Plenty of leaks and rumors have been surrounding the upcoming Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards. But the latest one allegedly comes from Intel itself.
In a test driver, there are system files found that reveal the apparent names of the upcoming Intel graphics cards, as spotted by YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead. According to the SYS files in the driver, there are at least five SKUs for both desktop and mobile:
There are likely more SKUs planned for the Arc Alchemist line as per previous leaks, with at least five separate variants of the DG2 GPUs. But we’ll have to wait for Intel to unveil the Alchemist lineup in earnest before we know exactly what it will look like.
Other Arc Alchemist leaks so far
Intel Arc A380 has been previously leaked by Twitter user @TUM_APISAK, who claimed it had a clock speed of 2.45 GHz. It was also supposed to feature 6GB of GDDR6 memory.
Meanwhile, the Intel Arc Alchemist 512 EU model had its own specs leaked, in which it’s said to boast 16GB GDDR6 memory and 4,096 Execution Units.
There was also a mysterious budget Arc Alchemist that had been leaked earlier this month via a blurred photo. From what could be gathered, there are three memory modules around the GPU. GDDR6 memory modules come in 2GB blocks, which means it’s safe to assume this graphics card features 6GB GDDR6 RAM.
The rumor mill may have also revealed that the Arc Alchemist desktop chips won’t be out until late 2022. Though this seems to fly in the face of what Intel has previously asserted, which is a Q1 2022 launch for the desktop cards.
The keyword is rumor, however, so this should all be taken with a grain of salt until Intel reveals or denies these rumors itself.
At the exact point where art and science meet, that’s where you’ll find Samsung’s remarkable new Quantum Mini LED TV technology. It allows Samsung Neo QLED televisions to set entirely new standards where picture quality, energy efficiency and audio quality are concerned. It even enables the TVs to be slimmer and more elegant than ever before.
By significantly reducing the size of the LEDs used to backlight a screen’s Quantum Dots, Samsung creates space for significantly more of them. Quantum Mini LED is 40 times smaller than a conventional LED, so Samsung NeoQLED TVs can feature many thousands of of these lights.
(Image credit: Samsung)
The effects are apparent in every respect. The QE65QN800A, QE55QN94A and QE55QN85A Samsung NeoQLED TVs are elegant, super-slim objects that look good in any environment. The QE65QN800A, with its 8K resolution and stunning next-generation picture quality, also features Samsung’s One Connect box, which keeps the number of connection cables to the screen down to just one. So a Samsung NeoQLED TV enhances, rather than distracts from, the environment in which it’s positioned.
And once it’s in position, the benefits are even more obvious. Such small, and such numerous Quantum Mini LEDs let Samsung’s Quantum Matrix technology exert the most precise, most focussed control of contrast and brightness. Black tones are deeper and more nuanced, and white tones pop from the screen - which means contrast details are richer than ever before.
With cutting-edge AI-powered processing for pin-sharp 4K/8K detail and convincing motion, Neo QLED delivers Samsung’s sharpest, most compelling pictures yet. And in conjunction with a host of other cutting-edge technologies, it makes a Neo QLED TV the perfect choice for next-gen console gamers.
Samsung Neo QLED TV has what it takes to bring the very best from Playstation 5 and XBox Series X. Experience the most full-on gaming experience ever, thanks to AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Virtual Refresh Rate (VRR) technology to constantly monitor the frame-rate your console is outputting - for a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. This adaptability and responsiveness means you’ll be immersed in the most lifelike, absorbing images - and it means HDR games are stable, bright and vibrant, with no tearing or stuttering even when the on-screen action goes into overdrive.
(Image credit: Samsung)
To keep your gaming experience crisp and immersive, Motion Xcelerator Turbo Plus uses its ultra-high 120Hz refresh rate to keep 4K graphics smooth, accurate and completely free from jitter, even when you’re playing the most intense, fast-moving games around. No blur, no shake, just the most detailed, most absorbing graphics possible. And it helps reduce input lag too - the time between your button-press and the on-screen graphics responding is down at an incredibly low 0.01 of a second.
And on top of all that, Dynamic Black Equaliser technology reveals the finest details even in the deepest, darkest scenes. Auto Low Latency Mode detects when you’ve fired up your games console, and automatically minimises input lag and maximises picture settings - so you’ll always be ready to lose yourself in that extraordinary Samsung Neo QLED TV image quality. And with Samsung’s 10-year Screen Burn warranty*, you can get your game on for as long as you like.
Brilliant, lifelike gaming action deserves equally epic audio quality, of course, so SamsungNeo QLED TVs also feature Object Tracking Sound*. Experience ultra-realistic 3D surround sound, no matter what you’re watching, thanks to dedicated high-performance speakers that let sound move around to follow the on-screen action.
So in every way, Samsung Neo QLED TV sets new standards. New technological standards, and new standards of picture performance… and, perhaps most of all, entirely new standards where your next-gen gaming experience is concerned. You’ve never seen anything like it.
