In theory, organizations like the FTC exist to safeguard United States citizens. In practice, all too often, these organizations are far more beholden to the companies they supposedly regulate than the citizens whose rights they protect. Last week, the FTC announced a settlement with Equifax, in which individuals whose data was stolen — that’s basically everyone in the United States — were eligible for $125 in compensation. Given the breadth and importance of the data Equifax allowed to be stolen, one might think that kind of minimal compensation would be the least the company could offer, given that it leaked social security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and names.
NASA has been working on the Space Launch System (SLS) as a replacement for the Space Shuttle for a decade, and the project has already consumed $14 billion in funding. It’s not exactly a secret that pure political will has kept the SLS going, but there may have been some casualties along the way. A former United Launch Alliance (ULA) engineer has chimed in on Twitter to tell an anecdote about how the SLS . Ars Technica reporter Eric Berger had just posted a string of tweets about opposition to refueling depots in congress back when the SLS program picked up steam.
SteelSeries’ Rival 700 gaming mouse quickly became one of the company’s most noteworthy products when it launched in 2016 thanks to its high-performance and intriguing feature set. SteelSeries is now attempting to build on the success of the Rival 700 with its new , but this new product may not have much (or anything) to offer over its predecessor. Design The SteelSeries Rival 710 is essentially identical to the Rival 700 right down to the OLED display on the mouse’s side. This unique feature is one of the product’s highlights and helps make this mouse stand out against its competitors.
In addition to an excellent deal on a high-end TV, today you can also save big on one of Apple’s smartwatches and on high-end Dell laptops. Samsung’s UN75NU7100 display measures 75-inches diagonally and has a resolution of 3840×2160. This TV also supports HDR10 content that can create an improved picture on screen superior color accuracy. Normally this display retails for $2,399.99, but right now you can get it from Walmart for $999.99. Apple’s smartwatch has several features built-in including a heart rate monitor and the ability to view text messages and answer phone calls from your iPhone.
Rockets are great if you want to get someplace fast, but there’s something whimsical about sailing on a beam of light. The Planetary Society has declared its LightSail 2 mission a success after it did just that. The satellite deployed its solar ail last week, and now it has without the help of engines. The Planetary Society launched its spacecraft aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket in late June, which carried numerous other spacecraft into space. It took a decade of development for the organization to get LightSail 2 ready, and individual donations from some 50,000 supporters funded almost all of the $7 million price tag.
Intel dropped a lot of Ice Lake news today, including an embargo lift on performance data concerning the new CPU. ExtremeTech was not aware that Intel had held a testing event in which reporters from various sites were invited to benchmark Ice Lake under controlled conditions and did not include this data in our initial coverage earlier today. We have reached out to Intel to clarify the situation, given that we were on hand at Architecture Day last winter to report on the initial Ice Lake and have covered Intel’s foundry research and developments for the past eight years.
If you’ve ever worked for a company, you’re probably aware that they tend to keep computers running after they should’ve been replaced with something newer, faster, and/or less buggy. Fujitsu Tokki Systems Ltd, however, takes that concept farther than most. The company still has a fully functional computer it installed back in 1959, the FACOM128B. Even more impressive, it still has an employee on staff whose job is to keep the machine in working order. The FACOM128B is derived from the FACOM100, described as “Japan’s first practical relay-based automatic computer.” The 100, an intermediate predecessor known as the 128A, and the 128B were classified as electromechanical computers based on the same kind of relays that were typically used in telephone switches.
Nvidia launched the original Shield Android TV box in 2015, and it’s still amazingly well supported. After all these years, Nvidia is . The new build is appearing on Shields all over the world right now, bringing new HDR features, enhanced program suggestions, and more. There are two versions of the Shield, and both are getting the update because they’re virtually the same on the inside. The 2015 box was a little larger and came bundled with the game controller 100 percent of the time. The 2017 re-release is smaller and is available with the remote only for those who don’t want to play games.
Last week, Intel announced that it had begun shipping 10nm Ice Lake CPUs to its OEM customers to support a holidays 2019 launch. Today, the company is sharing more details about Ice Lake and the new chips it will launch on 10nm later this year. The company has been revealing details about Ice Lake and its architecture, Sunny Cove, since Architecture Day last winter. As “Holidays 2019” draws closer, we’re starting to find out more information. With 10nm, Intel is pushing forward on multiple fronts. CPU-wise, the company expects to offer up to 1.18x improved IPC, though that gain is largely offset by declines in top-end frequency.
