It’s rare in recent years to have anything to report on xf86-video-ati, the X.Org driver for the display/2D experience for pre-GCN Radeon graphics cards. But this week has been a large batch of fixes and improvements for those using this DDX driver with pre-HD7000 series hardware…
Source: Phoronix – Pre-AMDGPU xf86-video-ati X.Org Driver Sees A Round Of Improvements
Monthly Archives: July 2018
Watch the trailer for Netflix's resurrected sci-fi thriller 'Extinction'
Netflix has just dropped the trailer for its science-fiction thriller Extinction, in which a man’s nightmares of losing his family morph into a reality as alien invaders try to wipe out humanity. The movie has a strong cast, including Ant-Man and The…
Source: Engadget – Watch the trailer for Netflix’s resurrected sci-fi thriller ‘Extinction’
Hands On With The Acer Predator Helios 300 Special Edition
One of the more interesting laptop designs to come out of the Computex week was from Acer: its new Predator Helios 300 Special Edition was an eclectic mix of white and gold that made it stand out from the swathe of standard black and red looking gaming machines being announced and on the market. We had a recent chance to spend some time with the unit at an Acer UK event.
So to begin, the unit in front of me was a Core i5-8300H model with a 15.6-inch 1920×1080 IPS display with a GTX 1060 inside. The unit looks great, if you like white and gold, and it will be interesting to see how the white stands up to repeated use and cleaning. We were told that the chassis is made from some composite materials (which ones were not disclosed) which should reduce fingerprints and scratches incurred during normal use.
The display, while not going all the way to the edge, can get reasonably bright, was definitely useable in a dimly lit room. Viewing angles seemed solid as well. The webcam is above the screen, and to be honest the white surround of the display did not impinge on using the device.
The keyboard is basically a full sized keyboard, using full size arrow keys which is a definite plus. The amount of key travel, compared to say the Huawei Matebook X Pro, was larger which is a plus for my use. It is easy to spot that the WASD keys have a ‘gold’ square on them. This is not a sticker, the keys themselves are colored this way. I feel like the key should be fully colored, rather than just a square (which sometimes looks off center), but I suppose it is easier to add the color after the fact. The key letters are actually cut aways from the keys as well. The function keys to adjust the brightness are in the arrow keys, with some of the F-key row for other functions. There are separate functions for music too. The downside of the keyboard though is the location of the power button – right next to the number pad. I often use the number pad for numbers and operational keys, so having the power button here is quite frustrating.
With the Core i5-8300H and the GTX 1060, there’s going to be some heat with gaming, and Acer uses their dual fan system to help remove heat through the grated rear of the laptop. The fans can also reverse direction to help shift dust and blockages, and the way the system does this can be controlled through Acer’s installed applications.
On the rear of the system, it looks like the 2.5-inch storage device and DRAM can be adjusted after purchase, due to two screwed down sections. In the device I was looking at, the system was using a 256GB Micron 1100 SSD, which is a mid-range SATA SSD, along with a Western Digital 1TB HDD.
The ports on the side seemed numerous, including an ethernet port, a HDMI port, several USB ports, and a card reader. There is also a USB Type-C, however power is supplied through a larger power brick using a circular connector.
When discussing the unit with the Acer reps here at the event, it seems like that the original Helios 300 got some good feedback however some of the retailers in the UK only got a few units of stock so there wasn’t a lot of noise. The hope is that something like this special edition will stand out from the crowd.
Also alongside the Helios 300 SE will be a series of Predator related white and gold accessories. There’s the backpack, the Predator Cestus 510 mouse, and the Predator Galea 500 headset.
Acer’s Predator Helios 300 Special Edition laptop will be available later this year. The manufacturer did not disclose its estimated pricing or how many units will be produced.
Related Reading
- Acer Predator 21 X Laptop with Curved Display Now Available, Only 300 to Be Made
- Acer Announces Predator Triton 700 Gaming Laptop: Core i7, GeForce GTX 10 Series, & 1 TB SSD
- Acer’s Predator X27 G-Sync HDR Display Listed in the USA, to Ship on June 1
- Acer Reveals Predator Orion 9000 Gaming Desktop: Up To 18 Cores, 4 Vega GPUs
Source: AnandTech – Hands On With The Acer Predator Helios 300 Special Edition
Engineer Faces Prison for Stashing Navy Drone Secrets on His Dropbox
An electrical engineer secretly uploaded onto his personal Dropbox account thousands of files containing sensitive information about the unmanned underwater vehicles his company was developing for the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research.
Source: Gizmodo – Engineer Faces Prison for Stashing Navy Drone Secrets on His Dropbox
No Thank You: Video Of A Swarm Of Mosquitos Trying To Bite A Human Through Netting
This is a video of a swarm of mosquitos trying to taste the sweet, sweet blood of a human arm that’s just out of reach behind some mosquito-proof netting. Man, I hate mosquitos. I don’t know what it is about my blood (it’s irresistible, just like the rest of me), but they can never get enough. They would suck me dry if they could. Back me up, Dracula. “Wait, are we talking about–” Blood. “Oh yes, exquisite.” What did you think I was talking about?
