Save Up to $1,500 When You Reserve a Galaxy Device From Samsung

Samsung is unleashing its legendary Unpacked event in July. To celebrate, they're offering $1,500 off when you reserve a new Galaxy device.

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Apple is rumored to be planning to add a new model to its line-up of the best AirPods: specifically, AirPods with infrared cameras installed, which can be paired with a Vision Pro headset and create a spatial audio experience that changes as you move your head.

This comes from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who is right more often than not when it comes to Apple predictions. However, the IR-enabled AirPods aren't going to be available anytime soon, with mass production said to start in 2026.

It's worth noting that back in February, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman also reported that AirPods with cameras were being looked at by Apple. That's two good sources to back up this rumor, though of course Apple's plans can always change.

The camera system inside the AirPods will be similar to the tech used for Face ID on the iPhone, according to Kuo. They would be enough to detect when someone is turning their head – so certain sounds could be increased or decreased accordingly. If you're in a virtual 3D environment, that kind of audio trickery can be very effective.

What the future might hold

The Apple Vision Pro (Image credit: Apple)

Something else that the cameras might be able to detect are hand gestures, Kuo says. Gestures can already be used for actions inside the Vision Pro, but as our Apple Vision Pro review makes clear, there's absolutely room for improvement in this area.

While sales of the Vision Pro don't seem to have been particularly significant, Apple is said to be pressing ahead with a cheaper model – which coincidentally (or not?) is also said to be arriving on the consumer market at some point 2026.

When iOS 16 arrived in 2022 it brought with it a Personalized Spatial Audio feature for the AirPods, which worked with the help of an iPhone for the 3D scanning. These immersive experiences would seem to be something Apple is particularly interested in.

No doubt we'll hear more rumors and leaks about AirPods with cameras in the months ahead. In the meantime, the standard AirPods models are also supposed to be being refreshed this year or next, so we can apparently look forward to the 4th-gen standard AirPods and the Apple AirPods Pro 3 in the not-too-distant future.

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Save $36 With 3 Free Months of Kindle Unlimited Just Before Prime Day

Amazon's Kindle Unlimited is perfect for readers who want a relaxing way to enjoy their summer.

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The 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day coincide as two excellent opportunities to bag a mid-summer bargain. Generally speaking, both offer great deals and we always cover each at TechRadar. You may be wondering, however, what the differences are and what you should be shopping in each event.

Luckily I can help. I've been covering these events as deals editor on TechRadar for four years now so I've got plenty of tips, advice, and experience to share for our readers. If you've got your 4th of July shopping list ready but are wondering whether you should simply wait until Prime Day (or even Black Friday), then I'll tell you exactly what to expect in each sale. 

While you're here, I highly recommend bookmarking our 4th of July sales and Amazon Prime Day hub pages, which we'll be using to roundup all the best deals in each event. If you're looking for expert-picked deals, these pages should be your first port of call over the next month. 

The key differences, explained

The 4th of July sales are a 'traditional' sales event

The 4th of July sales are what I'd call a 'traditional' sales event - one where the deals are shared between online retailers and brick and mortar stores. Overall, it's a pretty similar setup to other federal holiday sales like Memorial Day and Labor Day, which are other seasonal sales that tend to feature similar types of deals.

Amazon Prime Day, on the other hand, is an online exclusive mega-sale at the world's biggest retailer. It's a two day event that's all about Amazon specifically and you'll need to be an active Amazon Prime member to get access to the exclusive deals on offer. 

It's worth noting that other retailers have started to try and muscle in on the action in recent years by offering their own 'anti-Prime Day' sales around the Amazon Prime Day period. In general, Prime Day has become a kind of mini-Black Friday event in July, although perhaps not quite as vast in content yet. 

What to buy at each event

(Image credit: Amazon)

• 4th of July sales for appliances, furniture, grills, mattresses.
• Amazon Prime Day for TVs, laptops, and electronics

I'd primarily recommend the 4th of July sales for appliances, furniture, grills, mattresses and so on - you know, the kind of things you'd buy in an outlet store. There are plenty of other deals (more on that later), but generally speaking these core categories are the best buys for 4th of July and other seasonal sales.

Amazon Prime Day, on the other hand, I'd recommend for electronics. TVs, laptops, headphones, and things along that vein. While the retailer's huge inventory covers a huge range of everyday essentials, it's usually the deals on electronics that we recommend people check out here at TechRadar - especially on own-brand devices like Echo Dots, Kindle, or Fire TV Sticks. We usually find Black Friday-level deals on models that we've personally tested and reviewed on-site so it's easy to recommend waiting until Prime Day to buy electronics.

It's not that simple, however

Yep - unfortunately not. While Amazon Prime Day remains the primo mid-Summer sales event, the 4th of July sales can sometimes have some superb hidden gems. It's not unusual to see decent price cuts on TVs, laptops, or other electronics earlier in the month at retailers like Dell, HP, Best Buy, and others. 

Right now, for example, the official HP Store is running its own 4th of July sale that's offering up to 55% off its range of Pavilion, Envy, and Spectre laptops - one of the better events we've seen from the retailer in recent months. Dell is also hosting a 'Summer Sale' right now with decent price cuts, although we could potentially see an even better 'Black Friday in July' sale at some point based on recent years. 

Because of this it's definitely worth at least checking out the 4th of July sales - even if you're shopping for electronics. In general we expect Amazon Prime Day to have better deals overall but there could be a few hidden gems here or there - which we'll of course be including in our 4th of July sales roundup.

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Struggling to Sleep During a Heat Wave? 12 Hacks to Combat Night Sweats

You aren't the only one tossing and turning during hot summer nights. Here are 12 expert tips for cooler, comfier sleep.

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Cybersecurity researchers from Outpost24’s KrakenLabs observed a new and quite unique malware campaign that seems to values quantity over quality.

Usually, when hackers compromise a device, they deploy a single piece of malware and try their best to remain unseen and persistent, as they use the computer for whatever end goal they have.

But this new campaign, dubbed Unfurling Hemlock, does the exact opposite, making it stand out in the world of cybercrime. The researchers are saying that once the victim triggers the malware executable - in this case called ‘EXTRACT.EXE’ - they receive a handful of different malware, infostealers, and botnet executables.

