• AMD's Strix Halo laptop chip is here - or almost here; at least review embargoes have lifted on the Asus ROG Flow 13 which features it - and it's actually good.  (Hot Hardware)
  
  This chip has 16 Zen 5 cores - full size ones, not the smaller and slower Zen 5c - along with 40 RDNA 3.5 cores and a 256-bit memory bus.
  
  CPU results range between solid and blowing everything else on the market into oblivion.  On Geekbench 6 multi-threaded, it's 66% faster than its nearest competition - despite both chips having the same number of cores.
  
  The selling point of this chip is the integrated graphics, which AMD promised to be competitive with Nvidia's RTX 4070.  Now, they did mean the laptop 4070, which is about 20% slower than the desktop version.  But this review includes multiple laptops equipped with the 4070 and the AMD chip's integrated graphics pretty consistently lands in the middle of that pack.
  
  It's not cheap by any means, but Best Buy has a 64GB ROG Flow 13 for $2199, which is not insane for one of the fastest laptops you can buy.

• Adding a full disk drive to your computer can speed up calculations.  (Qunta)
  
  If you are using a computing methodology that nobody in the world uses for anything practical.  Otherwise it will do exactly what you expect, which is nothing.
  
  
  
• Public interest groups - which is to say communists and grifters - have asked the Sixth Circuit to reconsider its decision that killed the FCCs Net Neutrality rules again.  (Reuters)  (archive site)
  
  The one slight problem with that is that the FCC doesn't want Net Neutrality, so any ruling from the court - in either direction - would be completely irrelevant.
  
  
  
• Flash memory prices are down because - shockingly - nobody is buying gimmicky, unnecessary, and expensive AI laptops.  (The Register)
  
  Good.
  
  
  
• Nokia is deploying a 4G cellphone network on the Moon.  (MIT)  (archive site)
  
  Briefly.  The Intuitive Machines lander carrying the 4G base station (to be launched of course on a SpaceX Falcon 9) is small and cheap and not designed to survive the long lunar night.  But it should be long enough to return some interesting data, as long as the bundled talk minutes don't run out.
  
  
  
• Acer, which ships most of its products from China, is planning to increase its prices in the US by 10% in response to 10% tariffs on products shipped from China.  (The Telegraph)
  
  But is also looking at moving manufacturing out of China, which is rather the point.
  
  
  

Musical Interlude

Posted by: Rick C at Wednesday, February 19 2025 10:51 PM (NEIix)

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