Monthly Archives: September 2021

CDC advisors OK boosters for 65+, those with health risks—not occupational risks

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Source: Ars Technica – CDC advisors OK boosters for 65+, those with health risks—not occupational risks

Facebook paid FTC $4.9B more than required to shield Zuckerberg, lawsuit alleges

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg, 33, was called to testify after it was reported that millions of Facebook users had their personal information harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

Enlarge / Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg, 33, was called to testify after it was reported that millions of Facebook users had their personal information harvested by Cambridge Analytica. (credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

In a newly unsealed lawsuit, Facebook shareholders allege that the company intentionally overpaid a $5 billion Federal Trade Commission fine to protect CEO Mark Zuckerberg from further government scrutiny.

“Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and other Facebook directors agreed to authorize a multi-billion settlement with the FTC as an express quid pro quo to protect Zuckerberg from being named in the FTC’s complaint, made subject to personal liability, or even required to sit for a deposition,” the lawsuit says (emphasis in the original). An early draft of the order obtained by The Washington Post through the Freedom of Information Act shows that the commission was considering holding Zuckerberg responsible.

The FTC levied the fine in July 2019 in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw political operatives harvesting the personal data of 50 million Facebook users without their consent. (The lawsuit says only 0.31 percent of the affected users consented.) The fine (which was a record for privacy-related penalties) was 50 times larger than the maximum prescribed by a previous FTC consent decree, the lawsuit alleges. It was also well in excess of the previous record fine of $168 million.

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Source: Ars Technica – Facebook paid FTC .9B more than required to shield Zuckerberg, lawsuit alleges

Exchange/Outlook autodiscover bug exposed 100,000+ email passwords

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Lines of code against a black background..

Enlarge / If you own the right domain, you can intercept hundreds of thousands of innocent third parties’ email credentials, just by operating a standard webserver. (credit: Guardicore)

Security researcher Amit Serper of Guardicore discovered a severe flaw in Microsoft’s autodiscover—the protocol which allows automagical configuration of an email account with only the address and password required. The flaw allows attackers who purchase domains named “autodiscover”—for example autodiscover.com, or autodiscover.co.uk—to intercept the clear-text account credentials of users who are having network difficulty (or whose admins incorrectly configured DNS).

Guardicore purchased several such domains and operated them as proof-of-concept credential traps from April 16 to August 25 of this year:

  • Autodiscover.com.br
  • Autodiscover.com.cn
  • Autodiscover.com.co
  • Autodiscover.es
  • Autodiscover.fr
  • Autodiscover.in
  • Autodiscover.it
  • Autodiscover.sg
  • Autodiscover.uk
  • Autodiscover.xyz
  • Autodiscover.online

A web server connected to these domains received hundreds of thousands of email credentials—many of which also double as Windows Active Directory domain credentials—in clear text. The credentials are sent from clients which request the URL /Autodiscover/autodiscover.xml, with an HTTP Basic authentication header which already includes the hapless user’s Base64-encoded credentials.

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Source: Ars Technica – Exchange/Outlook autodiscover bug exposed 100,000+ email passwords

Android to take an “upstream first” development model for the Linux kernel

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The Linux Plumbers Conference is this week, and since Android is one of the biggest distributors of the Linux kernel in the world, Google software engineer Todd Kjos stopped by for a progress report from the Android team. Android 12—which will be out any day now—promises to bring Android closer than ever to mainline Linux by shipping Google’s “Generic Kernel Image” (GKI) to end-users.

Traditionally, the Linux kernel is forked several times before it hits an Android phone, usually by each stakeholder in an Android device. First, Google forks the Linux kernel into “Android common”—the Linux kernel plus a bunch of phone- and Android-specific changes. Then SoC vendors like Qualcomm, Samsung, or MediaTek fork Android Common to make an SoC-specific kernel for each major chip release. Then each device gets a fork of the SoC kernel for device-specific hardware support.