Malware cluster bomb

The chances of the malware being picked up by cybersecurity solutions is high, but the researchers believe the attackers are hoping at least some of the payloads will survive the purge. Among the things dropped on the devices are Redline (popular infostealer), RisePro (an upcoming infostealer), Mystic Stealer (infostealing malware-as-a-service), Amadey (loader), SmokeLoader (another loader), Protection Disabler (a utility that disables Windows Defender and other security features), Enigma Packer (obfuscation tool), Healer (anti-security solution), and Performance Checker (a utility that checks and logs the performance of malware execution).

This “malware cluster bomb” was first spotted in February 2024, the researchers said, claiming to have seen more than 50,000 cluster bomb files, all with unique characteristics that link them back to Unfurling Hemlock. 

KrakenLabs could not say with absolute certainty who the threat actors behind Unfurling Hemlock are, but they are fairly confident they are of Eastern European origin. Some of the evidence pointing in that direction is the use of Russian language in some of the samples, and the use of the Autonomous System 203727, related to a hosting service cybercrime groups in the region usually use. 

Luckily enough, the malware being pushed through this campaign is well-known and most reputable antivirus programs will flag it.

Via BleepingComputer

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Take Advantage of This Exclusive CNET Discount on One of Our Favorite Treadmills

Score big savings on the budget-friendly Horizon Fitness 7.0 AT treadmill with the exclusive CNET code CNETFIREWORK200.

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Anthropic has upgraded its Claude generative AI assistant to be more useful in the office. Claude Pro and Claude Team subscribers can now better organize and track their work with the AI assistant thanks to the new Projects and Artifacts features.

Projects are both a place for storing and interacting with data for tasks. Users can upload all their documents, code, and other relevant data into one place. Each project within Claude.ai includes a 200K context window, equivalent to a 500-page book. They can then ask Claude about it, and even set up custom instructions for how to respond in terms of tone or the context of who is asking and what they might need. The idea is to avoid what Anthropic calls "cold starts," where users must start from scratch each time they engage with the AI assistant. By having a knowledge base to draw from, Claude can respond to queries more quickly and accurately.

Office Artifacts

The Artifacts feature is a kind of flip of the Projects in that it can produce a wide range of content the way Projects can store them. Users can ask Claude to make text, code, and other 'artifacts.' Claude will share the output in a dedicated window alongside the chat, like a preview window of what it's composing. This setup enables users to see and interact with the generated content in real time, providing immediate feedback and adjustments where needed. An additional upgrade lets users share the best bits of conversations with Claude with their team in a shared project activity feed.

Both Projects and Artifacts are powered by Claude 3.5 Sonnet, Anthropic’s latest AI model. According to the company, Claude 3.5 Sonnet outperforms recently announced models like GPT-4o and Google's Gemini 1.5 on a variety of benchmarks.

"Our vision for Claude has always been to create AI systems that work alongside people and meaningfully enhance their workflows," Anthropic explained in a blog post. "With this new functionality, Claude can enable idea generation, more strategic decision-making, and exceptional results."

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Identity verification company AU10TIX kept a set of admin credentials exposed for more than a year, possibly allowing threat actors to steal its customers’ sensitive data.

AU10TIX verifies user identities on behalf of its clients, which include, among others, TikTok, X, and Uber, via selfie pictures and scans of people’s driver’s licenses. 

Cybersecurity researchers from spiderSilk were the first (among white hat researchers) to stumble upon the credentials. They claim that the login information grants access to a logging platform, where access to the identity documents is unabated. 

Stolen credentials

“My personal reading of this situation is that an ID Verification service provider was entrusted with people's identities and it failed to implement simple measures to protect people's identities and sensitive ID documents,” said Mossab Hussein, the chief security officer at spiderSilk. 

Unfortunately, it seems that malicious players beat spiderSilk to the punch, as account information was probably picked up by a piece of malware in December 2022, and shared via Telegram in March 2023. 

If someone did access this database (which AU10TIX claims was not abused in the wild), they would have gotten access to people’s names, birth dates, nationalities, ID numbers, and images of their faces. This is more than enough to run successful identity theft of phishing attacks. Such data is also quite expensive on the black market, too.

AU10TIX said it notified the affected customers and that it is replacing the current operating system with a new one, with more focus on security. 

It signed X as a client in September 2023, when we reported that the company had a clean rap sheet, without any public data breaches. As such, it was seen as a good choice for the social media behemoth. We did, however, said we’d remain skeptical given Musk’s controversial decisions in the past, and we were most definitely right.

Via 404 Media

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InspireSemi has announced the successful tapeout of the Thunderbird I Accelerated Computing chip for fabrication at TSMC. 

This highly differentiated "supercomputer cluster-on-a-chip" features 1,536 custom 64-bit RISC-V CPU cores, tailored for high-level scientific computing and complex data processing.

Thunderbird I is designed to cater to a wide array of compute-intensive applications, from AI and machine learning to graph analytics. Leveraging the open standard RISC-V CPU ISA, it allows easier development and integration into existing technology frameworks, with access to a solid ecosystem of software, libraries, and tools.

PCIe add-in card planned

The chip's architecture integrates a high-speed mesh network fabric that provides substantial bandwidth and minimal latency communication among cores, important for applications that rely on synchronized operations across multiple threads. This efficient network integration manages interactions within the chip's core array and memory systems, ensuring optimal performance without the common bottlenecks.

The upcoming product release will include a server PCIe add-in card hosting four Thunderbird chips, providing over 6,000 interconnected 64-bit CPU cores. This setup is equipped to handle double-precision math, essential for many high-performance computing applications in fields like climate science, medical research, and complex simulations.

Ron Van Dell, CEO of InspireSemi, said, “We are proud of the accomplishment of our engineering and operations team to finish the Thunderbird I design and submit it to our world-class supply chain partners, TSMC, ASE, and imec for production. We expect to begin customer deliveries in the fourth quarter.” There's no word on pricing yet, however.

InspireSemi also stresses Thunderbird I’s  energy efficiency, a carryover from its initial design for energy-sensitive blockchain computing applications. The company says this approach offers more environmentally friendly alternative to traditional data center GPUs.

