Monthly Archives: October 2017

YouTube TV Expands To NVIDIA SHIELD TV, Xbox One And Apple TV For Astute Cord Cutters

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YouTube TV Expands To NVIDIA SHIELD TV, Xbox One And Apple TV For Astute Cord Cutters
YouTube TV launched earlier this year as the latest in a long list of streaming services aimed at people looking to cut the cord. However, the launch was limited by the fact that the service was primarily focused on watching content from a smartphone or tablet. While that may be OK for people that want to watch TV shows while on-the-go, it

Source: Hot Hardware – YouTube TV Expands To NVIDIA SHIELD TV, Xbox One And Apple TV For Astute Cord Cutters

A Water Slide Ferris Wheel Might Be the Most Stomach-Turning Ride Ever Invented

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Water slides are best when they take you on a long meandering ride through curves and hills, but not every amusement park has room for a big installation. That’s why a German company has combined water slides with Ferris wheels to create this dizzying attraction that will have riders wondering which way is up.

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Source: Gizmodo – A Water Slide Ferris Wheel Might Be the Most Stomach-Turning Ride Ever Invented

Nintendo Says Switch Will Beat Wii U Total Sales Within its First Year

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It looks like the Switch is a real winner for Nintendo. They have forecast that Switch will sell over 14 million units in its first year and that’s better than the Wii U sold in its entire product lifecycle. Of course it helps that the Wii U wasn’t a very good gaming device. Anyway, the Switch is a nifty piece of gear and it’s going to print money for Nintendo for the foreseeable future.



The Switch is beginning to pay off for Nintendo. The new console is selling so well that the Japanese firm said today it is likely to outsell the Wii U, its predecessor, within one year of its release.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – Nintendo Says Switch Will Beat Wii U Total Sales Within its First Year

We Are Close to Understanding How Matter Interacts on the Tiniest Scale

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Physicists have made a groundbreaking discovery about the nature of subatomic particles – and it’s helping explain a theory that’s been around since the 1950s. The Large Hadron Collider has been searching for years to understand how subatomic particles interact with each other, but group of physicists have developed a theory that predicts how particles interact and it appears to work. It’s called BFKL dynamics and now the QCD description fits the data. In a nut shell we’re starting to further understand how matter works and in the long run that’s a good thing for future technology. This kind of stuff is fascinating. Read the paper here.



It’s been a big few weeks for physics. First, in what is probably the announcement of the year, we managed to see the birth of a black hole in real time. And now, on the completely other end of the scale, we’re starting to get to grips with how the tiniest possible bits of matter interact.

Discussion

Source: [H]ardOCP – We Are Close to Understanding How Matter Interacts on the Tiniest Scale

Nintendo promises improved Switch availability for holiday season

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Nintendo expects to have sold more than 16.7 million Switch systems by the end of March 2018, a 4 million unit increase over its last public projection in April and good news for those hoping to find the supply-constrained system for the holiday season.

“Thanks to our component suppliers, who even opened up new production lines for the Switch, our ability to ship the console has improved drastically,” Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima said, according to The Wall Street Journal. The executive also apologized for too-cautious initial forecasts of demand for the system, which led to widespread shortages. “We’ve boosted Switch production to meet strong demand as it was difficult for customers to buy the consoles at retail stores,” he said (as quoted by Reuters).

To date, Nintendo has sold 7.63 million Switch system worldwide, including 2.92 million between July and September. That’s more than half way to the 13.56 million Wii U systems Nintendo sold over that console’s nearly five-year lifespan. Projections for the Switch are more in line with the original Wii, which sold 13.17 million units in its first 10.5 months on the market, and Sony’s PS4, which sold 13.5 million units in its first 10.5 months.

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Source: Ars Technica – Nintendo promises improved Switch availability for holiday season

AMD Releases Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 WHQL: Unified Vega Pro Driver

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Last Thursday, the fourth Thursday of Q4, AMD has released Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 WHQL, one year after AMD launched the Enterprise Driver program with 16.Q4. 17.Q4 includes all the new features previewed in the summer and released first as Radeon Pro Software Crimson ReLive Edition 17.10, namely the optional “Driver Options,” AMD Secure Processor support for Vega, and improved Radeon Pro ReLive. Succeeding both 17.10 and 17.10.1, 17.Q4 unifies support for all Vega professional products: Radeon Pro WX 9100, Radeon Pro SSG, and Radeon Vega Frontier Edition. As usual, 17.Q4 also supports select FirePro graphics and the rest of the Radeon Pro cards.