Android’s kernel fragmentation is a huge mess, and you can imagine how long and difficult the road is for a bugfix at the top of the fork tree to reach to the bottom, where end-users live. The official Android.com documentation notes that “These modifications can be extensive, to the point that as much as 50% of the code running on a device is out-of-tree code (not from upstream Linux or from AOSP common kernels).” It’s also a big time sink, and even Google phones typically ship kernels that start at two years old.

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Source: Ars Technica – Android to take an “upstream first” development model for the Linux kernel

New report suggests Texas’ grid was 5 minutes from catastrophic failure

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Image of a woman bundled against the cold on a bed in a furniture store.

Enlarge / HOUSTON, TX – FEBRUARY 18, 2021: Dialina Ganzo, 29, rests on a bed while taking shelter at a Gallery Furniture store that opened its door and transformed into a warming station after winter weather caused electricity blackouts. (credit: Go Nakamura / Getty Images)

With autumn arriving in much of the US, it won’t be long before parts of the country start experiencing cold weather again. Texas residents can be forgiven for the thought triggering a bit of PTSD, given that last winter saw the near-collapse of the state’s power grid, leaving many residents without any power for several days of below-freezing weather.

A long list of factors contributed to the mess, and in the immediate aftermath, it was difficult to understand their relative importance. But now, grid regulatory and governance groups have put together a preliminary report on the event, along with some recommendations for avoiding future calamities. A central conclusion is that the grid failure was tightly coupled to the failure of the natural gas supply—in part because natural gas processing facilities were among the places that saw their power cut.

The basic stats

The preliminary report has been put together by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in combination with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, a nonprofit set up by utilities to help set standards and practices that keep the grid stable. The draft itself isn’t being released at this point, but the two have posted a detailed presentation that describes the report’s contents. A final version will be released in November.

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Source: Ars Technica – New report suggests Texas’ grid was 5 minutes from catastrophic failure

Windows 11 setup warns that you aren’t “entitled” to updates on unsupported PCs

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Microsoft will allow Windows 11 installs on some unsupported systems, but it really would prefer you not.

Enlarge / Microsoft will allow Windows 11 installs on some unsupported systems, but it really would prefer you not. (credit: The Verge)

Officially, running Windows 11 will require a newer PC that meets all of the operating system’s performance and security requirements. Unofficially, running Windows 11 without meeting those requirements will be possible, but we still don’t know much about the details—how difficult it will be to install Windows 11 on those machines, how frequently they will remind you that you’re running on unsupported hardware, and even whether they’ll receive normal Windows security updates.

The Verge has spotted an apparently new warning message in the Windows 11 Setup app that explicitly warns users of the dangers of installing Windows 11 on unsupported hardware—you may run into “compatibility issues,” your PC “won’t be entitled to receive updates,” and that “damages to your PC due to lack of compatibility aren’t covered under the manufacturer warranty.” This is all stuff that we’ve heard from Microsoft before, but it’s the first time that this policy has appeared during the Windows 11 setup process rather than in media reports. Once you click through this foreboding warning message, the Windows 11 installation is apparently allowed to proceed.

I’ve tried and failed to recreate this screen on multiple unsupported Windows 10 systems of different vintages, both with builds downloaded through the Insider program and installs directly from a manually downloaded Windows 11 ISO file. I also haven’t seen any firsthand reports of it outside of the Verge report. This doesn’t mean it isn’t happening—Microsoft is always rolling out different updates to different groups of people at different times—just that I can only speculate as to when you will actually see this message and what it means.