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Medusa, an Android banking trojan that had been laying low for roughly a year now, has made a fresh appearance, experts have warned

A new, lightweight Medusa variant has been seen being used by multiple threat actors, and targeting victims in numerous countries around the world, noted cybersecurity researchers from Cleafy.

In their report, the researchers said they recently observed a surge in installations of a new app called “4K Sports”. Subsequent investigation determined the app to be an evolution of Medusa, with significant changes in its command infrastructure and capabilities.

Expanding targets

Most notably, the new variant requests fewer permissions, making it less detectable. It still asks for Accessibility Services, which should always be a red flag. Other notable mentions include Broadcasting SMS, Internet Foreground Service, and Package Management.

In total, 17 commands were nixed, and five new ones introduced, including setting a black screen overlay, taking screenshots, and more.

Five different botnets, each with unique operational goals and geographical targets, were identified using the new Medusa. These are called UNKN, AFETZEDE, ANAKONDA, PEMBE, and TONY, and their targets were mostly located in Canada, Spain, France, Italy, the UK, the US, and Turkey.

To distribute Medusa, the botnets are most likely using droppers, the researchers said. However, the droppers have not yet been found on the Google Play Store, which significantly reduces its reach. However, dedicated websites, social media channels, phishing, and other methods, are still viable and can still result in hundreds of thousands of downloads. 

Not to be confused with the ransomware, or the Mirai-based botnet of the same name, the Medusa banking trojan is a sophisticated piece of malware primarily designed to target financial institutions and facilitate banking fraud. It was first identified in 2020, targeting Turkish financial institutions. By 2022, Medusa had launched major campaigns in North America and Europe.

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It seems like every day, there is a new macOS Sequoia feature to look forward to, or some kind of improvement in Apple’s incoming OS, with a freshly spotted one opening up the doors to improved accessibility on the audio front.

MacRumors has been busy playing with the macOS 15 developer beta and discovered this new functionality in System Settings. Under Headphone Accommodations (in Accessibility > Audio), you can tweak the sound for your AirPods and some Beats headphones. 

The settings therein let you amplify softer sounds - to make them more easily heard - and change the audio output frequencies to make your music, phone calls, and more clearer sounding (or at least that’s the idea). From what we can tell, the new settings you run with will carry over when using your AirPods on devices other than your Mac. 

This could be a really useful feature for those who are hard of hearing to some degree, and it’s an ability that has been on iOS devices for some time. So, while it’s undoubtedly a very commendable step forward for accessibility with macOS, some folks out there are wondering why it took so long to bring this functionality across to the Mac.

Still, we’re glad to see it’s arriving, and in the run-up to the release of macOS Sequoia, we’re seeing a lot of new and interesting features and tweaks pop up that seem to be popular. 

A recent example is the fix for the annoying storage issue Mac users have to deal with when it comes to downloading apps, as well as the more anticipated changes like iPhone mirroring and a plethora of AI features powered by Apple Intelligence.

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Have Paramount Plus? Here's What the Upcoming Price Hike Means for You - CNET

Existing subscribers may or may not need to pay more soon.

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ASMedia recently demonstrated its USB4 v2 physical layer (PHY) chips at Computex 2024, which will allow external SSDs to reach speeds of up to 15GBps, potentially matching the performance of internal drives.

The USB4 Version 2.0 specification, released by the USB Implementers Forum in October 2022, introduces several advancements over the previous version. 

It incorporates the new PAM3 signal encoding format, which extends the USB4 bandwidth from 40Gbps to 80Gbps for peer-to-peer connections and allows for asymmetric speeds of 120Gbps/40Gbps.

FPGA-based USB4 Dock

ASMedia's presentation at Computex, titled "Incredible Speed, Exceeding the Limit," covered both USB4 and PCIe Gen5 technologies. The USB4 v2 presentation showed 80Gbps and 120Gbps physical layers, which are capable of dramatically improving the speed at which large data files and high-resolution videos can be transferred. USB4's backward compatibility also ensures seamless integration with existing USB devices.

The PCIe 5.0 PHY chip on show at the same event is tailored for the demanding needs of high-performance computing, big data, and - of course - AI servers. It is set to offer faster transmission speeds, reduced latency, and support for a broader range of high-performance devices. Details on this chip are scare right now, however.

Looking forward, the Taiwanese tech firm says it plans to sample multi-lane PCIe Gen4 Packet Switches by the end of 2024. It is also set to unveil an FPGA-based USB4 Dock at CES 2025.

This future dock, designed for multifunctional workstations, promises up to 40Gbps transmission speeds and up to 240W power delivery. The dock will also offer the usual array of ports including USB A and C, HDMI, DisplayPort, and Ethernet, enabling enhanced connectivity and charging capabilities for multiple devices. 

Pricing and availability of these new products will announced in due course.

(Image credit: ASMedia)

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Here's How to Buy Stamps Honoring Iconic Jeopardy! Host Alex Trebek - CNET

I'll take, "Best Postage Stamp News" for $500, Alex.

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While everyone anxiously awaits the official Amazon Prime Day date (although it might have just been accidentally leaked), Walmart is getting in on the action by announcing it's launching a huge rival sale, "Walmart Deals."

The Walmart Deals sale will begin on Monday, July 8, at 5 PM ET and last until Thursday, July 11, at Midnight, and Walmart Plus members will get early access starting at Noon ET. Walmart's press release claims it will be the retailer's largest savings event ever, with deals on best-selling items, including tech gadgets, home items, toys, travel gear, and back-to-school must-haves.

While Amazon isn't mentioned, based on years past, we know that Walmart always launches a July summer sale to try and take a piece of the Prime Day pie. Walmart is trying to compete with the retail giant by offering similar or even better deals and exclusive offers.

Unlike Amazon, Walmart has given us a preview of the bargains at its July sale, and I've listed some of the best deals below. Those include discounts on TVs, vacuums, kitchen appliances, popular toys, laptops, and more. I've also included a link to sign up for a free 30-day trial of Walmart Plus if you're interested in early access to the sale.

