This week’s Humble Book Bundle by Mercury Learning is all about STEM. From design basics to programming to calculus, there’s something here for just about anyone considering a STEM career. • Just one dollar grants you access to nine DRM-free ebooks. Once your purchase goes through, you’ll get to keep these books forever, and use them however you see fit (for personal use). Spend at least $1AutoCAD 2019 3D ModellingAlzheimer’s DiseaseElectrical Engineering ExperimentsFoundations of Mathematics: Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, CalculusIndustrial Engineering FoundationsMathematical PhysicsOperating SystemsPhysics Lab ExperimentsSoftware Testing Principles and PracticesStep up to the $8 level, and you’ll also unlock ebooks on hazardous waste management, the physics of solid state tech, AI problem solving, and more.
The PlayStation Classic clearly didn’t turn out to be the must-have hit for Sony that the NES and SNES Classic were for Nintendo. As we wrote at the time, both of those consoles hit the market and became collector’s items, practically impossible to find, almost at once. The situation was worse for the NES Classic, but neither platform was plentiful on or after launch day. The PlayStation Classic, in contrast, has just received a in all its territories. One could draw conclusions about how the NES and SNES have larger fan bases, but the more likely theory is that Sony shipped a half-baked offer and was rewarded with an entirely proportional level of sales.
Think Volkswagen, you think sporty driving: What VW in the ’90s called Fahrvergnügen (“driving enjoyment”). Fast forward to today and Volkswagen has built a nicely Americanized land cruiser in the VW Atlas with three rows of seating, 17 cupholders, and very good technology offerings. It’s the same size as the Ford Explorer, 198 inches long and 78 inches wide, a midsize SUV just shy of being full-size. Unable to offer diesels (because VW put the D in Dieselgate), the four- and six-cylinder gasoline engines are barely adequate and adequate, respectively. But the 276-hp V6 can tow 5,000 pounds, 500 pounds more than its weight.
Even if you don’t know much about volcanoes, chances are you’ve heard of Krakatau (often westernized as Krakatoa). New satellite footage shows that the volcano of Anak Krakatau (child of Krakatau) has partially collapsed following an explosive eruption. Both the eruption and the landslide are thought to be responsible for the Sunda Strait tsunami of December 22 2018, which killed 429 people and injured 1459 as of this writing. Anak Krakatau is the reformed remnant of the original Krakatau, which famously exploded on December 27, 1883. The explosion — a VEI 6 event, and one of the most powerful volcanic eruption in modern times (it fell short of the 1815 “Year Without a Summer,” which ranked as a VEI 7)– had cataclysmic effects on the nearby Indonesian islands and, to a lesser extent, the entire global climate.
You can’t swing a dead cat more than six inches these days without slamming into some incredibly improbable device running Doom. ASCII Doom? It exists. Playing Doom using a toaster to control it? It’s been done. But using a Roomba to build Doom WAD files based on your floor? That appears to be a new one. Designed by veteran game designer , Doomba leverages Whitehouse’s Noesis conversion tool. In his words: “Noesis is a tool for previewing and converting between hundreds of model, image, and animation formats. It utilizes a robust plugin system, with support for native extension modules and Python scripts.
2019 is going to be a major year for both of the top players in the PC market — but it’s going to impact them in different ways, and the two companies are playing for remarkably different stakes. The Intel-versus-AMD story remains a major component of the tech community, but it’s evolved in some surprising directions compared to what one might have expected five years ago, and the two companies are playing for somewhat different stakes these days. We’re going to talk about what’s coming next for both AMD and Intel, starting with AMD. AMD: Betting it All on Lucky 7
There’s been a lot of reporting on the idea that Nvidia is preparing to launch a set of GPUs without ray tracing support over the past few months, including new rumors that broke before Christmas making the same claims. It’s a good time to round them up and look at the possibilities. As always, rumors and speculation should be taken with a grain of salt. Speculation about rumors and speculation should be taken with several more. The primary new rumor is , which claims that Nvidia is either preparing to launch a GTX 1160 or possibly a 1660 Ti (Expreview reports 1660 Ti behind a password-locked article, while Videocardz has heard 1160 itself).
AT&T plans to start lying to customers in the near future by claiming that the service they’re receiving is, by some metric, 5G. It will do this by displaying a “5G E” logo in the corner of devices, in which the “E” stands for 5G Evolution. What’s 5G Evolution? It’s exactly the same service as you get right now. That’s according to FierceWireless, which contacted AT&T to ask about the plans. AT&T confirmed that customers in markets with 4G LTE technology like 4×4 MIMO and 256 QAM will start seeing the 5G E logo instead. “If they have one of the latest Android devices and it connects to a tower that’s enabled with 5G Evolution, they’ll soon see a “5G E” indicator pop up on their screen,” an AT&T spokesperson wrote in response to questions “Initially we’ll roll this out on a handful of devices, with more devices showing the indicator in spring 2019.
The question of who would be TSMC’s first EUV customer has supposedly been answered, though it’s not Qualcomm or Apple, two companies you might have expected. Instead, it’ll reportedly be Huawei bringing the first 7nm EUV chips to market (assuming, of course, that Samsung doesn’t bring their own designs out first). That’s the word from , which reports the Chinese-language Commercial Times as stating: “Huawei through its chip subsidiary HiSilicon will be TSMC’s first customer adopting the foundry’s N7 Plus and N5 fabrication processes, said the report, without citing its source.” Early adoption for Huawei as opposed to Qualcomm or Apple might underscore the degree to which China is determined to establish itself as a country capable of competing on the leading-edge of manufacturing and design.