To recap, AMD’s quarterly Radeon Pro Software Enterprise drivers are professional drivers and as such have ISV certification for a variety of workstation applications, as well as 24/7 Radeon Pro support. Enterprise customers receive additional Prioritized Support and may request “one driver” unified packages with support for both professional cards and select consumer Radeon products. Despite the “Enterprise” name, these drivers also apply to general professionals and supersede previous mid-quarterly Radeon Pro Software drivers.



As far as the new features go, “Driver Options” support (only available on Windows 10) has expanded to include all desktop Radeon Pro WX cards, as well as Vega FE. As only Vega-based Pro GPUs have a built-in AMD Secure Processor, the corresponding security features are now supported for WX 9100, SSG, and Vega FE. 17.Q4 also brings pass-through and MxGPU virtualization support for Citrix XenApp. Relatedly, 17.Q4 also offers technical preview support for VMware vSphere 6.5 Linked Clones.


Note that the SSG is currently only compatible with Windows 10, and that all three Vega-based professional cards do not currently support Windows 2016. Additionally, 17.Q4 does not support Multi-GPU Single Large Surface on Windows 10 on any hardware. For Linux support, details can be found in the release notes for Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 for Linux.


Buy AMD Radeon Pro SSG on Newegg


Bug Fixes and Resolved Issues


17.Q4 has a number of bug fixes and identified issues, some of them specific to Vega or VDI. For resolved issues, AMD documents the following:


  • [Vega] With 10-bit displays, users may encounter anomalies in display results.

  • [Vega] Forced EDID Emulation may fail to be enabled.

  • [Vega] Intermittently, only one display per GPU is selectable for setting Timing-Client.

  • [Vega] User may experience anomalies with Radeon ReLive after switching to Gaming Mode from Professional Mode.

  • [Vega] Corruption/Flickering may be observed on selecting grid in SideFX Houdini.

  • [VDI] Unexpected hangs may be observed when reinstalling the driver on VM

  • In Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS 2017 (SP3/SP4) with RealView enabled, a model in shaded mode may show lines and wireframe when rotated.

  • Users may encounter Blu-ray playback issues on PowerDVD after switching to Gaming Mode.

  • During sleep and resume, a user may experience a TDR when instant replay is enabled.

  • Video recorded through Radeon Pro ReLive may only show a green image and cursor on Radeon Pro WX 7100.

  • User may encounter display anomalies such as disabled display resolution field set at a fixed value after driver installation when connected using DP cable.

  • Unexpected behavior with Siemens Solid Edge that may cause TDR and non-responsive states.

  • Unexpected behavior with 3DMark Fire Strike and Cloud Gate.

  • AMD Eyefinity tab may not be displayed in CNect on Windows 7.

Buy AMD Radeon Pro WX 9100 on Newegg


Known Issues


  • [Vega] Unexpected behavior when resume from sleep on Radeon Pro SSG.

  • [Vega] Unexpected behavior in Adobe Premiere Pro CC 8K playback when resuming from sleep and hibernate on Radeon Pro SSG.

  • [Vega] The uninstaller may not remove amdssg64.sys during uninstall on Radeon Pro SSG.

  • [Vega] Warning messages may be observed during Radeon ProRender installation for Autodesk 3ds Max and SOLIDWORKS on Radeon Pro SSG.

  • [Vega] The user may experience unexpected behavior creating 4×1 or 6×1 AMD Eyefinity display configurations with 5K displays.

  • [Vega] Unexpected behavior with Packed Pixel with 10-bit support for Radeon Pro SSG.

  • [Vega] Unexpected behavior with 6 4K display configuration while running 3DMark Fire Strike.

  • [Vega] Application profiles may not be automatically created.

  • [Vega] HBCC Memory Segment may not retain its applied value.

  • [VDI] Unexpected behavior may be observed when triggering a TDR in a virtual machine using VMware Horizon or Citrix XenDesktop.

  • Unexpected display anomalies such as flickering and blank screen for SDI speed test.