Walmart Plus: sign up for a free 30-day trial
You can sign up for a Walmart Plus membership and gain early access to the July Walmart Deals sale. You can try Walmart Plus for free for 30 days, and after that, an annual plan is $98 or $8.17 a month. Walmart Plus perks include free shipping with no order minimum, a free Paramount Plus subscription, discounts on gas, and early access to sales.View Deal

Walmart Deals sale preview: the 13 best offers

• TCL 65-inch 4K QLED HDR Smart TV with Google TV: $398.00 (was $498.00)
• HP Victus 15.6 inch R5 4050 Gaming Laptop: $599.00 (was $979.00)
• Dyson V12 Detect Slimm Cordless Vacuum: $449.99 (was $649.99)
• Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Smart Watch: $99.00 (was $179.99)
• TCL Air Purifier: $29.99 (was $69.99)
• Emeril Lagasse Power Grill 360 Plus: $50.00 (was $169.00)
• AovoPro Scooter: $219.99 (was $439.00)
• Keurig K-Slim + Iced Coffee Maker: $49.00 (was $129.00)
• GE Profile Opal Nugget Ice Maker: $397.00 (was $579.00)
• Nintendo Switch Joy Con with Game: $69.00 (was $99.00)
• Lego Star Wars: $35.00 (was $49.99)
• Shark IQ Mapping Robot Vacuum: $288.00 (was $499.99)
• Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Toothbrush: $149.96 (was $199.96)

You can shop early bargains right now in our 4th of July sales roundup.

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Gigabyte has launched its AI TOP 100E series of SSDs specifically designed for high-endurance tasks such as AI training. 

The new SSDs are available in 1TB and 2TB capacities and come housed in a standard M.2 2280 form factor.

What makes them stand out from the competition is their extraordinary endurance ratings. Gigabyte says the 2TB model offers up to 219,000 TBW (Terabytes Written), a figure that is significantly higher than you’d expect from typical consumer SSDs. The mean time between failure (MTBF) is rated as 1.6 million hours.

AI TOP utility

AI TOP 100E uses the PCIe 4.0x4, NVMe 1.4  interface, so it won’t win any performance races, especially not when compared to newer PCIe 5.0 drives, but it’s fast enough. The 1TB SSD offers sequential read speeds up to 7,200MB/s and write speeds up to 6,500MB/s, slightly outperforming the 2TB model (7000MB/s reads, 5900MB/s writes). So essentially, based on the figures it's provided, Gigabyte is saying the 2TB model can write 219,000,000GB at 5.9 GB/s in 37,118,644 seconds, or approximately 1.18 years. That's quite a claim.

Gigabyte hasn’t detailed how it achieves its enhanced durability, nor specified the type of 3D NAND used, but the drive supports exceptionally high levels of data write operations, rated at 60 drive writes per day (DWPD).

Due to their limited capacity and high costs, VRAM and system DRAM often become bottlenecks when training an AI models. The AI TOP 100E SSD does come with a "AI TOP" utility which Gigabyte says will let users “offload the processing of large datasets from VRAM or DRAM to the AI TOP 100E SSD, effectively enlarging your memory pool and upgrading the capability to fine-tune large AI models. This approach enhances performance and significantly lowers the total cost of ownership (TCO), with the AI TOP 100E SSD emerging as the most cost-effective option per gigabyte compared to VRAM and system DRAM.”

While specific pricing and availability details have yet to be announced, the SSD comes with a five-year limited warranty or is guaranteed for 109,500 TBW (1TB model) or 219,000 TBW (2TB), whichever comes first.

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Copa America 2024 Soccer: Livestream USA vs. Bolivia From Anywhere - CNET

The host nation gets Group C underway in Texas against La Verde.

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Best Blue Light Glasses of 2024 - CNET

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Best TV Sales: Score a Sony, Samsung, LG TV for Way Less - CNET

If you're looking for a new TV or upgrade, now's a great time to take a peek at these deals. There's something here every budget.

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Best Credit Cards With Virtual Card Numbers for June 2024 - CNET

Virtual card numbers are an extra level of security you can use when shopping online or in person through a phone's digital wallet.

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Latest Tech News

Businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to back up and manage the growing volumes of data they produce. The introduction of generative AI has further complicated matters, significantly challenging traditional storage methods.

128TB SSDs have been teased for some time, with a number of companies talking up their future plans. Huawei, for example, announced it was working on a 128TB SSD, but that product will only be available as part of its Exabyte-capable OceanStor A800 range and isn’t expected to be made available until 2025.

At CES 2024, Phison showcased a variety of SSDs and portable SSD controllers, including its X2 enterprise SSD platform. Although capacities for this “world’s best-in-class Enterprise SSD” topped out at 61.44TB, the version displayed at CES suggested a future capacity of up to 128TB.

128TB coming "soon"

Phison revealed a little more of its plans at the end of May 2024 when it took the wraps off its Pascari X200 PCIe Gen5 Enterprise SSD range. 

Featuring the CoXProcessor CPU architecture, these drives are specifically designed for high-performance computing (HPC) AI, hyperscale, and data centers, and although the first models were only available in up to 32TB sizes, we now know significantly larger models are on the way, and will arrive sooner than expected.

In a casual conversation with a Pascari representative, we were told that the brand plans to launch 64TB and 128TB X200 models “in the coming months”. Although they couldn't tell us much more than that for obvious reasons, we expect an official announcement on Pascari’s 128TB X200 at (if not before) this year’s Flash Memory Storage (FMS) event being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, August 6-8.

Pascari’s representative told us to “expect to see some PCIe Gen6 stuff at FMS” and hinted that current speeds will change too.

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Best MicroSD Card Deals: Get Amazing MicroSD Cards for Less - CNET

Nab yourself a new MicroSD card and save some big money on the way.

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Western Digital (WD) is one of the top makers of SSDs right now, and its range is now expanding with the introduction of the WD Blue SN5000, available in 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB options – at a very reasonable price. 

Anyone who has undertaken the task of building a PC will be familiar with WD and the sheer range of SSDs it offers is a little dizzying. 

The new WD Blue SN5000 range offers twice as much storage on offer here over the previous-generation SSDs, and the starting price of $79.99 on the Western Digital website for the 500GB model, currently reduced by $10, is very tempting. 

WD Blue SN5000

In comparison to the previous SN850X NVMe and SN700 NVMe SSDs (which comes in a striking red), the SN5000 is cheaper but lacks some of the more high-end features of those two, like an optional heatsink.  

