As expected, AMD unveiled its 16-core THREADRIPPER processors and its new generation of server processors, EPYC, during its dedicated event at Computex 2017.
EPYC processors, previously codenamed Naples, are designed for use in data centers and servers with 32 cores, 128 PCIe lanes, and 8-channel memory support. After a five-year absence from the server processor market, AMD is set to re-enter the competitive arena as a competitor to Intel on June 20th with EPYC. Read more
With the unveiling of Intel’s Core i9 processor, the competition between the company and AMD is getting more interesting than ever. Intel recently unveiled its new 18-core processor during the Computex 2017 exhibition in Taiwan. The Core i9 processor should be considered Intel’s answer to AMD’s 16-core processor with support for 32 processing threads. Intel’s new processor benefits from 18 processing cores, which support 36 processing threads.
Intel’s new processor is called the Core i9 Extreme Edition i9-7980XE, and according to Intel, it’s the first teraflop processor for PCs. It’s priced at $1,999 and will be available later this year. The Core i9 series will also have lower-end models, including 16-, 14-, 12-, and 10-core versions, with prices ranging from $999 to $1,699. Intel’s Core i9 processors are part of Intel’s Skylake series, and as such, they offer advantages over Broadwell-E processors, resulting in 15 percent faster single-threaded performance and 10 percent faster multi-threaded performance. Read more
AMD’s annual press conference at Computex 2017 was held a few hours ago. AMD brought its best product to today’s event, giving the PC-centric Computex trade show a chance to improve relationships with its business partners, which is crucial for AMD’s survival in the competitive CPU market. Computex is not a place to introduce complex technical achievements, but it is a good place to clarify AMD’s roadmap.
AMD introduced its 16-core Threadripper processor for the high-end desktop and workstation market a few weeks ago at its Financial Analyst Day event, but AMD is now slowly releasing information about the Threadripper chip to build momentum ahead of its summer launch. Read more
Intel’s senior vice president of technology, Rob Kroc, was scheduled to give the keynote address at Computex 2017, but he was unable to attend. Instead, Intel unveiled a wide range of products for the first time, including new Core i9 processors and modular systems smaller than a portable hard drive. The most interesting part of the keynote for storage enthusiasts was the Optane SSDs. Join Zoom.
Malware comes in many different forms these days, but XLED is probably one of the strangest pieces of software malware you’ve ever heard of. It’s capable of infecting a router or switch and then stealing data by flashing the device’s LEDs.
According to Bleeping Computer, the XLED malware was created by a team at the Cybersecurity Research Center at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. The team has previously managed to obtain information from these devices using the LEDs on hard drives and drones. Now targeting routers and switches will allow the security team to obtain the desired data in an easier and faster way, because most routers and switches use several LEDs, and the more LEDs there are, the faster the data will be transferred.
In this method, the victim’s router or switch is first infected with the XLED malware. After the malware is installed, the data is converted to binary format, i.e., the numbers zero and one. At this stage, each LED can act as a transmitter of a single digit of binary code, and in fact, it will display the number one when it is on and the number zero when it is off.
In recent years, the popularity of SSD drives has increased due to their unparalleled speed. Nowadays, adding a solid-state drive (SSD) to your computer is the best possible upgrade to speed up your system. ADATA has recently introduced its latest SSD, the SU900, and we will continue to review the features and performance of this SSD.
3D NAND Flash: The New Generation of Flash Storage
Like ADATA’s previous product introduced earlier, the ADATA SU900 uses a 3D NAND Flash structure. A structure that ADATA seems to want to use in all of its SSD flash chips. 3D NAND Flash is the latest generation of storage chips that offer high storage capacity, cost-effectiveness, higher durability and stability, lower power consumption, and increased efficiency. In the bidirectional arrow or Planner structure, cells are placed side by side along the X and Y axes and, depending on their type, can support a limited amount of data storage. While 3D NAND stacks layers of cells on top of each other and uses the Z-axis, it is obvious that the storage capacity increases significantly. This storage volume has reached 2 TB in the SU900. Of course, that doesn’t mean those who need less storage will be disappointed, as ADATA offers a variety of capacities from 256GB to 2TB. Read more
Once you create an object using a 3D printer, that object remains completely fixed and you won’t be able to change it, but recently, researchers at MIT have made some breakthroughs that may change this.
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a method that will allow you to change the shape of polymers and combine new objects with those you have already made.
According to the researchers, the key to achieving this success is the use of “living” polymers that change shape when exposed to blue LED light, allowing you to change your appearance.
You can use this feature to weld objects together, separate parts of them, or even change their resistance. Read more
The Dell Advanced 4K Laser Projector is capable of displaying content on a 100-inch 4K HDR display. This projector uses a laser instead of a lamp to transmit images.
If you’ve always dreamed of owning an 80-inch 4K TV but never had the $10,000 budget, Dell’s laser projector could be the perfect solution. Dell’s laser projector, called the “Dell Advanced 4K Laser Projector,” offers a massive 100-inch 4K display with support for HDR content. In fact, you can place it near a flat wall and enjoy watching a 4K movie. Dell notes that this project will be used primarily for offices or classrooms, where a 100-inch display could be useful for a large number of users. However, the Dell laser projector also has several advantages to complement a great living room. Projectors typically require a long distance from the wall to project an image, but this model has an ultra-short throw range, meaning you can view a 4K image across a 100-inch area by placing it just 4 inches from a wall.
IBM has announced the production of 5-nanometer chips based on a new standard that will say goodbye to the FinFET standard. The process uses a new structure with a stack of four nanoplates to fit 30 billion transistors on a chip the size of a knuckle. This means that extremely powerful chips will be produced in very small dimensions in terms of processing. Minimizing lithography always means higher productivity and lower power consumption in the same architecture, and with IBM’s new technology, it is possible to keep power consumption low by increasing processing power.
Moore’s Law, which was first proposed in the 1970s, stated that the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years. But in recent years, this law has been challenged by the physical limitations of silicon, slowing the rate of transistor additions. Currently, 14-nanometer chips are widely used in the consumer electronics market. However, Intel and Samsung have switched to 10-nanometer chips to stay ahead of their competitors.
Contrary to popular belief, Windows XP is not vulnerable to WannaCry ransomware. According to reports published by Kryptos Research, the company’s researchers found that rumors about the ransomware’s spread and agent are not true after attacking computers running Windows XP in a lab environment.
This ransomware attacks vulnerable systems without user intervention by exploiting a vulnerability in the Windows SMB file sharing system. When researchers at Cryptos exposed a Windows XP computer to this ransomware, without installing or spreading it, the ransomware simply crashed and displayed a Blue Screen of Death that required a hard reboot. Although it is still possible to manually install this ransomware on Windows XP computers, there is no way to install it automatically in the way that the ransomware spreads itself on this old operating system. In the worst case scenario, this ransomware could cause a large-scale Blue Screen of Death on Windows XP computers.
Although the Kryptos investigation questioned many of the initial analyses, as Kaspersky stated after its initial investigation, Windows XP was the least affected by the ransomware. Kaspersky found that computers running Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 were the most affected. Initial reports suggested that Windows XP was vulnerable due to the focus on the UK National Health Service (NHS) systems, and that Microsoft had not released a patch. The NHS later denied these rumors, stating that only 5% of its operational computers were running XP at the time of the ransomware attack. Read more