includes 2.6 trillion transistors that the startup says make it the "fastest AI processor on Earth."

WSE-2 stands for Wafer Scale Engine 2, a nod to the unique architecture on which the startup has based the processor. The typical approach to chip production is carving as many as several dozen processors into a silicon wafer and then separating them. Cerebras Systems is using a vastly different method: The startup carves a single large processor into the silicon wafer that isn't broken up into smaller units.

The 2.6 trillion transistors in the WSE-2 are organized into 850,000 cores...

Cerebras Systems says that the WSE-2 has 123 times more cores and 1,000 times more on-chip memory than the closest GPU. The chip's impressive specifications translate into several benefits for customers, according to the startup, most notably increased processing efficiency. To match the performance provided by a WSE-2 chip, a company would have to deploy dozens or hundreds of traditional GPU servers... With the WSE-2, data doesn't have to travel between two different servers but only from one section of the chip to another, which represents a much shorter distance. The shorter distance reduces processing delays. Cerebras Systems says that the result is an increase in the speed at which neural networks can run.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: US-based Nvidia partner EVGA has reported that a shipment of GPUs it was sending to a distribution centre has been stolen from a truck. A forum post by EVGA product manager Jacob Freeman states "PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on October 29, 2021, a shipment of EVGA GeForce RTX 30-Series Graphics Cards was stolen from a truck en route from San Francisco to our Southern California distribution center."

"These graphics cards are in high demand and each has an estimated retail value starting at $329.99 up to $1959.99 MSRP." Which probably explains the motivation for the crime -- either someone hopes to resell them or a crypto-miner has just built a cut-price rig. Freeman's post doesn't say how many GPUs were stolen, or if the truck was carrying anything else. He did, however, warn that buying stolen property is a crime, as is "concealing selling or withholding" purloined goods. He then appears to lay a trap of sorts by pointing out that attempts to register products that aren't stolen will succeed on this page which requires registration. Crooks are probably smart enough to use fake details when registering. Are they also smart enough to use a VPN and/or Tor to hide their tracks? EVGA has created the email address stopRTX30theft@evga.com in an attempt to find the culprits.

Advanced Micro Devices said Meta Platforms, formerly known as Facebook, is becoming a user of its server processors, further eroding Intel's hold on that lucrative market. From a report: Meta will use AMD Epyc processors in its data center computers, the two companies said Monday at an event. AMD also unveiled a new version of that chip with extra memory, which Microsoft Corp. will use in an offering from its Azure cloud computing service. The chipmaker also showed off a new graphics chip for artificial intelligence workloads and gave hints about its next generation of processors coming in 2022. The addition of Meta, the world's largest social media company, to AMD's customer list means it now supplies all the top operators of the giant computing networks that run the internet. Winning those major spenders was part of Chief Executive Officer Lisa Su's plan to resurrect AMD and have it reach market share levels it had only briefly flirted with amid years of struggling to keep up with Intel.

"Intel is gearing up to go to a war with Nvidia," writes Slashdot reader labloke11. "They have their OneAPI and their GPU. It will be interesting... For me, I like competition." Phoronix reports: While Intel Alder Lake is dominating today's news cycle, Intel and Microsoft also announced today that they have brought oneAPI Level Zero and Intel OpenCL support to Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2) while employing Intel graphics hardware acceleration. Similar to NVIDIA bringing CUDA and their accelerated GPU support to WSL2 as well as similar efforts by AMD on the Radeon side, Intel and Microsoft are now having Intel graphics compute working within the Linux confines on Windows 11 or Windows 10 21'H2. Hardware-accelerated oneAPI Level Zero, OpenVINO, and OpenCL on Intel graphics hardware can now be enjoyed within the WSL2 environment when using the latest updates and drivers. Like with the rest of the WSL2 stack and capabilities from other GPU vendors, this is at a near-native level of performance. More information can be found via the Microsoft Command Line blog and Intel blog.

The game formerly known as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds accounts for 97% of the revenue of its maker Krafton. Given that the Seoul-based company is valued at almost $20 billion, we have a rough estimate for how much this single game is worth, according to the stock market. A good chunk of that value is in the potential that title holds for expansion. From a report: Krafton has staked its future on making PUBG -- no longer an abbreviation but a brand for a wider intellectual property franchise -- into a big fantasy universe spanning different games and entertainment genres. The first big test of this strategy is PUBG: New State, the mobile sequel that moves the battle royale action to 2051 and adds more advanced weaponry, vehicles and graphics. It arrives on Nov. 11. I haven't played it to be able to tell you how good it will be, but I would be hugely surprised if it turns into anything other than another money printer for Krafton.