As you might expect, WD is hyping up the AI applications of the SN5000 SSDs, thanks to NVMe, PCIe Gen 4, and Western Digital's nCache 4.0 tech making things really sing.

The company says users can expect read speeds of up to 5,500MB/s2 on the 4TB model, and up to 1,200T BW endurance for creating ideas and everything else.

One thing to note: to make the most of the SSD's NVME PCIe Gen 4, you're going to need a M.2 2280 slot on your computer, so be wary of that when making your decision on the SN5000.

To be sure, these the SN5000s are not exciting, but then do you want your SSD to do the job and perform, or offer bells and whistles? We mentioned that the entry-level 500GB model is $80, and the top-end 4TB model is priced at a reasonable $279.99 with a $10 discount right now.

(Image credit: Future)

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Market intelligence firm Liftr Insights spotted a new Amazon Web Services cloud provider instance with a mammoth 896-core count, putting it far above rival offerings from Azure and Tencent.

What’s important to note, and as spotted by a Tom’s Hardware reader, these cores are likely derived from 8-CPU, 56-core Intel Sapphire Rapids configurations, effectively utilizing hyperthreading to achieve 2 vCPUs per physical core.

The use of vCPUs allows cloud providers like AWS to offer scalable, flexible, and powerful computing resources to handle applications that require significant computational power, such as intensive database operations or data analytics, but the new instance still only offers 448 physical cores, which is the same as AWS has offered since May 2021.

Showing demand

The cost for renting this server is more affordable than might be expected, with Liftr suggesting prices will range from around $150 to over $400 per hour, averaging at $263.10. These instances are especially suited for demanding database applications such as SAP Hana and Oracle, justifying their higher pricing tiers due to the performance enhancements they offer.

Tab Schadt, CEO of Liftr , notes, "It's not advantageous for AWS to deploy solutions that won't sell, especially at these price points. They spend significant time and money on their market intelligence. Other companies can benefit from their research about what they are offering and where they offer them at a fraction of that cost."

Initially launched in the East and West coasts of the USA, as well as internationally in Seoul and Sydney, the fast global rollout of this new instance indicates a strong global demand.

Intel's Sapphire Rapids Xeon certainly dominates for now. AMD's top offering achieves a maximum of 512 vCPUs with its 128-core CPUs, limited to dual-socket configurations. However, the upcoming AMD Zen 5C EPYC processors are expected to support up to 768 threads, potentially narrowing the gap with Intel.

Schadt anticipates future growth in this high-performance sector, stating, "Perhaps we'll see larger instances in the near future, showing even more demand for high performance workloads. At the least, we'll keep an eye out to see if and when Azure or other cloud providers respond in kind."

(Image credit: Liftr Insights )

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Sharp has announced a new pair of 4K projectors, the XP-P601Q and XP-P721Q, that offer extremely high level projection in 4K UHD, ideal for both usage at home for pleasure but also in work environments such as in museums or classrooms. 

The higher-end XP-P721Q model can hit a staggering 7,200 lumens, and the XP-P601Q reaches a respectable 6,000 lumens - but one of the best features is what isn't there: Sharp says the lack of lamp or filter can provide years of worry-free usage. 

Sharp built both the P721Q and P601Q with a 1.6 times motorized zoom lens, coupled with motorized vertical and horizontal lens shift, which can help you set up the projector in more spaces. This means that, even with obstacles in the way, the projector will offer a square image that is aligned with the wall or surface.

Projectors that last 

The company is also utilising HDBaseT inputs, instead of HDMI, so that users can run cable that covers all three of sound, video, and control, further reducing the amount of hassle needed to instal the P721Q or P601Q. There are also Tilt-free and Roll-free capabilities to support mounting on the wall, floor, or in portrait.

“Bringing a high quality 4K UHD resolution projector to market as our first Sharp projector since our [NEC] joint venture further demonstrates our leadership role in the higher resolution projector market,” says Sharp executive Ryan Pitterle.

“The new Sharp P Series projectors, with their maintenance free design are going to be the new industry standard for 4K UHD projectors thanks to the more than 35 years of projector heritage and expertise gained from our joint venture with NEC.”

According to B&H, the XP-P601Q costs $5,199, and the XP-P721Q costs $6,499. Both come with a five-year warranty. 

Don't count out Optoma

(Image credit: Sharp)

Sharp isn't operating in a vacuum for the best business projectors, and there is serious competition from Optoma, which has its own 4K monitor, the ZK708T. (Yes, all high-end projector names are like this.) 

According to Optoma, the ZK708T can work for up to 30,000 hours, and is even certified for 24/7 usage, making it attractive to venues and other spaces that want to project continuously for a long time. Sharp says the P Series projectors are good for at least 20,000 hours. 

Optoma also includes HDBaseT 3.0, a dust resistant body, built-in 15W speakers, 360° projection, Telnet, 3D content support, and tops out at 7,000 lumens, so slightly below the top-end P721Q, but only just. The ZK708T costs $4,999. 

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Motorola Teases Razr Flip-Phone Reveal for June 25 - CNET

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The Samsung Galaxy Ring is popping up everywhere as it gears up for launch. We’re learning more about Samsung’s latest wellness device every day, and now, thanks to a notable leaker, we know what its charging case (allegedly) looks like. 

The Samsung Galaxy Ring will likely officially debut at Samsung's next Galaxy Unpacked, which historically occurs between June and August, but it’s already been teased, and we even tried on a very early version back in February.

Since then, details have been dropping left and right, and this latest leak gives us our best look yet at the ring’s charging case. 

Notable leaker Ice Universe posted this render on Chinese social media site Weibo, revealing an engagement-ring-style box with a hinge mechanic. You can check it out in full in this link here.

(Image credit: Samsung)

It looks similar to the case used by Samsung for the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, except instead of depressed wells for the earbuds to magnetically sit in, we’ve got an internal nodule for the Ring to sit on, much like the charging unit for the Oura Ring Generation 3.

Round that out with a light to indicate charging status, and that’s about everything notable on the image so far. We’re assuming the charging case has a USB-C port on the back, and it’ll come in multiple colors and finishes, just like the early rings we tried.