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Source: Ars Technica – Windows 11 setup warns that you aren’t “entitled” to updates on unsupported PCs

23,000-year-old footprints suggest people reached the Americas early

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23,000-year-old footprints suggest people reached the Americas early

Footprints left behind in layers of clay and silt at New Mexico’s White Sands National Park may be between 23,000 and 21,000 years old. That’s based on radiocarbon dating of the remains of grass seeds buried in the layers of sediment above and below the tracks. If the dates are correct, the tracks are evidence that people walked beside the now-dry Lake Otero during the height of the last Ice Age, when kilometers of ice covered the northern half of the continent. And that would mean that people must have arrived in North America—and made their way to an area well south of the ice—before the ice sheets expanded enough to close off the route.

Arriving ahead of the ice sheets

Bournemouth University archaeologist Matthew Bennett and his colleagues found a total of 61 human footprints east of an area called Alkali Flat, which was once the bed and shoreline of an ancient lake. Over time, as the lake’s edge expanded and contracted with shifts in climate, it left behind distinct layers of clay, silt, and sand. Seven of those layers, in the area Bennett and his colleagues recently excavated, held human tracks along with those of long-lost megafauna.

Some of the sediment layers contained the remains of ancient grass seeds mixed with the sediment. Bennett and his colleagues radiocarbon dated seeds from the layer just below the oldest footprints and the layer just above the most recent ones. According to the results, the oldest footprints were made sometime after 23,000 years ago; the most recent ones were made sometime before 21,000 years ago. At that time, the northern half of the continent lay several kilometers below massive sheets of ice.

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Source: Ars Technica – 23,000-year-old footprints suggest people reached the Americas early

EVGA Releases the X570 Dark: First Ryzen Motherboard from EVGA, Built for OC

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Back in July, we reported that EVGA was teasing its first AMD-based motherboard since the AM2+ days. Fast forward to now, and that dream of an EVGA model for AMD’s Ryzen processors led by in-house engineer and extreme overclocker Vince ‘KINGPIN’ Lucido is now a reality. The EVGA X570 Dark benefits from a large premium 17-phase power delivery (14+2+1) designed for pushing Ryzen 5000 to its limits and support for up to DDR4-4800 out of the box across two memory slots to minimize latency.


The EVGA X570 Dark, as expected, is primarily suited to extreme overclockers, with a variety of performance-enhancing features across the large E-ATX sized PCB. One of the most notable design characteristics includes a transposed AM4 CPU socket for better support when mounting an LN2 (liquid nitrogen) pot, and an empty CPU socket area to minimize risks when insulating for sub-ambient cooling. All the major power connectors are also at right angles, to be less of an issue when extreme overclocking for records. 



EVGA uses a 16-phase power delivery organized into a 14+2 configuration, with fourteen premium 90 A power stages for the CPU section. It’s a slightly different design to accommodate the transposed socket as it stretches around the bottom of the AM4 socket. It is using active VRM cooling with two cooling fans and uses a 10-layer PCB design. The 17th power stage is for the memory. Providing power to the CPU is a pair of 8-pin 12 V ATX CPU power inputs. Some of the most notable features of the EVGA X570 Dark include voltage monitoring points at the top of the board, as well as a variety of switches to enable/disable features that might be critical to sub-zero overclocking stability.


For end-users wanting to have a daily system, there are dual PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slots, eight SATA ports with support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 arrays, as well as 2.5 GbE wired and Wi-Fi 6 wireless networking. Looking at PCIe support, EVGA includes two full-length PCIe 4.0 slots operating at x16 and x8/x8, with a half-length PCIe 3.0 x4 slot. Other features include a Realtek ALC1220 HD audio codec backed by EVGA’s NU audio solution, eight 4-pin cooling headers, a passively cooled chipset heatsink, and two USB 3.2 G2 Type-A, four USB 3.2 G1 Type-A, and one USB 3.2 G2 Type-C port on the rear panel.


The EVGA X570 Dark is currently available to purchase directly from the EVGA website for $690. This isn’t a cheap motherboard, but overclocking-focused motherboards such as this come at a hefty premium. Although it has plenty of features for a daily Ryzen 5000 based system, the hope is that it provides the substance for extreme overclockers looking to push Ryzen 5000 silicon to its limits.


