Chanon Suasungnern is a concept artist from Thailand.
Source: Kotaku – Sailor Moon Is All Out Of Bubblegum
Monthly Archives: June 2016
Use Gelatin and Water to Clean Used Cooking Oil and Use It Again
Frying oil usually ends up with gross gunk floating around in it, making it a poor candidate for re-using, but it turns out there is a simple way to filter all that crap out, and all you need is gelatin.
Source: LifeHacker – Use Gelatin and Water to Clean Used Cooking Oil and Use It Again
ICYMI: Pig poop could make more eco-friendly roadways
Today on In Case You Missed It: The chemical makeup of pig manure is so similar to petroleum that it’s being tested as a more bio-friendly way to make asphalt roads, while the leftover bits can be used as fertilizer. Since pigs already produce 43 b…
Source: Engadget – ICYMI: Pig poop could make more eco-friendly roadways
Pro Mountain Biker Thrashes a Cheap Walmart Bike on a Brutal Trail
Just because this Huffy Carnage is sold by Walmart as a mountain bike doesn’t necessarily mean it can handle a legit downhill mountain run, as Phil Kmetz discovered after spending $180 on one. Halfway through his ride the bike’s brake pads were almost completely gone, and after the first jump its handlebars broke and bent.
Source: Gizmodo – Pro Mountain Biker Thrashes a Cheap Walmart Bike on a Brutal Trail
Stephen Colbert Explains Why the Rio Olympics Could Be a 'Massive Catastrophe'
It’s no secret that the Rio Olympic games, kicking off this August, are in serious trouble. There’s crime. There’s disease
. There’s Jaguar slaughter
, and lots of other problems
. Last night Stephen Colbert summed up all the reasons the Olympics will likely be a disaster in just five minutes.
Source: Gizmodo – Stephen Colbert Explains Why the Rio Olympics Could Be a ‘Massive Catastrophe’
AMD Acquires Software Company HiAlgo, Laying Groundwork for Future Gaming Innovation in Radeon Software
AMD today announced the acquisition of software company HiAlgo Inc., a developer of unique PC gaming technologies designed to help Radeon™ RX Series GPUs transform gaming experience, increase GPU efficiency and improve the overall consistency of gaming experiences. The acquisition lays the groundwork for future gaming innovation in Radeon Software that will benefit owners of Radeon™ RX Series GPUs.
“Software is an integral part of advancing the science of graphics, enabling us to best harness the silicon of the GPU to maximize performance and deliver outstanding experiences in games and applications,” said Raja Koduri, senior vice president and chief architect, Radeon Technologies Group, AMD. “HiAlgo embodies our spirit of passion, persistence and play by delivering a number of creative approaches to software that improve gamers’ experiences, and helps future-proof the GPU.”
Radeon Software enables the ultimate in performance, features and stability of Radeon™ graphics to ensure an exceptional user experience. Today, launching alongside the Radeon™ RX 480 graphics card are nine new features of Radeon Software Crimson Edition designed to give users more control over their computing experience, including multi-GPU, display, and power efficiency settings, and a redefined overclocking tool in Radeon WattMan.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – AMD Acquires Software Company HiAlgo, Laying Groundwork for Future Gaming Innovation in Radeon Software
AMD Radeon RX 480 Review Round-Up
Reviews of the AMD Radeon RX 480 are coming in from around the internet and, as always, we’ve done our best to round up as many reviews as we can and post links to them here for your convenience. We’ll add more reviews throughout the day as we find them.
[H]ard|OCP
Phoronix
HotHardware
techPowerUP!
Legit Reviews
Tech Report
LanOC
HardwareCanucks
TechSpot
Source: [H]ardOCP – AMD Radeon RX 480 Review Round-Up
Microsoft's CEO Explores How Humans And AI Can Work Together
Look, we don’t need Microsoft’s CEO to tell us how humans and AI can work together because we already know what is going to happen. Humans develop AI, artificial intelligence eventually takes over, humanity is enslaved to the machines…running the latest version of Windows. Thanks Satya Nadella. Thanks a lot.
Advanced machine learning, also known as artificial intelligence or just A.I., holds far greater promise than unsettling headlines about computers beating humans at games like Jeopardy!, chess, checkers, and Go. Ultimately, humans and machines will work together—not against one another. Computers may win at games, but imagine what’s possible when human and machine work together to solve society’s greatest challenges like beating disease, ignorance, and poverty.
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Source: [H]ardOCP – Microsoft’s CEO Explores How Humans And AI Can Work Together
IMAX will build you a home theater—starting at $400,000
An IMAX Private Theatre (presumably a render). Prices start at around £300K.