 Analysis: Opting for an enclosed case is a smart move 

While it’s unlikely (but not impossible) that Samsung superfans are going to be proposing with smart rings anytime soon, an earbuds-style case rather than Oura’s exposed nodule is a smart choice. If you’re charging the ring while in transit, keeping it safe in an enclosed case is much easier. 

However, does Samsung really expect people to take off and charge the Ring often enough for this to be warranted? Although we hope it’ll rival Oura and come with an up-to-seven-day battery life, we don’t yet know what the Galaxy Ring will be capable of. 

It’ll need to last at least five days of constant wear to compete with the best smart rings, but we’ll know more for sure when Samsung decides to formally debut the Galaxy Ring. 

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In 2016, Microsoft granted Qualcomm the exclusive rights to develop and produce Arm chips for Windows. With that deal set to expire, and with a big push on for Arm-based laptops capable of running AI apps, other firms are developing their own chips.

According to an exclusive report from Reuters, which spoke to three sources familiar with the plans, Taiwanese chip design giant MediaTek will begin making its own Arm-based CPUs for release in 2025.

MediaTek has a long history of designing and developing a wide range of system-on-chip solutions for various electronic devices and is an obvious fit. Rather than creating its own CPU architecture based on the Arm instruction set, the chip will reportedly use Arm's ready-made designs.

Taking on Apple

This approach can significantly speed up development, Reuters explained.

“Executives at Arm have said one of its customers used the ready-made components to build a chip in roughly nine months for a design that is already complete, which MediaTek's is not. For experienced chip design businesses, advanced chips typically take considerably more than a year to construct and test, depending on the complexity.”

Microsoft's latest push to use Arm designs is no surprise as Apple has been making its own Arm-based chips for Mac computers with great success. The move towards Arm could, however, threaten Intel’s dominance in the PC market. 

Reuters previously reported that both Nvidia and AMD are working on making Arm chips for Windows, and although this new MediaTek chip is separate from those endeavors, the Taiwanese firm is reportedly collaborating with Nvidia on its product, although details remain under wraps for now.

While it could be that MediaTek’s new chips will be used in the next generation of AI PCs, Reuters says it is “not immediately clear whether Microsoft has approved MediaTek's PC chip for the Copilot+ Windows program.”

MediaTek and Microsoft declined to comment on the report.

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By now you’ll be very familiar with most, if not all, of the artificial intelligence, sorry “Apple Intelligence,” features it announced at its WWDC 2024 - but during the reveal, the company went to great lengths to talk about the steps it was taking to safeguard user privacy.

To back up Apple Intelligence, Apple introduced Private Cloud Compute (PCC). This cloud intelligence system extends Apple's security and privacy standards to cloud-based AI processing. PCC makes sure that personal user data sent to PCC remains inaccessible to anyone other than the user, including Apple.

In a blog post discussing Private Cloud Compute and how it works to keep user data safe, Apple said, “Built with custom Apple silicon and a hardened operating system designed for privacy, we believe PCC is the most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale.”

Tailored to support LLM inference workloads

Yes, Apple says it has written a hardened operating system. The company isn’t talking about the latest versions of macOS or iOS announced at WWDC, but rather something entirely different. 

There were no details given about this OS, not even its name, but Apple did mention it further on in the blog post.

After stating, “The root of trust for Private Cloud Compute is our compute node: custom-built server hardware that brings the power and security of Apple silicon to the data center, with the same hardware security technologies used in iPhone, including the Secure Enclave and Secure Boot,” the company added, “We paired this hardware with a new operating system: a hardened subset of the foundations of iOS and macOS tailored to support Large Language Model (LLM) inference workloads while presenting an extremely narrow attack surface.”

While we don’t know too much about the new OS that Apple designed for PCC, we soon will. The company says, “When we launch Private Cloud Compute, we’ll take the extraordinary step of making software images of every production build of PCC publicly available for security research.” That includes every application and relevant executable, and the OS itself. Apple adds, “Software will be published within 90 days of inclusion in the log, or after relevant software updates are available, whichever is sooner.”

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The Sp1d3r cybercrime gang is making quite a name for itself as it is now selling sensitive data on thousands of Truist banking employees.

Truist is a major US commercial bank formed in late 2019 after SunTrust Banks and BB&T merged, and now has $535 billion AUM (assets under management). It offers different banking services, from consumer and small business banking, commercial banking, corporate and investment banking, to insurance, wealth management, and payments.

Sp1d3r says they stole information on 65,000 employees, including bank transactions with names, account numbers, balances, and IVR funds transfer source code. The going price is $1 million.

No connection to Snowflake

The breach apparently happened in October 2023, but Truist only confirmed it now, once data went on sale. 

"In October 2023, we experienced a cybersecurity incident that was quickly contained," a Truist Bank spokesperson told BleepingComputer. "In partnership with outside security consultants, we conducted a thorough investigation, took additional measures to secure our systems, and notified a small number of clients last Fall.

For those unfamiliar with the name Sp1d3r, it is a threat actor that was recently selling sensitive data on 358,000 employees of top American carmaker Advance Auto Parts, as well as 380 million customer profiles, and plenty of other information. The going price was $1.5 million.

Sp1d3r was also seen selling 34 million emails and other personally identifiable information (PII) belonging to customers, employees, and partners, of cybersecurity giant Cylance, for $750,000.

Since Sp1d3r’s breach of Advance Auto Parts happened through data storage provider Snowflake, the media speculated the same might be the case here. However, the Truist spokesperson confirmed this had nothing to do with Snowflake.

“To be clear, we have found no evidence of a Snowflake incident at our company."

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NAND controller and storage solution firm Phison used its premier appearance at Computex to debut several new products, including the PS2251-21 (U21), the world’s first native USB4 single-chip controller. 

The company says this chip offers up to 4,000MB/s read and write performance, and is the first available direct USB- to NAND solution on USB4 Gen3x2.

The U21 currently supports capacities of up to 8TB, but 16TB is achievable, and it is backwards compatible with all existing USB standards, including USB 2.0 and USB 3.2 in different generation and lane options.

