Tech

We now have details on what AMD will launch to compete against Nvidia, from an unusual source. Newegg publishes its own graphics and computing guides, including a guide to which GPU you should buy. Included in that guide, at least briefly? Specs for AMD’s upcoming Radeon RX 6700 XT, 6800 XT, and 6900 XT GPUs. Obviously these specs should be considered preliminary, but they line up with other rumors we’ve heard about the family. Hat-tip to for finding the information: There are some oddities in the chart that are difficult to explain. The Radeon 6700 XT is a marked downgrade from the 5700 XT, with less clock, less RAM, less memory bandwidth, and — admittedly — a very nice TDP of 150W.

Bots are increasingly ruining launches. What began as a problem for has become a serious issue across the entire tech industry. Why couldn’t you buy a Switch earlier this year? Bots. Where’s the RTX 3080? Bots. RTX 3090? Bots. Newegg claims all of its orders were human-verified, as did Nvidia, but bot users told a different story online. As our sister site PCMag , online resellers took to forums to crow, with one individual claiming to have purchased 18 cards, while another purchased 42. All of these GPUs are ending up on eBay at extremely high prices. I’m not claiming Newegg and Nvidia had no measures in place to defeat bot attacks, but their measures just as clearly aren’t working.

It’s not unusual to see some users posting problems when a new GPU or CPU launches, but there’s early data suggesting that some RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs have a stability problem when they push near-to or above 2GHz. Most reports have focused on 2GHz, but at least one user said his GPU was below that clock. have popping up of stability likely to GPU boost frequencies. Known-affected models include the Zotac RTX 3080 Trinity and the RTX Ventus 3X OC. MSI’s Gaming Trio is mentioned, as is EVGA’s RTX 3080 XC. These reports make approximately the same claim: The GPU crashes in one or more titles, often at around 2GHz.

If you feel like cracking into nearly 20-year-old operating systems for what we’ll describe as “various and sundry” reasons, the source code for both Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 has leaked online. The Verge that the source code for XP and 2K3 leaked before later saying they don’t know if it’s the complete code for the OS, so presumably, this could be a code fragment leak. There’ve been a few of those at Microsoft recently, with some of the NT 3.5 and Xbox source code popping up online earlier this year, and some Windows 10 code being stolen a few years back.

This week in machine learning news, artificial intelligence is . It’s also helping . And get this…AI is even for use in place of the real data that’s usually used to reach machine learning conclusions. Just think about the implications of that one for a second. No matter whether that fills you with amazement or fear, there’s no argument that the impact of deep learning is staggering. And for a technology with the ability to revolutionize literally every facet of life on Earth, there are some equally staggering opportunities for those who understand it all. can help make you one of those enlightened and highly employable few.

Humanity spent years wondering if there were planets outside our solar system, and now we know the answer: very much yes. There are thousands of exoplanets in just our little corner of the galaxy, and there’s every reason to expect the same is true of other galaxies. In fact, a researcher from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has found . It’s not the first potential extragalactic planet detection, but it’s shaping up to be the most likely candidate. We lack the technology to image exoplanets directly (), even when they’re right next door in Proxima Centauri. Planets are so dim compared with the stars they orbit that we can only infer their presence by the way they affect the star’s gravity (radial velocity) or luminance (transits).

Samsung’s Galaxy S20 FE 5G smartphone is set to officially launch on October 2. This phone carries with it many of the same features present on Samsung’s current flagship smartphone, but it’s priced considerably lower at just $699.99. Pre-order now, and you can get it with a $100 discount. Almost all the features of Samsung’s current flagship smartphone and a lower price to boot: What’s not to love? The Galaxy S20 FE comes equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 SoC that gives it performance identical to the Galaxy Note 20. A few features have been scaled back and the S20 FE has slightly worse cameras, a lower resolution screen, and less RAM.

It’s not unusual to see some users posting problems when a new GPU or CPU launches, but there’s early data suggesting that some RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 GPUs have a stability problem when they push near-to or above 2GHz. Most reports have focused on 2GHz, but at least one user said his GPU was below that clock. have popping up of stability likely to GPU boost frequencies. Known-affected models include the Zotac RTX 3080 Trinity and the RTX Ventus 3X OC. MSI’s Gaming Trio is mentioned, as is EVGA’s RTX 3080 XC. These reports make approximately the same claim: The GPU crashes in one or more titles, often at around 2GHz.

Cloud gaming is not a new idea — companies have been trying and failing to make streaming game experiences stick for a decade, but it seems like we’re finally reaching critical mass. Amazon has joined the likes of Microsoft and Google to . It will cost just $5.99 per month during the testing phase, but we don’t know what Amazon has in store for the full launch. All the games in Luna will render in the cloud, and the video will stream down to your devices. Luna will, naturally, rely on Amazon’s AWS web platform to deliver games with low latency.