Our review of the EVGA X570 Dark will be coming very soon – it arrived a couple of days ago and is currently on our testbed!



Related Reading





Source: AnandTech – EVGA Releases the X570 Dark: First Ryzen Motherboard from EVGA, Built for OC

European Union announces plans to require all mobile devices to use USB-C

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Source: Ars Technica – European Union announces plans to require all mobile devices to use USB-C

Semiconductor firms can’t find enough workers, worsening chip shortage

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Cartoon hands offer up wads of cash to another cartoon hand holding a computer chip.

Enlarge / Don’t expect cheaper chips anytime soon. (credit: Tommy/Getty Images)

The semiconductor chip shortage that has so vexed the auto industry looks set to continue for quite some time, according to a new industry survey. More than half of the companies that were surveyed by IPC said they expected the shortage to last until at least the second half of 2022. And right now, the chip shortage is being exacerbated by rising costs and a shortage of workers.

According to the survey, 80 percent of chip makers say that it’s become hard to find workers who have to be specially trained to handle the highly toxic compounds used in semiconductor manufacturing. The problem is worse in North America and in Asia, where more companies are reporting rising labor costs compared to those in Europe.

But only a third of Asian chip makers say they are finding it harder to find qualified workers, compared to 67 percent of North American companies and 63 percent of European companies. That may well explain why fewer Asian semiconductor companies (42 percent) are reporting increasing order backlogs, compared to 65 percent of North American and 60 percent of European companies.

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Source: Ars Technica – Semiconductor firms can’t find enough workers, worsening chip shortage

Poettering: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux

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Here’s a
lengthy missive from Lennart Poettering taking Linux distributors to
task for inadequately protecting systems from physical attacks.

So, does the scheme so far implemented by generic Linux
distributions protect us against the latter two scenarios?
Unfortunately not at all. Because distributions set up disk
encryption the way they do, and only bind it to a user password, an
attacker can easily duplicate the disk, and then attempt to brute
force your password. What’s worse: since code authentication ends
at the kernel — and the initrd is not authenticated anymore —,
backdooring is trivially easy: an attacker can change the initrd
any way they want, without having to fight any kind of protections.

The article contains a lot of suggestions for how to do things better.

Source: LWN.net – Poettering: Authenticated Boot and Disk Encryption on Linux

Diablo II: Resurrected impressions: Maybe not the best time to bring back evil

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Where do I even start with Diablo II: Resurrected? Unfortunately for its creators at Blizzard and developers at Vicarious Visions, the answer isn’t “the game.”

We have to hash some other stuff out first, and I appreciate your patience with this, because no review of Diablo II: Resurrected is complete without an explainer like this at the outset. (Should you not need the refresher on Activision Blizzard’s recent woes, skip to the section titled “Delivering good work in a bad era” and start there.)

In the years after Diablo‘s early ’00s heyday, its creators at Blizzard racked up some infamy. In late 2019, the decades-old game developer capitulated to the Chinese government over pro-Hong Kong statements made by esports players (though thankfully, the decision was reversed soon after). Months later, Blizzard shipped WarCraft III: Reforged, which did not meet the publisher’s usual standards (especially because WC3R wiped out the previous functioning game in favor of a broken, feature-incomplete client). Worse, since WC3R‘s launch, months of agonizing silence about any updates and promised features have spoken volumes about Blizzard’s apparent lack of plans for the game.

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Source: Ars Technica – Diablo II: Resurrected impressions: Maybe not the best time to bring back evil

[$] Improvements to GCC's -fanalyzer option

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For the second year in a row, the GNU Tools Cauldron (the annual gathering
of GNU toolchain developers) has been held as a dedicated track at the
online Linux Plumbers
Conference. For the 2021 event, that track started with a talk by
David Malcolm on his work with the GCC -fanalyzer option, which
provides access to a number of static-analysis features. Quite a bit has
been happening with -fanalyzer and more is on the way with the
upcoming GCC 12 release, including, possibly, a set of checks that
have already found at least one vulnerability in the kernel.