Keep going for the video.
Source: Geekologie – No Thank You: Video Of A Swarm Of Mosquitos Trying To Bite A Human Through Netting
US energy agency: Sorry coal, natural gas is having another record summer
Enlarge / FORT WORTH, Texas: The Barnett Shale Gas field at dusk, February 27, 2006. XTO Energy Inc. is extracting natural gas at this facility. (credit: J.G. Domke/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Between 2018 and 2020, natural gas is expected to continue to eat away steadily at coal’s share of the US energy mix, barring any regulatory intervention from the federal government.
The competition between natural gas and coal is especially fierce this summer: the former could set a record in terms of its contribution to overall US energy generation.
Another interesting prediction about fossil fuels: in 2018, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has been significantly higher than the year before, but that may not be great news for the oil industry, because drivers are already responding to higher prices. The amount of gas drivers will purchase in 2018 is expected to fall year over year for the first time since 2012. The contraction amounts to 10,000 barrels of oil per day not sold—a small change for the US economy but potentially a harbinger of things to come.
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Source: Ars Technica – US energy agency: Sorry coal, natural gas is having another record summer
HPE supercomputer will help simulate mammalian brains
Scientists are about to get a serious assist in their quest to simulate brains. HPE has deployed Blue Brain 5, a supercomputer dedicated to simulations and reconstructions of mammalian brains as part of the École Polytechnique Féd&eacu…
Source: Engadget – HPE supercomputer will help simulate mammalian brains
How to Use Instagram's New Questions Feature
People have always been able to reach out to the Instagram users they follow, and receive replies to their comments, by using the messaging feature baked into Instagram Stories. Thanks to a new questions sticker Instagram debuted, you now have a more formal (and fun) way to conduct interviews with your followers,…
Source: LifeHacker – How to Use Instagram’s New Questions Feature
Software Beats Animal Tests at Predicting Toxicity of Chemicals
Machine-learning software trained on masses of chemical-safety data is so good at predicting some kinds of toxicity that it now rivals — and sometimes outperforms — expensive animal studies, researchers report. From a report: Computer models could replace some standard safety studies conducted on millions of animals each year, such as dropping compounds into rabbits’ eyes to check if they are irritants, or feeding chemicals to rats to work out lethal doses, says Thomas Hartung, a toxicologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “The power of big data means we can produce a tool more predictive than many animal tests.” In a paper published in Toxicological Sciences on 11 July, Hartung’s team reports that its algorithm can accurately predict toxicity for tens of thousands of chemicals — a range much broader than other published models achieve — across nine kinds of test, from inhalation damage to harm to aquatic ecosystems. The paper “draws attention to the new possibilities of big data,” says Bennard van Ravenzwaay, a toxicologist at the chemicals firm BASF in Ludwigshafen, Germany. “I am 100% convinced this will be a pillar of toxicology in the future.” Still, it could be many years before government regulators accept computer results in place of animal studies, he adds. And animal tests are harder to replace when it comes to assessing more complex harms, such as whether a chemical will cause cancer or interfere with fertility.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Software Beats Animal Tests at Predicting Toxicity of Chemicals
Creative types all go through hot streaks of superior production
Enlarge / Was Monet on a hot streak when he painted this? (credit: G. Starke)
Poker players are familiar with hot streaks—times where it just seems the cards consistently fall their way. But we also talk about hot streaks when it comes to athletic skill, for things like hitting in baseball and shooting in basketball. Now, a group of researchers would like to add a few more activities where hot streaks take place: science, art, and movie making.
The researchers analyzed the production of high-impact work in those fields, and they find that it tends to cluster in a single time period. And, for most people, getting hot once is all they can hope for—getting hot twice is not common, and multiple hot streaks are extremely rare.
Random or streaky?
The work was an attempt to make sense of two seemingly contradictory results from past studies. Some had suggested peak productivity in creative fields tended to occur in a cluster around the middle of people’s careers. Other studies had indicated that people’s best work seemed to occur randomly throughout their careers.
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Source: Ars Technica – Creative types all go through hot streaks of superior production
Starbucks' straw ban is a big win for the Earth's oceans
Those little plastic straws that you get at virtually every restaurant in America have become a huge problem for the world’s oceans and Starbucks is finally doing something about it. The global coffeehouse chain announced on Monday that it will immed…
Source: Engadget – Starbucks’ straw ban is a big win for the Earth’s oceans
Magic Leap Shows its AR Prowess Off…Finally…Maybe
The elusive and many times demo-faking Magic Leap is up for a live stream today on Twitch at 1pm CDT. All that said, we can all watch for ourselves and see if this thing is worth the $2B in investor money when it comes to revolutionizing the world of Augmented Reality as it has been promising for a while now.