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If you have about £300,000 ($400K) to spare, IMAX’s Private Theatre division will now build an IMAX cinema setup in your own home.
The entry-level IMAX Private Theatre is the “Palais,” which starts at about £300K for a screening room with up to 18 seats. For your money you get dual 4K 2D/3D projectors, a proprietary IMAX sound system, and a media playback system that supports everything you might want to throw at it (TV, games, Blu-ray, etc.) No word on the exact specifications of the projectors, but they’re probably not IMAX-with-laser. Screen size will vary depending on the setup, but generally they will be 3 metres (10ft) tall or more.
Stepping up to the “Platinum” IMAX home theatre for about £750,000 ($1 million) gets you a much larger screening room with space for up to 40 people. The IMAX website doesn’t break out the specs of the Platinum setup, but presumably it’s similar to the Palais. Both the Palais and Platinum models come with automatic daily self-calibration to ensure optimal picture and audio setup, 24/7 remote monitoring (whatever that means in the context of home theatres), and, of course, the design and architecture of the room itself is so exquisite that your friends will think you have great taste (if that was ever in doubt).
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Source: Ars Technica – IMAX will build you a home theater—starting at 0,000
Making energy out of waste heat with simple ingredients
The world is awash in our waste heat. Our computers, our motors, our electrical generating plants—all of them shed heat into the environment. That’s in part because there’s no easy way to capture its energy and put it to use. All the existing methods we have for harvesting waste heat are either inefficient or uneconomical.
Now, some researchers have come up with a new method of grabbing some of that waste heat and potentially putting it to work. Their system relies on nothing more complex than water and a polymer membrane and, even in its first test form, it’s already capturing roughly half of the possible Carnot efficiency available to the system.
We already generate lots of electricity via heat differences. It’s just that those differences are large—large enough to create the pressure differences needed to drive turbines. Waste heat often becomes waste simply because the temperature differences are small, on the order of dozens of degrees Celsius, rather than hundreds.
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Source: Ars Technica – Making energy out of waste heat with simple ingredients
AMD Radeon RX 480 On Linux
After weeks of anticipation, AMD’s high-end Radeon RX 480 “Polaris” graphics card is officially launching today! This graphics card starts at just $199 USD (or $239 USD for the 8GB version) and has day-one Linux support! There’s available open-source driver support as well as an AMDGPU-PRO update that’s expected today for those wanting to make use of this newer hybrid Linux driver stack. I’ve been testing the Radeon RX 480 under Linux the past week under both driver stacks and have my initial results to share this morning.
Source: Phoronix – AMD Radeon RX 480 On Linux
One Mystery of Justice League Has Been Solved
The Blade Runner sequel adds an intriguing actor, while Transformers 5 adds a familiar face. The Legends of Tomorrow will encounter a major, real-life historical figure. And someone tries to explain why the hell the Tetris movie needs to be a trilogy. Spoilers, form the head!
Source: io9 – One Mystery of Justice League Has Been Solved
Clinton Tech Plan Reads Like Silicon Valley Wish List
theodp writes from a report via USA Today: “If there was any lingering doubt as to tech’s favored presidential candidate,” writes USA Today’s Jon Swartz, “Hillary Clinton put an end to that Tuesday with a tech plan that reads like a Silicon Valley wish list. It calls for connecting every U.S. household to high-speed internet by 2020, reducing regulatory barriers and supporting Net neutrality rules, [which ban internet providers from blocking or slowing content.] It proposes investments in computer science and engineering education (“engage the private sector and nonprofits to train up to 50,000 computer science teachers in the next decade”), expansion of 5G mobile data, making inexpensive Wi-Fi available at more airports and train stations, and attaching a green card to the diplomas of foreign-born students earning STEM degrees.” dcblogs shares with us a report from Computerworld that specifically discusses Clinton’s support of green cards for foreign students who earn STEM degrees: As president, Hillary Clinton will support automatic green cards, or permanent residency, for foreign students who earn advanced STEM degrees. Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, wants the U.S. to “staple” green cards on the diplomas of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) masters and PhD graduates “from accredited institutions.” Clinton outlined her plan in a broader tech policy agenda released today. Clinton’s “staple” idea isn’t new. It’s what Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential candidate in 2012, supported. It has had bipartisan support in Congress. But the staple idea is controversial. Critics will say this provision will be hard to control, will foster age discrimination, and put pressure on IT wages.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Clinton Tech Plan Reads Like Silicon Valley Wish List
The AMD Radeon RX 480 Preview: Polaris Makes Its Mainstream Mark
Back in December of last year, AMD’s Radeon Technologies Group began slowly trickling out the plans for what would be their first GPU architecture built for the now-modern FinFET processes: Polaris. As part of a broader change in how GPU architectures have been handled – more information is now released ahead of launch – AMD laid out what they wanted to do with Polaris. Aim for the mainstream, radically improve power efficiency, lay the groundwork for HDR displays, and, of course, improve performance.