The reason for my confidence is simple: The company isn't straying too far from what made the original 2017 game a hit and is mostly changing the cosmetics atop the underlying physics and gameplay. This approach has proven highly successful in the mobile arena. The smartphone game is launching in more than 200 countries and in 17 different languages and has already had more than 50 million preregistrations. Another essential element for mobile success that Krafton taps into is making the game free to play. The vast majority of smartphone app store revenue comes from games, which seems counterintuitive considering that most of those games demand no upfront payment. The real money, however, is in enticing players to make microtransactions within the game, such as personalizing your character with "skins" or buying a pet or better weapons. This is such a big deal that Epic Games took Apple and Alphabet's Google to court over the split of who gets to profit from those addictive little in-game buys in PUBG rival Fortnite.

Nvidia suffered a setback on Wednesday as EU antitrust regulators opened a full-scale investigation into its $54 billion bid for British chip designer ARM on concerns the deal could lead to higher prices, less choice and reduced innovation. From a report: Britain's competition agency is also probing the deal for the country's most important technology company, warning that it could damage competition and weaken rivals. Reuters reported the European Commission viewed as insufficient concessions offered by the world's biggest maker of graphics and artificial intelligence (AI) chips during its preliminary review. Nvidia has not disclosed what these are but it has previously said it would maintain ARM as a neutral technology supplier to sooth concerns from customers such as Qualcomm, Samsung and Apple. The Commission said it would decide by March 15 whether to clear or block the deal. "Whilst Arm and Nvidia do not directly compete, Arm's IP is an important input in products competing with those of Nvidia, for example in datacentres, automotive and in Internet of Things," EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

Phoronix: Now that Windows 11 has been out as stable and the initial round of updates coming out, I've been running fresh Windows 11 vs. Linux benchmarks for seeing how Microsoft's latest operating system release compares to the fresh batch of Linux distributions. First up is the fresh look at the Windows 11 vs. Linux performance on an Intel Core i9 11900K Rocket Lake system. Microsoft Windows 11 Pro with all stable updates as of 18 October was used for this round of benchmarking on Intel Rocket Lake. The Windows 11 performance was being compared to all of the latest prominent Linux distributions, including: Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS, Ubuntu 21.10, Arch Linux (latest rolling), Fedora Workstation 35, Clear Linux 35150. All the testing was done on the same Intel Core i9 11900K test system at stock speeds (any frequency differences reported in the system table come down to how the information is exposed by the OS, i.e. base or turbo reporting) with 2 x 16GB DDR4-3200 memory, 2TB Corsair Force MP600 NVMe solid-state drive, and an AMD Radeon VII graphics card.

Each operating system was cleanly installed and then run at its OS default settings for seeing how the out-of-the-box OS performance compares for these five Linux distributions to Microsoft Windows 11 Pro. But for the TLDR version... Out of 44 tests run across all six operating systems, Windows 11 had just three wins on this Core i9 11900K system. Meanwhile Intel's own Clear Linux platform easily dominated with coming in first place 75% of the time followed by Fedora Workstation 35 in second place with first place finishes 9% of the time. The geometric mean for all 44 tests showed Linux clearly in front of Windows 11 for this current-generation Intel platform. Ubuntu / Arch / Fedora were about 11% faster overall than Windows 11 Pro on this system. Meanwhile, Clear Linux was about 18% faster than Windows 11 and enjoyed about 5% better performance overall than the other Linux distributions.

"The world's top five polluters were responsible for 60% of global emissions in 2019," reports Bloomberg — but China alone "generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined." That's despite having a smaller population than those four countries combined — and even then, China's carbon output "is still rising every year."

But then Bloomberg notes that a big part of that problem may be dozens of state-owned companies. (Just one subsidiary of China's oil company Sinopec contributed more to global warming last year than Canada, while China Baowu, the world's top steelmaker, "put more CO2 into the atmosphere last year than Pakistan," and more than Austria and Belgium combined.)

