(Image: Trevor Jacob)YouTuber Trevor Jacob, known for posting eyebrow-raising physical and social stunts, may have finally taken a video a bit too far. The YouTube personality has found himself the topic of great controversy after sharing a video of himself jumping from a plane during a crash landing—a situation many of his viewers think he may have set up to garner attention online. The crash occurred on November 24, though Jacob didn’t publish the video to his channel until December 23. During a flight from Santa Barbara’s Lompoc City Airport to Mammoth Lakes, Jacob’s Taylorcraft BL64 monoplane supposedly lost power, leading Jacob to dip the aircraft downward and jump with a parachute conveniently strapped to his back.
(Image: Intel)In 2021 Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger spent a lot of time talking to the press about the company’s plans to rejuvenate its engineering reputation, and about the company’s five year plan to regain the title of world leader in semiconductor manufacturing. Part of that plan was a huge investment in new fabrication facilities to help increase production of future chips. The company has now revealed a small town near Columbus Ohio will be the future home of its next $20 billion mega-facility. Intel’s expansion into Ohio is a big deal, as it marks the first time the company has expanded its operations to the Midwest, and it will be the only facility of its kind in this part of the country.
Until a few decades ago, every human being in history had lived and died under the influence of Earth’s gravity. Sending people into space comes with great technical hurdles, but there was also a lot to learn about how the human body holds up to the stresses of space travel. After all these years, we’re still learning new things. A study from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) points to the effects of weightlessness on the blood as yet another issue that will complicate long-term human space missions. So-called “space anemia” . The conventional wisdom has long been that space anemia wasn’t a major concern — NASA once called it a 15-day ailment, but the team led by Guy Trudel of the University of Ottawa says otherwise.
At long last, AT&T and Verizon have been allowed to light up their shiny new C-band 5G networks. Alas, the coverage isn’t what the carriers might have hoped for. The carriers made a number of concessions and to assuage the FAA’s fears of C-band interference with airplane electronics, but in the end, AT&T and Verizon have . This allows them to begin the C-band rollout everywhere else. We’ve had in the US for several years now, so why all the concern over these new frequencies? The C-band sits in the lower 4GHz range, which is ideal for 5G service—it’s got higher capacity than low-band and stronger propagation than millimeter wave.
(Photo: Roku)Smart TV and streaming device maker Roku has found itself under the wrong spotlight after a user encountered advertisements layered atop live TV. Reddit user /u/p3t3or their discovery of the new ads to the /r/cordcutters subreddit this weekend. “Welp, this is the last time I purchase or recommend a Roku,” they said. “After a Sleep Number commercial, I just got a Roku ad sidebar while watching live TV. Really loved the Roku experience up until now, but this is a deal breaker.” The user attached a photo of their Sharp flatscreen (presumably with a detachable Roku device plugged in) playing live football, with an interactive pop-up ad displayed on the left side of the screen.
The smartphone wars were won by apps. That’s why we’re all using Android and iOS phones rather than Palm and BlackBerry. The number of apps on those platforms doesn’t matter as much these days — it’s more than enough. Now, some of Android’s enormous app catalog is destined for Windows. Microsoft has its Android framework in Windows 11, but is not going to be outdone. It’s , which will bring mobile games to Windows PCs… eventually. So far, only a few regions have access to the beta. Microsoft’s Windows Subsystem for Android will let users install the Android software of their choice, including both apps and games.
This week AMD launched launched the first “budget friendly” RX 6000-series GPU with its RDNA2 technology, the RX 6500 XT. The launch was not without controversy however, as in order for AMD to hit its desired $199 price point it neutered the Navi24 GPU to the point where it is missing a lot of features that are considered necessary on a modern GPU, even for an entry-level model. For example, the card ships with just 4GB of VRAM, which the company said was a decision it made to discourage crypto mining. Potentially more impactful is the decision by AMD to ship the card with a PCI Express 4.0 (PCIe 4.0) interface with only four PCIe lanes to the CPU.
Samsung left everyone hanging last week when it . Instead, it offered a belated statement that it had to delay the event for business reasons. Now, , making it the first mobile chip with support for ray tracing at the hardware level. AMD and Samsung announced this collaboration back in 2019, and AMD confirmed in 2021 that Samsung’s next flagship system-on-a-chip (SoC) would have RDNA 2. It looked last week as if Samsung might push back the Exynos 2200, leaving everyone to get by with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. Exynos chips have lagged behind the competition in recent years, so Galaxy S22 owners might have preferred that.
In what is becoming a predictable and somber trend, a new report in Digitimes indicates that prices for almost every type of processor are set to increase in 2022. The culprit is chip-maker TSMC raising wafer prices on its biggest customers. The report lays out the cascading effect this development will have across the industry, as the demand by TSMC for more money for its current and next-gen nodes will then likely result in those companies passing along that additional cost to the consumer. Translation: if you were interested in buying a brand new RTX 4080 GPU or AMD Ryzen 9 6900X CPU later this year, get in touch with your local loan shark now.