Source: LWN.net – [$] Improvements to GCC’s -fanalyzer option

Engineers figured out how to cook 3D printed chicken with lasers

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Creative Machines Lab at Columbia Engineering have developed a system of software-controlled lasers to cook food with precision, retain moisture with the final-cooked product, brown food within its original packaging, and create an entirely new meal creation process for a consumer.

Who hasn’t dreamt of coming home after a long day and simply pressing a few buttons to get a hot, home-cooked 3D-printed meal, courtesy of one’s digital personal chef? It might make microwaves and conventional frozen TV dinners obsolete. Engineers at Columbia University are trying to make that fantasy a reality, and they’ve now figured out how to simultaneously 3D print and cook layers of pureed chicken, according to a recent paper published in the journal npj Science of Food. Sure, it’s not on the same level as the Star Trek Replicator, which could synthesize complete meals on demand, but it’s a start.

Co-author Hob Lipson runs the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, where the research was conducted. His team first introduced 3D printing of food items back in 2007, using the Fab@Home personal fabrication system to create multi-material edible 3D objects with cake frosting, chocolate, processed cheese, and peanut butter. However, commercial appliances capable of simultaneously printing and cooking food layers don’t exist yet. There have been some studies investigating how to cook food using lasers, and Lipson’s team thought this might be a promising avenue to explore further.

“We noted that, while printers can produce ingredients to a millimeter-precision, there is no heating method with this same degree of resolution,” said co-author Jonathan Blutinger. “Cooking is essential for nutrition, flavor, and texture development in many foods, and we wondered if we could develop a method with lasers to precisely control these attributes.” They used a blue diode laser (5-10 W) as the primary heating source but also experimented with lasers in the near- and mid-infrared for comparison, as well as a conventional toaster oven.

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Source: Ars Technica – Engineers figured out how to cook 3D printed chicken with lasers

Elizabeth Holmes “was in charge” of Theranos, Mattis tells court

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Elizabeth Holmes speaking at the Fortune Global Forum in 2015, around the time Theranos was under increasing pressure to deliver results from its ill-fated Edison testing device.

Elizabeth Holmes speaking at the Fortune Global Forum in 2015, around the time Theranos was under increasing pressure to deliver results from its ill-fated Edison testing device. (credit: Fortune Global Forum)

James Mattis, the retired general and former defense secretary, took the stand yesterday in the criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes, detailing how his faith in the company plummeted when a Wall Street Journal expose revealed that Theranos had been performing tests on third-party equipment.

“There just came a point where I didn’t know what to believe about Theranos anymore,” he said.

When Mattis first met Holmes in 2011 in San Francisco, he was taken by her vision and believed it could become a critical tool for the military. Later, she gave him a private demonstration, pricking his finger and showing him the company’s Edison device.

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Source: Ars Technica – Elizabeth Holmes “was in charge” of Theranos, Mattis tells court

Samsung's new 200MP HP1 Sensor: Sensible, or Marketing?

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This week, Samsung LSI announced a new camera sensor that seemingly is pushing the limits of resolution within a mobile phone. The new S5KHP1, or simply HP1 sensor, pushes the resolution above 200 megapixels, almost doubling that of what’s currently being deployed in contemporary hardware in today’s phones.




Source: AnandTech – Samsung’s new 200MP HP1 Sensor: Sensible, or Marketing?

Plugable TBT4-HUB3C Thunderbolt 4 Hub Capsule Review

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Plugable is introducing its Thunderbolt 4 product lineup today, with the TBT4-HUB3C Thunderbolt 4 Hub leading the pack. Joining it are two Thunderbolt 4 cables – the 2m. long TBT4-40G2M, and the 1m. long TBT4-40G1M.