The article concludes that any attempt to affect climate change will have to include China's state-run companies. There are several factors in China's favor as it works to decarbonize. Solar and wind power are now often cheaper than fossil fuels. Electric vehicle and battery technology has matured, and China is a leader in both. Investment in green technologies such as hydrogen and carbon capture is at an all-time high, increasing the likelihood of deployment on a large scale....

China's biggest task is to green its electricity sector. That means shutting down thousands of coal-fired power plants and dramatically increasing clean energy. The nation already leads the world in renewables and just kicked off a massive 100 gigawatt project in the desert that will be bigger than all the wind and solar installed in India today. Known as the Big Five, China's top utilities — Huaneng Group Co., Huadian Corp., China Energy Investment Corp., State Power Investment Corp, and Datang Co. — are some of the world's largest polluters... In 2020, emissions from those operations alone added up to 960 million tons of COâ, more than double that of Russia's entire coal fleet.

The Big Five have pledged to reach peak emissions by 2025, but power demand is still increasing and coal has been promoted by government officials as a way to maintain energy security — especially as the world grapples with a shortage heading into winter. In the first half of this year, state-owned firms proposed 43 new coal-fired generators and construction began on 15GW of new coal-power capacity...

More than half of China's oil is used for transportation. So far the government has focused on shrinking those emissions by boosting a nationwide electric vehicle fleet that's already by far the biggest in the world. Planners want one in every five new cars sold to be a new EV by 2025, up from 5% now. Combined with ever-greener power generation, that's the best bet to reduce carbon while still moving people and goods around.

Apple today announced M1 Pro and M1 Max, its new chips for the Mac. Apple: M1 Pro and M1 Max introduce a system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture to pro systems for the first time. The chips feature fast unified memory, industry-leading performance per watt, and incredible power efficiency, along with increased memory bandwidth and capacity. M1 Pro offers up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32GB of unified memory. M1 Max delivers up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth -- 2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1 -- and support for up to 64GB of unified memory. And while the latest PC laptops top out at 16GB of graphics memory, having this huge amount of memory enables graphics-intensive workflows previously unimaginable on a notebook. The efficient architecture of M1 Pro and M1 Max means they deliver the same level of performance whether MacBook Pro is plugged in or using the battery. M1 Pro and M1 Max also feature enhanced media engines with dedicated ProRes accelerators specifically for pro video processing. M1 Pro and M1 Max are by far the most powerful chips Apple has ever built.

Utilizing the industry-leading 5-nanometer process technology, M1 Pro packs in 33.7 billion transistors, more than 2x the amount in M1. A new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores, is up to 70 percent faster than M1, resulting in unbelievable pro CPU performance. Compared with the latest 8-core PC laptop chip, M1 Pro delivers up to 1.7x more CPU performance at the same power level and achieves the PC chip's peak performance using up to 70 percent less power. Even the most demanding tasks, like high-resolution photo editing, are handled with ease by M1 Pro. M1 Pro has an up-to-16-core GPU that is up to 2x faster than M1 and up to 7x faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip.1 Compared to a powerful discrete GPU for PC notebooks, M1 Pro delivers more performance while using up to 70 percent less power. And M1 Pro can be configured with up to 32GB of fast unified memory, with up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, enabling creatives like 3D artists and game developers to do more on the go than ever before.

M1 Max features the same powerful 10-core CPU as M1 Pro and adds a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors -- 70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5x more than M1 -- M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. In addition, the GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40 percent less power, and performance similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power.2 This means less heat is generated, fans run quietly and less often, and battery life is amazing in the new MacBook Pro. M1 Max transforms graphics-intensive workflows, including up to 13x faster complex timeline rendering in Final Cut Pro compared to the previous-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro. M1 Max also offers a higher-bandwidth on-chip fabric, and doubles the memory interface compared with M1 Pro for up to 400GB/s, or nearly 6x the memory bandwidth of M1. This allows M1 Max to be configured with up to 64GB of fast unified memory. With its unparalleled performance, M1 Max is the most powerful chip ever built for a pro notebook.

Blender today announced that Apple has joined the Blender Development Fund to support continued development of the free open source 3D graphics tool. From a report: Alongside a contribution to the Development Fund, Apple will provide engineering expertise and additional resources to Blender and its broader development community to help support Blender artists and developers, according to the announcement. Blender CEO Ton Roosendaal said the announcement means that "macOS will be back as a complete supported Blender platform."

