Pokemon Unite is here, and it’s almost surprising just how much fun it is to play. Pokemon Unite can probably best be described as a casual MOBA that borrows elements from more hardcore games in the genre like League of Legends and Dota 2. Even though it isn’t as complex as either of those games, strategies for winning matches in … Continue reading
The creators of Star Wars at Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and Lucasfilm aren’t shy about the fact that they employ fans of their most popular creations. After so many decades of creating Star Wars, it was inevitable that Lucasfilm would eventually be working with professionals that grew up watching Star Wars as a kid. This week, we have a … Continue reading
Many cars now come with Bluetooth support, which means satellite radio service is less relevant than ever. Despite that, SiriusXM is still a thing and for those who prefer the satellite radio experience while driving, it has a new plan called Platinum VIP. The new plan offers service for two cars, including streaming access, under a single rate. SiriusXM is … Continue reading
Forget about “SuperFin Enhanced,” the previous name for the node powering Intel’s upcoming 10nm Alder Lake processors. Now, that node is just called “Intel 7,” according to the company’s revised roadmap. But don’t go thinking that means Intel is somehow delivering a 7nm processor early — its long-delayed “Rocket Lake” 7nm chip still won’t ship until 2023, and its node has been renamed to “Intel 4.” Confused yet? It’s almost like Intel is trying to attach a new number to these upcoming products, so we’ll forget it’s losing the shrinking transistor war against AMD.
But Intel’s prospects are more interesting as we look ahead to 2024, when the company expects to finalize the design for its first chips with transistors smaller than 1 nanometer. They’ll be measured by angstroms, instead. The “Intel 20A” node will be powered by “RibbonFET” transistors, the company’s first new architecture since the arrival FinFET in 2011. It’ll be coupled with PowerVia, a technology that can move power delivery to the rear of a chip wafer, which should make signal transmission more efficient.
“Building on Intel’s unquestioned leadership in advanced packaging, we are accelerating our innovation roadmap to ensure we are on a clear path to process performance leadership by 2025,” Intel’s new CEO Pat Gelsinger (above) said during the “Intel Accelerated” livestream today. “We are leveraging our unparalleled pipeline of innovation to deliver technology advances from the transistor up to the system level. Until the periodic table is exhausted, we will be relentless in our pursuit of Moore’s Law and our path to innovate with the magic of silicon.”
Before it reaches the angstrom era of chips, though, the company also plans to release a processor with an “Intel 3” node in 2023. You can think of it as a super-powered version of its 7nm architecture, with around an 18 percent performance power watt improvement over Intel 4. It’ll likely fill the timing gap between Rocket Lake chips in 2023 and the Intel 20A products in 2024. Intel is also daring to call its shot beyond 2024: it’s also working on an “Intel 18A” node that’ll further improve on its RibbonFET design.
For consumers, this roadmap means you can expect chips to get steadily faster and more efficient over the next five years. If anything, the announcements today show that Intel is trying to move beyond the 10nm and 7nm delays that have dogged it for ages.
As we’ve previously argued, it’s ultimately a good thing for the tech industry if Intel can finally regain its footing. Its $20 billion investment in two Arizona-based fabrication plants was a clear sign that Gelsinger aimed to bring the company into new territory. But now that it’s laid out a new timeline, there’ll be even more pressure for Intel not to let things slip once again.
Tesla appears to have shrugged off the production woes it suffered last year during the COVID lockdown with the company announcing a number of “new and notable records” during its Q2 earnings call on Monday. Not only did Tesla build and ship 200,000 vehicles during the quarter, a 151 percent increase over last year, it also earned $1.1 billion in net income during the same period — a whopping tenfold increase year over year. Overall, revenue grew 98 percent from this time last year thanks in large part to Tesla’s increased deliveries though the company did suffer from a “Bitcoin-related impairment” of $23 million during the past quarter.
Additionally, Tesla rolled out 85 MW worth of solar capability in Q2, a 215 percent increase from last year’s 25 MW as well as added nearly 1,000 Supercharging stations to its ever expanding network.
In terms of tech, Tesla’s use of radar as part of the vehicle’s Full Self Driving system will soon be coming to an end. “After selling over a million vehicles equipped with radar, we have collected enough data to start removing it in some regions,” the company wrote in its shareholder deck. “The removal of radar, which is enabled by our collection of a vast dataset of corner cases, allows us to focus on vision and increase the pace of improvement.”
The company is also getting closer to switching over to its new 4680 battery cells, having successfully validated the battery tech’s “performance and lifetime” at its California-based fabrication facility. With that testing out of the way, Tesla is focusing on “improving the 10 percent of manufacturing processes that currently bottleneck production output,” though the company has not yet announced when the battery style changeover will actually take place.
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Jeff Bezos—the world’s richest “astronaut” and sour grape—has written an open letter to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, saying Blue Origin will cover billions in NASA costs in exchange for a contract to build a lunar lander that will deliver astronauts to the Moon in 2024.
One of the small but interesting ways Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey was able to dig into Harley Quinn’s interiority was by letting her insanity contour the film’s reality in key moments—like when a violent interrogation by Black Mask suddenly became a twisted musical number entirely in her mind. While James Gunn’s The…
People who experienced a rare allergic reaction to the mRNA covid-19 vaccines may have less to worry about than feared, new research out Monday suggests. The study, which included several U.S. medical institutions, found that people who reported a reaction following their first dose were all able to safely take the…
The Tokyo Olympics mark the first time Paralympic athletes will earn the same amount of cash as their counterparts.
The new order affects upward of 2.25 million people in the state.
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