Intel had provided detailed updates on Thunderbolt 4 in mid-2020 before releasing it in Tiger Lake-based products. As peak bandwidth (40Gbps) didn’t get an upgrade over Thunderbolt 3, many consumers just considered it a branding update. In fact, under the hood, the specifications were being fine-tuned to bring in some features from the USB world. It is these new features that Plugable is focusing on:


  • Hub functionality in addition to the daisy-chaining scheme prevalent in previous Thunderbolt versions

  • Active cables up to 2m in length and supporting up to 40Gbps speeds – maximum possible based on the host / device interfaces (Thunderbolt 3 active cables with non-Thunderbolt 3 Type-C devices are often limited to USB 2.0 speeds)


The TBT4-40G2M (active) and TBT4-40G1M (passive) are Intel-certified Thunderbolt 4 cables, priced at $59 ($49 after coupon application) and $34 ($29 after coupon application) respectively. The pricing premium is due to increased certification costs (the factory is required to get random manufacturing lots repeatedly tested for Thunderbolt 4 cables, compared to only the initial manufacturing run previously).


These cables complement the Thunderbolt 4 flagship from Plugable – the Goshen Ridge-based TBT4-HUB3C. The JHL8440 Goshen Ridge controller used in the hub is a quad-port solution – one upstream, and three downstream ports.



The TBT4-HUB3C comes with a 0.8m passive Thunderbolt 4 cable, a 110W power brick, and a bundled USB-C to HDMI adapter supporting resolutions up to 4Kp60 with HDR. The main hub itself is quite tiny compared to the power brick, measuring just 118 mm x 18 mm x 73 mm. Despite the small size, the unit has a solid look and feel with its brushed finish. The hub tips the scales at 201g, light enough to be considered pocketable.



Plugable also bundles a USBC-HDMI adapter (USB-C male to HDMI 2.0 female converter supporting DisplayPort Alternate Mode from the USB-C side) with the package. The intent is to route the incoming display signals from the host to one of the downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports, and then on to a HDMI monitor. This also brings out the benefits of the hub scheme – With daisy chaining no longer in the picture for most deployments (each spoke in the hub can still be a daisy chain in Thunderbolt 4), users do not need to worry about the placement of different Thunderbolt peripherals / displays in the chain. Additionally, it allows the peripherals to be disconnected independent of each other – something not possible in the chain topology without interrupting the links to peripherals intended to be kept active.


Performance Testing


The number of use-case scenarios for Thunderbolt 4 hubs such as the Plugable TBT4-HUB3C are too many to count. Our performance evaluation is restricted to the configurations specified below. The upstream port of the TBT4-HUB3C is connected to the Thunderbolt 4 port of the ASRock Industrial NUC BOX-1165G7 – a risky choice, given that the port is only certified for USB 3.2 Gen 2 / DisplayPort Alternate Mode. The downstream ports were connected as per the list below.


  • Port #1 – DIY Thunderbolt 3 SSD using the TEKQ Rapide and the WD_BLACK SN750.

  • Port #2 – PowerColor Gaming Station eGFX Solution with the PowerColor Radeon RX Vega 56 Nano.

  • Port # – USBC-HDMI connector on to a LG34WK95U configured to display a 3840×2160 desktop at 60 Hz (8-bit RGB)


The Thunderbolt Control Center can be use to approve connected devices. All primary connections to the Thunderbolt port (other than the displays and associated routing gear) are visible in it.



Various workload combinations were processed to determine the real-world effects of bandwidth sharing between the peripherals connected to the hub. The DIY Thunderbolt 3 SSD was subject to a fio workload, while the eGPU in the Gaming Station was subject to an OpenCL bandwidth test (transferring data from the host to the device VRAM, and back).





