Now six months later we are seeing AMD’s plans come to fruition, as the Polaris GPUs are in full production, and the first retail products are launching today. Kicking off the Polaris generation in the desktop market will be AMD’s Radeon RX 480, which is aiming for the mainstream market. We’ve already seen the card, the price, and AMD’s marketing spiel back at Computex 2016, so now it’s time to take a look at the final, retail hardware.
Source: AnandTech – The AMD Radeon RX 480 Preview: Polaris Makes Its Mainstream Mark
AMD's Radeon RX 480 is the new king of budget video cards
Instead of trying to build the biggest and most powerful video card on the market, AMD aimed at the low end for the Radeon RX 480. But that doesn’t make it any less exciting than NVIDIA’s recent powerhouse GeForce GTX 1080 and 1070 cards. AMD’s pitch…
Source: Engadget – AMD’s Radeon RX 480 is the new king of budget video cards
"Radeon Settings" GUI Control Panel May Be Open-Sourced For AMD Linux Users
Besides the Radeon RX 480 “Polaris” performance numbers no longer being under NDA (see our 12-page Radeon RX 480 Linux review!), also being made public today are the Radeon Software improvements to Radeon Settings around WattMan, the successor to PowerPlay for overclocking/underclocking via the Radeon GUI control panel. But isn’t Radeon Settings Windows-only? Yes, for now, but they are looking at the possibility of opening up Radeon Settings for Linux users…
Source: Phoronix – “Radeon Settings” GUI Control Panel May Be Open-Sourced For AMD Linux Users
AMD Is Launching A New Beta Program For Their Drivers
For years AMD had a very active, community-driven semi-private beta program for their (Catalyst, at the time) drivers but in recent years while going through tough financial times they cut back the program. However, they will now be working to restore this program and they will be looking for Linux participants too…
Source: Phoronix – AMD Is Launching A New Beta Program For Their Drivers
Extra Steam Linux Gaming Benchmarks Of The AMD Radeon RX 480
Our just-published 12-page AMD Radeon RX 480 Linux review features a wealth of interesting OpenGL/OpenCL/Vulkan Linux benchmarks along with performance-per-Watt and performance-per-dollar metrics and more. Check it out if you haven’t already. This article are just some extra Steam Linux gaming benchmarks for the RX 480 vs. various NVIDIA graphics cards in the games that can’t be fully-automated like Tomb Raider, Shadow of Mordor, and Company of Heroes 2 where the benchmarks had to be manually executed…
Source: Phoronix – Extra Steam Linux Gaming Benchmarks Of The AMD Radeon RX 480
Discovery of new helium reserves a “game changer” for medical industry
(credit: William Warby/Wikimedia Commons)
It might be the second most common element in the observable universe but until very recently, Earth, it was thought, was running out of helium. Aside from its obvious uses in balloons given out at children’s parties by pizza restaurants, the noble gas actually has a number of vital medical and scientific applications—and in recent decades we’ve burned through most of our once-enormous reserves.
Helium is used mostly as a coolant, especially in MRI scanners, which use around one fifth of the world’s reserves in liquid form to cool the machines’ superconducting magnets. The semiconductor industry also uses it to grow crystals, while modern materials science also uses its high-yield cooling properties, as do certain advanced telescopes. Despite its uses, however, Earth was believed to be coming to an end of its reserves, having been allowed to squander what was once considered a fairly useless resource.
Researchers from Durham and Oxford universities, however, have surprised the scientific world by discovering a huge new reserve in Tanzania’s Rift Valley in east Africa—using a new technique which could be used to find even more. It turns out that volcanic activity helps release the gas from the ancient rocks which usually hold it, allowing it to rise to shallower gas fields.
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Source: Ars Technica – Discovery of new helium reserves a “game changer” for medical industry
System Shock Remaster Hits Kickstarter And Brings Along Free Playable Demo
If you were a System Shock fan in 1994, you are in for a treat. Night Dive Studios has just started a campaign on Kickstarter where supporters can back a new and improved reboot of System Shock. There is a even a free demo to quench the thirst of early backers.
System Shock will be a complete remake of the classic using the Unity Engine.
Source: Hot Hardware – System Shock Remaster Hits Kickstarter And Brings Along Free Playable Demo