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It's been a while, and this week got away from me somewhat, so here's Retro Misc Pics from August 2010:
6th Aug 2010:
     
     
     
     
13th Aug 2010:
     
     
     
     
20th Aug 2010:
     
     
     
     
27th Aug 2010:
     
     
     
     
Also here's something cool I saw on that page of the archives - a PlayStation controller coffee table.
The Next Unit of Compute is looking like it might be the at the end of the road. Intel's NUC systems have garnered considerable popularity over the years, going toe-to-toe with similar offerings from established PC brands. While small form factor existed before the NUC (and will exist after), Intel's efforts to invigorate the space with its NUC designs were by and large successful, and a lot of the public experimentation we've seen done in the space over the last several years has come from Intel. Nevertheless, Intel's more recent enthusiast NUCs have struggled to differentiate themselves from the competition.
I've heard of companies bringing new models to Australia to test there suitability for use in harsh environments and now we can add NASA to that list. NASA explains in its blog post that with the data Woodside Energy will be able to provide, engineers will be able to progress development on remotely operated robots that will eventually be on the lunar and Martian surface. These robots would enable constant progress to be achieved on both extraterrestrial surfaces from the safety of Earth. Valkyrie runs on two Intel Core i7 processors and a 1.9kWg battery, and will be working as an oil rig attendant.
The banned Twitter account that tracked Elon Musk's jet has popped up on Threads, the Meta owned alternative to Twitter. Jack Sweeney, the creator of what was the Twitter bot account called ElonJet, has brought the bot back from the dead on Meta's newly launched Threads app. The app created quite a stir when it was available on Twitter, gaining hundreds of thousands of followers and the attention of Elon Musk, who offered Sweeney $5,000 to delete the account. Sweeney declined the offer, and when Musk bought Twitter, he banned the account.
It appears to me Twitter might be a little concerned about their new rival too, they have started to pay some of their blue tick creators. SK, who has about 230,000 followers, claims to have earned $2,236 from Twitter, while political commentator Benny Johnson, who has 1.7 million followers, says Twitter has paid him nearly $10,000. How does Twitter determine how much an account should be paid? According to reports, Twitter determines the total amount payable by tweet impressions.
If you use Evernote it might be time to make some backup plans. Evernote, the app that has sought for two decades to find a large paying audience for its "external brain," is moving its operations to Italy, home of its parent company Bending Spoons. It's yet another big shift for a company that's been useful, but not quite profitable, since at least 2004. Bending Spoons, which acquired Evernote in November 2022, had laid off 129 workers in February 2023, stating that Evernote had been "unprofitable for years" and "unsustainable in the long term."
In what appears to be first, Iran has showcased a quantum computer no bigger than a typical ITX motherboard. Essentially, a newly-designed quantum computing board that is apparently already being used by the Iranian Military to "counter navigation deception in detecting surface vessels using the quantum algorithms." And with the hardware showcased as part of a photo-op, it didn't take long for someone to notice that the hardware being shown is an off-the-shelf ARM-based FPGA SoC development board (ZedBoard) built by the US-based Digilent.
Telstra and OneWeb are set to form a partnership, and I'd bet Optus will be happy for them. They're to roll-out the satellite provider's Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite backhaul for a commercial mobile network. Telstra will also use OneWeb LEO services for future sites where satellite backhaul is the preferred or only viable option. This agreement will see up to 25 gigabit per second of capacity over LEO being delivered to Telstra’s most remote mobile sites across Australia, improving the use of real-time applications such as voice and video calling. This follows the memorandum of understanding signed in March last year, for the telco to use OneWeb’s LEO satellites to improve cover across APAC.
Optus and Starlink are set to form a partnership, and I'd bet Telstra will be happy for them. Optus, in collaboration with SpaceX, today announced an agreement to deliver mobile connectivity using SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellation. Together, Optus and SpaceX plan to cover 100% of Australia. Australia’s vastness and terrain can make it difficult for any operator to provide mobile coverage everywhere it is needed – especially in remote or hard-to-reach locations. “Our work with SpaceX aims to bring the coverage capabilities of satellites direct to compatible mobile handsets without the need for customers to buy additional equipment.
Some news on AI; sorry this post was not brought to you by AI. Unless I'm in the matrix that is. Hollywood actors are on strike for fear of being replaced by AI-generated digital likenesses of themselves, ultimately replacing them altogether in the future. The SAG-AFTRA strike began on Thursday of this week, joining the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America. The result is Hollywood essentially screeching to a halt on all film and television production. The standoff is the largest in more than 60 years. Both unions are also seeking an improved payment structure, as the industry shifts toward streaming, causing a negative impact on actor's and writer's residual income.