Plugable Thunderbolt 4 Hub (TBT4-HUB3C)

Bandwidth Sharing Analysis (Gbps)
Port #1
(DIY TEKQ Rapide Thunderbolt 3 SSD)		 Port #2
(PowerColor Gaming Station eGFX Enclosure)		 Port #3
(Connection to LG34WK95U via Plugable’s USBC-HDMI)
Reads Writes Device-to-Host Host-to-Device
– – – 20.57 –
– – 22.11 – –
– 19.5 – – –
21.4 – – – –
– – 11.44 10.98 –
– 16.2 16.74 – –
13.7 – – 17.64 –
– – – 13.78 14.4
– – 22.12 – 14.4
– 14.1 – – 14.4
23.0 – – – 14.4
– – 8.99 9.21 14.4
– 11.0 19.14 – 14.4
13.5 – – 12.46 14.4


It must be noted that the Thunderbolt data rates are bidirectional – logically speaking, we have a 40 Gbps link from the host to the device, and another 40 Gbps link from the device to the host. As part of our experiments, we attempted to activate traffic in pairs – one set with the display routing turned off, and another set with the USBC-HDMI part active.


It can be observed that activating the display output link reduces performance for the host-to-device traffic from 20.57 Gbps to 13.78 Gbps, while total used bandwidth on the host to device side moves up from 20.57 Gbps to 28.5 Gbps. On the return side, the maximum bandwidth seen turned out to be 22.11 Gbps.


Investigation of 5K display outputs from the hub’s downstream port, and its bandwidth implications will be covered in future reviews.


Concluding Remarks


The Plugable TBT4-HUB3C brings out the capabilities / advantages of Thunderbolt 4 over previous Thunderbolt versions in an effective and user-friendly manner. The hub functionality brings Thunderbolt and traditional consumer understanding of USB functionality to the same table, and this can only be good for the market as USB4 begins to gain traction.


The TBT4-HUB3C is able to support 40 Gbps in total over the three downstream ports without favoring one port over the other. While we evaluated a number of interesting use-cases involving displays, Thunderbolt SSDs, and eGPUs, the possibilities enabled by the hub are much more varied. With backwards compatibility – we even tested functionality of the device as a USB 2.0 hub when connected to a USB 2.0 port – in the picture, it can be safely said that the hub’s functionality is limited only by the features of the upstream host port.



At $174 (after applying a $15 off coupon on the $189 MSRP), the hub presents a great value proposition in this space. Plugable is a bit late to the Thunderbolt 4 market, as other Goshen Ridge solutions have been available in the market for a while now (though supply chain issues have meant that actual availability has been limited). All the Thunderbolt 4 hubs / docks use the quad-port JHL8440 to full effect, enabling one upstream Thunderbolt 4 port, and three downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports. For $230, the CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub tags on additional USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports. Razer has two docks – a 10-port version with a SD card slot, audio jack, an Ethernet port, and three USB 3.2 Gen 2 ports for $320, and a RGB version of the same for $330. The Kensington SD5700T priced at $330 is similar to the Razer dock, but with an additional USB-A charging-only port.


The closest competitor to the Plugable TBT4-HUB3C is actually the OWC Thunderbolt Hub that has a similar form-factor and ports layout. It does have a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A port in addition for its $179 price point. Despite undercutting the OWC unit by $5, Plugable has managed to include a $20 value addition in the USBC-HDMI adapter. Overall, Plugable has an effective entry-level Thunderbolt 4 product bound to expand market adoption and understanding of the latest Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 ecosystem. We look forward to the company expanding its offerings and create a TBT4 lineup similar to what they currently carry for Thunderbolt 3.


 




Source: AnandTech – Plugable TBT4-HUB3C Thunderbolt 4 Hub Capsule Review

Here’s how Lotus is going to build lightweight electric sports cars

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  • Lotus Cars is developing a lightweight electric vehicle architecture for sports cars. It uses a die-cast rear subframe that packages the drive unit. For two-seaters, the battery pack goes behind the passenger compartment. [credit:
    Lotus Cars ]

Of all the automakers that are undergoing the transformation from internal combustion to electric propulsion, few have my interest quite like Lotus. Partly that’s because I first became a car nerd after discovering the Lotus Seven. But it’s also because light weight has always been a core Lotus attribute, and while electric vehicles have much to recommend them, “light” they typically are not.