LLM training and inference

The company also used its presence at Computex to show off its high-performance DRAM-Less E31T SSD storage solution, which can achieve speeds of up to 10GB/s, as well as its new Pascari series of SSDs designed for servers and enterprise applications. Pascari offerings include the high-performance X range, boot-drive B range, data center D products, SATA S range, and the AI series for AI model fine-tuning.

Another “world’s first” on display was the company’s PCIe 5.0/CXL 2.0 Retimer PS7201, a full range of PCIe 5.0 Redriver IC solutions, and the next-generation PCIe 6.0 Retimer IC PS7162. 

Because AI was the big focus at this year's Computex, which should surprise absolutely no one,  Phison also showcased the aiDAPTIV+ LLM training and inference platform which it has developed in collaboration with ADVANTECH, Acer Synergy Tech, and ASROCK RACK.

“The new products on display not only reflect our technical strength but also our proactive response to market demands," noted K.S. Pua, CEO of Phison. "We believe these innovative products will bring significant value and competitive advantages to our customers.”

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Anyone looking for the best portable monitors will have come across Asus and its range of external monitors that are perfect for on-the-go work, as while big laptops are more common, some of us still need a big screen wherever they are. 

At Computex 2024, Asus took the wraps off an exciting range of new monitors, offering everything from 8K resolutions to foldable form factors.

What caught our eye, though, was the new range of foldable monitors, particularly its ZenScreen Duo OLED (MQ149CD) portable monitor.

Ultra-portable

The ZenScreen Duo OLED, the standout display announced by Asus, offers a 14-inch 16:10 FHD dual-OLED display that can fold out to 21 inches thank to its 360° hinge and fold-up stand. The end result is that you can work in both portrait and landscape on the go. 

Even more incredibly, the ZenScreen Duo OLED weighs only 700g – or under half of the latest M3 MacBook Pro at 1.55kg – meaning that you can actually move this display with relative ease in a backpack or laptop bag. 

The Duo has two USB-C ports, but there was no mention of touchsreen capability, which seems odd to us given the focus on portability - getting hands-on with your content in cramped or smaller spaces should be a certainty for a product like this.

Asus didn't seem to announce a price or release date for the ZenScreen Duo OLED, but we can assume it will be reasonably expensive and out sometime in 2024.

The fancy way to do productivity 

(Image credit: ASUS)

For anyone with a MacBook Pro or any of the other best laptops, the urge to take your work on the go is pretty hard to avoid, and using a portable monitor that can be easily attached to a laptop but remain light enough to carry around is ideal.

In our extensive testing, we found the Asus ZenScreen OLED MQ13AH (ie, the previous generation of these displays) was the best choice, offering a 13.3-inch display, USB-C, mini HDMI, weighing in at only 490g, and costs around £400 right now at most retailers.

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Intel recently unveiled its Xeon 6 family, the latest addition to its server CPU lineup, replacing the former "Scalable" branding. This release introduces two lines of chips: Granite Rapids, which boasts P (Performance) cores, and Sierra Forest which feature E (Efficient) cores.

Intel plans to stagger the rollout of the Xeon 6 CPUs, with the initial launch of the 6700E chips, followed by the scheduled release of the Intel Xeon 6900P CPUs in Q3 of this year. Further releases, including the 6900E, 6700P, 6500P, Xeon 6 SoC, and 6300P, are expected in Q1 of 2025.

The Xeon 6700E series is specifically designed to cater to hyperscalers and boasts a 144-core configuration, supported by DDR5 memory and PCIe Gen5, all within a 250W TDP. Serve The Home had the chance to put the Xeon 6780E and 6766E CPUs through their paces and, spoiler alert, said they 'Shatter Xeon Expectations'.

“Super” power consumption

The two Sierra Forest processors were pitted against AMD’s EPYC Bergamo and Siena series and against older Intel models, such as the Xeon Gold 5218 from the Cascade Lake generation. 

The Intel chips were also compared with the Ampere Altra Max, an ARM-based processor known for its efficiency. Finally, the E-cores were compared to the P-cores of the 5th Gen Intel Xeon “Emerald Rapids” series.

For the full results you’ll need to check out Serve The Home’s exhaustive testing, but the Xeon 6780E and 6766E performed competitively and excelled in power efficiency (the site refers to Sierra Forest’s power consumption as “super”) and multi-threaded workloads. 

Intel’s move to a dual-socket capability with these chips clearly gives them an upper hand over competitors like AMD’s EPYC series and allows for better scalability and flexibility in high-density server environments.

Summing up the review, Serve The Home’s Patrick Kennedy observed, “If you still have Xeon E5 servers or 1st/ 2nd gen Intel Xeon Scalable virtualization or container hosts, Sierra Forest offers wild consolidation gains that will drive big power savings. Those power savings can be directly channeled to add more AI servers, even if your traditional computing demands are slowly growing.”

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Apple’s iPhones are finally getting a feature that the best Android phones have had for years, all thanks to the newly revealed iOS 18 – and that feature is Game Mode. 

While the Game Center in iOS provided things like cloud-synced saves and an avatar, it’s pretty limited in terms of specific in-the-moment gaming features. Comparatively, dedicated game modes found on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S24 and OnePlus 12 can do things like mute notifications and ramp up performance to run mobile games that push on-the-go graphics rather hard. 

Revealed at WWDC 2024 – make sure to check out our WWDC 2024 live blog for the latest announcements – Game Mode in iOS 18 will ape some of the game modes found in rival Android phones, by slowing down things like background activity to enable more processing power to be piped to games. 

While the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have access to the already powerful A17 pro chip, Game Mode should help your phone extract more power from the silicon to run demanding games like the version of Death Stranding for iOS. 

Equally, this mode could help to optimize the power of older iPhones that may struggle a little when it comes to running games on iOS 17. 

All this ties in nicely with Apple’s continued building out of Apple Arcade, and its efforts to bring demanding console games to its mobile devices. Add in the rather neat controller support that iPhones offer, notably with the PS5 DualSense controller, and iOS starts to feel like a platform that could be used for pretty serious gaming. 

Enhanced gaming audio 

Gaming on iOS is getting a boost on the audio font too, with Personalized Spatial Audio coming to the AirPods 3, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max, which brings in dynamic head tracking for games, meaning that positional sound is maintained despite any potential head-bobbing. 