Slashdot reader TommyROM writes: The Commodore 65 was a never-released computer slated to follow the fabled Commodore 64 from 1982. Developed between 1990 and 1991, it would have been the most powerful 8-bit computer on the market with 128K RAM, high-resolution graphics (up to 1280x400), and stereo sound. A few prototypes were made before Commodore canceled the project in 1991.

Now an updated version of the Commodore 65 has been realized. Project founder Paul Gardner-Stephen began working on recreating the C65 in 2014, and eventually teamed up with the non-profit Museum of Electronic Games & Art to create the FPGA-based Mega65, a modernization of the original Commodore 65 featuring a custom main board, mechanical keyboard, and injection molded case. It uses the original C65 ROMs but improves on the design with SD card support, Ethernet, and HDMI output. It is about 40 times faster than a C64 and backwards compatible, including cartridge and joystick ports. The design is open-sourced for long-term compatibility. Additionally, there is a hand-held version in the works that is also a cellphone. They are currently taking pre-orders for the Mega65 at a price of 666.66 euros ($742 plus shipping).

The Retro Hour podcast has an interview with founder Paul Gardner-Stephen where he discusses the impetus of the project and goes into more details of the design.

According to new job listings, Google is looking to expand the Fuchsia operating system from its current home on the Nest Hub to âoeadditional smart devices and other form factors." 9to5Google reports: The first listing, for "Staff Software Engineer, Fuchsia Devices," celebrates Fuchsia's recent milestone and points clearly to Google wanting Fuchsia to run on more "real world products" than just smart displays: "In 2021 we shipped Fuchsia to millions of Google smart displays, now it's time to expand to additional smart devices and other form factors. Come join us and work on the next-generation Google operating system! Although the first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays, we are working on expanding to additional form factors and use cases. The Fuchsia Devices team is responsible for making sure we can successfully apply the Fuchsia platform to real world products that make a difference to Google and our users."

So what types of devices should we expect Fuchsia to come to next? Well for one, we may look at the plural phrasing of "first uses of Fuchsia are smart displays," which suggests the Nest Hub Max and Nest Hub (2nd Gen) may be getting their chance to switch to Fuchsia soon. Of course, Google has made it abundantly clear here that smart displays are just the beginning. In another listing, for "Engineering Manager, Fuchsia Devices," the company explains that the Fuchsia Devices team is aiming to "[expand] the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors" through "real consumer devices." [From the listing:] "The Fuchsia Devices Smart Products team is part of the larger Fuchsia organization and is responsible for productionizing various types of Fuchsia Devices. Our team delivers real consumer devices to end users and enables you to have a large impact at Google by expanding the reach of Nest/Assistant to new form factors."

This could suggest entirely new device categories for Google's Nest lineup, powered by Fuchsia. In another section, we get some hints at what those proposed devices would be capable of: "Chromecast, Video Conferencing and Machine Learning are core parts of many of the upcoming smart products." It's important to note that "Chromecast" here is probably not referring to the lineup of Chromecast hardware for TVs switching to Fuchsia. Instead, it's more likely referring to how Google's speakers and displays can receive a "Cast" from your phone. This is somewhat clarified in the job listing's responsibilities section, which lists a handful of features that squarely line up with features of the camera-equipped Nest Hub Max, including "Face Match." The Nest Hub Max's store listing also references "Chromecast built-in" as a feature: "Plan, scope, and execute of features like Video Casting, Actions on Google, Video Calling, Face Match, and on device ML."

It also looks like Made by Google devices may soon not be the only ones shipping with Fuchsia. According to another listing, Google is looking for someone on Fuchsia's "platform graphics and media" team to, among other things, "influence hardware decisions made by partners." [From the listing:] "As a Staff Software Engineer on the Fuchsia team, you'll drive the technical direction for Graphics and Media and ensure that Fuchsia is bringing maximum value to partners and Fuchsia-based products. You also will influence hardware decisions made by partners to improve Fuchsia and Google's ability to deliver efficient software solutions for critical Graphics and Media workloads." Fuchsia debuted on the first-generation Nest Hub earlier this year.

The best part of Windows 11 is Linux, argues Ars Technica: For years now, Windows 10's Windows Subsystem for Linux has been making life easier for developers, sysadmins, and hobbyists who have one foot in the Windows world and one foot in the Linux world. But WSL, handy as it is, has been hobbled by several things it could not do. Installing WSL has never been as easy as it should be — and getting graphical apps to work has historically been possible but also a pain in the butt that required some fairly obscure third-party software. Windows 11 finally fixes both of those problems. The Windows Subsystem for Linux isn't perfect on Windows 11, but it's a huge improvement over what came before.