Li-Fi is a light based communications system to sit along side Wi-Fi. What if you could achieve a faster and more stable connection anywhere your device can see light? That's the promise of Li-Fi, a new standard that pulses regular old LED lights at rates and frequencies invisible to the human eye to enable high-speed data transfer. The group promoting the technology promises transfer rates as high as 224 GB/second using the new method, and says that it's not susceptible to interference like radio signals. Of course, it's not aiming to replace Wi-Fi, but rather be another standard that will live alongside the radio form.
Steve Jobs liked VW's Beetle, so what's the connection? The Univers typeface was replaced on Apple's keyboards by VAG Rounded, which was used from 2007 until 2015. I remember this era very well, and I remember being excited by both of these designs. Both the re-born Mac and re-born Beetle felt modern and high-tech but also approachable and friendly; they were all curves and bright colors and toy-like, real things that retained the delight of youth. Both the car and computer were playing in the same general pool of design, and these very different companies seemed to share the same general vision, aesthetically.
A rather impressive new LED display is on show in Las Vegas. The extraordinary experiences we can create are only limited by imagination, and we're thrilled to finally share with the world the spectacular potential of the Exosphere. The Exosphere is more than a screen or a billboard - it is living architecture, and unlike anything that exists anywhere in the world. Last night's show provided a glimpse of the Exosphere's captivating power, and the possibilities for artists, partners, and brands to create compelling and impactful stories to connect with audiences in new ways. said Guy Barnett.
Semiconductor lasers are now at steel-slicing levels. The sharks are circling. Semiconductor lasers, unlike bulky gas lasers and fiber lasers, are tiny, energy efficient, and highly controllable. A group of researchers at Kyoto University, in Japan, has taken a big step in overcoming the limitations of semiconductor laser brightness by changing the structure of photonic-crystal surface-emitting lasers (PCSELs). A photonic crystal is composed of a semiconductor sheet punched through with regular, nanometer-scale air-filled holes. Photonic crystal lasers are attractive candidates for high-brightness lasers, but until now engineers haven’t been able to scale them up to deliver beams bright enough for practical metal cutting and processing.
Intel is all set to build new fabs in Germany and Israel. The current fab expansion appears to be trending up. Intel's site near Magdeburg, Germany, is expected to encompass at least two fabs that will cost over €30 billion, though the total investment in the campus is yet to be determined. The initial fabs will be used to build chips "at a more advanced technology than originally planned," a statement by Intel reads. Meanwhile the company does not disclose which node it is talking about, though it notes that that the technology will belong to the Angstrom era, which means 18A, 20A or other sophisticated processes.
I do not know what this is, but it sounds cool. A backscattering-based nanotattoo sensor (BNTS) made of zinc and graphene. Researchers have created nanotattoos capable of passive wireless communications with nearby devices, without the need for external power sources such as batteries. The advance could lead to numerous biosensing technologies that have, up until now, been stymied by relying on a bulky external power source or wired communications. While it has biosensor potential, the ink could be sprayed on almost anything. If you paint your chair with our sensor, you can constantly get information about your sitting position. You can predict if a part might be broken because it starts to give you a weird signal.”
Bill Gates says the risk of AI are real but manageable. Gates took to his blog on Tuesday to pen a new post titled "The risk of AI are real but manageable", where he details the upcoming dangers of artificial intelligence and how society will need to manage it. Gates discusses the "Age of AI" and compares the technology to the creation of the first automobile. The Microsoft founder wrote that not too long after the first automobile, there was the first crash, and as a society, we didn't ban the use of cars, we instead implemented road rules and regulations. The same will have to happen for AI.
Mouse, Keyboard, Input, etc:
CHERRY XTRFY M42 RGB Retro Gaming Mouse @ Madshrimps
Asetek SimSports Forte Brake & Throttle Pedals @ NikKTech
Corsair Nightsabre Wireless Mouse @ guru3D
HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 @ TechPowerUp
Drop Expression Series Togekey Mechanical Keyboard @ ThinkComputers
Cooling:
Lian Li Uni Fan P28 @ LanOC
Scythe Kotetsu Mark 3 CPU Cooler @ ThinkComputers
DeepCool Assassin IV @ guru3D
Storage:
Addlink S91 2TB @ TechPowerUp
Crucial T700 1TB and T700 2TB @ OCinside
Synology DS423+ NAS @ Technoyard
Sabrent Rocket 4TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD @ Madshrimps
Motherboard, CPU:
ASUS ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming Wi-Fi @ TweakTown
ASUS ROG Maximus Z790 Hero @ TweakTown
Gigabyte Z790 AORUS MASTER @ cowcotland
The top 5 best AMD and Intel processors for your PC @ cowcotland
GIGABYTE AORUS Z790 Xtreme @ TweakTown
ASRock Z790 PG Sonic @ TweakTown
NZXT Z790 @ cowcotland
Case, PSU:
DeepCool PX1000G 1000W Power Supply @ aphNetworks
Thermaltake CTE C750TG ARGB Case @ Hardware Asylum
NZXT H9 Elite chassis @ guru3D
XPG CYBERCORE II 1300w ATX 3.0 80 PLUS Platinum PSU @ TweakTown
Audio, Visual:
Campfire Audio Solaris Stellar Horizon In-Ear Monitors @ TechPowerUp
Sivga Luan Open-Back, Over-Ear Headphones @ TechPowerUp
Portable, Prebuilt:
Nothing Phone 2 @ HotHardware
Dell Latitude 9440 @ HotHardware
ASUS Geekom AS6 PN53 Mini PC @ guru3D
Misc:
eufy Mach V1 Ultra @ LanOC
EcoFlow River 2 Pro Powerstation @ FunkyKit
Zotac GeForce RTX 4070 AMP Airo @ TechPowerUp
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