Watch live video from magicleap on www.twitch.tv
A Closer Look at Magic Leap One – Wednesday, July 11 at 2pm ET – Alan Noon will be joined by Alan Kimball from our developer tools team to give a deeper dive into Magic Leap One. Then, Colman Bryant from our Interaction Lab will give us a demo of an upcoming sample we call “Dodge.”
Given how Magic Leap has “dodged” transparency over the years, I am not sure I would have gone with that name. All said, we will surely be watching.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – Magic Leap Shows its AR Prowess Off…Finally…Maybe
SteamVR Beta Supports 16 Base Stations and More VR News
SteamVR Beta now supports up to 16 base stations that allows users to cover multiple rooms. In this Twitter post by the China President of HTC Vive, Alvin Graylin, he shows an associate opening doors and entering multiple rooms while being fully tracked by the HTC Vive VR headset. He touts the cost saving of the technology and I must admit that I was impressed! You can read the Valve announcement here.
Looks like there’s a little #surprise in the new #SteamVR Beta! Our lab here just linked upto 16 #basestations 2.0 together to cover multiple rooms into a single virtual tracked space w/ the #VivePro! Large space #VR setup costs are about to drop exponentially!ðŸ‘�😮 Thanks Valve! pic.twitter.com/kPDG4xMErG
Samsung is working on anti SDE AMOLED display technology for better VR. This technology would help overcome the Screen Door Effect (SDE) that creates the visible grid lines that plague the current VR HMD technology from HTC and Oculus.
Finally Sony London’s lead game designer Michael Hampden discussed the possibility of new genres of games exclusive to VR emerging in the future. He talks about haptic feedback entering the VR space soon and the possibility of holodecks. He also touches on the importance of brick and mortar stores.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – SteamVR Beta Supports 16 Base Stations and More VR News
4K Anthem Demo Analyzed
Here is one for you GPU geeks. Digital Foundry breaks down BioWare’s Anthem trailer from E3. Interestingly enough, it was confirmed that BioWare was using “2 1080TIs” and “running 4K60.” When we asked BioWare if we were to assume that meant that Anthem would ship with SLI and/or Crossfire support…crickets. I guess we all know what that means.
Discussion
Source: [H]ardOCP – 4K Anthem Demo Analyzed
Tesla’s Alleged Saboteur Is Doubling Down
A former Tesla technician accused by the automaker of stealing reams of confidential data and leaking it to outside sources now has an attorney, and he’s doubling down on his allegation that Tesla made misstatements to investors about placing punctured batteries into Model 3s that were shipped to customers.
Source: Gizmodo – Tesla’s Alleged Saboteur Is Doubling Down
AirPlay has finally made its way to Sonos speakers
Enlarge / At $200, the Sonos One is now the cheapest way to get AirPlay 2 onto a Sonos setup. (credit: Jeff Dunn)
Sonos on Wednesday announced that it has started to roll out support for Apple’s AirPlay 2 protocol on its wireless speakers.
As previously noted, AirPlay 2 is only fully supported on the company’s Sonos One and Play:5 speakers and its Beam and Playbase soundbars. Sonos users will need one of those speakers to directly activate AirPlay 2 control, but if they have one of those devices within a larger whole-home speaker setup, they’ll be able to control any other Sonos device they might have.
Apple rolled out AirPlay 2 as part of its iOS 11.4 update in late May, enabling its HomePod speaker to play the same audio across speakers in separate rooms, as well as the ability to play a pair of HomePods in stereo. (Sonos speakers already had the latter functionality.) Several third-party audio manufacturers have promised to include AirPlay 2 functionality in their speakers, including Bose, Bang & Olufsen, Marshall, Pioneer, and Bowers & Wilkins. With the update on Wednesday, Sonos is the first non-Apple speaker maker to support the protocol.
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Source: Ars Technica – AirPlay has finally made its way to Sonos speakers
Some Coral Reefs Need Poop, Study Finds
Bird turds can tell you a lot about an island. For instance, is it smelly or not? But also, how are the coral reefs doing?
Source: Gizmodo – Some Coral Reefs Need Poop, Study Finds
Discovery of Stone Tools in China Shows Early Humans Left Africa Over 2 Million Years Ago
Archaeologists working in the Shangchen region of China have uncovered dozens of stone tools, the oldest of which date back 2.1 million years, making them the earliest known evidence of a human presence outside of Africa.
Source: Gizmodo – Discovery of Stone Tools in China Shows Early Humans Left Africa Over 2 Million Years Ago
Overwatch League will air on ABC, ESPN and Disney networks
Source: Engadget – Overwatch League will air on ABC, ESPN and Disney networks
Intel Core i7-8086K 40th Anniversary CPU Review: X86 Hits 5GHz
Intel recently launched a limited-run Core i7-8086K Anniversary Edition processor, based on the company’s Coffee Lake architecture, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the venerable 8086. Although it wasn’t the first microprocessor employed in personal computers, the Intel 8086 laid the foundation for the x86 architecture, which…
Source: Hot Hardware – Intel Core i7-8086K 40th Anniversary CPU Review: X86 Hits 5GHz