Microsoft has traditionally made installing WSL more of a hassle than it should be, but the company finally got the process right in Windows 10 build 2004. Just open an elevated Command prompt (start --> type cmd --> click Run as Administrator), type wsl --install at the prompt, and you're good to go. Windows 11, thankfully, carries this process forward unchanged. A simple wsl --install with no further arguments gets you Hyper-V and the other underpinnings of WSL, along with the current version of Ubuntu. If you aren't an Ubuntu fan, you can see what other easily installable distributions are available with the command wsl --list --online. If you decide you'd prefer a different distro, you can install it instead with — for example — wsl --install -d openSUSE-42. If you're not sure which distribution you prefer, don't fret. You can install as many as you like, simply by repeating wsl --list --online to enumerate your options and wsl --install -d distroname to install whichever you like. Installing a second distribution doesn't uninstall the first; it creates a separate environment, independent of any others. You can run as many of these installed environments as you like simultaneously, without fear of one messing up another.

In addition to easy installation, WSL on Windows 11 brings support for both graphics and audio in WSL apps. This isn't exactly a first — Microsoft debuted WSLg in April, with Windows 10 Insider Build 21364. But Windows 11 is the first production Windows build with WSLg support. If this is your first time hearing of WSLg, the short version is simple: you can install GUI apps — for example, Firefox — from your Ubuntu (or other distro) command line, and they'll work as expected, including sound. When I installed WSLg on Windows 11 on the Framework laptop, running firefox from the Ubuntu terminal popped up the iconic browser automatically. Heading to YouTube in it worked perfectly, too, with neither frame drops in the video nor glitches in the audio....

[T]here is one obvious "killer app" for WSLg that has us excited — and that's virt-manager, the RedHat-originated virtualization management tool. virt-manager is a simple tool that streamlines the creation, management, and operation of virtual machines using the Linux Kernel Virtual Machine... virt-manager never got a Windows port and seems unlikely to. But it runs under WSLg like a champ.
They reported a few problems, like when running GNOME's Software Center app (and the GNOME shell desktop environment).

But "If you're already a Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) user, Windows 11 offers an enormously improved experience compared to what you're accustomed to from Windows 10. It installs more easily, makes more functionality available, and offers better desktop integration than older workarounds such as running MobaXTerm's X11 server."

The next time you see a movie or TV show that was dubbed from a foreign language, the voices you hear may not belong to actors who rerecorded dialogue in a sound booth. In fact, they may not belong to actors at all. From a report: Highly sophisticated digital voice manufacturing is coming, and entertainment executives say it could bring a revolution in sound as industry-changing as computer graphics were for visuals. New companies are using artificial intelligence to create humanlike voices from samples of a living actor's voice -- models that not only can sound like specific performers, but can speak any language, cry, scream, laugh, even talk with their mouths full. At the same time, companies are refining the visual technology so actors look like they are really speaking.

As streaming services export American fare globally and foreign markets send their hits to the U.S., dubbing is a bigger business than ever. But the uses of synthetic voices extend well beyond localizing foreign films. AI models can provide youthful voices for aging actors. The technology can resurrect audio from celebrities who have died or lost the ability to speak. And it can tweak dialogue in postproduction without the need for actors. All the tinkering raises thorny ethical questions. Where is the line between creating an engrossing screen experience and fabricating an effect that leaves audiences feeling duped?

The technology is set to hit a new target in the coming months, when foreign-language dubbed versions of the 2019 indie horror movie "Every Time I Die" are released in South America. Those versions mark one of the first times entire dubbed movies use computerized voice clones based on the voices of the original English-speaking cast. So when the film comes out abroad, audiences will hear the original actors "speaking" Spanish or Portuguese. Deepdub created the replicas based on 5-minute recordings of each actor speaking English.

The first dog in space. The first man and woman. Now Russia has clinched another spaceflight first before the United States: Beating Hollywood to orbit. From a report: A Russian actress, Yulia Sherepild, a director, Klim Shipenko, and their veteran Russian astronaut guide, Anton Shkaplerov, launched on a Russian rocket toward the International Space Station on Tuesday. Their mission is to shoot scenes for the first feature-length film in space. While cinematic sequences in space have long been portrayed on big screens using sound stages and advanced computer graphics, never before has a full-length movie been shot and directed in space.