And when the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max are used in conjunction with Game Mode, users get the lowest-latency wireless audio Apple has ever delivered, and voice communication in 16-bit, 48kHz audio. 

One thing to bear in mind here is that in order to make the most of these gaming audio upgrades, developers need to bake-in advanced sound design into their games using an Apple API. 

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This year's Xbox Games Showcase has finally given us an official release window for Fable. 

The Playground Games developed role-playing game (RPG) is set to arrive in 2025 and will launch for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and PC. It has also been confirmed that the game will be available as part of Xbox Game Pass from day one.

This comes from the latest trailer for the game, which focused on the new character Humphrey - a retired hero seemingly portrayed by British comedian Matt King. You can watch the trailer for yourself below.

The latest instalment of the long-running Fable franchise, Fable is a reboot that has been described as a "new beginning" for the series. It was originally revealed back in 2023, with a cinematic trailer that featured actor Richard Ayoade.

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At the recent International Memory Workshop (IMW 2024) in Seoul, South Korea, Kioxia discussed the technology and challenges of increasing the storage density of 3D NAND flash memory. 

Kioxia predicts that by 2027, storage density will reach 100Gbit/mm2 with 1,000 word line stacks.

Reporting on Kioxia’s keynote, PC Watch notes that a storage density of 100Gbit/mm2 would mean a silicon die of 64 square millimeters could hold 6.4 Tbit (approximately 800 GB). A package with eight such dies would offer 6,400GB, and flash storage with four packages would provide 25.6TB. If sold as a 20TB SSD in 2028, it could cost between $250 and $350, making it competitive with 20TB HDD prices.

Using molybdenum

Kioxia’s forecast of reaching 1,000 layers by 2027 is ambitious but plausible, considering historical trends. However, forming channel holes that penetrate the stacked word lines becomes increasingly difficult as layers increase. 

Advanced etching techniques like low-temperature RIE (Reactive Ion Etching) are necessary to manage the high aspect ratio of these deep holes. Additionally, channel resistance and signal noise increase with depth, prompting a potential shift from polycrystalline to single-crystal silicon using MILC (Metal Induced Lateral Crystallization) technology. This switch could double the cell current, improving performance.

Increasing the number of word line stacks does not necessarily improve storage density due to the “staircase” area used for vertical electrodes. Innovations like combining vertical electrodes and switching from TLC (3 bits/cell) to QLC (4 bits/cell) can boost storage density. Density can also be greatly increased by promoting multilevel processing such as PLC (5 bits/cell), HLC (6 bits/cell), and HeLC (8 bits/cell).

Increasing word line stacks raises delay times due to resistance and capacitance. Reducing stacking pitch and changing the word line metal material from tungsten to molybdenum may mitigate these issues.

While the storage density of 3D NAND flash memory has historically improved steadily, Kioxia, and rivals like Samsung, are very aware that future advancements will require new technologies and innovations to maintain this pace and hit the dream goal of petabyte SSDs.

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Software is dull. Platforms, the software that underpins all applications, might even be duller. WWDC 2024, which will feature a conference devoted to platforms and a keynote on Monday at 1PM ET that will spend up to two hours talking about software that almost all ends in "OS" sounds deadly. I get it, but once you consider that a change in operating systems is akin to removing your brain, and possibly the circulatory, muscles, and skeletal systems from your body and replacing them with new parts, it might sound, if not more interesting, then at least a lot more important.

Depending on the scale of change across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS the hardware throughout Apple's vaunted ecosystem could look and work considerably different than they do right now.

Considering we know (or believe) Apple will unveil its own brand of AI – hello, "Apple Intelligence" – it's almost a given that the changes will go deep and broad. They will change some of the fundamental aspects of how these platforms work but will also extend to simple day-to-day interactions with the systems. Think of it as an intelligence that goes deeper for more proactive systems but also surfaces at the top to connect the dots between Apple's hardware, applications, and services.

Momentous upgrades

I think Apple might use AI to make every piece of hardware more self-aware. iPhones and iPads that know their home screens and can intuit your interests by how you've organized them. I'm hoping Apple doesn't force feed "Apple Intelligence," but I'm also ready for tvOS that auto-organizes the home page and learns and relearns my current binge interests, and an Apple Watch that understands my morning routine well enough to automatically load a functional workout at 5:30 AM.

Apple cannily gets that to causal observers WWDC's software and development focus feels as dry and antiseptic as a CPU clean room, so it usually fills the keynote with relatable moments, highlighting how each new feature can improve a consumer's life.

The challenge is a bit different this time. For consumers, it's been two years of hearing how AI will improve their lives, a sentiment they have a hard time believing when AI's been full of bias and appears ready to take their jobs (it's really not), the chatbots and large language models still get so much wrong, and AI development companies capriciously overreach. Some reports have Apple climbing into an algorithmic bed with OpenAI, the leading company for all things AI, but also the same firm that causally (or accidentally) ripped off Scarlett Johanssan's voice.

To counter this, Apple's WWDC 2024 keynote must not only inspire consumers, it has to reassure them. Caution and care, especially about AI and privacy, are important, but they're a lot less sexy, which means Apple's efforts to inspire may need twice the effort.

Inescapable

Of course, that's the show part of the keynote, the flash that will inspire thousands of stories about every facet of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, tvOS 18, watchOS11, and visionOS 2. These stories are less about why you should eventually upgrade than they'll be about what's coming.

In Apple's ecosystem, unlike Android, there is ultimately no escaping upgrades. They come to all iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, and Apple Watches. Your world will change. You may not want the change, you may not understand it, but you will live it. Maybe you should get excited about it. I know that's a tall order, though.

As I said at the start, operating systems are usually confusing and dull. I think back almost 30 years to the launch of Windows 95 and how Microsoft worked for at least the prior 18 months to educate people on the existence of this new platform. They succeeded to the point that I couldn't run into a friend or family member in the summer of 1995 who didn't have a question about it. None were excited about the prospect, but at least they knew what to expect from new Windows PCs.

For Apple fans, that's why WWDC 2024 matters. There will rarely be the big Vision Pro level moment, but considering we now live our lives through this technology virtually every word out of Apple CEO Tim Cook's mouth (and those of his colleagues) will end up mattering to you.

That's sexy in a scary kind of way, right?

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