  • User may encounter missing/incorrect gaming driver version number when installing and switching between Gaming Mode and Professional Mode.

Buy Radeon Vega FE Liquid on Amazon.com


ISV Certification Notes


  • Due to Maya-MtoA software issue “Trac #3142,” some Viewport Draw modes for stand-ins draw an infinite line. Workaround is to toggle the Viewport Draw Mode of the stand-in in the Attribute Editor.

  • Autodesk Maya 2017/2018 may show gray patch in playback in certain models due to Maya issue “Maya 41945.” Workaround is to click on a different frame on timeline or to click on first frame.

The updated drivers for AMD’s professional workstation GPUs are available online at the AMD’s professional graphics driver download page. More information on this update and further issues can be found in the Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 release notes.


New Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Drivers are released on the fourth Thursday of the quarter. The next releases will follow on January 25th 2018 and April 26th 2018.



Source: AnandTech – AMD Releases Radeon Pro Software Enterprise Driver 17.Q4 WHQL: Unified Vega Pro Driver

RIP Robert Blakeley, Designer of the Fallout Shelter Sign

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Designer Robert W. Blakeley isn’t a household name, but every American has seen his work. No, he wasn’t employed by Coca-Cola or Ford or Disney, but instead worked for the US government. Blakeley’s most famous design? He came up with the yellow and black fallout shelter sign. Sadly, he died last week at the age of 95.

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Source: Gizmodo – RIP Robert Blakeley, Designer of the Fallout Shelter Sign

Google Denies Demoting the Pirate Bay In Some Countries

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An anonymous reader writes: Google and The Pirate Bay have had an interesting relationship over the years, to say the least. This week, users pointed out that The Pirate Bay can appear significantly lower down in search results (and definitely not on the first page), depending on which country you are searching in. We reached out to Google, and it denied the allegations that it was demoting the site. TorrentFreak first spotted the odd behavior. The publication used Chrome in incognito mode to search for “The Pirate Bay” in Google with different IP addresses to see where the site’s thepiratebay.org domain showed up. An IP address in the U.K., for example, would result in The Pirate Bay showing up on the fifth or sixth page, while an IP address in the U.S. would bring back The Pirate Bay as the top result.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



Source: Slashdot – Google Denies Demoting the Pirate Bay In Some Countries

Who Actually Owns Your Content When You Post It to the Web

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Thanks to the wonders of the web, you can get your content up and in front of an audience of millions in seconds—but that doesn’t necessarily mean you still own that photo of your dog once it is live. Signing the terms and conditions on your favorite social networks could mean signing away the rights to that video of…

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Source: Gizmodo – Who Actually Owns Your Content When You Post It to the Web

Dozens of Octopuses Crawl Ashore Along Welsh Coast: 'It Was a Bit Like an End of Days Scenario'

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For three consecutive nights, troves of octopuses have been seen walking out of the sea and stranding themselves along several beaches in Wales. Experts say the unusual behavior may have something to do with recent storms that swept through the region.

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Source: Gizmodo – Dozens of Octopuses Crawl Ashore Along Welsh Coast: ‘It Was a Bit Like an End of Days Scenario’

ASUS Launches ZenFone 4 Family In US With Snapdragon SoCs And Dual Rear Cameras

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ASUS Launches ZenFone 4 Family In US With Snapdragon SoCs And Dual Rear Cameras
ASUS has announced the launch of a new family of smartphones in the U.S., and all of the devices have dual rear cameras promising to shoot optimum pictures in just about any setting. The ZenFone 4 family includes the ZenFone 4 Pro, ZenFone 4, and ZenFone 4 Max (in two display sizes). The ZenFone 4 Pro has a 5.5-inch display and the dual rear

Source: Hot Hardware – ASUS Launches ZenFone 4 Family In US With Snapdragon SoCs And Dual Rear Cameras

Words You Can Use Instead of "Very" to Punch Up Your Writing

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Learning how to write is like learning how to play a musical instrument: Once you learn the basic rules—grammar, spelling and punctuation—and are writing technically correct sentences, there’s a still the whole world of syntax, diction, and style to conquer. And this is where writers, like musicians, have opinions: Is…

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Source: LifeHacker – Words You Can Use Instead of “Very” to Punch Up Your Writing