Whether the film they shoot in orbit is remembered as a cinematic triumph, the mission highlights the busy efforts of governments as well as private entrepreneurs to expand access to space. Earth's orbit and beyond were once visited only by astronauts handpicked by government space agencies. But a growing number of visitors in the near future will be more like Ms. Sherepild and Mr. Shipenko, and less like the highly trained Mr. Shkaplerov and his fellow space explorers. A Soyuz rocket, the workhorse of Russia's space program, lifted off on time at 4:55 a.m. Eastern time from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Before the launch on Tuesday, the MS-19 crew posed for photos and waved to family and fans in Baikonur. Mr. Shipenko, the director of the film which is named "The Challenge," held up a script as he waved to cameras.

Choosing the correct USB-C charger and cable for you laptop is about as fun as visiting the dentist, but new logos released today should go a long way toward making easier. PCWorld: The USB Implementers Forum group that oversees the USB standard has released logos that easily indicate whether a cable or charger can hit the new 240 watt rating. Previous USB-C chargers and cables were rated to hit 65 watts or 100 watts but a new version of USB Power Delivery released this May has pushed the limit to an impressive 240 watts. Obviously, that means if you're looking for a 240 watt aftermarket charger for a new gaming laptop that supports it, you want one. With the new USB-C logos, all you have to do is look for a Certified USB Charger 240W logo with a lightning bolt like the one from the chart above. The other component you may need is a 240 watt USB-C cable, so consumers need only look for Certified USB Charger 240W with a cable in its logo. Both logos also can also be paired with USB 40Gbps bits to indicate if the cable is certified to support USB4's 40Gbps speed.

The higher output 240 watt power range is a welcome addition to USB-C as it should allow laptop makers to bringing universal USB-C charging to far more powerful laptops, including gaming laptops with discrete graphics chips -- something that was out of reach of the previous USB-C chargers, cables, and ports. In fact, we found that we probably wouldn't want to use a small USB-C charger in a gaming laptop with today's technology. With 240 watt USB-C charger, we'd probably change our mind. The problem, of course, is that the USB-IF is an organization that certifies cables, chargers, and USB-C brick a brats, but it's not mandatory. This has lead to small brand and no-name manufacturers getting the spec wrong in the past. The good news is the cables from companies that actually obtain certifications correctly should work correctly.

It turns out school reopenings are disrupting the cash flow of industrious teenagers who spent the pandemic scooping up in-demand products via bots and reselling them for a hefty profit. From a report: "Yes, I am back in school. Yea, it's very annoying," said one US high school student named Dillon, who regularly buys video game consoles and graphics cards with automated bots. "I am sitting in math class and drawing class with my computer open, and I get told to shut it down during a [product] drop sometimes," he told PCMag in an interview. Dillon may be young, but he's among the legion of online scalpers who spent the pandemic at home buying and reselling the tech world's most-wanted products. "I would say around $10,000 to $12,500 average a month," he told PCMag. "Some months it would be exponentially higher, some would be lower."

Using automated bots he purchased and installed on his computer, and intel from other online resellers, Dillon scooped up products like the PlayStation 5 ahead of other consumers and sold them off at inflated pricing. But lately, Dillon's reselling hit a snag. After months away from high school because of the pandemic, he's now back in the classroom, where computer use can be strictly controlled. "When everything closed [during the pandemic], I could do whatever I wanted because I was doing my school from home," he said. But with the return of in-classroom teaching, Dillon says his profits have now fallen by about 25%.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: The latest version of Radeon Software adds an unusual (and welcome) new twist: The ability to automatically overclock your Ryzen processor if you're rocking an all-AMD gaming desktop. Yes, your GPU software can speed up your CPU now, too -- and it can do it all with a single click. [...] The addition of Ryzen auto-overclocking in Radeon Software 21.9.1 continues the theme, and might just allow you to ditch AMD's separate Ryzen Master tool if you're running a Team Red graphics card. They'll need to be newer hardware, though, as the feature currently only supports AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 CPUs and Radeon RX 6000 GPUs.