Christmas is fast approaching, as we all know, so big retailers like Amazon are already in the process of slashing prices on desired products for you and your loved ones. Case in point: the Fire TV Cube is currently down to its lowest price ever at the online retail giant in both the US and the UK, beating more expensive streamers like the Apple TV 4K.
Naturally, it's a great time to buy the Fire TV Cube, which we consider to be easily one of the best streaming devices out there. Right now, the box is down to just $74.99 / £59.99 in each respective region, down from the usual retail price of $119.99 / £109.99.
That's a bargain compared to the Apple TV 4K ($179 / £169) too. The latter may be a fabulous streaming device in itself, especially with high frame rates, HDR support, a brilliant Siri remote and, of course, the inclusion of the Apple TV Plus subscription service.
However, its price is hard to justify if you're not already an Apple enthusiast, especially when more affordable alternatives exist that are just as capable – or in some cases even beat it for functionality. It doesn't have a built-in speaker like the Fire TV Cube, after all.
The Fire TV Cube is a brilliant streamer, packing in almost every entertainment subscription service you could ask for, including Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and of course, Prime Video. Yet its typically high price tag often makes other great streaming devices like the Roku Express 4K or Chromecast with Google TV look far more appealing, if only for their relatively affordable retail prices.
It stands to reason that Amazon needs to counter the burgeoning competition in the streaming space. To its credit, Amazon has consistently updated the Fire TV Cube in the years since its release with new features and quality-of-life improvements, and the second-gen device also supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. However, that's simply falling in line with its competition, not exactly beating them.
Is a better Fire TV Cube on the way?
(Image credit: Amazon)
Of course, a sudden price drop like this could well point to a new Fire TV Cube iteration coming in the near future – something we've speculated on before.
While we were disappointed that Amazon chose not to show off a third generation model back at the September Amazon event, the first quarter of 2022 seems like a fine time to usher in a new iteration of its excellent streaming device. But where can it improve?
Let's look at gaming, for one. Both the Apple TV 4K and Chromecast with Google TV support Apple Arcade and Google Stadia respectively. Amazon has its own gaming service in Luna, which seems like an obvious, natural addition to a next-gen Fire TV Cube to give it something that its competition lacks, especially considering Google Stadia is still a mixed bag of a service in the eyes of many gamers.
Further improvements could also be made to Fire TV Cube's existing feature set. A home screen that isn't as reliant on Amazon-exclusive content as well as better language recognition are both things Amazon could realistically improve. How about true HDMI 2.1 support for better image quality and drastically lower input lag for gaming (if the company elects to include Amazon Luna, of course)?
There's a lot Amazon can do to improve upon its already fantastic Fire TV Cube, then. A follow-up device has been long overdue for a while, and the above suggestions show that there's still plenty of room for improvement. We just hope to see said improvements before the competition starts to leave the Fire TV Cube in the dust.
The EGPL-T101 might be your best bet yet if you want to transfer data to and from your computer (or server or workstation or desktop replacement laptop) as fast as possible should you be without any available PCIe slots. This is a new card (but not a classic NIC) from network specialist Innovision that supports speed of up to 10GbE, 10 times faster than the usual Gigabit connector found on most computers.
Based on the Marvell AQtion Ethernet controller, it is physically an M2.2280 expansion card with a daughterboard tethered with a high speed shielding cable and comes with a 3-year warranty.
Innodisk hasn’t yet released the pricing for the card but we’d expect it to be cheaper than $100, which is what Asus and TP-Link charge for their 10G network adapters (although that’s in the traditional PCIe x4 format).
Switching to 10Gb
10G is ideal for industrial and embedded systems as well as surveillance (multiple 4K from business security systems can easily add up) and networking (e.g. streaming 8K footage from your NAS).
While 2.5Gb is slowly surfacing as the next iteration after 1Gb, it is the price of switches (or network switches) that is likely to determine how quickly a technology will be adopted.
While you can get a 1Gb switch with eight ports for about $15, you’d pay almost 10x that amount for 2.5Gb and 100x for 10Gb. And while 2.5Gb is slowly replacing the ubiquitous 1Gb Ethernet port on laptops and desktops, we predict that it won’t be before the end of this decade that 10Gb will start to become mainstream (assuming ports are still a thing in 2030).
If you still fancy something a bit exotic, then you can try to bond (AKA channel bonding) multiple Gigabit internet connections together to achieve a 10Gb broadband connection.
A spacecraft just touched the Sun for the first time in human history.
The Parker Solar Probe flew through the Sun's atmosphere, known as its corona, collecting particles and measuring the Sun's magnetic field, according to NASA.
"Parker Solar Probe 'touching the Sun' is a monumental moment for solar science and a truly remarkable feat," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC.
