Nvidia’s Turing refresh cycle has been continuing apace these past few months, with new lower-end GPUs replacing the Pascal holdovers from earlier in the cycle. GPUs like the GTX 1660 Ti lack the Turing-specific features like ray tracing and DLSS support, the 1660 Ti was also the only GPU of the family that comes with a significant improvement in performance per dollar as well as raw performance. As such, there’s interest in seeing if the 1660 and 1650 will replicate this trend. New leaks from showcase both the new GPUs and the expected for the new hardware.
Hard drive manufacturers are still looking for ways to improve device performance and capacity, even in the modern age of solid-state storage. Earlier this year, during CES, we discussed how Seagate was using dual actuators to improve its hard drive performance. Now, Western Digital is planning its own dual actuator drive and will show off a prototype next week at the Open Compute Project summit. The use of dual actuators is important to keep the number of IOPS/TB steady as the total capacity of the drive increases. Dual actuators should provide a roughly 2x increase in performance, including sequential read/write speeds of up to ~500MB/s.
We’ve already covered the basics of quantum computing in our article on , so now it’s time to dive into one of its most publicized applications: quantum cryptography. Quantum cryptography holds both promises and threats for our current cryptographic infrastructure. The most obvious threat is quantum computers could decrypt data that’s been encrypted using many of our current systems. But it also holds the promise of secure communications channels for key distribution. Eventually, using quantum technology, it may even be possible to build entire encryption systems that are considered unbreakable. Quantum Computing Decryption: Looming Crisis Or Another Y2K Blind Panic?
Valve has laid off 13 employees, including several reportedly from its hardware and VR divisions. The company claims that the move won’t impact any of its major initiatives or projects, but didn’t say exactly where they worked. “Last month, 13 full time employees were let go and a portion of our contractor agreements were terminated,” Valve spokesperson Doug Lombardi said. “It’s an unfortunate part of business, but does not represent any major changes at the company. We thank those affected for their contribution and wish them well in future endeavors.” One person confirmed to be out at Valve is Nat Brown, a VR engineer for the company since 2015 who confirmed he hasn’t been a Valve employee since February 7.
SpaceX has now completed the first demonstration flight for the crewed version of its Dragon spacecraft. After launching atop a Falcon 9 rocket and , the spacecraft has now returned to Earth. The Demo-1 mission successfully splashed-down in the Atlantic Ocean on March 8th, moving the Commercial Crew Program one step closer to flying humans into space. NASA has been forced to rely on Russian Soyuz capsules to get personnel to and from the ISS ever since the Space Shuttle retired in 2011. It launched the Commercial Crew Program in 2010 to support US companies in the development of new spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from space.
Tesla this week announced unprecedented charging rates — meaning the amount of power delivered, not the cost — for the Tesla Model 3 on the latest version of Tesla’s public-areas network, now called Supercharger V3. At a Supercharger 3 network, a Tesla Model 3 Long Range can add 75 miles of charge in five minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles (of range added) per hour. The Model 3 will charge at up to 250,000 watts (250 kW) for brief periods, or a quarter of a megawatt. With no standards body or squabbling tech committee members to get in the way, Tesla continues to push the pace of progress on its proprietary Supercharger network.
If you recently updated your Windows 10 PC and are now having problems in certain games, it may not be anything on your system that changed. The OS update Microsoft pushed on March 1 — KB4482887 (OS Build 17763.348) has known problems in certain games that are leading to massive performance issues. Some players report that certain games are now borderline unplayable as a result. was supposed to be a mainstream quality-of-life improvement for Windows 10, with support for the “Retpoline” method of fixing Spectre and Meltdown and various reliability fixes. None of the issues mentioned appear to be particularly relevant to game performance.
20 Humble Indie Bundles in, and they’re still going strong. This week, you can snag over $110 worth of wildly entertaining indie games on Windows, Linux, and macOS for as little as 10 bucks. However much you pay for this bundle, you’ll get DRM-free copies of The First Tree, Tangledeep, and Among the Sleep. Pay at least a dollar, and you’ll get Steam codes to boot. Pay what you wantThe First TreeTangledeepAmong the Sleep – Enhanced EditionBONUS: Among the Sleep – Enhanced Edition SoundtrackBONUS: Tangledeep Soundtrack (Steam key only, $1 minimum)Want even more games? Beat the average bundle price, and you’ll also unlock Dream Daddy, Tooth and Tail, and Getting Over It.
Until Elon Musk can fly us around the world in a rocket, conventional air travel is the fastest way from point A to point B. It hasn’t gotten any faster over the years, though. Commercial flights are limited by the speed of sound because no one wants sonic booms breaking their windows. That’s why NASA and Lockheed Martin are working toward “low boom” technology. To that end, took some , and the images happen to be quite cool. Any aircraft traveling faster than the speed of sound generates a pressure front that surrounds the frame and forces surrounding air out of the way.