This would be immaterial until relatively recently, because the small British sports car company didn’t have the resources to consider a switch to electric. But in 2017 Lotus was bought by Geely, also the owner of a freshly revitalized Volvo. As is the Geely way, Lotus got some much-needed investment and has been set to work on electrification.

In April of this year Lotus revealed that its plans now include four new platforms, three of which are entirely electric. This week we got a glimpse into the way the company is thinking about EVs, as it released some details about its lightweight electric vehicle architecture (or “Project LEVA” in Lotus-speak). The key is a newly developed rear subframe that’s far lighter than the one in the V6-powered Emira (unveiled in July as the last internal combustion engine-powered Lotus).

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Source: Ars Technica – Here’s how Lotus is going to build lightweight electric sports cars

The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

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Get the Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022 right now! Over 200 pages of Raspberry Pi projects, tutorials, tips, and reviews.

Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

Hey folks, Rob from The MagPi here. It’s been a while! I hope you’re doing well.

We’ve been on double duty this month. As well as making an amazing new issue of The MagPi (out next week), we’ve also put together a brand new book: the Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022, which is on sale now!

Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

Packed with projects

The new Handbook is crammed full of incredible community projects, some of our best build guides, an introduction to Raspberry Pi Pico, and reviews of cool Raspberry Pi kits and accessories – all stuffed into 200 pages. Here are some highlights from the book:

Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

Lunchbox Arcade Game – make lunchtime far more exciting by busting out some Street Fighter II and having someone eat your hadoukens. Make sure to eat between rounds for maximum satisfaction.

We Still Fax – one part escape room, one part performance theatre, this relic of office technology has been hacked with a Raspberry Pi to be the centrepiece of a special show in your own living room.

iPod Classic Spotify Player – using a Raspberry Pi Zero W, this old-school iPod has been upgraded with Spotify access. The interface has even been recreated to work the same way as the old iPod, scroll wheel and all.

Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

Play classic console games legally on Raspberry Pi – there are a surprising number of ways to get legal ROMs for Raspberry Pi-powered consoles, as well as a plethora of modern games made for the older hardware.

Build the ultimate media centre – get TV, movies, games, streaming, music, and more on one incredible Raspberry Pi build. It looks good too, thanks to the excellent case.

Stellina – this automated telescope is powered by Raspberry Pi and connects to a tablet to look at planets and other distant celestial objects.

… And much, much more!

Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

Where can I buy it?

You can grab the Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022 from our online store, from our Android and iOS app, and in the real world at some newsagents. It will make an excellent stocking stuffer in a few months time. You can also get the PDF free from our website.

Until next time, take care of yourselves!

Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

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Source: Raspberry Pi – The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2022

TEPCO Green Hydrogen in Yamanashi

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Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and six other utility firms have been granted a state subsidy by New Energy and Industrial Technology Development (NEDO) for the production of hydrogen utilizing electricity from TEPCO’s 10 megawatt Komekurayama Solar Power Plant in Yamanashi Prefecture.

The business scale is about ¥14 billion (US$127 million).

The project will construct large-sized equipment in an effort to reduce the costs for domestic green hydrogen production.

TEPCO will operate hydrogen production equipment, and partners Toray Industries, Hitachi Zosen, and the Japanese subsidiary of Germany’s Siemens Energy will develop a huge water electrolyzer.

The precise location for the green hydrogen facility has yet to be decided.

With Japan’s goal to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, hydrogen production has been on the rise.

The project is scheduled to be fully operational by March 2026.

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Source: Akihabara News – TEPCO Green Hydrogen in Yamanashi