AMD's blog describes how to use the new tool: "To access this easy-to-use feature, open up Radeon Software using the hotkey 'ALT' + 'R', navigate to the 'Performance' tab found at the top of the window, and select 'Tuning' in the sub tab directly below it. If you have the latest generation of AMD Ryzen and Radeon product installed on your system, a 'Tuning Control' section should appear for your system, allowing you to select 'Auto Overclock' to increase performance on both your processor and graphics card. We also have a new tuning section for CPUs, allowing you to overclock just your CPU. When the feature is selected, the system will ask for a restart and once you are back in Windows, you will be good to go!" "Radeon Software 21.9.1 also adds official Windows 11 support and the ability for Radeon RX 5000-series GPUs to tap into Smart Access Memory," adds PCWorld. "AMD also took the time to tout FidelityFX Super Resolution's rapid uptake. The DLSS rival is now supported in 27 games, with Arkane's awesome-looking Deathloop set to launch this week with native FSR support in place."

You can download these new drivers here.

An Nvidia GeForce Now server has leaked a confidential list of thousands of games, some of which have never been seen before, like the PlayStation exclusive God of War seemingly coming to Windows PC via Steam. Developer Ighor July has published the list to GitHub. The Verge reports: Here's a screenshot of what that looks like in the GeForce Now client, according to the developer. There are reasons to believe the list is legit. We know graphics giant Nvidia has access to games long before they're released -- and we know Sony in particularly has been banking on banking on PlayStation games on PC. It quietly revealed Uncharted 4 was coming to PC, after seeing a 250 percent return on its investment porting Horizon: Zero Dawn to the platform, and it was just Thursday that Sony announced it would be part of the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection -- a name that we'd never heard of before then, but already appears in Nvidia's list as well. So too do Demon's Souls and Final Fantasy XVI -- the games where Sony had to retroactively retract all mentions of PC to make them sound like PlayStation exclusives. PS5 exclusive Returnal appears as well, as does a Final Fantasy VII Remake for PC.

And there are codenames for games in here that seem original, ones that bring up zero search results. Is "Platinum" the internal name for Bethesda's Indiana Jones games? But there are also a lot of mentions that seem rather out of date or out of place, like a whole host of Facebook-exclusive Oculus Rift titles that would make little sense on Nvidia's GeForce Now cloud gaming service, or a mention of a "Titanfall 3" which clarifies that it's actually "GAMEapex_legends_-_titanfall," aka Apex Legends, the popular battle royale game. And some of them may simply be guesses, like Kingdom Hearts IV, "BioShock 2022," and so on. All of that means you should probably take any given name on the list with a grain of salt...

Lenovo will ring in the arrival of Windows 11 with a pair of premium AMD Ryzen-based laptops. PCWorld reports: The IdeaPad Slim 7 Carbon will feature a carbon lid and aluminum body to go with its drop-dead gorgeous 14-inch OLED screen. Besides the infinite contrast an OLED provides, Lenovo will use a fast 90Hz, 2880x1800 panel with an aspect ratio of 16:10 on the Slim 7 Carbon. That's just over 5 megapixels with a density of 243 pixels-per-inch. This is one smoking screen. But this beauty goes deeper than the skin. Inside the Slim 7 Carbon, you'll find an 8-core Ryzen 7 5800U with an optional Nvidia GeForce MX450 GPU. Lenovo will offer up to 16GB of power efficient LPDDR4X RAM and up to a 1TB PCIe SSD.
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If a 14-inch screen laptop with a GeForce MX450 isn't enough for you, Lenovo also unveiled a new IdeaPad Slim 7 Pro. It's aimed at someone who needs a little more oomph. The laptop also features a 16:10 aspect ratio screen, which we consider superior to 16:9 aspect ratio laptops for getting work done. The IPS panel shines at a very bright 500 nits, and it's rated for 100 percent of the sRGB spectrum with an option for a 120Hz refresh rate version. Inside the laptop you'll find an 8-core Ryzen 7 5800H, up to 16GB of DDR4, a 1TB PCIe SSD, and up to a GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop graphics chip. Compared to the Slim 7 Carbon, you should expect the CPU to run faster thanks to the additional thermal headroom of the H-class Ryzen chip. The GeForce RTX 3050 Laptop GPU, meanwhile, is based on Nvidia's newest "Ampere" GPU cores instead of the older "Turing" GPU the GeForce MX450 uses in the Slim 7 Carbon. That upgrade translates to far better gaming performance, hardware ray tracing support, and the inclusion of Nvidia hardware encoding and decoding, which can help you use Adobe Premiere on the road.