"Not only does this milestone provide us with deeper insights into our Sun's evolution and its impacts on our solar system, but everything we learn about our own star also teaches us more about stars in the rest of the universe.”
Dell has revealed Concept Luna, a new prototype for a sustainable laptop that maximizes key aspects such as easy repairs and reusability of components, as well as reducing overall carbon footprint in terms of its production.
Concept Luna is a proof-of-concept which Dell has worked on in conjunction with Intel, and note that it’s not a laptop which will be made – it’s merely a concept to see what might be possible if PC makers pushed forward along these lines.
Key facets of the design in terms of providing better repairability – which is crucial for extending a device’s lifespan, and therefore eco-friendliness – include vastly reducing the number of screws used. In fact, with the Concept Luna design, only four screws need undoing to get to the internal components, streamlining any repairs (or scavenging operations for reusing parts) considerably.
Dell has also put forward the idea of a new (bio-based) PCB made from flax fiber (rather than plastic) in the base, with a water-soluble polymer used as glue. In other words, unlike the usual glue often found – and overused – in too much hardware these days, this stuff can be easily dissolved with water.
On the battery front, there’s an “advanced deep-cycle cell battery” that’s designed to last across “many years” of usage, so it can be reused in another device once its original hardware has died.
The broad idea with the easy accessibility and it being simple to remove components is that these can all be removed from a piece of hardware which has died, and then reused in another device (and so on, going forward – for the lifespan of the components, naturally).
Treading lightly
Forging forward with reducing the carbon footprint of the product includes shrinking the size of the motherboard by around 75%, as this is one of the biggest energy-using components to make, Dell notes.
The number of components inside the machine is also reduced by around 20% in the concept device, and the layout of the internal hardware is optimized for better cooling (putting the motherboard in the top cover of the notebook, meaning the display section, so it’s against a large surface area cooled by the outside air, to help with passive cooling). These various cooling efficiency measures will help with overall power consumption, meaning a smaller battery can be used, and the machine can rely totally on passive cooling rather than needing a fan.
That chassis, incidentally, is an aluminum affair made using a stamped aluminum construction (and hydro power) to reduce energy usage in the production process.
Dell states: “If all the design ideas in Concept Luna were realized, we could expect to see an estimated 50% reduction in overall product carbon footprint.” (That’s compared to the current Dell Latitude 7300 Anniversary Edition, incidentally).
Analysis: The gap between concept and practical implementation
Even if this is just a concept, it’s an impressive sounding piece of work, and points to the kind of progress we can expect to be made in terms of PC manufacturing becoming more eco-friendly. Of course, the impact of manufacturing is coming increasingly under the microscope these days given climate change (and of course the recent COP26 summit).
On the other hand, while Luna sounds like it brings forth some truly laudable ideas, the actual practical application of some of the measures – without any meaningful trade-offs or compromises, particularly in the relocation of that super-compact motherboard to the laptop lid – could be a difficult act to pull off, at least in the shorter term.
Nonetheless, it’s good to see Dell (and Intel) at least thinking about strategies for future more eco-friendly laptops.
Customizing Mozilla's browser with add-ons can give you a whole new experience when browsing the web though only one-third of Firefox users have installed an extension or theme.
Among the 100m+ users that did install an extension this year, adblockers were the most popular with Adblock Plus taking the top spot followed by uBlock Origin. Across the span of 2021, Adblock Plus had an average of over 6.1m daily users while uBlock Origin averaged just over 5m+ daily users over the course of the year.
While Adblock Plus led the charge at the beginning of the year, uBlock Origin was able to close the gap and if current usage trends among Firefox users continue, it may take the top spot in early 2022 according to a new blog post from Mozilla.
One of the reasons users choose Firefox as their preferred browser is to further protect their privacy online. While adblockers can stop ads from following you around the web, other popular extensions this year that protect against invasive tracking include Mozilla's own Facebook Container with 1.7m daily active users and Ghostery with 1.1m daily active users.
Firefox Recommended Extensions
In addition to putting out a list of the most popular extensions each year, the Firefox Recommended Extensions program is a curated list of third party extensions that meet Mozilla's highest standards of security, utility and user experience.
For those who often find themselves drowning in a sea of open browser tabs, Tab Stash may be the perfect extension as it adds a toolbar button that when clicked, saves all of your open tabs as temporary bookmarks. If you're using Firefox Sync, the service will automatically show your Tab Stash bookmarks synced to other devices.
Another interesting extension highlighted by Mozilla is Stylebot. This extension gives you the power to dramatically alter the way any website looks from font sizes to color schemes to content layout. Perhaps you're intrigued by vertical tabs in Microsoft Edge? Then the Sideberry extension can be used to organize your open tabs in a cascading “tree” tucked away to the side of your browser.
While web browsers have certainly come a long way, extensions allow you to further customize their look and fell as well as their functionality which can help you be more productive or just have a better browsing experience overall.
